Story by: Staff Sgt. Rebekah-mae N. Bruns
Looking Back to Najaf
FALLUJAH, Iraq - In Najaf, the small Oregon platoon was located in an unfinished five-story building. Unlike the accommodations of Fallujah, they had a roof over their head. At one time planners had intended the building to be a lavish hotel for tourists who would come to see the holiest of Shiite Muslim cities in Iraq. But war had deemed otherwise and the half finished hotel found its fate entangled with the lives of American Soldiers.
It had become a stronghold for the platoon, a central location to kill enemy fighters and a place from which to call in precision close air strikes. They appropriately nicknamed the building The Apache Hilton. Its designation was a mixed label of a once wished-for future and the moniker of a military company now responsible for its security.
To the front of the hotel was the Imam Ali Mosque Shrine where Sadr's Militia was holding out. The domed shrine laden with gold-leafed shingles is seen by the Muslim world as the holiest of sites, second only to Mecca.
In between the two opposing strongholds, there was a space approximately 300 meters deep and 200 meters wide that was once a robust open market of tents filled with wares for sell by local inhabitants.
Three weeks of fighting turned the vivacious area into a metal scrap yard, a no-man's land. Soldiers soon began to reference it as the "Bone Yard."
"The [insurgents] would run across this place with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms," said Spc. Spike Olsen pensively. "We laid out guys day after day ... after day, after day."
It was a central location where Sadr's Militia would try to move troops through. So the platoon positioned machine guns in two rooms on the fourth floor side by side and to secure the area over the course of five days despite daily barrages of rocket, mortar, and sniper fire.
Fading Back to Fallujah
It was a cool, late afternoon in Fallujah, and the humvee, often referenced as the Gypsy Wagon for its home-away-from-home status, left the northern perimeter, kicking up the dust in its wake. The powder-like sand was so invasive it appeared more like a great dirt devil traveling across the desert than a vehicle. Their mission was security escort for a supply convoy on its way to a camp in the rear, approximately 30 minutes away.
Spc. Kris Peterson, 20, of Beaverton, Ore., stayed on site with the other vehicles from the platoon, because an extra seat was needed to bring back a news reporter. More and more, this was becoming common practice on the battlefield.
It wasn't long before another vehicle pulled up and asked Peterson to jump in for a mission with them. It was simple enough. They were going to check out some houses just across the main supply route approximately 400 meters away.
"We were checking out the houses because we thought that's where the rockets were coming from," said Peterson. "We got in the truck and we zoomed up there."
They suspected the houses were being used to launch the mortars and rockets that had menaced them for days at their perimeter around Fallujah. But once they got there, there were only kids playing, a few women gathered around a fire pit making bread and one male. There were a couple of AK-47's but each household was allowed to own one for their protection. It all seemed serene and normal.
"Alright, let's head back," yelled the platoon leader.
Peterson and the others loaded up and the vehicle drove back through the dust that blinded everyone with its explosive powder form. As they drove across the way, it was nearly impossible to see anything other than the surrounding cloud of dirt.
Upon their return, Peterson jumped out of their vehicle and walked around the campsite to visit other Soldiers. After all, it was better than the alternative of sitting alone in the empty desert space once occupied by the Gypsy Wagon.
Trekking out, Peterson soon came to an old, rusty cylinder shaped, sewage pipe that sat above ground. It was large enough to walk through so a couple of other members from the platoon laid claim to it as their home and called it the "Hobbit House."
It stretched just long enough to fit two cots and a couple of sleeping bags making it the perfect desert bedroom. For the Oregon Soldiers, there was a sort of Martha Stuart pride in locating the rusted out pipe and turning it into a viable living space. But outside the cylinder-shaped house was a sign marking it as the location for incoming dead to be placed, a makeshift morgue for Soldiers who might be killed in Fallujah.
Sgt. Matthew Zedwick, 25, of Corvallis, Ore., joked about the ill-omened sign saying he and his roommate were good luck and thought since they had taken up residence in the pipe, they were in some strange way keeping the dead from coming in.
"I think we must be good luck," said Zedwick with a boyish smile, as he referenced the lack of business for the morgue.
The joke was, of course, a way of deflecting from the serious.
Peterson casually struck up conversation with Zedwick at the edge of the pipe. It was the same kind of 'say anything" conversation that always took place during times of boredom in war - the kind that moved around without any real direction. But their conversation was quickly dismissed when a barrage of enemy mortars took aim once again on their location.
"Kaboom!"
"Kaaboooom!"
A hundred meters away, a second mortar hit next to the big, blue Porto Potties -- brought in by 18-wheelers - on the side of a sandbank. Peterson and Zedwick hurriedly ducked deeper in the sewage pipe for cover all the while graciously trying not to stumble over the cot that was Zedwick's bed.
It was difficult, though, as others were also seeking shelter in the pipe. Anxious hands fell on the backs of those trying to move forward and a small shove of desperation nearly knocked Zedwick over before he caught himself.
A few moments of silence passed. Everyone looked at each other with eyes questioning whether or not there would be more.
Peterson then decided to take his chances and do a quick trot back across the way and find the Gypsy Wagon. After all, that humvee was his shelter and it had everything he needed.
As Peterson jogged across the desert, rockets began to fall again around the campsite. The previous small pause in mortar fire was only a tease, a false sense of completion. As Peterson looked around, it became apparent the Gypsy Wagon had yet to return from its mission. The humvee was nowhere in sight and Peterson was left standing under the open sky.
Quickly scanning the area, he saw another vehicle that looked as if there were no gunner available for the turret.
"Hey, you guys need a gunner?" yelled Peterson nervously.
Gunning would at least provide him with a position of defense. But a helmet popped up from the turret apprehensively looking around for the incoming fire. The position was filled. It meant no space for Peterson.
Seconds later, the vehicle door forcefully swung open and a Soldier from inside poked his head out.
"Get in!" he yelled nodding his head towards the inside of the humvee.
No sooner than the guy had told him to get in, enemy machine gun rounds came whizzing across the area. Peterson instead quickly decided to jump behind a sandbank that was close by. Behind the same dune, two other Soldiers from his platoon were already taking up fighting positions, so he joined them.
In a matter of seconds a pandemonium of numerous vehicle mounted, machine guns, unleashed a hell's fury in the direction of enemy gunfire. The sky was darkening and as the evening sun took its set, orange, red tracer rounds - used to help identify a bullet's path of travel -- darted across the skyline like bottle rockets on the fourth of July.
It appeared the enemy fire was coming from the same houses Peterson and the others had checked an hour ago.
As the gunfire continued, one of the Bradley's on the perimeter unleashed two 25-millimeter rounds and a nearby tank also fired two of its rounds. Moments later, everything came to a strange and silent halt. Just as it appeared the attack was over, the Gypsy Wagon, made its entrance back to the camp like a hippie love bus, tired and worn, ready to park for the night.
It seems they had their own skirmish on the main supply route while trying to get back and were just as thrown as everyone else by the confusion.
"What took you guys so long?" asked a Soldier.
"We had our own [stuff] to deal with," said squad leader Chris Johnson, of Corvallis, Ore.
Relieved to see his makeshift-home return, Peterson jumped back in the vehicle. Olsen was on the gun in the turret, Spc. John Willingham was driving and Johnson, being the squad leader, was manning the radio in the front passenger seat.
Instead of a restful parking, they turned the vehicle around and left again, heading toward the houses in search of the phantom-like insurgents.
Rolling through the dust once more, an orchestra of coughs began as Soldiers choked on the unwelcome ingestion of powdering sand. There was the coughing and hacking, the sound of lungs straining and a fortified dirt cloud making it impossible to see as they drove through the cloak of darkness.
Once they reached their destination, the Soldiers got out of the vehicles and began clearing each house individually.
Johnson, Peterson and another Soldier found themselves in the back of one of the houses pulling security.
"You smell that?" asked an apprehensive Soldier from the darkness.
The smell was of death, a repugnant stench of blood not yet dry.
"Yeah," replied Peterson.
The three began looking around until eyes rested on what appeared to be a body in traditional Arabic garb.
"That's really gross," said Johnson flatly.
"Yeah, there's no head," replied the other Soldier in disbelief.
"I was talking about the cat."
A short distance from the body, a white cat casually lapped away at a pool of blood like a warm bowl of milk.
Going In and Coming Out
Spc. Thomas Herb, 20, of Lebonon, Ore., was a no-bull kind of guy who never took any guff off anyone. He knew his job and he was as squared away as any Soldier when it came to knowing what to do and getting it done on the battlefield
When Herb first heard he was going to Fallujah, he thought for sure he was going to die. He just knew it. It was the first time he"d felt so sure of it. But he very quickly and deliberately began pushing the needling thoughts out of his mind. After all, he had a wife in Oregon who was nine months pregnant with a new son on the way.
"I thought about it; but then it's one of those things you can't think about," said Herb. "There's the possibility that it will get into you -- the stress. The more you think about it, the more it eats at you and then when it's time to do the job, you hesitate or you can't do it."
Now sitting on the perimeter of Fallujah in the evening light, Herb was excited to go into the city. Word just came down that he, Spc. Spike Olson, Spc. Kris Peterson, and Sgt. Joseph Howell would backfill for a squad lost to death and injuries from a Chechnyian insurgent's ambush.
Herb knew the injured men and the one Soldier who gave his life to help save his squad. He considered them friends. He had fought with some of them in Najaf and patrolled with others on the outskirts of Taji. So when they came in from the battle hurting, Herb was upset.
"I was really pissed off," said Herb in a matter of fact tone. "They had just killed one of my friends, so I was excited to go in and do something rather than sit on the perimeter."
It had all happened earlier that day when Herb went to the medical tent to have his legs looked at. They were swollen large and when he pushed his fingers into the flesh of his puffed-up limbs, the soft tissue stayed in place -- flattened- rather than rising back up as normal skin would.
As the medics were looking at his problem they received a message that wounded were coming in. No one knew how many injured would arrive or how grave the situation was, but it meant Herb's medical condition would have to wait until a later date for a final analysis. The medics needed to make room and prepare for those coming in.
"They didn't know how bad it was," said the Lebonon native. "I had to get out. I had no shoes on and no shirt on."
So Herb, being the trooper that he was, threw on his boots and left the tent.
Once Herb was outside, the Bradley fighting vehicles rumbled in like hurricanes and Soldiers chaotically called for help to carry wounded. Herb quickly ran over and pulled the first Soldier out of the vehicle. And it was - to his surprise - someone he knew. The young Soldier had been shot in the shoulder by a sniper.
The second Soldier he helped to bring in had three armor piercing rounds in his chest that went through the front plate of his body armor and stuck in his back. Herb hurriedly pulled open his vest to administer aid but was cut short.
"We took rolls of acrylic gauze, and we went to put it on his chest but the Captain said he was dead."
Herb and some other Soldiers respectfully carried him behind the tent and prepared his body for movement back to the rear.
After, Herb jumped back in the mix to help others who were wounded. He started an I.V., helped some others work on a Soldier who was dangerously close to not making it and administered aid to others with shrapnel wounds.
"We just made sure they were stable until it was time to take them to the hospital," Herb said.
Close by a helicopter landed thrusting sand in a whirlwind from the cyclone pressure of spinning rotor blades. The Oregon Guard Soldiers and 1st Cavalry Division medics quickly grabbed on to the carefully laid out stretchers and loaded the wounded for evacuation.
Herb thought about his son he had yet to meet.
"It was weird how it crossed my mind," said Herb pensively. "He was born and then I see all my friends get shot and killed."
He pauses for a moment and then continues.
"It makes you think maybe this is just God's way of working it all out."
Peterson, Olson, Howell and Herb all began getting their things in order for the city. They weren't exactly sure when they would go in, but they knew it would be within the next 24 hours.
Peterson carefully laid out his things and checked his equipment. He made sure he had the right amount of ammunition, grenades, water, and food.
"It's kind of funny you know," said Peterson as he was throwing items into his assault pack. "You tell people back home you're bored, but then things like this happen and you realize you take that boredom for granted."
Peterson continued packing while Olsen prepped his weapon a short distance over.
"All I know is that I'm going to shoot a lot of ammo, because I'm not going out on one of those birds and neither is spike, right Spike?" said Peterson uneasily.
Getting Everyone Home
Before going into the heart of the city, Olsen sat in the gun turret of the humvee for a final night of guard duty on the perimeter. He thought about the platoon and everything they had done over the past year, the experiences they had patrolling, jumping out of helicopters, wading through canals in the dark of the night outside Taji, fighting in Najaf and now Fallujah.
"In every [Army] unit you see the same posters -- fast roping (rapelling) and hooah stuff," said Olsen from behind a machine gun. "Ninety-five percent of those units have never seen or done those things, but we've done the poster. We're king (expletive deleted) of crap castle and now it's just getting everyone home."
| Date Taken: | 01.25.2005 |
| Date Posted: | 01.25.2005 15:31 |
| Story ID: | 927 |
| Location: | FALLUJAH, IQ |
| Web Views: | 100 |
| Downloads: | 20 |
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