War Stories: Operation Iraqi Freedom

by Oliver North

  But unusual for me, sleep won’t come. Instead, the words of President Bush to those gathered here on the desert floor keep going through my mind: “The peace of a troubled world and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you.” The words themselves did not convey a particular sense of foreboding, yet something keeps me awake. I climb back off the bird and go inside the aircraft to get the Bible I carry in my pack—not knowing that within hours, twelve of the men around me will be dead—the first American and British casualties of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HELICOPTER DOWN!

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #10

  TAA Gibraltar, Vic Iraqi-Kuwaiti Border

  Friday, 21 March 2003

  0300 Hours Local

  The silence immediately around us is almost eerie. But now that the last of more than fifty helicopters has landed and shut down, the sound of 155mm artillery and multiple rocket launchers can be heard firing off in the distance. With darkness settled in around us, the flash of the guns and occasionally the arc of rocket-assisted projectiles (RAP rounds) can be seen on the horizon. Lying or sitting on the ground, one can feel the concussions, which prompts one of the British Royal Marines to comment, “Pity the poor bloke who’s on the receiving end of that.”

  One of his less experienced mates asks no one in particular, “Is that ours or theirs?”

  When no one responds I reply, “It’s ours. That’s the 11th Marines, firing a Regimental TOT [time on target] on Safwan Hill, clearing the way for the 5th and 7th Marines to cross the berm into Iraq.”

  Safwan Hill is a pile of sandstone that dominates the terrain just north of the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border. It appears on the aviation chart I’m carrying simply as “466” but it is believed to be an Iraqi observation post. From the hill, just west of the Iraqi border town of Safwan, the Iraqi army can undoubtedly observe and bring fire to bear on any of the 1st Marine Division’s 22,000 troops and several thousand combat vehicles as they break through the berm along the demilitarized zone on the attack north.

  According to the scuttlebutt among the troops, Maj. Gen. James Mattis, the division commander, has ordered that the hill be “a foot shorter” before the first Marine crosses into Iraq. The 11th Marines’ artillery and strike aircraft from Navy carriers in the Persian Gulf and Ahmed Al Jaber Air Base in Kuwait are trying to comply by dumping tons of high explosives on the target.

  Before combat operations commenced, Mattis; his boss, Lt. Gen. James Conway, the commander of I-MEF; and Maj. Gen. Jim Amos, commanding the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing (Reinforced) all issued guidance to those they were leading into battle. Copies of the 1st Marine Division commander’s eloquent message were widely distributed to all hands:

  • • •

  For decades, Saddam Hussein has tortured, imprisoned, raped, and murdered the Iraqi people; invaded neighboring countries without provocation; and threatened the world with weapons of mass destruction. The time has come to end his reign of terror. On your young shoulders rests the hope of mankind.

  When I give you the word, together we will cross the Line of Departure, close with those forces that choose to fight, and destroy them. Our fight is not with the Iraqi people, nor is it with members of the Iraqi army who choose to surrender. While we will move swiftly and aggressively against those who resist, we will treat all others with decency, demonstrating chivalry and soldierly compassion for people who have endured a lifetime under Saddam’s oppression.

  Chemical attack, treachery, and use of the innocent as human shields can be expected, as can other unethical tactics . . . Be the hunter—not the hunted. Never be caught with your guard down. Use good judgment and act in the best interest of our nation.

  You are part of the world’s most feared and trusted fighting force. Engage your brain before you engage your weapon. Share your courage with each other as we enter Iraq. Keep faith in your comrades to your left and right and in the Marine Air overhead.

  For the mission’s sake, for our country’s sake, and the sake of the men who carried the Division’s colors in past battles—“who fought for life and never lost their nerve”—carry out your mission and keep your honor clean. Demonstrate to the world there is “No Better Friend—No Worse Enemy” than a U.S. Marine.

  • • •

  At the MAG-39 Forward Ops Center, set up beside a UH1N about 150 yards behind our helicopter, one of the communicators confirms that all is going according to the modified plan, even though the H-hour for the ground attack had to be advanced twelve hours because of the unscheduled “decapitation” strike on the Dora Command Center. Until March 19, Gen. Franks’s plan of attack had called for a simultaneous air and ground strike, designed to deceive the Iraqis who were anticipating another prolonged air assault like the thirty-eight-day bombardment that had preceded the ground attack during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Officers at CENTCOM had taken to talking openly about the “shock and awe” of an air campaign as though it would go on for days before any ground troops crossed the border.

  Instead, Franks had agreed that coincident air and ground attacks would take place just before dawn on March 21. But once Baghdad had been hit, waiting longer for the ground attack seemed to the Marines like an invitation for Saddam loyalists to start destroying the country’s oil infrastructure. So at 2030 hours local, on March 20, RCT-5 (Regimental Combat Team) was given the order to blast through the berm west of Safwan and head north, making it the first ground combat unit to put “boots on the ground” inside Iraq.

  It wasn’t, however, the first contact with the enemy. Earlier in the afternoon, at about 1600 hours local, elements of the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance (3rd LAR) Battalion, serving as a screening force for RCT-7, had engaged several Iraqi APCs south of the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border. FOX News Channel correspondent Rick Leventhal, embedded with the 3rd LAR, reported that the Marine LAV 25s had promptly dispatched the enemy vehicles using TOW anti-tank missiles and the 25mm chain guns mounted on the LAVs.

  Now the big guns have fallen silent. In the darkness, all but invisible from less than three kilometers away, there is the sound of hundreds of armored vehicles and trucks, moving without lights, echoing across the desert as RCT-7 moves up for the attack. The first mission for RCT-5 and RCT-7 is to drive straight past Safwan, and north to seize the vital Rumaylah oil fields, gas-oil separation plants (GOSPs), and pumping stations near Az Zubayr before the Iraqis can destroy them.

  A slight wind has come up, blowing a light cloud of dust and smoke our way as the word comes down to “saddle up” and launch. While the Royal Marines gather their gear and start boarding their assigned helicopters, Griff and I shake hands and we each head to our respective aircraft to grab our cameras so that we can start recording this first assault deep into Iraq.

  After discussing the matter with Lt. Col. Driscoll and Maj. Chris Charleville, the HMM-268 Operations Officer, we have agreed that Griff and I will fly on different birds. By doing so, we’ll minimize interference with ground combat element load plans, and spread out the weight/space requirements for our satellite equipment and camera gear. But there is another reason for splitting up our two-man team that no one mentions: if a bird goes down, we can be reasonably sure that half of our videotape and one of us will survive to tell the story.

  Ten commandos, including the Royal Marine Battalion commander, all carrying heavy packs and weapons, cram themselves into my aircraft. Many of these Brits have seen action before—some of them in the Falklands back in 1981, others in Northern Ireland, Gulf War I, Bosnia, and Kosovo—and some of the oldest have served in all of these difficult and dangerous places. But tonight’s mission may well be their toughest. If all goes as planned, this lightly armed infantry battalion will disembark north of Basra, Iraq’s second largest city, and establish a blocking position. Their goal: to keep enemy reinforcements from reaching the Basra garrison—believed to be elements of the Iraqi 51st Mechanized Division and a Republican Guard regiment.

  Other e
lements of the British 3rd Commando Brigade and the American 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) are to capture the oil port at Umm Qasr, just across the Kuwaiti border about thirty miles south of Basra, while Navy SEALs, Royal Marines, and British Special Ops units coming in from the Persian Gulf seize the oil terminals at Ma’amir and Al Faw. This complicated, high-speed endeavor is aimed at preventing the destruction of Iraq’s wells and infrastructure and the kind of catastrophe Saddam wreaked on Kuwait and the waters of the Persian Gulf back in 1991.

  As Gunnery Sgt. Pennington checks the troops to make sure that they are all strapped in, I climb through the forward personnel door, grab my tiny Sony Digital Pro camera with its night-vision lens, and fasten a gunner’s belt around my flak jacket, high on my chest. With the gunner’s belt tethered to a tie down on the deck of the helicopter, I can move about inside the troop compartment and still step forward into the cockpit between the pilot and copilot or even lean out the right side personnel door hatch, just forward of the .50-caliber mount. To ensure that I can hear and record radio and intercom communications, Pennington has rigged up a “cranial” helmet for me and hooked it into the aircraft communications system.

  Lt. Col. Jerry Driscoll is in the cockpit with Capt. Aaron Eckerberg, his copilot, running down the preflight checklist just as though we were about to take a training flight at Camp Pendleton. I hear the electronic ping of the Singars encryption system as each of the other birds in our flight “checks in” with Driscoll, confirming that they are “ready to turn”—that is, prepared to start their engines and lift off for Iraq. I hear a bird in our flight—I don’t catch which one—call in to inform that Griff, using his newly acquired nickname, “Mailbag,” is aboard with his gear. All is ready.

  Then, before the engines are started, another call over the radio: Navy SEALs and British Special Boat Service operators in the vicinity of our insert LZ are in contact with enemy troops. An AC-130 gunship and USAF A-10s are being called in to “soften up” the zone and take out enemy anti-aircraft batteries nearby. And so we wait. After about thirty minutes I notice that despite the tension, Pennington is following North’s Rule of “sleep when you can.” Sitting on the floor, leaning back against a case of .50-caliber ammo, he’s the picture of absolute confidence—and fast asleep.

  Finally, shortly after 0200, the terse message comes over the radio from Col. Rich Spencer, the MAG-39 CO, “We’re good to go. Godspeed, gentlemen.” The largest night heloborne assault in history is now underway.

  The whine of the APUs (auxiliary power unit) on the rear of the birds is soon overwhelmed by the sound of more than one hundred engines and rotors turning. In front of us, total darkness. As we lift off, out the side of the bird my camera catches the plume of dust as we rise into the darkness. Inside, the Royal Marines insert magazines in their weapons and chamber a round. Pennington and Cpl. Nathan Kendall, the left-side .50-caliber gunner, lock and load their machine guns with belts of ammo as we head for the border at more than one hundred knots (about 115 mph) and less than fifty feet above ground.

  My videotape of the assault lift shows that initially visibility is fairly clear as we proceed north toward Iraq, though there are increasing amounts of dust in the air, and occasionally I have to flip my NVGs up because the fires from several burning oil wells cause them to “flare” and temporarily blind me. I can clearly see the other three birds, flying close behind us, no more than five or ten rotor widths away, carrying elements of the Battalion Command Group. All four helicopters are supposed to land in the same zone to disgorge their passengers. The next four birds, trailing a mile or so behind us, will land in the assault LZ after we take off. As I aim the camera back into our troop compartment, only the eyes of the Royal Marines’ camouflage-painted faces show clearly through my night-vision lens.

  Seconds later, when I turn to “shoot” again out the open hatch, the sky has suddenly turned hazy. The ground below, whipping by at more than one hundred knots, is still visible through my NVGs, but out in front of us a local sandstorm—a miniature sharqi—has reduced forward visibility to just a few yards. The windblown dust, perhaps created by the firing on Safwan Hill, or the movement of thousands of our armored vehicles off to our west, has mixed with the smoke from a handful of burning oil wells, obliterating the sky. Through my NVGs, the air around us appears to be filled with “pixie dust”—as though looking through the frosted glass inside a light bulb. As we approach the border, the highway that was built in more peaceful times to connect Basra with Kuwait City is just visible below us. I’m musing about seeing a car drive beneath us when I hear Driscoll say over the intercom, “Power lines ahead. We’re pulling up to go over. Gunny, give me a ‘clear’ when we’re past.”

  I step back inside as we pull up so that Pennington can stick his head out the open hatch. When we pass over the lines, I hear him yell “Clear!” over the noise. And then, as the bird starts to descend again, there is an urgent call over the secure radio: “Dash Three, Dash Four, pull up! Pull up!”

  Suddenly, there is a blinding flash on the left side and slightly below our helicopter. Though our bird never wavers on its course, up in the cockpit, Lt. Col. Driscoll is instantly on the intercom and the radio: “What was that?”

  Pennington responds first, his voice flat, coming through the lip mike: “Dash Three has gone down, sir.”

  There is a moment of silence while the magnitude of what’s just happened sinks in. My camera, pointed over the port side .50-caliber machine gun, captures the terrible fireball. I know the answer even before Driscoll comes up on the radio and asks the question “Any survivors?”

  “Dash One, this is Dash Four. Negative. No way.”

  Driscoll calls out on the secure Search and Rescue net anyway: “Helicopter down . . .” and then the grid coordinates from his GPS. “Request you launch the TRAP [Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Pilot] mission to that location.”

  Within seconds of the crash, everyone on our helo has figured out what happened, though no one knows what brought Dash Three down. I can sense the stunned reaction, even though it is impossible to hear anything over the roar of the engines and rotors other than what comes through my earphones.

  The Royal Marine Battalion commander unfastens his seat belt, comes forward, and sticks his head into the cockpit. He and Driscoll confer for a few moments and then he backs out and stands upright, a tiny flashlight in his hand. Standing right next to me, he flips through the pages of a small notebook until he finds the list of those who were manifested on Dash Three. He shakes his head and says, just loud enough for me to hear, “War’s bloody awful. Those poor lads.” And then, looking back toward his Marines, he shouts, “We’re pressing on!”

  But we can’t. In just a matter of a few miles and a few minutes, the weather and visibility detiorate considerably. The AC-130 working over our insert LZ reports heavy anti-aircraft fire and that the approach to our zone is obscured by ground fog, dust, and smoke from the oil fires. All this is being monitored by I-MEF HQ and the MAG-39 Air Ops Center. After several minutes of radio chatter, the command “Abort the mission,” is broadcast to all the aircraft. The decision has been made well up the chain of command to wait until after first light and to try again when the weather and visibility are better.

  Now, with more than fifty helicopters in the air, the challenge becomes getting them all safely back to where we started without bumping into one another in the haze.

  Driscoll calls the battalion commander back up into the cockpit to inform him of the decision that has just come down. As the Royal Marine lieutenant colonel backs out and heads back to his troop seat, he is clearly agitated.

  Our route back to the pickup zone in Kuwait takes us back over the still-burning wreckage of Dash Three. As all aboard crane their necks to see what they can through the portholes, a thought suddenly comes to me: Was Griff on Dash Two or Dash Three?

  By the time we make it back to our landing point, it’s nearly 0400 and I have all but convinced myself
that Griff had boarded Dash Two—the helicopter that had been parked about twenty meters to our right side when we took off for the assault. As soon as the commandos have disembarked and our bird shuts down, I run over to the helo parked to our right and ask the crew chief if Griff is aboard.

  When he replies, “No, sir,” adrenaline surges through my gut, and I have immediate remorse. How am I going tell his lovely wife, Kathleen, and daughter, Madeline, that Griff has been killed?

  Overwhelmed with dread, I run over to several other birds as they land, but there is still no sign of Griff. He’s been my producer for more than eight years and I’m sick at the thought that he is lying dead in the wreckage of Dash Three. Wearing my NVGs, I make my way back to my helicopter, but the pilots are gone, summoned to a briefing with the MAG-39 CO. Pennington is on top of our bird, checking things out with a small flashlight held in his teeth. When he climbs down and puts his NVGs back down, I ask him, “Do we know yet who was aboard the bird that went down?”

  “Yes, but you can’t report it until we notify next of kin,” he replies. And then he continues, “Major Aubin and I came to 268 from MAWTS [Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron]. He and Captain Beaupre were two of the best pilots I know. And Staff Sergeant Waters-Bey and Corporal Kennedy both really knew their stuff. They were all really good men. You know that, you’ve flown with all of ’em.”

  “What about the PAX?” I ask, not wanting to say Griff’s name.

  “There seems to be some kind of mix-up on the manifest,” he responds. “Apparently the troop list only shows seven PAX, but before takeoff, Major Aubin reported ‘twelve souls on board.’ That means there were eight in back, in addition to the crew. The Brits are checking.”