Ambush Alley: The Most Extraordinary Battle of the Iraq War

by Tim Pritchard

  In the distance, there was the crackle of gunfire and the odd explosion of an artillery shell. Marines tossed and turned and screamed in their sleep. The siren of an ambulance approaching from the north woke up Tracy and Brooks. A group of marines looked at the approaching vehicle, but no one shot. Brooks wondered whether he should check it out. But he let it pass. Chief Warrant Officer Dunfee and Lieutenant Colonel Grabowski also saw the ambulance approach.

  “What the fuck is that doing? How did it get through?”

  Grabowski took out his pistol. How am I going to stop an ambulance with a handgun?

  In his tank, Dark Side, Captain Dyer saw the ambulance, its light flashing, coming toward them. The tanks from his company had set up a roadblock to stop vehicles from getting to the Saddam Canal Bridge and into the city from the north. They were also there to stop enemy vehicles attacking the battalion from the south. He ordered his marines to pull the ambulance over. He was furious with the line companies for letting the ambulance get this far.

  The tankers forced the ambulance to stop. The occupants said they were taking wounded to the hospital. There was one wounded soldier with serious burns to his face, but when they searched the ambulance the marines also found a colonel of the Iraqi 23rd Infantry Brigade who was masquerading as a paramedic. He admitted that he was trying to get back into the city to organize its defense. His uniform and ID were hidden in plastic bags. He was carrying a large amount of U.S. currency.

  When Tracy and Brooks heard who they had let through, they kicked themselves. Tracy was really pissed.

  I would have loved to find a guy with an Iraqi uniform and a couple of stripes on his shoulders.

  Major Sosa sat up in his Humvee planning for the day ahead. He was worried for his marines. They were bitter and resentful that their buddies were still missing. Not knowing where they are is tearing them apart. He knew that until they could answer that question, they would not rest easy. They were going to be angry and trigger-happy. We’ve got to lick our wounds and regroup.

  Much later, as he wandered over the battlefield to check on some dead Iraqis, some marines from the light armored reconnaissance battalion came up and started posing with cameras in front of the dead men. Standing over the bodies, they grinned and gave the thumbs-up sign as the cameras clicked. Sosa just exploded at them.

  “These are fucking human beings. How can you do that?”

  In the moonlight, Private First Class Casey Robinson and Lance Corporal Rodriguez Ortiz dug their fighting hole by the T intersection in the shadow of the Iraqi military complex from which they had received a lot of the enemy fire earlier in the day. Ortiz was still feeling anxious and jumpy from the hours spent in the house on Ambush Alley. He had talked about combat, prepared for it, even looked forward to it. But he had never imagined the horror of it. He thought about what he’d been through. You could put the bravest guy in that situation and he’d break down. We went through it, and it has changed us all forever.

  Robinson just dug. When he had finished one fighting hole, he started on another. He heard marines around him moaning in their sleep. He used his NVGs, his night-vision goggles, to scan for movement. There was lots of dead space behind the wall in the military complex, and he couldn’t tell if anyone was moving or not. They might still be in there. They can kill us whenever they want.

  Out of the darkness, a group of figures did appear. They weren’t Iraqi, though. They were British. They came over to where Robinson and his buddies were and asked for some cigarettes. In their strange accent, they started saying that the marines shouldn’t go up north, that it was heavy up there. Robinson was impressed by them. They are older, with beards and mustaches and shit. They were loaded with ammo, and their all-terrain vehicle was bristling with rockets and M240s. And then they just disappeared into the desert with no support and no word of where they were going or what they were up to. Robinson guessed they were British SAS. And in spite of what he had just gone through, he yearned for the romance of life in the Special Forces.

  He dug deeper into his hole. He thought about the marines who weren’t there. Those who had died.

  He’s not going to be there in the morning when I eat breakfast. He’s not going to be there to talk to at night, to keep me awake on watch or anything like that. He dreaded going back to Camp Lejeune to see their families. He didn’t know what he was going to say. He felt a chill. He had lost his jacket in the house and his sleeping bag and poncho had burned up in his pack on track 201. He was anxious and nervous. It was only the third day of the war. He hadn’t thought that war would be like this. This is the calm before the storm. It’s going to get worse. It’s going to be like this every day.

  He was still digging as the sun rose.

  POSTSCRIPT

  On March 23, 2003, eighteen marines from Charlie Company were killed in action between the southern Euphrates Bridge and the northern Saddam Canal Bridge. Over thirty-five were injured. It was the single heaviest loss suffered by the U.S. military during the entire combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

  A day later, the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion successfully passed along Ambush Alley, spearheading the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force’s attack toward Baghdad.

  The bodies of several of the missing marines were not recovered until days later when, after receiving tips from locals, marine search teams found them buried in the backyards of houses in the city.

  On April 1, marines from Task Force Tarawa participated in the rescue of one of the soliders from the Army’s 507th Maintenance Convoy, Private Jessica Lynch.

  It wasn’t until April 2 that Brigadier General Rich Natonski was able to say that Nasiriyah was secure and under American control.

  A U.S. Central Command investigation into the A-10 incident concluded that friendly fire might have been responsible for the deaths of up to ten marines, including all nine marines in the troop compartment of track 208. The investigation also found that the A-10 was responsible for injuries to Sergeant Torres and may have been responsible for injuries to another three marines. It was not possible to determine exactly how many vehicles the A-10 pilots hit or when they hit them because the tapes from the gun cameras on the planes went missing. The pilot of Gyrate 73 said he had handed them to the Intelligence debriefer for the mission. But there was no record of the tape being processed. The pilot of Gyrate 74 inadvertently reused the tape and covered over the contents of the March 23 mission.

  The A-10 pilots were cleared of any wrongdoing. No unit commanders were held responsible. Mouth, the Bravo Company FAC, was held responsible for the incident.

  Eighteen months after the operations in Nasiriyah, many marines from Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines had been reassigned to 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines and sent to Afghanistan for seven months.

  Brigadier General Rich Natonski took command of the 1st Marine Division, based in Camp Pendleton, California.

  Lieutenant Colonel Rick Grabowski went to the U.S. Army War College in Carslisle, Pennsylvania, and was promoted to colonel.

  Major David Sosa took command of Recruiting Station Sacramento in California.

  Major Bill Peeples left the Marine Corps Reserve and remained in the Inactive Ready Reserve. He returned to his job as a city planner and had a second child with his wife.

  Captain Scott Dyer remained the executive officer of Alpha Company, 8th Tank Battalion and has been selected to become the commanding officer of Company C, 8th Tank Battalion.

  Captain Mike Brooks of Alpha Company was reassigned as the staff secretary to the commanding general, 2nd Marine Division.

  Captain Tim Newland of Bravo Company left the Marine Corps.

  Captain Dan Wittnam of Charlie Company was promoted to major and returned to Iraq as the commander of a small craft company.

  First Lieutenant Ben Reid received shrapnel wounds to his face and right hand and a gunshot wound to his right shoulder. He has recovered from his injuries and was reassigned to train new recruits at Parris Is
land, South Carolina.

  First Lieutenant Conor Tracy was reassigned to the Basic School at Quantico, Virginia, to train newly commissioned officers.

  Sergeant William Schaefer and Lance Corporal Edward Castleberry remained at Camp Lejeune.

  Sergeant Jose Torres has a damaged right leg and left buttock. He is fighting to prove himself fit enough to stay in the Marine Corps. He was promoted to staff sergeant.

  Corporal Neville Welch was reassigned to the Headquarters and Service Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines. He saw Matrix Reloaded and hated it so much that he asked for his money back. He regretted he’d spent so much time in Iraq thinking about it.

  Corporal Matthew Juska sustained a closed head injury and is recovering.

  Corporal Randy Glass had eleven surgeries to remove shrapnel, dead muscle, and metal pins from his leg. He left the Marine Corps and returned home to Pennsylvania.

  Corporal Jared Martin had eight chunks of shrapnel removed from his hands and legs on the battlefield. Other pieces of shrapnel were later removed from his elbow, upper arm, and below his right eye.

  Corporal Manny Espinoza had several surgeries to repair damage done to his intestines from a shrapnel wound. The day before Espinoza left the Marine Corps, Lieutenant Reid presented him with a Bronze Star for his heroic actions on March 23.

  Lance Corporal Bradley Seegert received burns and blast wounds to his right arm and is recovering.

  Private Jason Keough was severely wounded in his right leg and is recovering. He was not administratively separated from the Marine Corps.

  Four months after getting back from Iraq, Private First Class Casey Robinson was told that he would be accepted into Force Recon. A few days later, on October 15, 2003, military police searched his car. They found steroids. A few months after that, he and Lance Corporal Thomas Quirk were sent to the brig for thirty days for beating up a junior marine. In May 2004, Robinson was demoted to Private. In June 2004, his wife gave birth to a baby boy, Ethan. In March 2005, Robinson was awarded the Bronze Star for his actions at Nasiriyah on March 23, 2003.

  Private Casey Robinson (Courtesy of Private Casey Robinson)

  Major David Sosa, operations officer, 1/2 Marines. (Courtesy of the author)

  Captain Mike Brooks, Alpha Company. (Courtesy of the author)

  Lieutenant Conor Tracy, AAV platoon commander. (Courtesy of the author )

  Sergeant William Shaefer, AAV section leader. (Courtesy of the author )

  Lance Corporal Edward Castleberry, AAV crew chief. (Courtesy of the author)

  Corporal Matthew Juska, who was found alive in the destroyed AAV C206. (Courtesy of the author)

  Tank Commander Major Bill Peeples, the day before attacking into Nasiriyah. (Courtesy of Major Bill Peeples)

  Lieutenant Colonel Rick Grabowski (seated in Humvee) and Sergeant Major Arrick in Nasiriyah. (Courtesy of CW04 David Dunfee)

  The welcome sign on the outskirts of Nasiriyah that so disturbed Corporal Neville Welch. (Courtesy of Captain Romeo Cubas)

  Burning vehicles of the 507th Maintenance Company. (Courtesy of CW04 David Dunfee)

  View of the bridge across the Euphrates, looking north. (Courtesy of CW04 David Dunfee)

  Ambush Alley viewed from the southern bridge. (Courtesy of CW04 David Dunfee)

  The Alamo—the house in Ambush Alley held by the Charlie Company Marines. (Courtesy of CW04 David Dunfee)

  Gunnery Sergeant Greg Wright next to an Iraqi mural depicting 9/11. (Courtesy of Gunnery Sergeant Randy Howard)

  Staff Sergeant Aaron Harrell pulling security by the mud bog. (Courtesy of Gunnery Sergeant Randy Howard)

  A Bravo Company Humvee in an alleyway in eastern Nasiriyah. (Courtesy of CW04 David Dunfee)

  Captain Cubas’s tank stuck in the mud bog in eastern Nasiriyah. ( Courtesy of Gunnery Sergent Randy Howard)

  View from Charlie Company’s position at the northern bridge. On the far left of the picture is the burning track 211, moments after it has been hit by an RPG in Ambush Alley. (U.S. Marine Corps photo)

  The dead and wounded from Charlie Company being evacuated from the northern bridge. (Courtesy of Major Eric Garcia)

  The ambulance carrying a top Iraqi commander that tried to head back into Nasiriyah on the night of March 23, 2003, before it was stopped by Captain Dyer and the crews of Team Tank. (Courtesy of Major Eric Garcia)

  Memorial service for Marines killed in Nasiriyah. (Courtesy of CW04 David Dunfee)

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  TIM PRITCHARD is a London-based journalist and filmmaker who has made several award-winning documentaries for the BBC, Channel 4, PBS, and the Discovery Channel. This is his first book.

  Copyright © 2005 by Tim Pritchard

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Presidio Press, an imprint of

  The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  PRESIDIO PRESS and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Pritchard, Tim, journalist.

  Ambush alley : the most extraordinary battle of the Iraq war / Tim Pritchard.

  p. : ill., maps ; cm.

  Includes index.

  1. Iraq War, 2003—Campaigns. 2. Iraq War, 2003—Personal narratives, American.

  3. Pritchard, Tim, journalist. I. Title.

  DS79.76.P755 2005

  956.7044’342—dc22 2005043033

  www.presidiopress.com

  www.randomhouse.com

  eISBN: 978-0-307-41454-0

  v3.0