American Heroes

by Oliver North

  I reply, "Yes. I saw it happen and I have it on tape, but there is uncertainty about how many were aboard. My field producer Griff Jenkins may be among them. Please don't make any announcements about this until I can get confirmation. I'll call you as soon as I have more."

  As I put the phone back in my flak jacket pocket, a civilian pickup truck, driven by Capt. Frank Laemmle, one of the HMM-268 squadron pilots, pulls up next to our bird. He asks if the MAG-39 Operations officers can look at my videotape to see if it might help them figure out what happened to Dash Three.

  We ride together in the cab of the truck to where the pilots have gathered next to Col. Spencer's UH-1N, and I play the tape for them to see. One of the assistant operations officers asks if they can have a copy of the tape to take back to Ali al-Salim Air Base for use in the investigation of what brought Dash Three down. I have no way of transmitting what's on the cassette to New York from out here. And what's in my camera can't air until the next of kin of all the casualties are notified. So I agree to make a duplicate when we return to base. But I knew that doing so without Griff's assistance and camera would be difficult.

  As I turn to reboard the truck for a ride back to my bird, I see Gunny Pennington walking up. He says, "Look who I found!" and steps aside to reveal Griff Jenkins.

  Griff Jenkins, combat cameraman and field producer extraordinaire

  To the surprise of everyone except Pennington, I yell, "Thank God!" and grab Griff around the neck, giving him a big hug. Clearly confused by my embrace, he gives me one in return. "When we came back after turning around," he explains, there was too much dust, so Dash Two had to land way on the other side of the zone rather than next to you, where we belonged."

  Instead of riding in the truck, we walk back to the helicopter where my gear is stowed. I'm immensely glad to see him and tell him about my up-and-down emotional uncertainty about whether he had been aboard Dash Three.

  When we arrive back at the bird, I call New York and tell the FOX News foreign desk duty officer with great relief that I've found Griff alive. I also tell him that I've been asked to make a copy of our tape and not to air what's on it until the NOK notification is complete. I then tell him that four U.S. Marines are confirmed dead and seven British commandos are believed to have been killed when Dash Three went down.

  It is nearly dawn. Without sleep for more than twenty-four hours, I'm consumed with several overwhelming emotions: great joy that Griff is safe but a feeling of sadness and guilt that I was grateful that he had survived while others had not, and a sense of profound sorrow that I experience every time I see Marines lose their lives. War truly is the most horrible of human endeavors.

  Weapons maintenance comes before rest. This Humvee gunner cleans his machine gun at sunset

  With first light, the weather over the Basra LZs improves considerably, allowing the helicopter assault that had been aborted the night before to be carried out. But by then the seven remaining HMM-268 helicopters have returned to base, replaced by British Pumas and CH-47s. The MAG-39 officials have already prepared the usual terse official casualty report for release after the Marine Corps had personally notified the families of those killed:

  On 21 March at approximately 0200 local, Maj. Jay Thomas Aubin, 36, of Waterville, Maine; Capt. Ryan Anthony Beaupre, 30, from St. Anne, Illinois; SSgt Kendall Damon Waters-Bey, 29, of Baltimore, Maryland; and Cpl Brian Matthew Kennedy, 25, from Houston, Texas, were killed when their CH-46 helicopter crashed in Kuwait while carrying out combat operations in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

  The British Marines, already heavily engaged north of Basra, are unable to confirm who was aboard the ill-fated helicopter for more than forty-eight hours. When they do, Central Command adds the names of the British commandos killed in the crash:

  Maj. Jason Ward, Capt. Philip Stuart Guy, WO Mark Stratford, Color Sgt John Cecil, Operations Mechanic 2nd Class Ian Seymour, Lance Bombardier Llewelyn Karl Evans, and Marine Sholto Hedenskog.

  CAS-EVAC!

  FRIDAY, 21 MARCH 2003

  By 1000 an investigation into the cause of the crash is already underway. After a few hours of rest, Lt. Col. Driscoll summons his pilots and then his air crews to brief them on the crash. He rallies them for the day's missions: four aircraft assigned as cas-evac for 5th Marines, four more birds on ready alert for other emergency missions, and the remaining three into maintenance.

  A few minutes before 1100, the "Great Giant Voice" sounds the alarm and everyone heads for the bunkers. For the Marines, donning a gas mask, pulling on the chemical protective suit, and finding a seat inside the sandbag-covered concrete is now getting to be old hat. When the Patriot battery to our west opens fire with two loud concussions, nobody even flinches. Near the entrance, two Marine NCOs are playing cards. Several others are reading paperback books through the "bug-eye" lenses of their gas masks. Even Griff is getting the hang of this now. He's not only better about keeping his gas mask with him, but I notice that when the "All Clear" is finally sounded, he's fast asleep.

  While I'm on the air a few minutes past noon—it's 0505 in the eastern U.S.—the squadron receives a "tasking" from the Direct Air Support Center (DASC). It is directed to position two helicopters forward because both 5th and 7th Marines are in heavy contact with elements of the Iraqi 51st Mechanized Division, with casualties expected.

  Griff and I break down our gear and head to the flight line with Maj. John Graham, the Squadron Executive Officer. Lt. Col. Driscoll had intended to fly the mission, but his MAG-39 and 3rd MAW (Marine Aircraft Wing) superiors wanted him to remain in Kuwait to be available for NOK notifications and the investigation into last night's crash.

  Just before Griff and I depart for the flight line, I find Jerry Driscoll alone in the rear of the ready room tent, drafting the most difficult correspondence anyone ever has to write: letters from a commander to the relatives of his dead Marines. Having had to write such missives myself, I know exactly how he feels. The burden of command is never heavier than at a time like this.

  The flight north to where the 5th Marines are engaged is unremarkable. Flying a CH-46 at thirty to fifty feet over the desert at better than one hundred knots is certainly challenging to the pilot and copilot. At that altitude and speed, the ground—and therefore death—is less than a half second away. On the heels of last night's fiery crash, no one needs to say "be careful" to the two pilots up front. Yet, for those of us in the back of the aircraft, the flight into Iraq is monotonous—reminding me of the old adage that "war is 95 percent boredom and 5 percent stark terror."

  As we whip over the trackless desert that is southern Iraq, we can see large herds of camels, an occasional dried-up irrigation ditch, the heat rising in ripples out in front of us, and little else. There is not a tree, bush, shrub, or oasis of any kind in sight. I'm glad I packed my GPS and topped off my water before we left.

  After half an hour or so, the smoke and flame from three of the seven oil well heads that Saddam loyalists succeeded in blowing up become visible. And then the call from the 5th Marines air officer—call sign "Fingers." They have casualties: two emergency and one priority. He transmits the grid coordinates over the secure radio. After Maj. Graham enters them into the helicopter's GPS navigation system, we change our course to make the pickup.

  As we make our approach, I can see up ahead what appears to be several small houses and an oil installation inside a chain-link fence. It's one of the outposts that were the initial D-day objectives for the 5th and 7th Marines.

  A radio call to the unit on the ground confirms that we're at the right place, but the voice on the ground informs us that "the zone isn't hot, but it isn't cold either." Leaning out the hatch with my camera running, I see a green smoke grenade go off to mark the landing point and show the wind direction. The officer or noncommissioned officer running this zone knows what he's doing.

  The LZ is surrounded by several LVTs (landing vehic
le, tracked) and armed Humvees. When we get closer, I notice that there is no one up and walking around. The Marines are all lying down or crouched while manning the .50-caliber, Golf 240 machine guns, or TOW missiles on the Humvees. The "up guns"—coaxial-mounted .40-mm grenade launchers atop the LAV turrets—are all aimed outside the little perimeter.

  As the two helicopters touch down on the dirt roadway, Marines rush toward us carrying three litters. Two are loaded aboard our helicopter; one is placed aboard Griff's bird behind us. Following instructions not to broadcast the identity of wounded or dead combatants from either side, I allow my camera lens to catch only the faces of the litter bearers as they run on and off the bird.

  They are nearly all very young. Wearing their chemical protective suits, flak jackets, and Kevlar helmets, they are sweating profusely. As the litters holding the casualties are strapped in, Maj. Graham tells Cpl Morales, our crew chief, to give the litter bearers several boxes of our water bottles to take back with them.

  Our two shock-trauma medical corpsmen start treating the wounded even before we take off. It's only then that one of the docs notices that one of the two casualties isn't a Marine; it's a severely burned eleven- or twelve-year-old Iraqi girl. Her devastating injuries appear to be several days old.

  A radio call to the unit on the ground confirms that the child was brought to the Marines by a relative and that she had been burned in a cooking fuel accident before the war even started. The girl's parents had begged the Marine unit in the area for help. They decided to load her on our bird with their wounded because there was nothing more that could be done for her in the field.

  Unfortunately, there is little that the docs aboard our helicopter can do for her either. Kuwait refuses to allow any Iraqi prisoners or wounded—civilian or military—into their territory. Maj. Graham makes a command decision to take the burned girl to the hospital ship USS Comfort out in the Persian Gulf, and he files a flight plan to do so.

  But as we head southeast for the Gulf, we get a call asking if the two helicopters have life rafts aboard. They don't. Everything that's not essential to our mission has been stripped to make them lighter. We weren't supposed to be operating anywhere near water, so we don't even have life vests aboard.

  Maj. Graham is now faced with a terrible dilemma: return the child to where we picked her up or take her and the other casualties out to sea in hopes that she can be saved. He asks over the intercom how we in the back feel about flying over water without flotation gear. Everyone agrees: "Go for it."

  A half hour later we're aboard the USS Tarawa, an amphibious assault ship that I have been on many times before. She has a full hospital aboard and all that's needed to treat the wounded.

  While the birds refuel, Griff is given a tour of the ship. The crew gives us as much cold water and fresh-baked cookies as we can carry. Just before dark we return to the flight line at Ali al-Salim Air Base.

  USS Tarawa

  Navy and Marine Corps flight deck crewman await the landing of a CH-53 Super Stallion helicopter on board amphibious assault ship USS Tarawa (LHA 1)

  The pilots all head to the MAG-39 intelligence section for a mandatory debriefing. As the crew chiefs and maintenance personnel swarm over the helicopters, Griff and I head back to the HMM-268 ready room to set up our satellite transceiver and feed our tape to FOX News in New York. That's how we find out what's happening in the rest of the war.

  Central Command headquarters in Qatar reports that the Iraqi 51st Mechanized Division has collapsed, yielding more than eight thousand enemy prisoners of war. For the first time an Iraqi division commander and his deputy have personally surrendered. On the far right, the British 7th Armored Division is already on the outskirts of Basra. The U.S. Marines' RCT-7 has captured all of the crucial oil infrastructure targets in the vicinity of Az Zubayr, and the 3rd Bn, 7th Marines, along with a company from 1st Tank Bn have subdued Safwan. Farther west, RCT-5 has seized all of their objectives intact, including the six major GOSPs and the Ar Rumaylah oil fields. And on the far-left flank of the I MEF advance, RCT-1 has raced more than fifty kilometers across the desert and is already just south of Jalibah.

  As before, dozens of Marines of all ranks gather around us to watch huge explosions rock the enemy capital on our tiny TV. When FOX newsman David Asman, whose son is serving with Task Force Tarawa, informs us that the Army's 3rd ID has advanced sixty miles into Iraq, there are cheers. The only bad news: Two more U.S. Marines—a second lieutenant with the 1st Bn, 5th Marines, and a corporal from the 2nd Bn, 1st Marines—have been killed in action. And there is one other unpleasant item: Saddam is still alive and has been seen on Iraqi TV.

  5

  TO THE BANKS OF THE EUPHRATES

  "[T]he fighting is fierce and we have inflicted many damages. The stupid enemy, the Americans and British, failed completely. They're not making any penetration."

  — Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraqi Minister of Information, 23 March 2003

  Huey and Cobra lifting off from a FARP on the way to Baghdad

  SATURDAY, 22 MARCH 2003

  We're encamped beside two haze-gray helicopters parked behind the 5th Marines Regimental Team mobile command post, just north of the captured Iraqi air base at Jalibah, southeast of An Nasiriyah. On my map I can see that we're not far from Ur, once home to Abraham and Sarah before they began their long walk to Canaan around 2000 BC.

  Off to our west, the 3rd ID has been racing through the desert—spearheading the main attack for the U.S. Army's V Corps. Supported from the air by nearly every plane in the USAF arsenal and their own Apache attack helicopters, the 3rd ID is aiming straight for the southern approaches to Baghdad and pressing hard against Saddam's Republican Guard Medina division.

  SSG Scott Maynard mans his .50-caliber machine gun during the fight for Baghdad

  As soon as the Jalibah air base was secured, the 3rd MAW established a forward arming and refueling point (FARP) on the roadside runways and began cycling in cargo aircraft loaded with fuel, ordnance, and equipment. Nearby, an Army shock-trauma hospital was erected in a matter of hours to provide immediate life-saving surgery for the severely wounded.

  Just before nightfall I flew on an "armed recon" up Route 1. The mission was to reconnoiter out along the flanks of the two columns and look for signs of enemy activity. As my camera rolled on the Cobra gunships escorting our flight, below us tens of thousands of coalition troops, weapons, and vehicles were on the move in a two-pronged attack to the north toward Baghdad.

  The breath-taking array of tanks, LAVs, trucks, amphibious assault vehicles (AAVs), Humvees, artillery pieces, rocket launchers, portable bridging, and engineer equipment went on as far as the eye could see. But other than a handful of wrecked Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles and a few trenches filled with flaming oil that sent plumes of black smoke into the sky, there were few signs of the enemy.

  Shortly after dark an Iraqi general surrendered to some Marines in an AAV. The general's Shia and Kurdish conscripts had vanished and the Iraqi division simply ceased to exist—thus explaining the absence of enemy activity in the immediate area.

  Iraqi forces who chose to fight took heavy losses

  After Griff and I wolfed down an MRE, we set up our equipment in the dark, preparing for our nightly report on Hannity & Colmes. As usual, once the tiny video transceiver locked into New York's signal, those wanting to catch up on the war news surrounded us.

  Compassion doesn't take sides—here a 3rd ID medic treats a wounded enemy soldier

  Watching from Iraq, there was a telling difference between the news coming from embedded journalists in Iraq and the armchair admirals pontificating about the war from the safety of the states. By and large, the journalists traveling with coalition forces gave a straightforward account—though many seemed amazed at how good the American soldiers, sailors, and Marines were at the work of war. Many expressed surprise at the humanity and co
mpassion of coalition troops—young men going out of their way, often at great personal risk—to care for Iraqi civilians, enemy prisoners, and wounded combatants.

  Reports from Baghdad were completely different. For the troops who gathered around our miniature TV screen, the best entertainment in Iraq became the regular press briefings proffered by the Iraqi information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf (Baghdad Bob). As Saddam's official spokesman, he somehow held a straight face while claiming that Iraqi forces had "destroyed" the Army's 3rd ID and "halted" the Marine advance. What made it all more frustrating than funny was the fact that so many reporters in Baghdad appeared to take him seriously.

  Today, Baghdad Bob reported that 207 civilians were killed in allied raids on the city during the previous night. He also says that Iraqi soldiers have driven American and British troops back from Basra after killing hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them. The Marines find all this to be highly amusing.

  But as funny as Baghdad Bob has become to the troops fighting here in Iraq, they are clearly wary of the media and concerned about how they are being presented to the American people.

  AN NASIRIYAH, THE BLOODY GAUNTLET