OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #7 OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #7
HMM-268 Forward Operating Base
Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait
Sunday, 16 March 2003
2330 Hours Local
It’s been an exhausting but productive couple of days. As soon as the sandstorm passed, Gunnery Sgt. Dennis Pennington, a weapons and tactics instructor, arranged to fly all the helicopter gunners—the Marines who man the .50-caliber machine guns mounted on the left and right sides of the CH-46 helicopters—out to the Udari range so that they could test-fire every weapon in the squadron armory. Griff and I videotaped the entire exercise as Gunny Pennington, a very experienced combat veteran, coached young Marines who had never fired a shot in anger on rules of engagement, how to lead a target, and the best way to protect a helo that has to land in a “hot” landing zone (LZ). They came back sweaty, dirty, and tired—but confident that they were ready if and when the shooting starts. Gunny Pennington’s encouraging assessment: “They know what to do and they know how to do it.”
Everyone here believes that war with Iraq is imminent. President Bush met in the Azores today with Prime Minister Tony Blair of the UK, President José Maria Aznar of Spain, and Prime Minister José Manuel Durao Barroso of Portugal. Marines here repeatedly asked Griff what news was coming from the conference. When the four heads of state issued their communiqué, declaring that efforts to reach a diplomatic solution would end in twenty-four hours, dozens of Marines were huddled around our tiny video receiver, linked by satellite with FOX News Channel in New York.
Back on March 5, France, Germany, and Russia joined forces and declared that they would “not allow” a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq to pass in the UN Security Council. Despite this, everyone here expects that when President Bush addresses the nation tomorrow night, Saddam’s refusal to come clean on his weapons of mass destruction will mean war. They aren’t jumping up and down, talking tough, or swaggering with bravado, but there is a palpable sense of resolve—an aura of quiet competence in these Marines. Though no one has said that they are itching for a fight, it’s pretty clear that they are tired of waiting. Every one of them seems to know that they have done everything they can to prepare for what lies ahead.
Even though today is Sunday, except for a very brief pause early this morning for chapel services, it’s been a full day of training, and has been that way since the sandstorm finally passed. Starting Friday, all the MAG-39 pilots and aircrews that will be flying into Iraq have been coming in groups of fifteen to twenty to the MAG-39 Air Operations Center—a partitioned area inside the steel building next to the squadron ready room tents. There, intelligence officers brief them on the enemy situation. The Air Group S-3 then issues a detailed Operations Order and the Survival, Escape, Resistance, and Evasion (SERE) plan in the event they go down behind enemy lines. After all this, the Air Group S-1 has them all update their next-of-kin (NOK) information.
As the pilots and aircrews depart the Ops Center, there is no back-slapping or joking around as there was when they arrived. Nothing focuses the mind of a Marine like an NOK form. It contains the details of who is to be informed, and how, when a Marine is killed, wounded, or missing in action.
While none of this is a laughing matter, Griff and I have managed, quite unintentionally, to provide just a bit of comic relief. Late Friday night we went out near the Iraqi border with a couple of CH-46s so that the pilots could practice landings, takeoffs, and low-level flying while wearing night-vision goggles (NVGs). After two or three practice landings, we had them put us down in an LZ a few kilometers south of the border so that we could check out how well our night lens could videotape the birds as they came back in. Almost immediately after the two helicopters took off, leaving us alone in the desert, three jeeps came racing across the open terrain and surrounded us, their headlights blinding our NVGs.
The two CH-46s waved off their landing and pulled away as five or six men carrying submachine guns poured out from the jeeps. “Oh great,” said Griff as the armed men encircled us, their weapons at the ready. “How’s your Arabic?” he asked me as one of the men who had jumped from the jeeps yelled something unintelligible through a bullhorn. Now we could make out their uniforms—Kuwaiti Border Patrol.
Relieved that it wasn’t an Iraqi patrol, we quickly produced our Kuwaiti Ministry of Information–issued media credentials—to no effect. We might well have spent the night in a lockup if I hadn’t been able to explain that we were videotaping U.S. Marine helicopters and pointed at the orbiting CH-46s. Suddenly, our inquisitor smiled and said in broken English, “Ahh . . . U.S. Marines. Good, good.” The weapons were quickly slung over shoulders and the patrolmen came up to us, shook hands, and returned to their vehicles waving, and repeating over and over, “Marines good . . . Marines okay!”
As soon as their jeeps departed the landing zone, the two birds came back in and we quickly loaded our gear, took off, and headed back to Ali Al Salem Air Base. After we landed, I asked Maj. John Graham, the squadron XO, what he would have done if the armed men in the jeeps had taken us away. Without hesitating he deadpanned, “I wasn’t worried about you guys, I figured you’d had it anyway. I was trying to figure out how to explain to the skipper that our two embedded correspondents had gone AWOL.”
An even more comical incident occurred earlier today while we were doing a live feed to FOX News Channel in New York City from beside the HMM-268 ready room tent. In the midst of my report with Col. Dave Hunt, one of the FOX military analysts in New York, the “Great Giant Voice” sounded another alert. Since the sandstorm, these alerts have been coming several times a day. But this time the chemical attack alarm was sounded as well. Marines came running from the squadron ready room tents and the MAG-39 Ops Center, hastily putting on their flak jackets, gas masks, helmets, and chemical protective suits.
As I wrapped up my report, Lt. Col. Hudson, the air group XO—a generally calm and unexcitable officer—came running out of the MAG-39 CP and yelled, “Everyone into the bunker, full MOPP. Now! This is not a drill!”
I looked into the camera, and said to Dave Hunt, “Well, I guess that’s it from here for now. We are apparently under chemical attack, so we’ll have to get back to you later.” I assumed that New York would cut away at that point. I shouted to Griff to head for the bunker and I put on my gas mask, ripped open the sealed plastic bags containing my two-piece, military-issue chemical protective suit, and proceeded to start putting it on.
Unfortunately, try as I might, I could not pull the chemical protective trousers up over my waist or put on the suspenders. For more than a minute I fumbled with the trousers and suspenders—all of it on live TV—at one point observing out loud, “Man, these things shouldn’t be this tight in the crotch.” Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, Dave Hunt was carrying on a running commentary about the courage of our FOX News Channel embedded correspondents, “willing to brave enemy incoming to make sure that the story gets out.”
Finally, just as the Patriot PAC 3 battery across the airfield opened up on the inbound enemy missile, I noticed through the lenses of my gas mask why I couldn’t get the trousers up—they were tangled in the microphone and IFB cords between my legs. By the time I unsnarled the mess, the Iraqi missile had been knocked down, and a few minutes later the “All clear” was sounded. By the time the Marines who had dutifully sought shelter exited the bunkers, I was in “full MOPP,” had the microphone up to the speaking port on the gas mask, and was describing the attack. Many of the younger Marines were amazed that I had enough confidence in the Patriot ABMs (anti-ballistic missiles) to stay outside during an attack. But of course, they knew nothing of my chemical suit–mike cord fiasco. And I was blissfully unaware that the whole thing had been carried live on FOX News Channel. Unfortunately, a good number of my former Marine colleagues watching the news saw it, and were happy to enlighten me. For days afterward, I was subjected to ribald, chiding e-mails from old friends about how to put on a chemical protective suit in less than five minutes.
Washington, DC
Monday, 17 March 2003
2000 Hours Local
It is three in the morning here in Iraq, and as President George Bush appears on the tiny screen, dozens of Marines are gathered around our satellite audio-video transceiver to hear their commander in chief address the American people. When he says that the time has come for Saddam Hussein and his sons to leave Iraq and gives them a deadline of forty-eight hours to do so, a few heads nod in agreement, but nobody says a word. There is a similar reaction when he says, “Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing.” And again when he adds, “The tyrant will soon be gone.”
Without naming them, President Bush castigates the leaders of France, Germany, Russia, and China for their stubborn opposition to his new resolution for UN authorization to use force to disarm and topple Hussein and accomplish a regime change for Iraq. The United States, Britain, and Spain withdrew the proposal before it came to a vote, since France had said it would veto the resolution even if all other voting nations approved it.
When the president says, “These governments share our assessment of the danger but not our resolve to meet it,” and “The United Nations has not lived up to its responsibilities, so we will rise to ours,” there are more nods from the hushed crowd. No one in this little gathering objects to his claim that “the Iraqi regime has used diplomacy to gain time and advantage” and that “diplomacy can’t go on forever in the face of a global threat.”
When President Bush encourages the Iraqi people with the promise “The day of your liberation is near,” I watch as several of those who will have to make good on this commitment simply pat the back of the Marine nearest them.
As he closes with his customary “May God continue to bless America,” he looks grim. So do the Marines who have just heard him speak. Without so much as a word, the crowd breaks up and the Marines go back to their duties or to sleep.
The sword has been readied. The steel has been honed. The blade is drawn.
OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #8
HMM-268 Forward Operating Base
Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait
Tuesday, 18 March 2003
0930 Hours Local
Today, more than 200,000 U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, joined by a coalition of international partners, are poised to begin what they believe is the next campaign in the war on terrorism. Some here have taken to calling it the Baghdad Urban Renewal Project.
According to what we have heard on our satellite videophone, at this very minute the Iraqi Parliament, in an emergency meeting, is considering the ultimatum given them last night by President Bush. Everyone here expects the Iraqis to reject it.
Many of these young Americans are taking time today to write home. They understand that their spouses, family members, and friends are concerned for their safety. They know, because of our satellite feed, that back in the United States there are unfounded reports that the troops here are unprepared and ill equipped for the mission that lies ahead. A bevy of “experts,” including former generals and admirals, have been adding fuel to this fire by saying that our chemical protective suits don’t work, and that there are not enough troops, the right weapons, or enough equipment to take on Saddam’s 480,000-man military.
At 0800 this morning Lt. Col. Jerry Driscoll summoned all the pilots in the squadron to a meeting in the ready room and assigned missions for the opening of hostilities. Most here believe that the order could come down at any moment after the president’s forty-eight-hour deadline for Saddam’s departure expires. On “Go-Day” or “Game Day,” as it is variously called here, HMM-268 will be the lead air element carrying British Royal Marine Commandos into the attack on Al Faw Peninsula. The squadron will also be conducting inserts and extracts of reconnaissance units well inside Iraq and cas-evac missions—the evacuation of casualties from fire-swept “hot” landing zones.
Driscoll tells his pilots to check over their survival gear and get some rest in the hours ahead. And then he adds that there will be fewer than the usual number of flights today so that the maintenance crews can check the birds over for any last-minute mechanical, hydraulic, electronic, or ordnance problems. The Red Dragon “wrench turners” and crew chiefs have been working around the clock, in fair weather and foul, looking after these aging birds. Today they will at least have sunshine, though it is likely to get very hot. The desert sun can make bubbles on the flight line tarmac and turn the skin of an aircraft into a griddle that will sear exposed flesh that touches it.
None of the combat-experienced Marines from Gulf War I, the Balkans, or Afghanistan have told me they wanted another war. But now that we’ve got one, these are the people we want to fight in it. Most of the Marines I am with have been here for two months or more. They have participated almost daily and nightly using some of the most sophisticated equipment and weaponry the world has ever seen. They are smart, fit, and ready.
These Marines are well trained; they know their jobs, and are prepared to do them—even when the worst begins to happen around them. That can-do attitude prevails with the pilots who are flying the planes and the troops who are getting on and off them. It’s evident in every crew chief, every .50-caliber gunner, and each of the mechanics and technicians who keep these airplanes flying. It is an extraordinary sense of teamwork that has gotten them this far and for which the Marine Corps is famous. There is no airplane that launches without a complete check from the mechanics who maintain them day and night.
To ensure that a wounded soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine gets the fastest and finest medical attention necessary, all four services are participating in a remarkable experiment that is the brainchild of a Navy chief. When a trooper is wounded badly enough to require evacuation, he will be picked up by a Marine CH-46 specially configured with nine or more litters. The twin .50-caliber machine guns mounted port and starboard and the stand-up headroom inside the “fighting frogs” make them ideal for this purpose. Every cas-evac bird has aboard two medical corpsmen. Thirty-six of the best corpsmen have been pulled from throughout the U.S. Navy and assigned to what’s called the “I-MEF Cas-Evac Unit.” They are all emergency medical specialists and experts on treating shock and trauma. Their motto: “We Bring You Home.” One volunteer for this special unit had to be flown to Kuwait from Antarctica!
As soon as the wounded are aboard a CH-46, they will be treated for shock and blood loss by the two Navy corpsmen, while the bird sprints to a U.S. Army shock-trauma hospital. Instead of being twenty to thirty miles from the battle area, these small field hospital tents—staffed by Army doctors, nurses, and medics ready for immediate, lifesaving surgery—will be positioned just five or six miles from the front lines. Once the wounded are stabilized, they will be flown back to Kuwait on an Army H-60 Black Hawk or aboard a Marine C-130. The plan is to have these large four-engined C-130s land on captured airfields, highways, or even the desert floor.
When they arrive in Kuwait, the wounded will be rushed into a U.S. Air Force expeditionary hospital for further treatment. If advanced surgery is needed, the casualty will be loaded on an Air Force C-9 Nightingale for transport to one of several large hospitals in Germany.
At the conclusion of Lt. Col. Driscoll’s briefing, the Squadron S-2 informed the pilots that yesterday U.S. Central Command had dropped nearly two million leaflets over military and civilian sites in nearly twenty locations across Iraq. That brings the total number of leaflets dropped to more than twelve million so far this year. The goal of these leaflet drops is to protect civilian lives and deter the Iraqi military from fighting back once hostilities begin. Yesterday’s leaflet drop stressed that coalition forces do not wish to harm innocent Iraqis. One message informed Iraqi citizens that they could be the victims if Saddam Hussein uses chemical weapons. Another message encouraged the Iraqi military officers to refrain from using weapons of mass destruction, and others told Iraqi troops how to surrender safely.
One of the Cobra pilots from Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron (HMLA) 267 who will be accompanying the CH-46s made the observation that surrender would be the best way for an Iraqi soldier to save his life because “if he points a gun at me, he’s dead.”
OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #9
HMM-268 Forward Operating Base
Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait
Wednesday, 19 March 2003
2300 Hours Local
The president’s deadline for Saddam and his sons to depart Iraq expires in five hours. Apparently, from what little news we are receiving, the Iraqi Parliament never bothered to seriously debate the U.S. ultimatum. They probably knew that their dictator and commander in chief wanted them to reject it. So they did.
A few hours ago, the Parliament of the United Kingdom, by a vote of 412 to 149, approved the use of military force to disarm Iraq and oust its leader. An antiwar amendment said to reflect British public sentiment against hostilities in Iraq was defeated.
Saddam Hussein had been given ten days to comply and to turn over his weapons of mass destruction, but he hasn’t. Coalition aircraft continue dropping information leaflets into Iraq stating that war could start at any time.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, French President Jacques Chirac, and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder are now claiming that an invasion of Iraq will sabotage any future UN efforts at disarmament, and that there is “no justification for war, and no reason to end the weapons inspections.” In Paris and New York, French diplomats have announced that President Bush’s ultimatum was “contrary to the will of the United Nations Security Council.”
French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin urged the UN, “Let us triple the number of inspectors. Let us open more regional offices [in Iraq] … set up a specialized body to keep under surveillance the sites that have already been inspected.” Chirac, unalterably opposed to a U.S.-led coalition removing Saddam from power, sought to protect French commercial interests in Baghdad by pleading “We want Iraq to disarm, but we believe this disarmament must happen peacefully.”
One Marine watching these developments on our little satellite transceiver threw up his hands and said, “These guys need a reality check. When was the last time an aggressive dictator like Saddam Hussein ‘peacefully’ disarmed? Iraq doesn’t play by Swiss diplomatic rules and the path to peace doesn’t meander through the United Nations.”
Here in the desert, France and Chirac are despised as much as Iraq and Saddam. Never one to miss the opportunity to prove that accountability is always the enemy of empty promises, Chirac also suggested that Iraq should be given a minimum of four or five more months to come clean. But then he clarified his position, lest it be taken too seriously: “There is no deadline,” he added. “Only the inspectors themselves can say when such a deadline is set and how.”
Chirac finally admitted that his goal was to oppose “American plans for dominance.” Others with a more cynical view of the situation have said that Chirac’s remarks about “American dominance” are nothing but a smoke screen for French venality since they have much to hide.
Everyone here knows that the French helped Iraq build its nuclear reactor—the Osarik facility that Israel destroyed in 1981. But there is also widespread belief here in Kuwait that the French are afraid that when U.S. forces get to Baghdad, intelligence officers and FBI agents will find evidence of French arms sales and involvement in providing the Iraqis with the means of producing chemical and biological weapons and delivery systems—nearly all of which Paris provided to the Iraqis on credit. If Saddam goes down, the French won’t get paid.
The Marines, who are taught history in boot camp, know that in spite of heavy Marine losses at Belleau Wood in World War I, the French shot at and killed U.S. troops during the landings in North Africa in 1942. All this has prompted a lively exchange of jokes about France and criticism that “the UN is dancing to the tune of a French horn.”
Though the news here is thin, we’ve learned, as the deadline nears in just a few hours, that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak now believes that Iraq has brought the entire Gulf region to the edge of war. And we’ve heard that France and Germany want yet another opportunity to bring their objections formally before the UN Security Council. Antiwar protesters are being given prominent coverage, even on FOX, which is now the only news source that we’re getting. Meanwhile, this morning seventeen Iraqi soldiers couldn’t wait—they surrendered to American forces on the Kuwaiti border to Iraq.
DORA COMMAND COMPLEX
Downtown Baghdad
Thursday, 20 March 2003
0530 Hours Local
The war is now on. It began with a cruise missile attack followed by an air strike about an hour and a half after the expiration of President Bush’s deadline for Saddam Hussein and his sons to leave Iraq. The target: an Iraqi command, control, and communications center in downtown Baghdad.
We had originally been told that there would be no action until tomorrow—just in case someone in Saddam’s inner circle was planning to take him out and save us the trouble. According to one of my old Navy SEAL pals, the decision to launch tonight’s strike was made in Washington after someone claimed to know that Saddam Hussein, several of his top military aides, and at least one of his sons had been seen entering the Dora command-and-control complex to spend the night.
The SEALs, Delta Force operators, and CIA paramilitary officers—some of them pulled out of Afghanistan—have been in and out of Iraq for months now trying to make contact with dissidents. According to those I talked to, they were generally unsuccessful, because Saddam’s internal security apparatus, the Amn Al Khass, headed by his son Qusay, had all but eliminated internal opposition except among the Kurds in the far north.
Until now, the only indigenous intelligence sources available anywhere near Baghdad have been individuals loyal to Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress. And since Chalabi is a pariah at the State Department and the CIA, my SEAL and Delta contacts regarded it unlikely that the CIA would have been able to provide the Pentagon with the intelligence of Saddam’s location for this first strike.
In the days leading up to the start of hostilities, Chalabi had arrived in the Kurdish mountain bastion of As Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, via Iran. From there, with protection provided by his own followers and a small handful of armed “civilians” on contract to the Pentagon, Chalabi has been granting interviews, making broadcasts into Baghdad, and generally planning to become Iraq’s next leader. In my many meetings with him, he often told me that he intended to become the first democratically elected president of Iraq. If he does, it will be in spite of our State Department and CIA, not because of them.
The special operators who would talk about it believe that Chalabi, or one of his people, was the source of the Dora targeting information and that it was passed not to the CIA but directly to the Pentagon. When it got there, the CIA couldn’t confirm or deny the information, but President Bush gave the go-ahead for the strike, since the command center was a legitimate military target.
In Qatar, U.S. Central Command quickly set aside plans to start the war twenty-four hours later and came up with a “double tap” plan, using a first wave of sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles, followed by USAF F-117A Nighthawk stealth aircraft armed with two-thousand-pound bunker buster EGBU-27 guided bombs steered to the precise location by GPS technology.
The Tomahawks launched by the USS Milius, USS Donald Cook, USS Bunker Hill, USS Cowpens, USS Montpelier, and USS Cheyenne hit first, knocking down aboveground structures. Then, the bunker buster bombs with delayed fuses designed to penetrate reinforced concrete rained down on the target.
Al Jazeera, the Arabic-language satellite television network that has been so supportive of Osama bin Laden, was on the air almost immediately showing ambulances and first aid workers removing dead and injured, and accusing the United States of killing innocent Iraqi civilians.
In the HMM-268 ready room, squadron pilots took time from laminating their flight charts and maps of Al Faw Peninsula to watch. They were staring at the Al Jazeera coverage when President Bush came on the air to address the nation.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Washington, DC
Wednesday, 19 March 2003
2215 Hours Local
For the second time in as many days, Marines of all ranks are watching their commander in chief address their countrymen about war. They surround our tiny TV monitor and stare intently at the screen. But unlike the last time, they are no longer silent. When President Bush says that the “opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign” to liberate Iraq has begun, someone in the group says, emphatically, “Finally!”
Shortly after the president concludes his remarks, the Iraqis issue a brief statement that “the enemies of God committed the stupidity of aggression against our homeland and our people,” and call upon the Saddam fedayeen paramilitary volunteers to defend Iraq. Their commander, Uday Hussein, urges them to be ready to die as martyrs in destroying the American and British “invaders.”
Northern Kuwaiti Desert
Thursday, 20 March 2003
2000 Hours Local
The sun was just setting as the eight CH-46s from HMM-268 landed an hour ago at this remote British base just a few kilometers from the Iraqi border. Shortly after we touched down, dozens of other helicopters landed around us, until all that could be seen were helicopters—U.S. Marine CH-46s, CH-53s, UH1Ns, and Cobras, and a handful of British Pumas and CH-47s, all dispersed on the desert floor.
As we flew here, at twenty-five feet off the ground and 120 knots, from Ali Al Salem Air Base, the highways below us were crowded with convoys of military equipment, tanks, armored vehicles, artillery pieces, trucks, and Humvees all racing north toward the border with Iraq. Approaching our landing point, I could see up north of us batteries of 155mm howitzers deploying in firing order. The war has been “on” for fourteen hours, and yet for us it has been a strangely surreal day.
This morning, at about 0930 local, the “Great Giant Voice” announced that a missile raid was inbound and we once more raced for the shelters with our gas masks. Once again, Griff couldn’t find his. About the time that the Patriot batteries opened fire on the incoming Iraqi missiles, he found it and came dashing into the bunker.
Deadly as it could be in a chemical weapons attack without it, Griff constantly losing his gas mask has become something of a joke within the squadron. So is a photo of Griff curled up asleep on a bench in the ready room, stuffed in a large yellow mailbag. One of the lieutenants took the picture early one freezing cold morning after we had decided that we were too tired to walk back down to the squadron billeting area. I had my poncho liner, but Griff had left his down at our tent. Thus the “U.S. Postal Service Issue sleeping bag.”
We’re not lacking any gear tonight. Right after the morning missile attack, we loaded all our cameras, satellite broadcast equipment, and personal paraphernalia aboard two of the CH-46s in preparation for tonight’s mission—carrying the Royal Marines of Four Two Commando in a heloborne assault on Al Faw Peninsula. HMM-268 will be the first birds in the assault, with the squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Driscoll, flying lead for two four-plane divisions full of troops.
While we wait for the signal to lift from Ali Al Salem, we all gather once again around our little TV and learn that the United States and Great Britain had increased their security alert status in anticipation of terrorist attacks, and that in the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security had increased its terrorism alert level to orange, the second-highest level. Americans overseas were warned of possible terror attacks in retaliation for the start of war against Iraq.
While British Tornado jets roared past us loaded with bombs to soften up Iraqi defenses in our landing zones, the news from the United States was all about the Department of the Treasury freezing all nondiplomatic Iraqi government funds that were on deposit in the United States and urging all other governments to do the same with Iraqi funds deposited in their countries’ banks.
After hearing this piece of news, one of the pilots sitting on the ground beside me commented, “Gee, I’m sure glad we didn’t forget that item on the checklist. I wouldn’t want to get shot at by some Iraqi anti-aircraft gunner who hadn’t had his assets frozen.”
It is now dark—except for some oil well fires burning to our north. Through my NVGs I can see the British Royal Marines who will be riding into combat with us within a few hours. Our “stick” of eight men is sitting on the ground just aft of the lowered helicopter ramp, resting on their rucksacks talking quietly. I crawl up on one of the stub wings to eat an MRE, drink some water, say a quiet prayer for safety, and catch a little nap before the final briefing and the assault. I’ve learned in five prior gunfights—Vietnam, Central America, Beirut, Tehran, and Afghanistan—that you had better eat, drink, sleep, and pray when you can, because once the shooting starts, you may not have time to do any of them.
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.