by Joshua Welle
Jay Consalvi and his wingman, “Spaz,” receiving fuel over Iraq in support of combat troops on the ground. (Courtesy Jay Consalvi)
When we finally plugged into the tanker, very low on gas, we heard our JTAC report that the convoy was mounting up and heading for home. They made it out. Spaz, Demo, and I began the hour-and-a-half transit from Mosul back to the “boat,” as pilots like to call home, in this case a floating city in the northern Persian Gulf. We spent the entire trip in almost complete silence. It was emotional detox time, coming down off an indescribable adrenaline rush. It was spiritual. I went over the fight in my head, said my prayers for those we tried to help and the souls we hurt. I then prepared myself for the nighttime carrier landing I was about to execute.
Every night when I come down the chute to land on the boat, I say a couple of Hail Marys. This short prayer always seems to calm me down. That night, to make matters even more worthy of divine intervention, my aggressive defensive maneuvering had severely damaged our Tomcat’s wing-flap system. We had to land on the carrier without wing flaps or slats, which help the aircraft fly slower for a more manageable landing approach. It was a less than optimal configuration, controllable but certainly not comfortable. Our approach was much faster than normal, resulting in perhaps the scariest moments of the evening, including nearly being hit by a missile. That night I may have said a complete rosary on my way down the chute.
Once we were safe on deck, Spaz, Demo, and I debriefed with our intelligence officers, my skipper, and our air wing commander. As soon as we finished, we sat down and emailed the guys we had been supporting on the ground. Our message was simple: “Hope we helped you guys out. Let us know what we can do better next time.” Less than two hours later, we received a reply: “Sir, helped out is a f-ing understatement. . . . You saved a lot of good guys’ lives out there tonight. If you hadn’t been there, we wouldn’t be here. Thank you.”
I sat back in my chair. Cold chills ran up the back of my neck, and then I breathed a long sigh of relief. Satisfaction, pain, pride, validation, and countless other emotions washed over me. Twelve years as a boy dreaming, four years at the Naval Academy preparing, and two years of flight school training to become a U.S. Navy fighter pilot had culminated in this one moment. My brothers made it home. It was all worth it.
Bad Karma
Wes Pass
As a student at the Naval Academy I realized that my perception of a task was not always right-on; some things that I thought would be hard weren’t at all, and other tasks that I thought would be easy were anything but. This lesson carried over into combat as well. Often the “simplest” parts of our plan presented the biggest challenges, and the parts we meticulously prepared for would pass without a hiccup. This experience made me realize that it’s just best to be prepared for anything.
I was selected by the Marine Corps to be a tank officer, and being an officer means assuming other combat responsibilities as well. I spent my first tour in Iraq with the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, which famously pulled down the statue of Saddam Hussein during the march to Baghdad in 2003. I had been at a mandatory Army school at the time, but was one of the first officers to check into 2D Tank Battalion after its return to the States that summer. At that time, the Army’s mission in Iraq was focused on nation building, and no one expected the Marines to have to return.
A platoon of Marines is a unique thing. Their discipline and confidence can give one a false sense of comfort, but they are inherently untrusting of anyone outside their circle who has not proven his or her competence and, more important, courage. An effective platoon commander must demonstrate both traits to be successful in combat and must do so in the complex world of helping manage the Marines’ day-to-day lives, giving advice on everything from financial decisions to family matters. Once attached to 2D Tanks, I had to prove myself to these tough critics while never having served with them in combat and knowing very little about the tanks, or “Hogs” as we affectionately refer to them. (My wife called my tank “the other woman.”)
During a training exercise in Twentynine Palms, California, an area colorfully labeled “Satan’s Asshole” because it looks like the worst place on earth, I received a radio call to come see the operation’s officer. He didn’t mince words: “You’re leaving for Iraq in four days. I suggest you get back to North Carolina and pack your shit.” The battalion needed more combat arms officers for its assigned push back into Iraq. Sure enough, within a few days, I was on a plane to Kuwait to meet my battalion.
My first thought upon landing in the desert in Kuwait was that I’d been sent to the dark side of the moon. It was four in the morning when I arrived at my tent. I didn’t have any Marines, didn’t know anyone, and didn’t have any idea what I would be doing. When morning came, I learned that the battalion had not been expecting me, didn’t really need me, and quite frankly didn’t seem to want me there.
I was put into the operations shop, where I worked as an assistant for an arrogant helicopter pilot nicknamed “Fab,” short for “feet, ass, and balls.” We didn’t stay long in Kuwait. The battalion was ordered to move, and we soon found ourselves at our new home in Haditha, Iraq. I spent the following week trying to avoid support duties and instead would slip off on patrol with the infantry platoons, acting as a rifleman where needed. Avoiding staff work could have gone badly for me, but I was fortunate enough to have an outstanding commander and executive officer who understood my passion to not be in garrison and who gave me a chance to prove myself with my own platoon. The sun shined on this dog’s ass from that point on.
My Marines and I were running missions every day and night. Time flew by, and we grew very tight. This way of life continued for a few months, until one night when I entered the command center for a briefing on that night’s mission. I was told without reason that everything had been scrapped for that night, so I headed back to our barracks at the bottom of the Haditha dam to get what I hoped would be a rare full night’s sleep.
What I didn’t know was that contractors from Blackwater USA, a private security company, had just been ambushed in Fallujah, dragged through the streets, and burned on a bridge. I was called back to the command center and given marching orders. We were given the order to press down to the city in direct support of an offensive operation. Within twenty-four hours, I was standing in a room at forward-operating base Fallujah looking at a two-story map on a wall. The map showed my battalion as the main effort, responsible for advancing through the city in what would take an estimated four days. It was at this particular point that our situation became sobering; my stomach sank and I completely forgot about the full night of sleep I’d been looking forward to.
The following morning, the song “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor” blared over the loudspeaker as we rolled into the city from the east. Due to successful operations from adjacent Marine Corps units, the enemy had assumed an attack was coming from another direction and had oriented their defenses westward. After gaining ground in the city, calls to halt our position started coming in over the radio from Division. It seemed to be a mistake, and these suspicions were confirmed when I heard our commanding officer, Lt. Col. B. P. McCoy, responding negatively and demanding that we be given an opportunity to establish a stronger foothold in the city if we were to be going to ground. The calls continued, and we were forced to halt. Much later I would learn that this had been a political decision, not a tactical one.
My Marines took a defensible position in a former insurgent’s improvised fighting position as part of the Marines’ defensive line in the city. At one point, it had been a family’s home, and it was clear that the insurgents had chosen it based on its view and clear fields of fire. Before long, my platoon was pulled to support a battalion operation to reinforce a rifle company along with a CAAT (heavy mounted assault platoon organic to the battalion) and a light armored reconnaissance platoon.
The base in Fallujah had been taking sporadic mortar fire from a small town to the north called Karma (or
al-Karmah), which at that time was thought to be relatively peaceful. With our additional firepower temporarily in the region, we were given the responsibility of conducting a night raid to break up the cell. The attached light armored vehicle (LAV) platoon, led by Lt. Knox Nunnally, a good friend and USNA 2001 graduate, knew there was more to this town than the intelligence reports had indicated. His platoon had encountered multiple exchanges of gunfire on the route to the town with an increasing level of ferocity.
We departed on our mission at 0200. Not even halfway through the route, at about five kilometers, we encountered an obstacle of tires, rebar, and concrete in the middle of the road that forced us to stop advancing. How such an enormous impediment was constructed without any aerial intelligence assets observing it is beyond me. During the halt, the AC-130 special operations aircraft attached to our mission checked in to help assess our situation.
We increased our security posture while halted and dismounted around the vehicles. I looked into a small building less than a hundred feet away and saw what I thought to be a couple of sandbags that could be used to set a machine gun. The thermal optics didn’t indicate that there was anything alive in the building, but I wanted a bit more comfort, so I grabbed my security team leader, Cpl. Neal Regonini, and pushed forward to take a quick look. This was not one of my better decisions. As with many combat decisions, you can complete an action and then ask yourself, “What was I thinking,” just before thanking God that that mistake won’t be your last.
Regonini and I finished searching the inside of the house, and I let the Marines at our vehicles know we were coming back. I stepped out of the house only to be illuminated from the sky like I was being beamed up to outer space. I quickly adjusted our posture and position and came back out the door to the same light. I lifted my night vision goggles and could only see the darkness. I then realized where the light was coming from. I looked up and saw the AC-130 shining its infrared (IR) light while the gunners on board were trying to figure out what we were doing in the house. Our IR tape—used to identify us as friend-lies—must have been dirty or worn down, so I flashed the IR light attached to my goggles to steer them away from our position. I looked back at Regonini and apologized for making such an unwise decision. The mission continued with the gunship directing us through alleyways in the dark from 10,000 feet overhead. I can still remember the radio transmissions: “Turn right, turn left, watch out for the right side of the road; there is an IED. . . . Oh man, these guys are coming out of the woodwork for you now. . . . Standing by”. Our FAC responded, “Cleared hot.” The AC-130 acknowledged us, “Cleared hot, roger,” and I then became privy to the most glorious display of combat power I have ever seen.
For an unknowing al-Qaeda fighter, it must have looked like the heavens had opened up and Allah had unleashed fire. The 20 mm and 105 mm guns began to work what would soon be our battlefield as we began to free ourselves from the confines of the tight trail the gunship had steered us through. Still moving north, the company regained its dispersion, and platoon commanders began to reposition their Marines to engage the enemy. All the while, the AC-130 cleared every few meters with 105 mm howitzer rounds, far enough in front of the lead vehicle to prevent fragmentation, but close enough to catch the hajjis running from the side streets toward the Marines.
One round impacted too close to an adjacent platoon, and the flash washed out the vehicle driver’s goggles, causing him to roll the seven-ton truck carrying Marines into a canal. These trucks were usually used for moving equipment, but they proved to be formidable at moving combat troops because of their IED-resistant design, often replacing Humvees when possible. This spot was where my Marines would make their home for the next eleven hours. I dismounted and moved up the road to the company commander’s position, where I could see that he was making significant adjustments to the initial plan based on his radio conversation and hand signals to unit leaders. From the tree line in the distance, I could see the slow movement of tracer rounds from what had to be an RPK machine gun. I wish I had known that if you can see tracer rounds and they aren’t moving much, it means they are coming directly at you.
The first burst passed between the sergeant major and me, causing me to look at Sgt. Maj. Dave Howell and say, “Holy shit, sergeant major, that one was close.” I said it with a lack of emotion, which only shows how much I underappreciated our situation. He replied, “Fuck yeah, it was, Sir,” through a raspy voice that reflected a similar lack of appreciation for our predicament.
That burst immediately heated things up, but the Marines had now begun to dig into improvised fighting positions and had started using their weapons with the grace and discipline of artists. I knew that my battalion was known to be good under fire, but this was something else. The Marines in the battalion moved with uncompromising speed, bravery, and efficiency that was the result of exceptional small-unit leadership. Each time the units completed a road march or entered a new forward-operating base, the fire team leaders would gather their Marines and conduct “I’m up, they see me, I’m down” drills for approximately a hundred meters out and back, without instruction from a squad leader or platoon sergeant and before a break or gear adjustment. This was a common and arduous drill that was much more about individual fire team cohesion than actual combat tactics.
Back in Karma, later nicknamed “Bad Karma,” we had shifted the enemy’s momentum and begun moving through the city, preventing the insurgents from gaining an advantageous position. My platoon and the fourth vehicle of the LAV platoon were tasked with securing our route out of the city, to where the disabled vehicle had fallen into the canal. The exit route was being inundated with enemy fighters attempting to trap us in the city.
As the sun began to rise, the day got busy with episodes of enemy fighters popping up on rooftops and sporadic firefights throughout the city. At one point, seven high-value targets retreated into the town’s mosque and transformed it into a fighting position. It is against the Geneva Conventions to use religious facilities or hospitals for enemy positions, but this didn’t stop the insurgents. We had enough intelligence that authority was given for an Air Force F-16 to flatten the mosque into a new soccer field for the town.
That was the event that broke the enemy’s back. As we moved out of the town, the order was given to blow the vehicle in the canal. Enemy sharpshooters were still in the area, and as my platoon had also been taking sporadic RPG fire, it wasn’t worth it to tow the damaged machine with us. In hindsight, we shouldn’t have left the city after having gained control or left a damaged vehicle behind, but this was 2004, and we still had many lessons to add to our knowledge bank. The trail tank put a high-explosive round into the vehicle, and we made our way back to base. The enemy killed during the operation was estimated to be close to a hundred, and no Marines or sailors had been lost.
Over the next week we returned to Fallujah, holding our line in the city while the politicians debated a course of action. Complacency and flies became our biggest adversaries until we were ordered to return to Bad Karma. Late into the night, Knox and his LAV Marines entered the city ahead of the main body and engaged an enemy observation position, killing a handful of insurgents and leaving one badly wounded.
We were at the southern end of the town when I got the call to take the wounded insurgent out of the city, down a dangerous route known for heavy contact. We were to meet a regimental aid unit that wanted to attempt to save the insurgent in the hope of gathering intelligence. I gave slight protest, believing that the guy was expectant, meaning death was imminent, and that it wasn’t worth the risk to leave the company’s rear trace unguarded. I was quickly silenced.
As we moved toward the linkup, a truck with four headlights mounted on the top pulled out from behind a building and directly faced my lead vehicle. Our night vision was immediately washed out, and I could feel our vehicle veer off the road. I yelled for my driver, Corporal Jordan, to come to the right, but it was too late. I could feel us take to the air as we jett
isoned off the side of the bridge and into the canal below.
Regonini was in the second vehicle stopped before the canal, engaging and destroying the enemy vehicle. My vehicle was suspended in the air, wedged against the bridge and the bank, flipped 90 degrees to the driver’s side. I suffered the least, with a bloody lip and slight haze. The machine gunner, Sgt. Sean Austin, was unconscious, having hit his head on the machine gun. Corporal Jordan was responsive enough that I knew he was not badly injured, and the two Marines in the back were completely fine until the door they were supported by broke open, causing them to fall into the canal, along with the extra ammunition, claymore mines, and various weapon systems.
I pushed open my door above me and helped pull Jordan and Austin from the vehicle and onto the bridge. The Marines in the canal had worked their way to the side and were coming up the bank. Regonini was immediately on the scene, always the adroit and disciplined Marine. He had coordinated one of the LAVs to provide overwatch, and I instructed him to link up with the regimental aid team that had moved north enough to be in view, adding Sergeant Austin to his medical evacuation.
We spent the next hour pulling weapons and other gear from the canal. Once we had finished, the LAVs helped tow our vehicle from the canal and get us back into fighting shape. I then walked around the bridge to conduct a final inspection with a flashlight to make sure we had not left any equipment behind for the enemy. At that point, I noticed a 155 mm improvised explosive device half buried between my feet. A quick “holy shit” moment for the Marines was followed by a crime scene–like investigation. I could see that the tape and wires around the device were new, so it obviously wasn’t an old bomb that had failed and been left behind. It had also had many opportunities over the past hour to have been employed. I backed my Marines up and followed the wires toward the detonator setup beside the bridge. On the spot just before the detonator, the wire had been severed, and there was a piece of glass from our vehicle’s headlight along with an impression from the front of the Humvee.
