“Pressure; these are their future soldiers,” said Double-A. “They take the place of the others when we capture them. If the leaders have no fighters, they will get them from somewhere and will make people angry. The people will resist. Then when we capture the leaders, there will be less people to take their place.” I found his answer interesting but ultimately unconvincing. I figured the scouts were still trying to negotiate with some of the moderates in the Albu Musa and Albu Bali tribes to join them.
The colonel was trying to stay awake on the couch. He didn’t speak English, and there was no interpreter. I told the two Iraqis to go to bed. The next day, February 11, I led a convoy with the scouts and the detainees to Corregidor. Twenty minutes after I had passed OP Squirrel on Irish Way, al Qaeda responded to our latest mission with the scouts.
A young man driving a blue bongo truck with flashing lights and a white flag turned off Ruby Road and onto Irish Way. While passing OP Squirrel, he careened his bongo truck, with a refrigerator stuffed full of explosives on its bed, off the road and into the concertina wire ten meters outside the OP. Luckily for the Marines, the truck’s tires were caught among the concertina, and the explosives detonated in the driveway. The ensuing blast was so powerful, it knocked Lieutenant Shearburn and his platoon sergeant to the ground inside COP Melia, half a mile away.
At the time, Corporal Guinn’s squad was in the building. Following the blast, some of his men were trapped inside OP Squirrel’s rooms. The frames of the doors shifted and turned the doors into an extension of the walls. The house’s carport collapsed. Five Marines were wounded, most of them knocked unconscious. From Corregidor, six and a half miles away, I heard the ensuing chaos over the radio. Then I spotted the mushroom cloud as I got out of my humvee. It was a huge explosion that would have been disastrous if the bongo truck had made it all the way to the building.
I wondered whether the suicide bomber had been a boy recruited by the detained teacher. Frequent violence was terrorizing Julayba.
February 17, 2007
Sergeant Karras shined the blinding beam of his Surefire flashlight into the eyes of the Iraqi. It was the only light in the crowded room. A dozen other faces were distorted by darkness. The sergeant looked over at the scout’s informant. The informant was flexi-cuffed and blindfolded. Well, at least the people in the house thought he was blindfolded. The goggles over his eyes weren’t actually blacked out. Thirty minutes earlier, the Marines of Rage 2 had been led to the informant’s house in the Albu Musa tribal area by Abu Ali and the scouts. They pretended to detain the man. Then he led the group to the houses where al Qaeda’s leader-ship was staying. Now he was nodding yes or shaking his head no when the Marines shined their flashlights into the faces of the home’s occupants. This time the informant nodded yes.
Karras shoved the man toward two junior Marines. One of the home’s other occupants approached the sergeant. In English, he pleaded with Karras not to arrest the man. “If you leave him, I will tell you where there is an IED near here,” said the Iraqi, who had already been passed by the informant.
Sergeant Karras immediately responded, “Okay, where is the IED?”
The man described the Nova-Gixxer intersection. On the southeast side, he said, there was a bomb. “Thank you,” said Karras, who had no intention of releasing the other man. He responded to the information by shining his flashlight’s blinding beam in the pleading man’s eyes and looked back at the informant. For a second time, the informant nodded to not detain the man. Karras did as the informant recommended. The Marines finished with the rest of the home’s occupants. Then they continued on their search.
The informant went from house to house in the area immediately surrounding the Albu Musa mosque. Karras and the rest of the Marines noticed the trend. Every home around the mosque was being searched. Some had every man inside cuffed, blindfolded, and dragged into the street. With a few hours until sunrise, the short targeted raid ended. Lieutenant Thomas led Davila’s and Holloway’s squads back to Combat Outpost Melia and turned in the detainees. On the way back, the informant was released and sent back to his home.
At the COP, James Thomas handed the eighteen Iraqi men over to me. In the pitch blackness of our detainee holding facility, I took photographs of each man. Before I took the photo, I would introduce myself and inform the individual that he was suspected of being a member of al Qaeda. So, I was used to hearing a complaint or a declaration of innocence. That night, however, detainee number seventeen glared at me in defiance. I sensed an unusual arrogance in his attitude.
“Ismak,” I said, asking for his name. The movement of the Iraqi’s mouth showcased his trimmed beard. Somehow I didn’t recognize the words. Maybe it was his accent or the fact I knew him only by his nickname. Maybe I was stuck in a routine. Whatever the reason, I didn’t know that I was inches away from al Qaeda’s regional commander. He was number two on Al Anbar Province’s HVI list. Most Americans knew him as Mullah Qahttan. He controlled AQI’s operations in Ramadi, Fallujah, and dozens of other cities across Anbar. His men beheaded people at the wave of his hand and employed children as suicide bombers.
I went to the next guy, ignorant of the previous fact. In twenty hours, I would find out that a gray-fleece-and-tan turtleneck covered up Multi-National Forces West’s HVI number two’s true being: evil. Then he would no longer be just another dude.
After taking the photographs, I headed back into the COP. I had to beg Abu Ali to write out sworn statements against the detainees before he left. It took a Snickers bar to convince him. He breezed through the paperwork in an hour. Then he and the handful of other scouts returned home. They called Colonel Mohammed, who was staying at the COP semipermanently, on a satellite phone and informed him that they had arrived safely.
The following evening, I took the detainees to Corregidor. I left the still undiscovered Mullah Qahttan and the other Iraqis under the supervision of Lance Corporal Albin and a few other Marines. In my absence, they shuffled the men through the standard medical screening. I went across the street to the battalion headquarters.
On the second floor, the room housing the staff was empty, so I headed across the hall to the Tactical Operations Center. I walked in at an opportune time. On the larger center flat screen of six, three insurgents were running for their lives. Their body heat displayed them as three white images floating across the screen. The men were in the urban jungle of east Ramadi, climbing over walls and between homes. The visual feed was being provided by an Apache helicopter.
“Clear to use a Maverick,” said the radio operator a few feet from me. His voice was followed by a small explosion on screen. It missed the three running men by about 20 meters. One of the men fell, probably from shrapnel. Of the remaining two, one stopped and looked back; the other kept chugging down the deserted street.
The night-shift intelligence clerk saw me standing in the corner. He walked toward me and whispered. I didn’t take my eyes off the screen. “They set off an IED on 1/6 and ran into our area of operations. So now we get to kill ’ em,” he said.
The guy who stopped to look back at his friend started to run away again. Another missile hit close by but missed the two. The pilot asked whether he was clear to continue hunting the two men or if he needed clearance for every missile. “You are clear to fire as you choose,” replied the battle captain.
The next missile hit on the screen. It was only 5 meters or so from the first guy. Somehow, he ran through the flash of light and continued running. The men in the TOC declared him a lucky fucker. Then, without any further blasts, the man stopped running and crumpled on the ground. The adrenaline propelling him through the previous blast must have worn out. The injuries that accompanied the explosion overcame him.
The remaining insurgent must have been pretty good friends with the guy. He picked up his buddy and moved into an abandoned lot between two houses. There he leaned against the lot’s surrounding wall next to his comrade. I could only imagine what words were being exchange
d. Another Maverick struck in the street outside. The blast was absorbed by the wall that the Iraqis hid behind. Then the surviving Iraqi’s survival instinct set in. His white heat image started to search doors for shelter. They were all locked.
He climbed a wall and sprinted down an adjoining alleyway. At the end he climbed another wall, crossed an alley, and traversed over the opposite wall. The Apache was waiting for him to make such a mistake. The final wall he climbed led into an empty lot. The image of his body had no sooner dropped from the wall than the lot disappeared in a flash of white light. The three men were dead. Cheers sounded throughout the TOC.
Sympathy tugged at my mind. Yes, this man was an insurgent. He had detonated an IED on Marines I knew. Hell, I had probably fought him on and around Christmas. Still, I felt sorry for the man. I could appreciate what he had just done. The desk jockeys had no clue. Where they saw him climb a wall without hesitation, they assumed that they could do it, too. These soldiers in the TOC never left the wire. They didn’t know that at the top of almost every wall is a collection of shredded glass and metal, the likes of which will cut to the bones in your hands.
I began to look at my fellow Americans with a sense of disgust. These guys never got shot at. They couldn’t possibly fathom being chased by an Apache helicopter, knowing that you can’t hide. It took some serious balls for that dude to stop in the street and contemplate going back for his friend. Not to mention that he carried a dying comrade to safety behind a wall. I decided that the dude was as badass as it gets. Now a couple of pimple-faced nineteen-year-olds were cracking jokes about his final moments. To them, it was a game, nothing more. Somewhere deep inside my hatred for al Qaeda, I appreciated this one man’s display of valor.
“Daly, snap out of it, man!” said the battle captain. Apparently, he had been trying to get my attention for a few moments. I sat down in an executive chair next to him. He knew I was there to find out when the next convoy was heading to Camp Ramadi. I intended to fall in with a seven-ton and transport my detainees under their protection. The captain explained that a convoy was leaving in an hour and that he wanted me to go specifically with that one. I objected; the detainees probably weren’t finished with their screening. The captain didn’t care, though.
A new lieutenant straight from the states was leading the convoy. The soldiers he led weren’t the usual convoy guys, either. They were infantrymen who had been switched to running convoys because of a lack of manpower. None of them had ever driven through Ramadi, and the captain asked whether I would go in the first humvee to make sure they didn’t get lost. I responded with a less than enthused “Sure.” Then I headed to the convoy staging area on Corregidor. Usually, it was called the dust bowl. In the rainy season, the name changed to the mud bowl.
I spotted the convoy’s humvees and supply vehicles right away. A few soldiers pointed me in the direction of the lieutenant, and I caught him in the middle of his convoy brief. The brand-new second lieutenant spoke in a rigid tone and was a little nervous. Everyone knew it was his first convoy. He was also in a tough situation. These weren’t his soldiers; he hadn’t trained them and probably didn’t know any of them either. The bigger lieutenant, probably a football player, finished up his brief.
Before he told the soldiers to get on their vehicles, the platoon sergeant, who was the assistant convoy commander, mentioned to the group that a seven-ton was going to join the convoy on Michigan. The larger senior enlisted soldier, a non-football player sergeant first class, explained to the soldiers where the seven-ton would be in the convoy. He finished the formal portion of the brief and covered the areas missed by the new lieutenant. Then the two leaders took questions from the group.
“How soon are we leaving, sir?” asked one of the soldiers. I was baffled by the lieutenant’s response.
“As soon as possible. We don’t want to get stuck behind Pathfinder, and they are already staged as well.”
I almost shouted at the butter-bar, but I opted not to embarrass him in front of his men. The convoy was driving through checkpoints 295 and 296. Historically, they were two of the most dangerous intersections in all of Iraq. I looked at the muscular lieutenant joking with his fat sergeant first class. The idiot had no idea where he was going. It reminded me of a story Craig Trotter had told me only hours earlier.
On the afternoon of February 16, 2007, Craig Trotter had found a friend. His name was “Bird Dog,” and he happened to be the command sergeant major for 1/9 Infantry. The two men liked each other because they were both assholes. Each held a billet that demanded authoritativeness, and both excelled in their duties.
Two months earlier, during a short three-day 1/9 Infantry, I had my own run-in with Bird Dog. At the time I was the QRF commander and was on my way to set up security along the operation’s critical resupply route. Bird Dog decided he was going to take his own convoy out to check up on the troops. When I showed Bird Dog where Rage Company’s forward command post was on a map, he told me I was “a no-good fucking lieutenant who couldn’t navigate between your cock and your balls.” I laughed, knowing that such sergeant major language translates into “I was told they are somewhere else.” Then we argued over where the COC really was. Of course, I was right and the sergeant major was wrong, which resulted in his vehicle hitting a small IED while he drove aimlessly, checking on the troops. Nobody was hurt, and I enjoyed the satisfaction of looking him in the eye as his busted-up M1114 hummer was towed past my vehicle. In Bird Dog fashion, he flipped me the bird.
Inside Bird Dog’s office that day, Trotter and the sergeant major were exchanging a few hunting stories. Their jovial conversation was interrupted by the battalion communications chief.
“LT sir, one of your Marines is dead,” he said. “They got his lifeless body sprawled out in front of your building.” Trotter could see from the soldier’s pale face that he was serious.
Rage Company’s XO flew out of Bird Dog’s office and down the stairs of the battalion command post. Lieutenant Trotter didn’t know what to think. Rage Company was the only Marine unit at Corregidor, but there weren’t any convoys out. No incoming mortar blasts. How the fuck could one of his Marines be dead in front of the company CP?
At the base of the stairs, Trotter ran straight through the front door, passing a couple of soldiers who were mumbling about what they had just seen. Outside, he moved past the concrete blast walls and stopped in the dusty street. He turned to the right and saw the dead Marine lying in front of an M1114. Trotter could see the gore, brain tissue, and other pieces of flesh, and he was 50 meters away.
The XO sprinted toward the fallen Marine. He had no idea why there were three M1114s, one of them with a fucked-up roof, in front of the CP. Anger overcame him.
“What the fuck are you bastards looking at?” he screamed at the crowd of onlooking soldiers. “If you ain’t going to help, go the fuck away!” shouted Trotter. The junior soldiers took the enraged officer’s advice and walked away.
Then the XO spotted a few Marines standing around with their backs to him. His mind was about to explode. How could his boys leave one of their own, with half a head, lying in the street for all to see? Trotter thought about tackling the dazed men. He looked back at the fallen Marine they were ignoring, now only a few feet away. He didn’t recognize the face.
The XO stopped running. The two Marines turned around, and Lieutenant Trotter didn’t recognize them either. A sense of relief overcame him. None of his men were dead. The relief was immediately replaced by regret. On the ground next to him was someone’s husband, a father of two.
Corporal Dean Cugliotta and a few Marines from headquarters platoon ran out the front of the brown cinder-block building that was the company CP.
“XO, sir,” said Cugliotta, now standing next to Trotter, “they are 3/6 guys, supposed to be replacing 3/2 in Habbaniya. They drove their entire head shed through checkpoint 296 and got hit.”
Corporal “Coogs” knew checkpoint 296 rather well himself. In 2004, back when 2
/4 drove the streets of Ramadi in unarmored humvees, he had been riding shotgun in a convoy through the checkpoint. An incoming RPG flew through his plastic door, past his face, and decapitated the driver. The grenade failed to detonate, sparing Cugliotta his life. But the driver’s foot was stuck on the gas pedal, and the humvee slammed into the concrete wall that surrounded the Saddam mosque. Coogs survived with a concussion and multiple broken bones. Now it was 2007, and he was back in Ramadi driving through the same intersection every few days.
“They drove through 296 now, in the middle of the day?” said Trotter.
“Yeah, we spotted them when they pulled up. They asked where medical was. Sergeant Sperry [promoted from corporal] put the two wounded in one of our high-back humvees and brought them to the battalion aid station. The driver for that truck, the one the dead guy was in, he was hurt so bad he couldn’t stop the vehicle. One of our guys had to hop in and hit the brakes.”
“Well, do you know who is in charge?” said Trotter. Cugliotta shook his head.
“Uh, their battalion commander, XO, sergeant major, and a bunch of other brass went with Sergeant Sperry. That guy on the ground is their operations officer,” said Coogs.
Then Cugliotta walked away from Trotter and helped the other Marines put a body bag over the fallen captain. Lieutenant Trotter walked toward one of the Marines from the convoy. He noticed that the guy was the same rank, a first lieutenant. When Trotter got closer, he realized that the other lieutenant was mumbling to himself.
“Hey, man, you need anything?” asked Trotter.
“I . . . my boss is dead . . . my guys are all wounded . . . I don’t have a scratch on me,” said the lieutenant. Trotter tried to ask him a few simple questions. Nothing registered with the dazed man. Craig Trotter grabbed his peer just below the shoulders. Inches separated their faces.
Rage Company Page 32
