Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death

by Jim Frederick

  The Caveman missions were likewise baffling to the soldiers. “Battalion’s idea was ‘It’s our piece of land, and we want to go down it,’” explained Chris Payne, Bravo 1st Platoon’s 2nd Squad leader. “‘We will not be denied using a piece of land in our area.’ Okay. Good job. But there was no tactical advantage to having that land. We weren’t going to use it. We weren’t going to keep it. We weren’t patrolling anything on the road other than the road itself. There weren’t any houses. There weren’t any villages. It was just a dirt road.”

  In early December, 1st Platoon began another multiday rotation out at the traffic control points. First Squad, with Staff Sergeant Travis Nelson in charge, headed down to TCP2, which was on the intersection of Sportster and a smaller east-west canal road. There was a small structure on the northeast corner that was empty, but the men, at that time, were told not to occupy it. So, for three to five days at a time, the squad lived at the TCP itself, by the side of the road on a few cots protected by strands of concertina wire. When soldiers wanted to sleep, take refuge from the elements, or just come off of a combat footing even for a minute or two, they had to do so either on the cots or in—or under—their Humvees. They were supposed to keep their helmets and body armor on at all times, whether they were on guard or not. Even when they were off guard, there was nowhere for them to go that was safe. For twenty-four hours a day, uninterrupted for days on end, even when shaving or brushing their teeth, in the heat and the dust and the wind, they had to keep forty pounds of gear on. The men found it virtually impossible to do this without going crazy.

  December 10 started off as a beautiful morning. Watt, Yribe, and others from 3rd Squad not pulling guard or patrolling out of TCP1 were playing Spades. Watt remembered turning his face to the sun and letting the not-yet-too-hot rays wash over him. “You know,” he thought, “we have been here for a couple of months now. This might not be so bad after all.”

  Platoon Sergeant Phil Miller, who was at TCP3 with other men of 3rd Squad, began a mission to get some more concertina wire from Yusufiyah as well as a resupply of food and other necessities. He grabbed Lauzier and a couple of other soldiers for the trip north, and stopped to pick up another Humvee and three more soldiers from TCP2 around 10:30 a.m. Nelson and Sergeant Kenith Casica had just come off of several hours of guard duty. They were sitting on the cots in the open, central area. They had removed their helmets to brush their teeth and shave.

  Private First Class Jesse Spielman and Specialist David Babineau had relieved them, with Spielman in the Humvee’s gun turret looking south and Babineau pulling guard on foot nearby, on the east side of the Humvee, the opposite side of Nelson and Casica. Every company has a guy like Babineau. The twenty-five-year-old had been a specialist for years and was happy to stay that way. He was a solid soldier, was well-liked, and had leadership potential. Every once in a while, he would catch the eye of a lieutenant or a senior NCO who would say, hey, Babs, what’s your deal? You wanna move up? We could send you to the promotion board, make you a sergeant? He would always say, no, thanks, sir, who needs the headache? I’m good where I am. The other members of the squad were manning the serpentines to the north and south.

  Pulling up to TCP2, Miller asked Nelson and Casica what was new. They told him that the night before, they had received a tip about an attack. According to their informant—a guy who had passed along solid info in the past—four guys with guns and RPGs were going to roll up around noon in a black Opel sedan from the southeast.

  “If you say there is going to be an attack, why don’t you have your shit on?” Miller demanded.

  Will do, one of them said, and asked Miller when he would be back. About an hour later, Miller responded. He figured he could finish his run to the FOB and still be back in plenty of time in case anything did happen. When he returned, he would pull the guys in close and be ready for anything. In the meantime, three 1st Squad soldiers loaded up one of TCP2’s Humvees and left with Miller.

  Not long after Miller pulled out, a handful of kids walked through the TCP. This was a twice-daily event, as the TCP was on their route to school. Casica, as he always did, passed out candy and pencils as they walked by. He would give high fives and banter with them in intermediate Arabic and they would respond in broken English.

  At almost 11:00 a.m. exactly, Spielman noticed a man wearing track-suit bottoms and a white button-down shirt walking along the canal road from the west. They had all seen him around here before. He had given them some info in the past and he’d always been friendly, so he did not arouse much suspicion. As the man approached, Casica walked over and, as was his way, even seemed glad to see him. Nelson stayed sitting on a field stool, smoking a cigarette, looking in the other direction. Casica started talking to the man, in a mixture of Arabic and English.

  “Hey, man, what’s up?” he asked. “How are you doing? Where you going? You getting a taxi? Meeting someone?” The whole time, all the man said was “La, la, la,” the Arabic word for “No.” Spielman began to think this guy was acting funny after all. But before that thought could take hold, and just as Casica began to tell the man that he couldn’t just hang out here, the man pulled a 9mm pistol from his waistband. Taking aim quickly, he shot Casica in the neck. Casica dropped, with a thud, an instantly inert mass. Nelson did not even have time to react. The man pointed the pistol at the back of Nelson’s head and pulled the trigger. The bullet slammed through the base of Nelson’s skull. His body barely moved, except to slump.

  The man turned to Babineau and fired three or four shots, trying to find an angle around the Humvee that separated them. Babineau ducked behind the driver-side wheel well of the Humvee, trying to get as much steel between him and the bullets as possible. As Babineau dove for the tire, Spielman cranked the Humvee’s turret around toward the gunman. When the gunman saw the truck’s M240B machine gun swinging his way, he aimed up at Spielman and squeezed off three or four more shots. Spielman ducked in the turret as some shots pinged off the gun’s shield and some zipped overhead. While down, he flipped the safety off on the machine gun. Sensing the man had stopped shooting for a moment, Spielman popped up, leveled his gun, and fired a three-round burst. From his eyes up, the man’s head exploded into a pink cloud as the 7.62mm bullets blasted his skull apart. His body fell to the ground, brains and blood spilling to the dirt.

  Babineau popped back up and Spielman was already on the radio, calling to TCP1 and Yusufiyah declaring, “This is TCP2. We have two men down. We need immediate medevac.” Most of the guys playing cards at TCP1 heard whoever was on the radio yelling, “TCP2 has casualties, TCP2 has casualties!” but they were confused. They hadn’t heard any shots or explosions, so at first they couldn’t fathom it.

  “Casualties?” Yribe thought. “They had been putting up some concertina wire there, so maybe somebody cut their hand?” Nobody was in all that big of a hurry until a second, clearly more emotional and urgent call was relayed only a few seconds later. “TCP2 has two soldiers down, two soldiers shot. They need help. Now!”

  Yribe, Britt, Watt, and another soldier grabbed their gear and piled into a Humvee. Since 1st Platoon’s medic, Doc Sharpness, was on the FOB run with Miller, Yribe reminded Watt, coolly and quickly, to grab his first aid bag. Up at Yusufiyah, Miller was finishing up loading his Humvee when someone ran out of the TOC to say that there had been casualties at TCP2. Miller and Lauzier and the rest of that contingent dropped everything, unhooked their equipment trailer, and sped back down Sportster.

  Yribe, driving down from TCP1, made the three-quarter-mile trip in under a minute. He hit the brakes hard, the wheels kicking up sand and rock. He got out of the truck and the first thing he saw was Nelson, on his stool, a cigarette burning in his hand. “If the squad leader is sitting down and having a smoke, it can’t be that bad,” he thought. But then he noticed a massive bump on Nelson’s forehead. He turned around and saw a nearly headless local and, nearby, Casica, facedown, a black pool of blood welling underneath him. He looked aroun
d at the others. Everybody seemed dazed and was moving slowly. Spielman was still in the turret; Babineau was over with Casica; and Specialist James Gregory and a couple of others, who were at the other end of the traffic control point when the shooting occurred, were standing nearby.

  “Gregory, what is going on?” Yribe asked. Gregory was pointing, trying to explain: one neck wound, one head wound, local national shooter, handgun. Watt got out of the Humvee, looked around, and dropped his first aid bag. He didn’t even know where to start.

  Yribe ran over to Casica and turned him over. Casica’s wound was gurgling blood. Yribe picked him up, body armor and all, and threw him on the hood of the Humvee. Watt tried to pressure-dress Nelson’s wound, but he could not even find it on the first pat-down; he started giving him CPR. Britt was still in the passenger seat of the Humvee. He was on the radio, but Yribe needed help.

  “Britt! Sir!” he yelled. “You have to get out! We have got to move!” Yribe yelled. This seemed to jolt everyone into action. Britt got out of the truck and helped to cut away Casica’s gear as others trundled Nelson into the backseat of the Humvee. Private First Class Steven Green, who had been in the truck from Yusufiyah, got on the hood to hold down Casica as Yribe drove back down toward TCP1. In the back, Watt tried to give Nelson CPR, but he was not responding.

  Yribe’s and Miller’s Humvees converged at TCP1. They both pulled aside TCP1 and men poured out of the trucks. Doc Sharpness got on top of the Humvee hood and began putting a C-collar and respirator bag on Casica. Soldiers from TCP1 were out front, wanting to get a look, trying to help. Miller got on the radio to Yusufiyah and tried to call in a medevac helicopter.

  “Negative” came the response. “It will be faster to drive the casualties to Yusufiyah and medevac from here.” Miller took over the driver’s seat and Yribe moved to the back, where Watt was still trying to get a response from Nelson. Miller peeled out, hurtling down the road at fifty miles an hour with three men on the hood as Sharpness worked on Casica, trying to get an IV started, and Green tried to hold the dying man steady. Green was talking to Casica, and listening for a heartbeat. He looked at Casica’s arm. It was tattooed with his daughter’s name. Green, as he was shouting at Casica, drooled on him a bit. He worried about that, wiped it off, and then thought it was a weird thing to be worried about.

  In the back, Watt and Yribe traded turns giving Nelson CPR, but they suspected Old Man River was already gone. The bulge on Nelson’s forehead was growing and no one could find an exit wound. His eyes were rolled back and glazed over. He was making gurgling noises, but they could not tell if they were respirations or death rattles. Yribe began punching Nelson as hard as he could in the groin, to get some sort of pain response, any reaction at all. Nothing. The Humvee pulled into Yusufiyah around 11:15 a.m. and multiple medics were waiting. People crowded around. The medics began working on both men, but neither had any vital signs when they arrived. Casica’s mouth and throat were filled with blood. The chief medic still ordered them both intubated, hooked up to IVs, and administered with CPR. Nobody wanted to let them go and, hoping for a miracle, they worked long beyond the point it was clear they were dead. The medevac helicopter landed a few minutes before the chief medic pronounced them deceased at 11:35. Miller had to be physically pried off of and pulled away from Nelson as they loaded the body bags into the helicopter.

  Once Nelson and Casica were pronounced dead, 1st Platoon was yanked back to FOB Yusufiyah for a Critical Incident Debrief, a standard post-casualty session. A Combat Stress team from FOB Mahmudiyah, headed by psychiatric nurse practitioner Lieutenant Colonel Karen Marrs, traveled to Yusufiyah to conduct the group therapy meeting.

  “The focus of the intervention,” in cases like this, explained an Army memo, “is returning the soldier to duty using nonclinical, simple techniques in a safe environment. The goal is to prevent the soldier from assuming the sick role, so no psychiatric diagnosis is given and interventions are aimed at reassuring the soldier that s/he is capable of fulfilling his/her mission.” The men, overall, were skeptical that Critical Incident Debriefs did any good. Lauzier likened them to a mechanic who fixes a flat tire when it’s really the engine he should be looking at. “All they would do is hand out Ambien,” said another soldier. “Go sleep it off? Well, guess what? I got to wake up here tomorrow with the same shit.”

  First Platoon was back on the TCPs that night. “They wanted to go,” said Miller. “They wanted to show the enemy that you cannot knock us down.” Miller made Yribe, the senior sergeant in the platoon, 1st Squad’s new squad leader. Upon the squad’s return to the TCP, the gunman’s body was still there. Often family members would retrieve a corpse, but since this man had just shot U.S. soldiers, that wasn’t likely. And the Iraqi medics, local hospital staff, or other parties who picked up bodies in cases like this didn’t arrive until at least the next day. Yribe carried him off to the trash pit, his brains spilling onto the street, where dogs feasted on them in the middle of the night. As some of the men kicked the body in frustration, Green noticed that the dead man’s teeth were loose. He reached down, pulled several out, and put them in his pocket.

  In the aftermath of the shooting, there was speculation about the gunman’s motives. Some were convinced that it was a revenge killing for the woman Yribe had shot three weeks before, as it was so unlike any other kind of attack they’d seen to that point. But the gunman, since he was missing most of his head, was never identified. Other soldiers were just as convinced that revenge wasn’t the reason. Yribe’s shooting happened at TCP3, they said. Why wouldn’t the shooter have targeted that TCP, or why wouldn’t he have targeted 3rd Squad, or even Yribe, more specifically? These soldiers contended that this guy was pissed off for any number of unknowable reasons, saw an opportunity to capitalize on a weakness, and took advantage of it.

  Regardless, the platoon was galvanized by the feeling of Iraqi betrayal. “That was the point where I just didn’t care about Hadjis anymore,” revealed one 1st Platoon soldier. “As far as I was concerned, any military-aged male in Iraq, they could all die. I just wanted to kill as many of those motherfuckers as I possibly could.” For many, the shooting proved that no Iraqi could be trusted. If there had been a philosophical dispute in parts of 1st Platoon—some thought the Iraqis were worth helping, others thought they were all the enemy—the deaths of Nelson and Casica strongly bolstered the confrontationalists’ claims. “That’s when things started to turn,” observed Staff Sergeant Chris Payne, 2nd Squad’s leader.

  Just a few days after Nelson’s and Casica’s deaths, Green and some parts of 1st Platoon were up at Mahmudiyah and Lieutenant Colonel Kunk and Sergeant Major Edwards walked by. Edwards corrected some element of Green’s bearing, and Green mouthed off.

  “Why’re you in such a bad mood, Green?” Kunk asked. “You’re talking to a sergeant major here.”

  “Why do you think I’m in a bad mood?” Green sneered, noting that Casica’s blood was still stippling his boots. Kunk told him that he had to pick himself up and drive on as good soldiers must.

  “I just want to get out there and get some revenge on those motherfuckers,” Green responded. “They all deserve to die.”

  “Goddamn it, that’s not true,” Kunk responded testily. “Ninety to ninety-five percent of the Iraqi people are good people and they want the same thing that we have in the United States: democracy. Yes, there are five percent of them that might be bad, and those are the terrorists. Those are the bad guys that we’re going after.”

  “Fuck the Hadjis,” Green declared.

  “Calling them that is like calling me a nigger,” said Edwards. “This sounds like you hate a whole race of people.”

  “That’s about it right there,” Green said. “You just about summed it up.”

  The officer who conducted the AR 15-6 investigation of the December 10 shooting concluded, “The deaths of Sergeant Casica and Staff Sergeant Nelson could not have been prevented either by their actions or the actions of the other t
wo soldiers at TCP2.” He acknowledged that there was a degree of complacency at the TCP that day. The men were not wearing their helmets and the shooter got too close without being searched, but the investigator did not find that either fact cost the men their lives. He noted that Casica was shot in the throat and Nelson at the base of the skull, neither of which is covered by a helmet. Likewise, he found Casica’s trust unfortunate but not culpable and resisted second-guessing it. “In order to maintain positive relations within the local population,” he wrote, “it is necessary for soldiers to, on occasion, when they feel it prudent, lessen their readiness posture. In this case, Sergeant Casica approaching the assailant with his M4 oriented toward him (possibly the only measure which would have prevented this incident) would have been wholly inappropriate.”

  Brigade commander Colonel Todd Ebel rejected this conclusion. On the cover sheet of the report, he scribbled, “I determine that SSG Nelson and SGT Casica were killed because each failed to maintain discipline at the TCP. …While hard to accept, I believe these soldiers’ deaths were preventable…. Each failed to follow instructions and it cost them their lives.”

  Kunk concurred with this sentiment completely, and did not resist telling the men of every rank, on numerous occasions, that Nelson and Casica were responsible for their own deaths. The blame that Ebel and Kunk placed on the dead incensed the men of 1st Platoon. “The real fault, the real blame, belongs to the chain of command for not securing that house and giving soldiers proper cover,” declared Watt. “The real blame belongs to them for not putting up HESCO baskets around that checkpoint, for not providing someplace where you can take off your helmet for five minutes in seventy-two hours. Kunk and the chain of command cannot face the fact that they failed us, so they pushed 100 percent of the blame onto the soldier.”