LETTERS FROM TIKRIT

The Lion’s Den: An Author’s Note

At the end of our visit with the 101st Airborne in Mosul, Russell Cummings and I headed down to Tikrit, the home territory of Saddam Hussein. Our Black Hawk helicopter landed at the Ironhorse Drop Zone, which was nothing more than a large concrete circle stuck in the middle of a radius of some two thousand feet or more, and surrounded by the city of Tikrit.

Russell and I had been invited to spend some time in Tikrit as the guest of Mark Vargas and KBR (Kellogg, Brown & Root) at their headquarters in Tikrit, named Camp Speicher after the Navy officer who was shot down in that area during Operation DESERT STORM, and remains Missing in Action. Camp Speicher is a two-square-mile area fenced in and guarded closely by both American and Iraqi guard duty troopers.

The Black Hawk quickly dropped us off and departed to its next destination. With all the shootings in the area we were naturally apprehensive, and the short wait seemed much longer than it actually was. Finally, two welcoming female PAO (Public Affairs Office) officers arrived to collect us in an SUV, which was reputedly armor plated. As I put myself into the front seat of the SUV, I thought of my old friend, COL Nick Rowe, who was in a “hardened” SUV when he was shot dead by a communist assassin in the Philippines. I wondered if our SUV had the same degree of hardening as Nick’s car, and rather hoped it had more.

This was truly Saddam territory. We could feel it in the air, as we drove through Tikrit on our first-day tour given by the gracious PAOs. After the tour we were taken to our lodging for the first night: the palace known as “The Ladies Palace,” where Saddam’s two sons purportedly kept their girlfriends. Like all of Saddam’s palaces, it was beautiful and lacked nothing in the area of decorations. It was here that I first noticed Saddam’s initials on walls, corners, and ceilings. (See a photograph of a typical circular initialed emblem in the photo section.)

The Ivy Division

The Fourth Infantry Division (Mechanized) is also known as the Ivy Division. “Ivy” is a play on words for the Roman numeral IV; also, ivy is a symbol of strength and tenacity—this is also the distinctive symbol on the Division’s shoulder patch. The 4th ID’s Area of Operations was Saddam Hussein’s stronghold—the riverside city of Tikrit (located at the end of the arrow). Courtesy: CIA World Factbook 2003

Everything was luxurious; marble adorned the walls and floors. All opulent except for one dreadfully lacking area: the latrines. In typical Middle Eastern fashion, the toilets consisted of a hole in the marble floor—the architectural term for toilets of this type being “Asian” toilets. I was very glad I only had to spend one night there as, at the age of seventy-eight, squatting over a hole in the floor left much to be desired!

Mark Vargas is an old friend from the 5th Special Forces Group at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. The last time I had seen him prior to my visit to Iraq had been during my book tour for The Hunt for Bin Laden, in March 2003, when we had dinner together after a Chapter 38 meeting at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Mark, with twinkling brown eyes, a wide warm smile, dark hair, and a walrus mustache, is a man of six foot five inches of solid muscle.

Mark went out of his way to show us the layout of the KBR camp. They had their own heliport and many amenities, but what amazed me the most within the camp’s enclosure was the makeshift nine-hole golf course, built by a 4th ID medical unit.

Through a contract with the Army Material Command, KBR is tasked to provide logistical service and support to the 4th Infantry Division base camps. This support encompasses Forward Operating Bases Speicher (Tikrit North), Ironhorse (Tikrit Palace), Warhorse (Baqubah), Packhorse (Tikrit South), Bayonet (Kirkuk), Lancer (Bayji), Pacesetter (Samarra), Lion Base (North Balad), and Kirkush.

To ensure that the U.S. military receives effective, efficient, and timely support, KBR employees live and work side by side with the U.S. military at all 4th ID camps. Support for the 4th ID includes operations and maintenance for dining facilities, refuse service, housing, housing operations and maintenance, latrine and shower services, laundry services, heavy equipment support, horizontal and vertical lift services, and morale welfare and recreation services. At Camp Speicher convoys are formed, stocked with supplies of clothes, food, and gasoline for the military, and sent to places like Mosul in the north or Baghdad, one hundred miles farther south with many hours of driving through notorious “ambush alleys.” Some of these alleys were as long as seven miles and were under constant surveillance by the enemy.

In the late afternoon of our final day at Camp Speicher, Russell Cummings and I went out with a group of 4th ID medical personnel to take what medicine was available and offer assistance, supplies, and equipment to the local people. Russell had been a medic and a captain in the Green Berets. He helped give medical assistance to a woman with a broken leg and to other locals including children who had cuts, bumps, and other wounds that otherwise wouldn’t have been taken care of.

There was typically a great reluctance to “officially” use any medical people or supplies from the U.S. government, unless, as sometimes happened, a local citizen was shot by American forces or hurt by American construction or military action. What we witnessed was one of many strictly volunteer efforts by the medically trained Americans.

An Arabic-speaking lieutenant colonel and an Egyptian-American officer who were with us spent much of the time talking to the people we visited. Later, I discovered that the lieutenant colonel who had been conversing with the locals held a meeting back at Camp Speicher. It transpired that the locals had known Saddam’s family and his closest associates for many years. Some of them, apparently, had almost daily contact with family members who were in Mosul to the north, which was also a seat of Saddam’s personal power. The lieutenant colonel and the Egyptian-American officer seemed to have drawn information from many of the people they had been treating. It turned out that I had been witnessing a HUMINT (Human Intelligence) effort to find out where Saddam might be hidden. This proved to me, once again, the value of compassionate services to the local population who, to a significant extent, contributed to the capture of Saddam Hussein as well as many of his supporters.

During my time in Tikrit, I spent time with both KBR and members of the 4th ID stationed there. LTC Steve Russell was the commander of Task Force 1-22 INF, a battalion of the 4th ID. The 4th ID was a relative latecomer to the war in Iraq. Units such as the Special Forces and the Screaming Eagles had seemingly fought most of the fight and captured much of the battlefield glory. As time would tell, however, the 4th ID would, with the capture of Saddam Hussein, become an icon in their own right.

During the course of my interviews, I found that LTC Russell had kept a moving chronicle of the 4th ID’s efforts in Iraq. The excerpts that follow are from descriptive letters written by LTC Russell, spanning from June 20th to Christmas, 2003. They outline the missions, problems, and uncertainty facing soldiers tasked with fighting a war against pro-Saddam insurgents in the Ba’athist stronghold of Tikrit, Iraq. Tikrit had always been Saddam’s “home,” and it was near here that he was finally captured.

I came into possession of the letters when LTC Russell said good bye, as we left Tikrit. He handed Cummings and me a wealth of information on his unit and their purpose in Iraq. “I hope everything we’ve done for you here will be of some assistance in your new book,” I recall the young and energetic lieutenant colonel saying. Only when I had arrived back home, and put the floppy disk that LTC Russell gave me into my computer, did I realize that his letters would be such a monumental credit to himself, his troops, and the United States of America.

Not long before, Chris Thompson, my project co-coordinator, heard a radio interview with the father of a soldier killed in Iraq. The father had expressed his dismay with the lack of detail from the Department of Defense when they told him that his son had been killed in action. No other insight into the matter was given, other than he had a certain amount of time to alert the rest of the family before the news was released to the press. The father did not want the first word of his son’s demise to be heard by anyone in the family on the television, so he braced himself and began making phone calls before the story and his son’s name aired.

Wondering how his son had spent his last moments on earth, the father came across some rather grisly footage on an Al-Jazeera Web site, in which his son’s humvee, which had been ambushed by insurgents, was shown in blazing color. The father lamented the fact that the only bit of closure he had received was not from the Army, but from Arab television.

As we delved into LTC Russell’s letters, we realized that much of what the letters contained were what the families of fallen soldiers needed for closure. We preferred they get it from their unit commander rather than from Al-Jazeera. LTC Russell wrote (about his letters), “I also have been thinking that the letters have become something more than just my personal assessments. Perhaps they can be used to tell our great soldiers’ stories as we as a nation try to assimilate all that this last year has entailed. I have only meant them to convey what we have lived here and to serve the memory of those we have lost.” In his own voice, LTC Russell brings the stories to life. They have been gently altered for the purposes of protecting the lieutenant colonel’s family and privacy, allowing a bit of literary license for context, but without altering the facts, details, or overall content and voice.

The Widow’s Tears

Her heart has stopped; she cannot breathe

At the letter she never wanted to receive

She all but crumbled to the floor

At the minister and officers at her door

The officer says “I’m sorry, Ma’am”

As he hands her the telegram

The world now no longer makes any sense

With the delivery from the Department of Defense

Sympathy on their faces clearly shows

But none of them knowing the pain she knows

Wanting it all to be but a bad dream

She clutches her heart, an anguished scream

Her head in her hand and starts to cry

All the while wondering “Why?”

Facing an Army wife’s worst fears

Shedding now the Widow’s tears

—KATIE MORRIS (2003)

Saddam’s Hometown

[LTC STEVE RUSSELL]

JUNE 20, 2003

As most of you know, our soldiers operate in the city and surrounding villages of Tikrit, Iraq. The Tikrit area was the birthplace and hometown of Saddam Hussein. Needless to say, this has made it an interesting place to operate, as there are many “die-hard” loyalists to the old regime. Most are not, and there are even some who are welcoming our soldiers because they fear the local population will kill them for living privileged lives under Saddam.

Our operations target hostile forces trying to prevent the efforts of U.S. soldiers and the Iraqi local government and police. The local government is making great progress here. I cannot speak for the rest of Iraq, but if Tikrit is any indication, these people are well on their way to self-government. We have made great strides in working together and they continue to provide us valuable information on the activities of hostile elements within our sector.

This phase of the war in my mind seems to be one of insurgency. The Iraqi Army had no formal surrender and the soldiers were not formally processed anywhere. Instead the Iraqi soldiers simply dissolved into a hundred cities, towns, and villages. Most want simply to get on with their lives. A small minority appears to cling to the past. These are the ones that are attacking our soldiers. In the last few weeks, we have engaged them and recently we have hurt their local command and control structure in such a way as they cannot quickly recover.

RPG War

The first week of June saw our soldiers attacked in a series of small arms and RPG raids. The hostile elements were not afraid to engage our forces. On the 4th of June, hostile elements attacked a section of our B Company Bradleys (Bradley Fighting Vehicles) attached to 3-66 AR. Our Infantry avoided the initial strike but as they came around the village, they were ambushed from the rear. An RPG penetrated the rear ramp door of the lead Bradley.

Providentially, the penetrator warhead on the RPG had miraculously threaded the fire team of Infantry in the vehicle—missing them all. The warhead hit some electronic equipment near the turret wall and exploded. Although the five men suffered flash burns and shrapnel wounds, their body armor and Kevlar helmets saved their lives, and all escaped without severe life or limb injury. All are recovering well and a couple have now returned to duty.

On the night of June 5, a Bradley from the same company hit an antitank mine on the front left side of the vehicle. The blast ripped a hole through the driver’s compartment and sent the front drive sprocket, a couple of road wheels, and the hull access covers flying. The resulting laceration in the hull was almost big enough for me to climb through.

The driver, a young private, endured the shock of the blast, instantly suffering two broken legs and a broken arm. His body armor and equipment saved him from more severe injuries. This brave young man kept his head and immediately hit the fuel shutoff valve and reached behind him to drop the ramp door, allowing his fellow Infantrymen to escape from the vehicle. His comrades came to his aid, as he was trapped in the vehicle. He is now recovering well from his wounds.

That same night, our C Company also had a Bradley hit by an RPG. The cone of the warhead hit a case of water, causing the warhead to malfunction. Miraculously, the warhead did not explode and we were able to render the explosive safe. Our men suffered no injuries. Our men also acted quickly on a mortar that was fired on U.S. forces, which we subsequently captured with fifteen rounds of ammunition. The soldiers continue to behave with amazing discipline and our nation should be very proud of them.

On the night of the 5th to 6th of June, hostile elements struck our civil-military coordination building. This is where local Iraqis come to work out issues with U.S. forces in our area. A volley of RPGs ripped the stale night air after plunging into the walled compound. Soldiers reacted immediately as hostile small arms fire peppered the compound. Our men gained a position behind walls, Hesco Bastions (concrete barriers brought in by Army Engineers), and windows as they returned fire. The initial volley wounded four of our men, but they continued to fight the assailants who had positioned themselves on the rooftops of homes across the main highway.

An MP from our task force a few buildings down at the Iraqi police station opened up with .50 cal fire on the rooftops. His suppressive fire allowed the men at the other building to deploy a Bradley at the enemy element. An enemy element from a different direction then opened up on the MP with an RPG, severely wounding the young soldier. Our Bradley opened up with machine gun and 25mm fire along the rooftops, effectively deciding the contest.

All firing at this point ceased. The brave MP had emptied a can of .50 cal ammunition before falling unconscious from his wounds. We were able to evacuate and stabilize him at our aid station. He later died from his wounds and loss of blood. Our other soldiers suffered mostly shrapnel wounds. The enemy paid dearly. While we did not realize it at the time, we wounded at least four and were later able to capture four others involved in the attack along with 2 × RPG launchers. Information on other enemy wounded or killed remains unknown, although reports from locals say we caused a great deal of damage to him.

The Big Stick

From this point, we acted quickly. The curfew was strictly enforced in Tikrit—a city of approximately seventy-five thousand. Those caught out after curfew were rounded up in the local soccer stadium, where we employed them as a trash detail the next morning to help keep Tikrit beautiful (an optimistic task at best). The effect was immediate, as the locals had no desire for such work and the streets were eerily empty during subsequent nights.

We then focused our efforts to grab the initiative like a stick and beat the enemy with it. For the last week, we have had great cooperation from the local government and police. Our own efforts have focused on hostile activities. Using multiple, simultaneous raids, we have captured a number of important individuals that led us to bigger fish. By now you all have heard that High Value Target (HVT) #4 [Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, Presidential Secretary and cousin to Saddam] was captured here in Tikrit on the night of June 16. Our men performed superbly and worked in cooperation with Special Forces.

We also spoiled an attack on our market, and our flash checkpoints from C Company captured fourteen armed men with AK-47s in the space of an hour and a half. Information from raids and pressure on people we detained led us to the info for HVT #4’s capture and culminated this week with the raids on the Hadooshi farm on the night of the 17th. The Hadooshis were believed to be personal bodyguards of Saddam Hussein. It was here TF 1-22 Infantry seized AK-47s, night vision and surveillance equipment, sniper weapons, global position equipment, and large amounts of ammunition—not your typical farm implements.

But the biggest catch of all at the farm was $8,303,000 in U.S. cash and another $1 million worth of Iraqi currency. We also found an estimated $2 million worth of jewelry that belonged to Sajida Khairallah Telfah, better known as the wife of Saddam Hussein and mother of Uday and Qusay.

I had never seen such cash or treasure in my life. It simply boggles the mind. Our men performed magnificently and our recon platoon leader, 1LT (First Lieutenant) Chris Morris, ensured our great success with his quick actions at the farm. He decided to take the farm with his scouts even though we intended to maneuver additional force there. The activity at the farm called for immediate action, however, and the element of surprise and the discipline of our men carried the day.

CPT Mark Stouffer’s A Company also struck gold with a captured top-ranking Republican Guard officer and also one of Saddam’s bodyguards. The noose is tightening. Now the enemy is scattered and on the run. The next morning after these operations, our men captured a man at a checkpoint attempting to flee with $800,000 U.S. cash in a gym bag. C Company, 3-66 AR has been a big help as well with our flash checkpoints.

Local authorities report we have hurt the subversive elements severely. Even the Muslim Imams have expressed an appreciation for our efforts. But our work is far from being over. The hostile elements remain and attempt to strike back with indirect-fire attacks or attacks on our convoys. We remain vigilant.

The men have good morale and are flushed with the recent successes. We are living well for the most part, billeted as we are in former palace compounds. The weather remains oppressive and all we generally do is soak our uniforms with our own sweat in the 115-degree heat. But we are eating well and have generally good hygiene. Our equipment is holding up relatively well, given the operations and environment. The robust Bradleys and body armor have earned the absolute respect of our men as they have repeatedly shown that they will save lives.

JULY 3, 2003

Wanted to drop another note to let you all know how things are going with the “Regulars” of TF 1-22 Infantry.

The pace of operations since my last update on 20 June has been brisk. Our A Company along with a platoon from C Company flew by CH-47 (Chinook helicopter) in support of operations along the Syrian border.

Our task force was given about forty-five minutes’ notice from alert to liftoff. The men operated out of rucksacks for about five days and performed superbly. The heat there was oppressive like the rest of the country, but there was a little greener vegetation and the temperatures were actually quite cool to the men at night.

When our battalion reassembled, we operated in farmland vicinity of the Tigris River. The Bradley Fighting Vehicle smashed through the gate, removing wrought iron, concrete, and mortar in a cloud of dust and was quickly followed by our Infantry shuffling down the ramp of the vehicle to secure the area. I must admit it was a wonderful thing and something we never get to do in training.

Fedayeen Funk

The health of the men has remained good but the “Feda-yeen Funk” personally struck me one morning. Dizziness, vomiting, and diarrhea combined to overwhelm me for about a twenty-four-hour period. Fortunately, the battalion has an ample roster of talent and they allowed me the rest I needed. Our men see bouts of this type on occasion and the soldiers have coined several entertaining terms to describe the maladies: “Saddam’s revenge,” “The two-cheek sneak,” and as already mentioned, the “Fedayeen Funk.” Fortunately, our medics and docs attack these with medications that “shock and awe” the viruses into submission within a day.

We had the privilege to brief Administrator Bremer and Acting Secretary Brownlee recently and they were very complimentary of our soldiers and the success of our operations. We maintain the initiative and refuse to hunker down. Some BBC reporters interviewed me recently with a story already written and they needed the sound bites to support it. But we could not agree with their estimation that operations had somehow turned for the worse for us in Tikrit. I explained to them that the acts of violence we had seen represented the actions of a desperate and losing foe.

Our cooperation with the locals continues to improve and the Iraqi government and police officials have joined our forces in their own future. I cannot speak for all of Iraq, but we have the upper hand in Tikrit and make it a heavy hand only for those who do not comply.

The command sergeant major and I went to Mosul to visit part of our A Company troops attached to the 101st Airborne there. The town is on the site of the ancient city of Ninevah. Its hills, taller trees, and greenery were a pleasant contrast to our area of operations. The men there are doing well and are making the best of the situation there. They are not as heavily engaged there and generally are performing duties guarding the airfield.

Our C Company will change commanders soon as CPT Randy Taylor departs to be a comptroller and CPT Brad Boyd takes over the fighting soldiers of “Cold Steel.” We also sent home our first group of soldiers released by the Army’s removal of stop loss and stop move policies. Our strength remains robust and I was very happy to send these men home after their great service to our nation. They can be very proud of their accomplishments.

We continue the fight as if we are here until the job is done, and I am convinced we will get the big boys eventually. We have already gotten #4 and continue to erode the support base of people harboring them. The fact that they remain on the run and uncoordinated gives me great satisfaction.

We see the concern in the American press and the angst from the people at home but what we truly need is for the nation to continue to stand behind us. Every reason that brought us here is still as valid as it was in March. If not us, then who? Who will step up for these 26 million people? Our resolve remains clear.

Creatures of Combat

1ST BATTALION, 22ND INFANTRY,
TIKRIT, IRAQ—JULY 26, 2003
“REGULARS, BY GOD!”

Long hot days have greeted us but not necessarily in the morning. Our men conduct operations at all hours and the average soldier is active sixteen to twenty hours a day. Sometimes we get more rest but nothing can be scheduled. Our operations drive our activities and soldiers get snatches of rest when they can. They need not be told.

The sun bores into our vehicles, our clothing, and eventually us, compensated by our profuse sweating that soaks our uniforms literally from shoulder blades to kneecaps. Our equipment absorbs even more sweat as it pinches and encases us like an exoskeleton, transforming us into stinky, sour, salty, and drenched creatures of combat.

We have become accustomed to it now but we are comforted by the hope that we are now past the summer solstice and daily lose seven minutes of daylight, which will gradually result in cooler temperatures. When we shed our equipment, we attempt to dry out, and this being accomplished, our uniforms take on the appearance of stiff and badly starched fatigues, with a map of salt stains lining the shores of where the sweat had advanced in our clothing.

The sun also bores into the metal of our weapons and sometimes our rifles are so hot to the touch that we must wear gloves to remain comfortable. But the sun does not penetrate or lessen our morale or our ability. We are able to fight under these conditions as our enemy has learned to his own detriment.

The day after my last update—July 3rd—soldiers from our B Company were greeted with a fireworks display of a different kind. A Bradley Fighting Vehicle was on patrol with a tank section on a dusty street. The platoon sergeant in the vehicle noticed that a tire was in the road and, this being unusual, told the driver not to drive over it. The driver—who had placed his armor plated vest on the floor below him that morning on a gut feel and wore a vehicle vest in addition to it—veered to the right. When he did, a violent explosion erupted through the vehicle.

The engine in the front of the vehicle lurched cock-eyed as the hull-access cover on top sailed through the air, followed closely by the entire transmission of the vehicle. As the transmission completed its trajectory, road wheels, sprockets, and associated smaller hatches, accompanied it. The platoon sergeant’s helmet was blown from his head and immediately consumed in flames, although his head was miraculously untouched.

Inside, the driver felt a searing heat, smelled the Halon fire extinguishers blow, which consumed the flames, had his feet and legs bounced upward by his armored vest, and felt a sharp pain to the back of his neck and left-hand fingers.

The soldiers in the back were consumed in a concussive shock wave of blast and heat that was extinguished as quickly as it had lashed at them. One soldier’s glasses were blown from his face, while another was nearly knocked out but he somehow maintained consciousness. The platoon sergeant felt sharp nerve endings and blood on one of his legs.

After the one second of time that encompassed this, the men immediately reacted. The driver, despite his wounds, was able to pull himself free, exit his station, and help the others get out. All exited the vehicle, covered by the tanks in trail. The men could not imagine having been inside the vehicle that they were now viewing. For two of the men, this was the second time they had suffered a mine explosion while in a Bradley.

Now full of adrenaline, they accounted for themselves and equipment and realized that God had spared them from what should have been certain maiming or death. They were able to secure themselves, evacuate the wounded, and recover the destroyed vehicle. Of the eight men aboard, all have since returned to duty but one. He is expected to fully recover. We remain “Regulars, by God.”

“Pepsi” War

In the next couple of days that followed, our positions were probed with a series of “pinprick” attacks, producing little but damage to the enemy. In an act of desperation, assailants made improvised bombs from Pepsi cans filled with gunpowder from artillery shells and packed with improvised fragmentation such as glass or gravel. The top was then sealed with tar and an improvised fuse added. The attackers would sneak up at night on our positions behind walls and then attempt to fling the bombs at our troops. The flying, sizzling cans hit the pavement, giving the appearance of a cigarette flicked by a smoker into the street that then rolled a small distance. The ensuing flash and bang caused little damage and our soldiers in most cases captured the stupid manufacturers of these beverage bombs.

After a couple of days of “Pepsi” war, a more serious attempt at injury to our soldiers in C Company was thwarted by their alertness and swift action on July 7. Two men on a motorcycle followed the first sergeant’s convoy that was rotating troops from a position. The assailants intended to ride up to the trail vehicle and shoot a soldier point-blank with a pistol, as had been done earlier in Baghdad. The men, having had scraps with punks on motorcycles before, carefully watched the riders.

As they approached their turnoff, the first sergeant decided to make the turn but to use the vehicles as an instant barricade on the road. The tactic caught the punks completely by surprise. The cyclists braked sharply and tried to jump their bikes across the median to escape the soldier blockade. The soldiers fired warning shots. The passenger attempted a feeble aim with a 9mm Beretta pistol. The soldiers’ next shots showed no mercy. The men volleyed rounds in the distance, hitting the armed man in the leg. The driver gave up but his passenger still attempted resistance, only to be shot in the jaw by SPC (Specialist) Uribe’s M-16A2 assault rifle. That ended the engagement. Both men were captured and the wounded man struggles to this day with tubes stuck in every opening of his body.

The following day, our entire battalion ventured out on a fifty-kilometer raid of a house belonging to Saddam Hussein’s first cousin. Our Recon Platoon, along with the attached Brigade Reconnaissance Troop, scouted the initial objective area and provided an inner cordon. A Company with attached engineers provided the assault forces while C Company provided an outer cordon, reinforced by some tanks from C Company, 3-66 AR attached to our task force. C Company also moved along the Tigris River in RB-15 Zodiac rubber boats to affect a cordon of the riverbank at the target house.

The cousin—much to our disappointment—did not occupy the house, but he had been there recently. We discovered this only after a grand entrance provided by the “Gators” of A Company. Unable to gain access to the single entryway in the back of the plush house, the men—armed with a ten-pound sledgehammer—wailed on a system of sturdy antitheft bars that covered the door to the kitchen and all of the windows.

After four minutes of sweaty work, the soldiers compensated their futility with a door charge of C-4 explosives, using the “P-for-Plenty” method of measurement. The resulting blast effectively remodeled the kitchen with a nice open-air view to the bluffs on the Tigris. It also rearranged the dishes in the cabinets—as well as the cabinets—and provided for permanent open windows in all of the rooms on the ground floor.

A continued search of the house revealed important documents and photographs and small amounts of explosives. Hidden in the yard was a cache of RPG launchers, ammunition, a machine gun, and several Kalashnikov rifles. Our mission complete in a couple of hours, we picked up our “Regular” navy from the Tigris and then moved with the entire task force back to Tikrit.

“Graffiti” War

Back in Tikrit, we began the “Graffiti” war with the enemy. We wanted to counter an array of absurd and poorly written slogans that prophesied the return of Saddam and death to Americans or those who work with Americans. A silhouette of Saddam’s head often accompanied these slogans. Our initial actions were simply to paint bayonets stuck in the Saddam heads, some even adorned with blood spurts or an eyeball popping out. We also added the financial news that a $25 million reward awaited those who brought him in dead or alive.

Seeing that we began to stir a hornet’s nest of sorts, we upgraded our information campaign—thanks to SPC Haggerty—with neat stencils and Arabic writing attesting to the same theme as before. We will not allow the enemy to win even the slightest advantage—not even graffiti.

To keep the enemy from returning to his venomous themes on the wall, we target them, sending sniper bullets nearby as a warning. We also have wrapped concertina wire around one major sign along the main street and placed magnesium trip flares within the wire—so if they pull the wire away to alter our handiwork, they get the scare of their lives. Since our graffiti campaign started, we are beginning to see more and more people just cleaning all of it off their walls or replacing it with paintings or professional signs.

Curiosity Killed the Cat

By the 12th of July we saw a couple of Iraqis who work with us being targeted by hostile forces. The attacks came more as threat vs. action but some improvised explosives were thrown at people’s farms. In one case, a Pepsi bomb sizzled on a sparkly arc into a man’s courtyard and rolled to a stop. His curious cat spotted it and immediately pounced after it, paw raised for action, just as it detonated. I guess the old saying is true after all.

Constant movement and action from our task force characterized the days that followed. We planned, assembled, raided, exploited, reassembled, and set up again for the next operation. An area to the east of the Tigris, known for its love of mortars and a willingness to use them, was the initial focus of our operations.

As our soldiers moved through the farms and fields on a wide area, we noticed the little things that cause us to look closely at an area. Before too long, the farms and fields yielded a bounty of a different kind. Soldiers with minesweepers and shovels soon harvested rifles, weapons, and rocket-propelled grenade launchers with their evil projectiles. Farmers claiming their innocence could not explain the weapons or their lack of leathery hands and feet that betrayed their true profession. Now they are unemployed.

Our operations continued with our mechanized Infantry delivered to their objectives in Bradleys, trucks, V-hulled boats, and helicopters. We remain versatile and the impact on the morale of the soldiers is manifestly positive—many of them having never used these methods before at Ft. Hood or in their careers. But I see them as Infantry and will employ them by the best means to get the mission accomplished. And accomplish it they do.

The impact on the enemy has been measurable and we continue to hurt him. He must learn that he cannot sustain his operations, be as flexible, match his will against ours, or defeat our forces. Further, he clearly lacks the popular support of his own population. What a reminder of how we must maintain the support of our citizens at home and, with God’s help, nothing will alter the certain outcome.

But the enemy did attempt to strike back, and characteristically, in a most cowardly way. Not only does he hide behind his women and children, engaging us from multifamily dwellings, he also attempts to kill those who cooperate with us—including those who are older and indefensible.

One such target was a man who worked with our forces since our arrival. He was the one who owned the curious cat. On the 14th, he was visiting his son’s auto-parts shop in Tikrit. A group of four men came into the shop and began to threaten and argue with the fifty-five-year-old man. Weapons were soon exposed. The man pulled a pistol and fired at the attackers to ward them off.

He quickly emptied his pistol, and being out of ammo, was surrounded and shot once point-blank in the head and twice in the chest. His two sons came running to his aid, one with an AK-47, which he promptly emptied into the man that had just killed his father. He then used the rifle to club another man senseless. His older brother—armed with a hammer—nailed away at the head of another man. The engagement effectively was over and some of them got away. Nothing could bring back the father.

Two days before he died, this man gave us information about a village to the north of Tikrit. We used it to target a series of selected farms and maneuvered our forces by tank, Bradley, truck, scout humvee, and even boats in the Tigris River, as the village abutted its banks. Within four hours, our men had unearthed over 250 AK-47 rifles, 56 crates of Composition 4 (C-4 plastic explosives) each weighing fifty pounds, 8 crates of blasting caps for the explosive (25,000 in all), surveillance equipment, and a variety of military goods and wares. The men felt proud to at least discover something to honor his death, although we were all very saddened by the loss of this poor, older, honest, and decent man. Their numbers are too few in this godforsaken place to lose even one.

But one more we did lose—a local national translator. He was a simpleminded and humble man in his forties who had a knack for the bottle and one night drifted away from his dwelling. When his body was discovered floating in the Tigris River, having lodged in our military float bridge, we noticed signs of struggle and a severe beating. No doubt he was rolled into the river to finish the attack on his life.

Saddam’s Anniversary

The enemy did attempt attacks on us as well in his grandiose return on the much-vaunted 17th of July—the day Saddam came to power and a former holiday in the old regime. Every Iraqi believed that Saddam’s loyalists might return and defeat the Americans on this anniversary.

We first learned of the enemy’s activity in Tikrit when he spread rumors that the U.S. forces had imposed a curfew banning all movement on the day of the 17th. We noticed on the evening of the 16th that many of the shops were closing early. We asked the locals why and soon learned of the rumor.

We immediately countered with bullhorns and translators telling the people that the 17th was a normal day and they could move freely as they were now a free people. The cheers and applause that greeted these messages could be readily heard above the bullhorns. That the message got out was obvious when the city was teeming with normal activity on the 17th.

That evening, however, the enemy attempted to be teeming himself. At 2350 hours on the 17th, I moved about the city in my humvee convoy with a five-ton truck to collect curfew violators for a ready labor force to clean off graffiti. As we cruised around southern Tikrit near the Women’s College, also known as “RPG Alley,” we once again confirmed why we gave it this label. Making a right turn, we heard the whoosh and bang of RPGs, fired by attackers who did not anticipate our change of direction. The sound an RPG makes upon contact is best described as sounding like a Dumpster dropped from a fifty-story building. The volley struck in a prong with the left fork heading near an observation post atop the Women’s College and the right fork just barely missing our vehicles because we turned right instead of heading straight.

We immediately jumped the median of the multilane street and headed the unarmored vehicles back into the enemy. Our men deployed out to the crack of what sounded like pistol shots from a roof. Angered at this point at the enemy’s cowardice, we moved forward and taunted him, shouting expletives for him to be drawn out.

Gaining the defilade of a low and crudely laid block wall, we coordinated with an element of the MPs to move to the east and provide a cordon on the backstreets. This accomplished, we began to see our Recon Platoon humvees move up on our left as we moved north along the two alleys. As we met in the crossbar of an “H” of streets, we once again taunted the enemy. This time he obliged.

Gunfire erupted in a series of automatic weapons bursts. The first crashed near our feet sending newly chipped gravel in all directions accompanied by that clearly recognizable sharp crack of bullets aimed at you. As we returned fire in the direction of the attackers on a roof of a small building in the top half of the “H,” a second burst from a rooftop on the upper-right leg of the “H” peppered the scout trucks. A third burst that appeared to come from a submachine gun at the same location splashed over the middle scout truck.

The gunner mounted in the cupola of his humvee uncontrollably corkscrewed out of the vehicle with the shout, “I’m hit!” and collapsed into the street. “Q-Beam” white lights soon fingered the rooftop, revealing an attacker. As a sergeant tried to get to the aid of his buddy, we acquired the man on the rooftop. At the same time as a medic dashed around a humvee and grabbed our wounded man by the nylon strap sewn in the back of his armored vest, we engaged with more small arms and Mark-19 grenades. The wounded soldier was dragged to safety while the thump, thump, thump of three grenades from the Mark-19 grenade launcher signaled the deadly arc of firepower that soon ended the engagement.

The report rang out that our man was OK. A 9mm bullet had grazed above his right eye, creating an eleven-stitch cut, and then lodged in the back of his Kevlar helmet. This accounted for his spinning to the ground. As the medic checked him, he told the soldier he was OK, placed a bandage on him, and handed the man his rifle back. Through oaths and epithets our wounded man assured all of us he wanted to find the man who shot him. He recovers now with swellings, that if he were back home, might be mistaken as the result of a very bad barroom fight.

Our men continued to search the area for the man we surely must have hit, and found evidence of positions. We determined his number to be two or three men. True to form, his “miss-and-run” tactics produced little and he gained sanctuary among the multitude of innocent families lining the streets. For our part, we took great satisfaction in driving him off but our bloodlust was up and we wanted evidence to satisfy it. It would soon come in the form of a black mourning “martyr” banner appearing with one name and the same date on a mosque nearby, calling on those to honor him as he died attacking the Americans.

Scroll forward a couple more hours. Now the terrain changes to a dusty farm village to the south of Tikrit. A Company patrolled through the streets checking for anything abnormal. Flying rocket-propelled grenades certainly qualified. The men brought their Bradley section into action but the assailants fled to a house. The “Gators” of A Company quickly recovered from the near misses of RPGs and then brought their force to bear on the house.

Infantry spilled out the back of the vehicles, joining others that were brought up in a truck. The house was empty of attackers—but not his weapons. The cowards fled, leaving an RPG launcher and three rockets. Patrols went to police up the attackers the next day.

Scroll forward another hour, but this time the scene switches to northern Tikrit to the “Cobras” of C Company. A skinny man on a motorcycle cruises down the four-lane road with an even skinnier weapon. The silhouette reveals it to be an RPG launcher strapped to his back. Still a good distance from the “Birthday Palace,” but close enough to be deemed hostile, fusillades of fire greet the man, causing him to turn wildly and escape down a side alley. He is quickly absorbed into the city and into the night. His attack and no doubt his pride were thwarted but unfortunately we did not get him.

The enemy’s boastful claims of Saddam’s return on the 17th of July never materialized. Instead, the view that the Iraqis had here when they opened their windows on the morning of the 18th was of their own police, government officials, and American forces providing for their security. They seemed to accept it. They also seemed to acknowledge that Saddam would not return.

Even his image on the Farouk Palace gate was blown from its mount on the morning of the 18th, providing a powerful visual to those that observed it. The huge bronze statue that sat atop a fifty-foot-high arched gate was soon laced with explosives. The metallic body of Saddam holding a banner and sitting astride a charging horse flanked by rockets soon trotted down the parapet, stumbled, then crashed with a finality symbolic of Saddam’s former regime.

When the dust settled, the people seemed to settle with it. They have been somewhat calmer and assured since, realizing that all the fearful talk of Saddam returning was just talk. The evening of the 18th was calm—except for a volley of mortar rounds fired into an insignificant patch of sand near C Company, 3-66 AR—the “Cougars.”

A More Developed Enemy

Now that we are in the post “return” period, the people seem to cooperate more but we also see a more developed enemy. Take the evening of the 19th for example. An observation post (OP) providing security and warning to C Company noticed a two-man team in all black, long-sleeved clothing and black veils stealthily scale a wall and begin to work toward a corner near the entrance. They each carried loaded RPG launchers. The OP soldiers took aim and let out an accurate burst. The first bullet literally struck two inches from an attacker’s head, when it penetrated the rear flange of the weapon, causing him to lose control of his RPG.

Startled by the shot, he also prematurely squeezed the trigger and fired his RPG grenade wildly into the street. The second attacker also pulled the trigger of his weapon, sending a deadly blast into the compound wall but fifteen meters from where he intended it to go. A metallic, echoed boom—followed by a shower of gypsum-starved concrete—blended with the sharp chatter of American rifle fire.

The badly shattered enemy fled over the low wall he was pinned against and into even darker shadows. A quick reaction of men assembled inside the compound. A Bradley Fighting Vehicle, not waiting for the gate to be opened for sake of time, crashed through it and flattened it to the ground. Other forces began to cordon approximately four blocks of the city along a two-street axis. The enemy fled on foot, ditching a grenade and other items that would mark him as hostile. The soldiers weaved through city blocks, unable to find those whose attack had been thwarted once again.

The next morning, a command-detonated explosive hidden in a pothole erupted into a humvee of a passing element using the main supply route in our area. Three soldiers were wounded but fortunately, they were very near one of our surgical hospitals. The “Cougars” quickly assisted them in their tanks and provided medical assistance and thankfully the men were not seriously injured. Sifting through the debris, the men noticed parts of a cell phone used to detonate the device. Also visible were parts of a mortar tube, apparently packed with C-4 and used in a very unconventional manner.

The Regulars used our own mortars, but in a more conventional way the next day. Finally given permission for counter battery fire, the “Thunder” soldiers of our mortar platoon registered 120mm rounds, sending earth and stubble skyward from abandoned fields. In the last several days, we have fired numerous rounds to counter the enemy’s indirect-fire attacks. Since we began this, we have seen little more activity. This is the first firing of “regular” mortars since Vietnam and the men are very proud to carry on the traditions of our veterans before us.

A Strange Mood

The evening of the 22nd, a strange mood descended over the city. Every eye is glued to the television sets as the breaking news of Uday and Qusay Hussein’s deaths jolts like an electric shock. The city is eerily quiet but not without danger.

At approximately 2250 hours, another familiar “Dumpster crash” is heard signaling an RPG attack as we head south in our command group convoy. We head north along the main highway that bisects the town and see a pall of smoke. Local men gesture from balconies with general directions deduced from their pointing fingers. A quick patrol from our men loops around the block but finds nothing. The target was a photo shop wedged into a corner. Maybe the assailant didn’t get his film on time.

On the 23rd, we saw the enemy become very active. Perhaps the news of Uday and Qusay’s deaths ignited hatred and anger. Regardless of what sparked the evening events, the enemy would soon pay dearly.

At about 2130, our C Company reported stopping a car that had sped at a high rate of speed with 25 million dinars (about $15,000 U.S.). Being an unusual sum, the men called to ask what to do. We took my translator to the scene to decipher the situation and learned that the Iraqi males in the car had made a legitimate business transaction on the sale of some property and were afraid of being robbed, so they hurried to their house. Deducing this after verifying it with documents, we let them go and proceeded south in the city. The C Company patrol then collapsed their checkpoint and prepared to leave.

As they left the T-intersection, a crash of RPG rounds accompanied with small arms fire thundered about them. No damage was caused to our men in the Bradleys. The attackers fled to points south as quickly as they had fired. Hearing the explosions near the location we had just left, my convoy cut to the east a couple of blocks down and then headed north in complete blackout with our night vision toward where we thought the attack might have come from.

A white Nissan pickup truck fishtails around a corner. My safety instinctively flips to fire on my M-4 carbine. My driver, SPC Hoeffer, veers left to block the pickup. Weapons are visible. Four men in the truck. Looks of surprise flash from underneath all-black Arab headdress. Hoeffer rams the vehicle.

The enemy is startled by the impact. I’m on my feet charging the vehicle, shattering the windshield with rifle fire. The second vehicle in my group now rounds the corner, seeing enemy fire sail through the air, but it is unnoticed by the two of us. Hoeffer cuts down the man exiting the passenger side of the truck. The enemy driver never made it out after my opening burst.

I shift to the two men in the back. Hoeffer and I have them in an “L” with no place for them to go. Blurs of clothing, AK-47s, and earsplitting sound. I squeeze my tactical flashlight on my weapon and fire heavily into the man in the back and then at the other man as he attempts to take cover on the other side of the vehicle. Hoeffer denies him refuge with his rifle and he becomes still in a wadded-up heap by the right-rear wheel—AK-47 nearby. Our other soldiers in the trail vehicles come up to support but the enemy lay in heaps. A Fedayeen cell is destroyed.

Simultaneously, rifle fire erupts to the east along the main street of the city. A blue car and an ambulance move cautiously down the road. Two men exit the ambulance with AK-47s and get into the car. We have waited a long time for this one. Snipers engage. The blue car races as glass shards fly from its rear windshield. The ambulance driver cannot maneuver. Spider-webbed circles the size of half-dollars sequentially dot the driver’s side of the windshield.

The vehicle stops. A man struggles out of the vehicle, badly injured, and collapses on the street. Unidentified fire arcs toward the soldiers. A confused “friendly” force from a completely different unit on the main street—also a main supply route—mistakes our men for the enemy. Our men keep their heads and attempt to gain their attention, shouting that they are American forces. No avail.

Our three men remain disciplined despite the automatic grenades that impact their location. Our recon element rockets toward the location and forcefully disengages the confused element. Three Regulars are wounded but, thankfully, the wounds are shrapnel wounds to the flesh only. Two are returned to duty, another will return shortly.

Pumped with adrenaline as we search for the four men from the pickup, I take this latest development hard. Our ambushes have been extremely successful, now darkened by the careless actions of well-meaning but non-Infantry soldiers. We continue the search and find Indian currency and French cigarettes. What does it mean? Three AK-47s, two RPG launchers with rounds prepped and ready, two hand grenades, an M-79 40mm grenade launcher with six rounds, and several magazines of small arms ammunition are pulled from the truck and the dead. Armed to the teeth, the enemy clearly intended on more attempts to kill Americans.

Three points of the city are secured. The enemy’s attack is defeated at each point with heavy price exacted from him. We learned later that the four in the truck were the sons of bodyguards of Saddam Hussein or sons of his relatives.

The next day, another cell attempts a daylight attack on C Company’s compound in an open field abutting to the east. The engagement begins with sporadic rifle fire. Perhaps the enemy attempted to draw us out. He is obliged but not in the manner he expects. Bradleys in an “Overwatch” position wail on a now-ubiquitous white Nissan truck. A man struggles and flees the burning vehicle, only to be shot sideways through the lungs by a soldier’s rifle fire.

RPGs launch and crash from a northern side street. Additional C Company force is brought to bear and is engaged from the south. Small arms, 25mm chain guns, and machine guns crack and thump in swift reply. The contest ends. Another cell is destroyed with one enemy killed, two wounded, and one surrendering. Those from the harboring houses are detained. C Company is unscathed.

The damage to the enemy is manifest. His anger and carelessness continue to cost him in deficits he cannot repay. The city takes on an apprehensive calm. So continue the gurgling gasps of a dying regime. Their lifeblood now draining, it is only a matter of time. Meanwhile a new Iraq is born.

Hot!

AUGUST 24, 2003
“REGULARS, BY GOD!” “DEEDS, NOT WORDS.”

We finally won the battle to get e-mail. It took a lot of effort, but now the soldiers can at least drop a note every few days with better turnaround on news to their families. We set up three terminals for the soldiers to use in the battalion headquarters and the companies rotate on a schedule.

Beginning the 27th of July, CSM Martinez and I made the rounds to the companies to award the Combat Infantry Streamer to each Infantry Company guidon (unit flag). It is a great honor to the units and one of which they are very proud. Also during these visits, we took the opportunity to talk to the soldiers about their concerns. These ranged from the need for certain items of mission-essential equipment, to small comfort items to help them relax when they are not on patrols, to how to better communicate with their families. We have been able to improve in all of these areas. We fought to get the newer body armor vests for all of our soldiers and won, though not without exertion. Now all our soldiers are better protected.

After coming back on the 27th from Bayji (north of Tikrit) where B Company is, we had activity that quickly reminded us that we have much work to do even while feeling proud of our accomplishments. Someone placed a bomb in front of a house in central Tikrit. The blast blew open the gate and damaged the wall of the courtyard. The Iraqi family there asked our soldiers to help them move to relatives that night as it was after curfew. My operations officer, MAJ Brian Luke, obliged and as the family was escorted a few blocks to the east, one of our soldiers noticed a shovel leaning against a wall.

SPC Garcia began to look at the dirt and the shovel. Within minutes, 44 antitank mines, 20 lbs. of C-4 explosives and 200 lbs. of propellant were unearthed. More digging: 9 grenades, 4 mine initiators, an AK-47, and 30 60mm mortar rounds soon followed. This same building had been cleared not a few days before.

As this developed, a burst of gunfire erupted to the south in an arc across the main highway toward the governor’s building. A Company soldiers soon enveloped an area of two warehouses. The soldiers entered the first and spotted five men, one armed with an SKS rifle. The Iraqi man immediately dropped it when he saw the Americans and our men quickly deduced that these men were just food guards.

They continued on to the next warehouse. A man stood in the shadows as the soldiers approached. SPC Morgan entered with his fire team and shouted at the man to come forward in English and Arabic. The man darted into the shed instead, and appeared a second time with an AK-47. SPC Morgan aimed his rifle at the man and killed what turned out to be the assailant that had attacked the governor’s building. An enemy and lots of deadly mines and explosives were now in our hands.

We continued to thin the ranks of those attacking our men the last week of July and we also received detailed information as to the location of an important bodyguard of Saddam Hussein. This particular man was often seen in photos with Saddam and his family. The locals also knew him as a vicious murderer.

In a lightning raid, the Recon Platoon and A Company secured three houses in residential Tikrit. We were looking specifically for three men; two were bodyguards and one an organizer for the former regime. Within forty-five minutes, we had all three men. The raid made national news and the men were extremely valuable to our efforts.

The main target—Saddam’s personal bodyguard—didn’t give up without a fight. Our scouts found him upstairs, emboldened with liquor, attempting to grab a Sterling Submachine Gun. Butt strokes and quick action prevented his death. He swung at the men but soon found himself being dragged down the stairs, his head hitting each step. Subdued and in his courtyard, with slight bleeding to the forehead, bulbs flashed from the several media present. The news quickly spread in Tikrit to the elation of all, who now saw this former cutthroat of Saddam brought into our custody.

The 30th and 31st became eerily quiet. This was perhaps the first time in weeks that nothing happened—no gunfire, no attacks, nothing.

Our raids continued with success. On the 1st of August, we bagged three more men—all with ties to Saddam. While I cannot specify the ties, I can say they were involved with the personal family duties and staff. Now each raid seemed to feed upon the other, with encouraging results.

The Candy Box

Discouraging news shortly followed. We learned from a frantic local sheik that same evening that the bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein were to be delivered to his village the next day and then buried in the local cemetery. Not pleased at the news—as this village also has our men in it—we worked all evening to confirm this. We were told to do nothing. The corpses were to be turned over to the Red Crescent after being flown to our city. We were instructed to provide no escort or involvement.

We watched at a distance as three corpses (the third being Mustafa—Qusay’s fourteen-year-old son killed while firing an AK-47 under a bed) were laid into the dirt. Arrogant men, some veiled, surrounded the graves in pathetic prayerful worship over these murdering lifeless forms. They piled dirt mounds above their sunken corpses and then secured an Iraqi flag to each mound with dirt clods along the edges. The funeral passed uneventfully. But a candy box in the middle of the main highway in town would shatter the quiet of the previous two days.

The enemy launched an attack in the early evening using improvised explosives. The first was nearly identical to the second except in result. Each bomb appeared to be a box (one candy, the other Kleenex) packed with C-4 explosives and nuts and bolts serving as projectiles. How they were detonated remains unknown.

Our Recon Platoon traveled up the main highway through the city center. Congestion by the telephone exchange offices narrowed the lanes to one. A median, elevated with planters, served as a directional backstop for the candy box concealed among so much other trash in this unsanitary country. The first scout passed by but the second seemed to disappear in a concussive mass of flame and smoke. Glass flew everywhere from the telephone exchange building. Policemen inside were knocked off their feet. Windows from a taxi full of kids blew into the youths as the pavement took on an appearance of an unfinished mosaic of glass.

Our soldiers in the third humvee quickly dismounted to see if they could assist but the truck was not there. Its driver, his eye bleeding and his arm filled with fragmentation, threw the vehicle into low gear and nursed the humvee with four flat tires out of the blast zone. The soldier in the back seat took searing heat and fragmentation to the neck and left arm. His left eardrum registered no sound.

Men yelled to each other as the staff sergeant—unscathed in the front-right seat—assessed his men in the vehicle. The gunner up top could be seen bleeding from the face and neck. But all were moving and so was the vehicle. The scouts continued their wobbly ride toward our compound. The perforated vehicle went through the gate. The men cleared their weapons with bloody hands and then made their way with assistance to the aid station. Two have returned to duty and the third will need more time for his ear to heal but will recover.

The second bomb detonated approximately twenty minutes later and about two miles north along the same road. Military Police vehicles, similar in appearance to our scout vehicles, became the unintended target. No major damage occurred in the mistimed blast except a few headlamps and cosmetic damage to the fiberglass hood of a single vehicle.

After talking to my wounded scouts and seeing that they were going to be OK, we continued on with our combat patrols. That night I headed south along the highway to the burial village and located the new graves of Saddam’s sons. Flushed with the emotion of having three more of my men wounded, and having drunk two quarts of water, I paid my respects on the graves of Uday and Qusay Hussein.

We spent the day of the 3rd of August planning for a simultaneous raid on each side of the river. We were looking for two individuals who have been organizing attacks on our soldiers. Our intelligence was good and we found the locations of the farms and a house in the northern suburb. The targeted men were not there, although their families were. We found important photos, information, and documents. The raid proved successful however as the next morning one of the two men sought came to the civil-military relations office to complain about the raid on his undamaged house. We took him to our complaint department where he has remained ever since.

Our combat patrols continued in the city with ambushes laid out for an elusive enemy. Assailants with RPGs fired on a C Company patrol near the Women’s College but hit nothing. A Kellogg, Brown & Root worker driving north of Tikrit did hit a mine, however, and lost his life in the ensuing blast. It was a terrible tragedy that illustrates the dangers in the use of contractors on the battlefield.

On the night of the 5th, our men saw a small group walk across the main street in town with an RPG launcher and AK-47s. Seeing no clear shot, they waited. Soon a man appeared around a corner with an RPG at the ready. Our men fired first, wounding the man in the leg. He shrieked in pain and then calm settled over the alleyways.

The next night, the 6th, we captured the head of a Feda-yeen cell in a hotel raid covered by a full complement of media. We detained thirty-nine individuals (we released thirty-eight) but among them was our man. Two of his new recruits fled the following day but we caught them motoring south toward Baghdad based on a tip from the locals. Later, a merchant brought us their RPG launcher with three rockets. He said he saw them hide it earlier and brought it to us once he learned we had captured them. We continue to see the Iraqi support increase along with each success.

But the arms still flow into the city. Locals had told us so and the merchants from the market complained to the governor and police about it. They said that the weapons were being used to attack them and the Americans. We decided to set daylight ambushes on the Friday market to curb the flow.

At 0730 on Friday the 8th, we finally confirmed that the complaints were true. Our snipers noticed two men in a red car pull into the field surrounded by the market shops along the streets. The field is also used as a “flea market” where anyone can vend his wares or produce. These two men decided to vend weapons. They laid out wheat sacks filled with AK-47 magazines and grenade launcher attachments. Next, they set up various other small arms items on the now empty sacks. Finally, they pulled an AK-47 out of the trunk. The men reported it but wanted to be sure these were weapons dealers. After small devices and electronic switches for bomb making and then more AK-47s appeared, the men engaged.

The sharp crack of a sniper rifle drew little attention at first. A vendor selling crackers not ten feet from the arms traders took little notice, thinking the men were testing the weapons. But then he noticed that one man holding a weapon jerked and suddenly dropped it, his arm bleeding profusely. The driver of the red car, unaware of what was happening, watched as one of two other men present handled weapons. The man turned around with an AK-47 seeking the direction of the fire. A round ripped through him. He ran forward, weapon in hand. Another round found its target. Then he slumped to the ground.

The driver ran frantically to the car, attempting to flee. Our sniper squad leader gauged the approximate location of the driver through the hood—the car was facing away from him—and fired. The round perforated the hood and then hit the man in the head. He stumbled out of the car and died. The last armed man stood little chance. A round through his leg cut him down and he dropped the weapon. The engagement was now over.

The Recon Platoon then rushed to the site. A sea of confusion billowed among the locals. A clear path parted around the arms dealers as the crowd receded from the site. A bystander had already stolen one of the AK-47s but everything else was still there when the scouts arrived. Soon soldiers from A Company cordoned the market. We secured the scene. The two wounded were transported to the Tikrit hospital. Iraqi police appeared and assisted in crowd control and body recovery. The press arrived and we gave a full account of our ambush.

Not waiting for the details, the French AFP media went to the hospital and found two boys from a village about thirty kilometers across the river that had been injured by an unexploded shell of some kind in an unrelated incident. Assuming that the boys were somehow connected to our actions against the enemy, they flashed pictures around the world stating that we had wounded the boys with grenades at the market.

Fortunately, the rest of the media not only have higher standards, but also reported the facts. Some (not many) in the media asked me why we did not give the arms dealers any warning. I stated that they became combatants as soon as they produced weapons and that no such warning had ever been afforded my men. Our actions sent shock waves through the town and effectively curtailed illegal arms trade in the city. The governor thanked us for our actions as well as the mayor. The police chief stated that the two men we killed from the red car were known thugs that smuggled weapons from a major military complex on the outskirts of Baghdad. They would show samples, fill orders, and arrange deliveries. What is certain is that we see no more weapons traded openly in Tikrit.

The enemy, not able to take us on directly, began to focus more on explosive devices and land mines in his attempts to strike at us. Over the next week we discovered some of these before they could be used and each week we discover some new attempt before it strikes. We are thankful for the prayers that make this possible.

West of Tikrit, an unfortunate driver in a truck lost his leg when he and a fellow soldier supporting the engineer battalion ran over an antitank mine laid along the edge of a road. And to the south of us, an artilleryman lost his life in a similar episode. Our snipers and patrols continue to shoot at suspected devices as before while locals have helped us in intercepting several others. We remain vigilant. It is in our best interest.

On the 11th of August, we successfully raided three more objectives and netted two former Republican Guard officers—one a division commander and the other a corps level chief of staff. The third objective netted us a leader of Feda-yeen militia. By the 13th we had seen small enemy attempts to harass or strike back at us. On a secondary market street, CPT Boyd’s convoy narrowly escaped harm as assailants rolled a volley of RPGs down the street like some game of tenpins. The rockets whooshed, skipped, and scraped along the pavement, but made no contact for them to explode. The enemy attackers had fired from several hundred meters away in the middle of a street and then fled.

The Farms

Our actions continued to have momentum. By mid-month, two men wanted by our forces—one who worked for Saddam’s family—turned themselves in to us and on the same day we received weapons from helpful Tikriti merchants with keen eyes. Even so, the young and the stupid continue to step forward. In a suburb to our south, attackers launched a volley of RPGs at A Company soldiers in yet another classic “miss-and-run” attack. Our “Gators” responded so quickly that the enemy was forced to flee for his life and abandoned his rocket launchers in the street. The attackers melded into the local population before they could be caught. Hence, we continue to work with the locals, the sheiks, and plan more raids.

One benefit of our dialogue with the sheiks has been the recruitment of reliable militia that we are now training. Tapping into some previous experience I had on a much grander scale when I served in Afghanistan, forming the plans for the Afghan National Army, we moved out with a modest training program that is producing a good-quality small element to assist the local government and our forces. Through the great work of 1LT Deel and SGM Castro, and with the assistance of a couple of former drill sergeants in each company, we move forward to train Iraqis in martial and civil arts that will help them stabilize their own town.

As to the continued raid planning, our efforts to find a bomb maker paid off when we raided a house on the 17th as a part of a wider operation. We found plastic explosives, electronic switches and devices, fragmentation pellets, blasting caps, a few weapons. While raiding this house, alert soldiers outside began to root around the fields across the street and found three grenades and a 60mm mortar system with seven rounds of ammunition. All in all, it was a very productive week.

The enemy continues to adapt his tactics to counter ours. His only cowardly refuge has been to hide among the population and among legitimate emergency services. On the night of the 18th our soldiers at a temporary checkpoint searched an ambulance that was bringing back an older man from the hospital. Seeing this, someone in a white car placed an explosive on a side street and ignited the fuse. A Company soldiers reacted to the blast to the west. The ambulance drove north to get out of danger and as it did, the white car pulled alongside the Red Crescent vehicle and sent a burst of gunfire toward another unit’s outpost. The outpost responded, seeing the fire come from what appeared to be the ambulance.

Also seeing the fire exchanged between the outpost and the ambulance, our snipers engaged the ambulance as it sped north, the victim of a cruel crossfire. The white car, fully masked in its movements, then dashed down a dark alley and made good its escape. The ambulance shuddered to a stop.

The driver, fearing for his life, got out of the front seat to escape the bullet exchange. He nearly made it but for one round that hit his ankle. Another aid man was cut by glass from the windshield. The older man in transport took a round to the shoulder and the thigh. The police and our forces quickly arrived along the dark street. The police took the seriously wounded victim to the hospital where he was stabilized.

The ambulance then began its journey northward toward a police checkpoint, met by both police and our scouts. After much confusion, we determined what had happened and treated the man with the ankle wound. We took him to better care to remove the bullet. We also handed over the ambulance back to the emergency workers. The Iraqis helped us piece together the confusing puzzle and, while frightened and initially angered, became more angered at the fact that the attackers would once again use innocent people as shields.

Some of the cowardly activity is planned on local farms. Some of the people talk. Some of the farms get found and raided. Such was the case with one farm that we had raided before—the one where we found the eight and a half million U.S. dollars, and Sajida Hussein’s jewelry. Seems they continue to plan and fund there.

We acted quickly on the intelligence that a planning meeting was occurring at the farm. Confirmed sightings of two particular individuals on our hit list caused us to go in quick and bristling. We surrounded the farm with reconnaissance troops to set the cordon and then A Company rolled up to the compound gate and flattened it with the momentum of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

The Bradley continued forward as occupants of the two large farm complexes scrambled. Soldiers poured through the gap and more soldiers spilled out the back of the Bradley. Fingers of light danced around each corner and flashed around each window and room. Back alleys were cleared, aqueducts jumped, orchards searched. Men and women are questioned. The targeted individuals had left three hours before. But they leave knowing they are hunted men who must live like the rats they are. And they know that no rat hole is safe.

The next day, the 20th, we got an emergency request for help from another unit working in our area. While coordinating information on a market street, armed attackers masked within the population open up a deadly burst of gunfire. The soldiers’ translator falls dead with a torso wound. A soldier collapses with a serious thigh wound and another is also hit in his extremities and severely wounded. The soldiers return fire. The enemy’s damage done, he flees, unable to be pursued by this small wounded band.

Men from our C Company rush to the scene. Shocked and bloody men are lifted into vehicles, accompanied by their angry and equally shocked peers. Our soldiers cordon the area, conduct a wide search, and gather little from the locals who have either closed their shops in typical fear or claimed they saw nothing. The men’s lives are saved by a medical evacuation. A translator, an American citizen, will speak no more. Vigilance, vigilance, vigilance. My burden is that every soldier of mine goes home—and with a pair of legs.

One such sparing occurred on the 22nd of August. A tip from a distraught local warned us of a plan to attack the Tigris Bridge. He stated that the attack would occur within an hour and would be with RPGs, small arms, and mortars using a water-services truck as a mask. Our response was immediate. A section of M1 Abrams tanks changed the scenery of the bridge and our checkpoint there. The enemy did materialize at a distance and launched a single pathetic 82mm mortar round, impacting just across the near bank of the river at dusk. The scenery of his own attack also changed; he missed and now ran.

An hour later, our Recon Platoon headed south along the main highway. They approached a decorative gate incongruently guarding a wadi that funnels the waste by-product of Tikrit into the Tigris River. Our men affectionately know this depression as the “Stink Wadi.” That night it exuded more than just odor. A volley of RPGs raced across in a flash from the south bank of the wadi. Small arms accompanied the volley.

The scouts’ weapons erupted in a converging arc that raked and then secondarily exploded on the bank. Unable to get to the scene quickly by the nature of the wadi, distance, and terrain, the men could not determine the damage they inflicted. But they blew up something. When searched later, the area was vacant, revealing little information.

The revelation of information took on a different form in Tikrit the following morning. Our C Company posted security along the main street of the city near the telephone exchange offices. Bradley Fighting Vehicles and tough soldiers mixed with the squat, dilapidated structures of the city. A small crowd gathered at a new café in town—an Internet café. Words are exchanged, cameras roll and snap, a pair of scissors is lifted off a pillow as the owner and I cut a ribbon at the entrance.

While thrilled, it all seems so foreign to me given the context of the previous days. For a brief moment these small trappings of normal life—of normal pursuits and daily living—awaken me. As I leave the café an old woman is nearly struck by a car and a bicycle as she attempts to cross the busy street. Our soldiers step into the four lanes of traffic and she is escorted across the thoroughfare. As we pull out in our vehicles, we cradle our weapons, begin to watch rooftops, examine every trash pile, and check each alley. A sea of people is scanned quickly—what is in their arms, what are their facial expressions, do they make unusual movement? We pull away and reenter our world.

“Duck, Duck, Goose”

The farmlands along the Tigris River lay rich with vegetation. Palm trees stand as sentinels row on row, aligned and supported by murky irrigation ditches. Fields adjacent to the groves produce wheat. Varieties of trees sag under the weight of pomegranates, apples, and citrus. An occasional farm surfaces amid the boundless orchards and fields. The farm occupants—subsistence farmers who work for middle-aged men whose girths are expanded by too much lamb—tend the crops.

They also plant a bounty of a different kind. Hidden between irrigated ditches lay pits that contain everything from mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, artillery rockets, grenades, and machine guns. As important as it is to find these things, the desire to find those planting them is tenfold by comparison.

We targeted two such sowers of discord south of the village of Owja—the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, outside of Tikrit. They were siblings, with the now-familiar string of tongue-tying names that also convey the names of their fathers, grandfathers, tribe, and birthplace. Our soldiers worked hard to locate these brothers because they were among a group of five spawns that had attacked our forces with RPGs.

We arrested the first brother in Owja. Now we had the location of their family farm along the Tigris. Our forces moved in and cut off egress routes, in coordination with Special Operations Forces and attack aviation. By dusk we had surrounded the brothers’ farm. The remaining brother began to run into the nearby fields. The helicopters spotted him. Soon we closed in on him and found him hunkered down in a field—his war now over.

Others continued in their belligerence, however. On August 26, an informant came to our forces telling us of a farm southwest of Owja that had weapons and self-proclaimed Feda-yeen fighters. Given that we had experienced attacks along the main highway nearby, this seemed plausible.

I ordered our Recon Platoon to scout out the area and see what they could find. Two sections of scouts approached the farms just after dusk. They turned off the main highway and were soon greeted with a hail of gunfire from AK-47 rifles. The scouts immediately returned fire, sending the assailants deep into their own farmhouse. Rifles cracked, .50 caliber machine guns thudded, and 40mm MK-19 grenade launchers thumped in a warlike symphony of gunfire. The projectiles smacked the modest farm. Two individuals were briefly spotted running out the back and into an irrigation ditch immediately behind.

1LT Chris Morris called in the contact and stated he was maneuvering on the houses but needed additional force to affect a proper cordon. He said he still had visual contact with the attackers. CPT Mark Stouffer’s A Company responded with a quick reaction force. Soon the area was cordoned with Bradleys, Infantry, and scout humvees. The four attackers were captured—amazingly unharmed although terrified—in the initial farmhouse and the one connected by the irrigation ditch behind it. None of our men were wounded. The enemy was detained and all of his weapons captured.

As this drama played out south of Tikrit, another unfolded within the heart of it. Repeated roadside bomb attacks along 40th and 60th Streets plagued the modest homes and businesses there. For three months we had fought battles along these alleys. While most of the attackers had been ambushed or subdued, the explosives threat continued. Just the night before, when my command convoy had turned onto 60th Street, a young adult Iraqi male in all black sitting on a curb suddenly bolted for a side street. Alerted by this, we gave chase for two blocks but he had disappeared over the many walled housing compounds. He appeared unarmed but could have been a scout or a bomb initiator. We queried the locals about him but none claimed to know him.

Now a night later, not far from this same area, C Company had a rifle squad patrolling the side streets between 40th and 60th. At about 0300—well after curfew—the night air was shattered by the distinct sound of an AK-47. The patrol alerted toward the sound of the gunfire. As they neared the area, an Iraqi man ran at full gallop around the corner where the gunfire occurred. SPC Haines, on point, raised his rifle and fired into the man. A round caught the Iraqi square in the head, carrying away a portion of his face. The sprinter stumbled to the ground, losing his sandals in the awkward momentum, already dead before he fell.

I immediately recognized him as the same man in black we encountered the night before. A few men were somewhat taken aback as FSG (First Sergeant) Evans, CPT Boyd, and I rolled him over in his own fluids so we could search him. Some had still not seen death close and personal before. In his pockets were batteries of the type used to initiate roadside bombs. His war was over now.

At the end of August, information came our way via a well-established network of sheiks. Developing this network was no small task. By custom, sheiks can be appointed to represent several families or can represent thousands. How do you determine who represents forty people vs. forty thousand?

When we arrived, every man claimed he was the sheik that the Americans should deal with and as such, he was also entitled to special privileges, badges, weapons, cars, and even women should we have them—whatever we can provide. They in turn would “guarantee” everything from security, support with the Coalition, promises of uranium, “vital” information, and even Saddam—should they see him, of course. So our challenge was how to separate these men of grandiose importance from the real sheiks that clearly commanded the respect from the locals.

The solution seemed simple enough: create a meeting of sheiks on a weekly basis and make it open to all. Those who would attend would probably be supportive somewhat or they would not come. Secondly, those who would sit on the front row would probably be the “real” sheiks. And so it was. Within a few weeks, we had identified those to whom everyone seemed to defer. By the end of August, we had solidified a “Council of Sheiks,” with ten representatives from the controlling tribes that represented about two hundred thousand people in our region.

One of these sheiks had been very cooperative with us already. Although secretive—Iraqi Arabs seem to revel in the thrill of private liaisons and somewhat theatrical trappings—he provided us with important breakthroughs regarding those resisting our efforts. Now he wanted a private dinner meeting east of the Tigris on one of his tenant farms. I have come to call these rendezvous “lamb grabs”—the slaughtered goat or lamb consumed for dinner by being pulled from the bone with bare hands. While the information provided that late evening in August was noteworthy, I will remember the dinner more for the kids.

The tenant farmers had a solitary mud house where they housed their four families and twenty kids. Unlike other “lamb grabs” we had attended, the wives and children were necessarily present. This allowed for some wonderful interaction among our soldiers. The laughter of the kids as they ran like kittens, chasing our weapons’ laser lights was a lift. Soon, my men were teaching them all sorts of games. By far the most enjoyable was the American favorite where the children are tapped on the head while in a circle, and dubbed a various waterfowl. One titling causes the child to have to run after the name caller—“Duck, Duck, Goose” had come to Iraq.

Criminals, Convoys, and Catwalks

While my men and I enjoyed this out-of-place respite near the foothills of the Jabal Hamrin Ridge east of the Tigris, our C Company soldiers on patrol spotted a white car in downtown Tikrit with bullet holes in it. They immediately stopped it and subdued four males with three AK-47 rifles. To the north of the city, near the village of Mazhem, C Company, 3-66 Armor soldiers began the opening round of what became the “battle for the ammunition supply points.”

On the night of 28 August, the “Cougars” found fourteen people living inside a bunker bloated with munitions. The bunkers are roughly the size of gymnasiums. The outer walls are double, forming a catacomb around the structure and also allowing the criminals to hide in the nooks and crannies in complete darkness. Our men must clear them much like we would a tunnel, with the same associated risks.

The enemy hired looters, brought in from Samarra for about two dollars a day. They had an entire operation going with 57mm anti-aircraft shells. First, they removed the rounds from the boxes. Next they took a hammer and cracked the rounds’ seals with the brass cases—an indicator of their intelligence. (Of course, all of this works best while smoking.) Then they emptied the powder pellets into bags, stacked the brass, and bagged the warheads. The warheads are the type most commonly used for roadside improvised explosives. The propellant is used to make other types of bombs, and the brass is melted down into ingots and sold. All of the proceeds go to supporting your local terrorist.

We knew of the operations, but did not have enough manpower to cover all the areas. Consequently, the improvised-explosives war manifested itself significantly in our area—partly because we were killing the enemy in the direct firefights in the city and partly because they could salvage munitions without much risk from our patrols.

I assigned the task of ending this operation to CPT Jon Cecalupo’s C Company, 3-66 Armor. Although this was not a tank mission, we needed the manpower. Jon, the son and brother of an Infantryman, aggressively put his talents into the mission and established a series of ambushes with his dismounted tank crews.

Each night for a month, a “cat and mouse” war developed. The looters would come into the perimeter—most of the time armed—and set up shop for the night. In about thirty days, CPT Cecalupo’s men had engaged scores of the enemy. They had killed 5, wounded 65, and captured over 100. For every night of bloodshed, a new day of the same awaited them.

Concerned, I met individually with the tank men doing the grisly work of separating the stupid and the lawless from the living. What I found was yet another example of how professional and dedicated our soldiers are. The men assured me that they fully understood the mission. They told me that for every bomb material supplier they killed, captured, or maimed, then one less bomb would be on the road. They were right. At the end of a month’s hard labor, the battle of the ammunition supply point was won. But the bomb war continued to be waged in the streets and supply routes of Tikrit and its villages.

On August 29, we patrolled the streets of Tikrit much like any other night. Long shadows fingered out and then dissipated in the pale streetlight while the dogs roamed wild in packs. At about 2330, when we turned onto 40th Street, one pack assaulted us in an impressive wedge formation, with all dogs barking in support. They came to within five feet of our vehicles. While we were admiring them for their aggressiveness, a violent explosion silenced the barks and our thoughts. What was it? An acrid smoke filled the air behind us. The dogs made a disorderly retreat in full scamper.

The trail vehicles seemed OK. We immediately turned the vehicles around, covered both double lanes of traffic and headed south back toward the enemy. Once we arrived, we jumped from the vehicles and sought to engage the attackers. We shouted taunts at the enemy and attested with oaths and epithets to their incompetence. But none answered our challenge.

On the west-side curb at the corner were the signs of the explosion. A vegetable oil tin packed with what we determined to be ten blocks of TNT and a hand grenade was the basis of the bomb. Clearly legible on a piece of the metal were the words, “A Gift from Sweden.” The bomb did not have the forcefulness it could have due to the poor wiring of the explosives. The grenade and two blocks of TNT detonated but the other eight scattered in the blast radius. Our dispersion and tactics had lessened the effects of that blast.

A curious man unrelated to the incident observed us with amusement from the balcony above his restaurant. Seeing this, red rifle lasers soon lined up on this man’s dress and he, like the dogs, beat a hasty retreat. The attacker could be one of several thousand people hidden in nearby houses and apartments. We resumed our patrol.

August 30 dawned with another bomb on the streets. C Company Infantrymen discovered this one—two sticks of C-4 hooked to batteries and tied to a bottle of diesel fuel. Our soldiers called the explosives experts who detonated it. Not far from the bomb, later in the afternoon, a C Company patrol dodged a volley of RPGs that missed wildly. One crashed into an Iraqi house, badly wounding a two-year-old child. Our soldiers immediately responded and saved the girl’s life. She was stabilized and taken to the local hospital.

As this unfolded, we received a tip about a weapons cache of RPG launchers on a farm. We went to the house of the supposed farm owner. He was not there but a relative was. We told him there would be no trouble if he took us to the farm and pointed out the weapons. He complied.

We already had his brother in jail and he said he wanted no trouble with us. He would help. He did. After a ten-minute countryside journey, the man walked us to a deep irrigation ditch and pointed to a pile of cut hay at the bottom. As we pulled six sacks of weapons out, we realized that we stood little chance of ever finding these weapons without informants. We returned to our headquarters with twenty-six RPG launchers.

The next few days brought an attack on the governor’s building, and more roadside bombs. September 2 was particularly noteworthy. It started with a discovery on the northern highway bypass. Several large-caliber artillery shells were “daisy-chained” together along the guardrails. We disarmed them before they could be put to use. C Company patrols discovered two more bombs in northern Tikrit and detonated both of them. At the southern highway bypass, a patrol from 299th Engineers discovered yet another one.

As long shadows signaled the end of the day a convoy, from our support company that was bringing supplies and soldiers returning from emergency leave, approached only a few kilometers from this bomb. No matter. Another one awaited.

A tire in the road instantly became a brownish cloud of sand, flame, and shrapnel. In the lead humvee, the officer in charge felt a sharp pain to his right knee and arm. An A Company sergeant sitting in the back was thrown sideways and into the middle of the humvee by the force, and suffered neck lacerations.

The cargo truck behind it collected a spattering of shrapnel that cut into tires, metal—and flesh. A specialist from our support company felt a deadening pain to his face and head and shoulder. Blood poured from the gums where several of his teeth had been. Another soldier facing the back took slicing shrapnel through his left foot.

Amazingly, no one was gravely injured. The soldiers gathered their wounded comrades and rushed them to one of our aid stations a few kilometers up the highway. We arrived and secured the area, equipment, and damaged vehicles. Big hunks of artillery shrapnel lay embedded in the asphalt. The tire was nothing more than an array of belted cords and loose rubber that had bounced in all directions. With our casualties and equipment secure, we quickly recovered everything from the scene. There will never be dancing Iraqis on our equipment. We will kill every one of them who tries.

On September 3, we had success against these bombers and others. An informant tipped our soldiers about a bomb maker in Tikrit. We planned a raid that resulted in the capture of C-4, propellants, sealants, clocks, timers, switches, wire, grenades, and rifles. Two individuals were also captured. Later that evening, six to nine mortar rounds impacted near the Tigris Bridge access road. All fell harmlessly into an empty lot. We received reports about the location of the attackers east of the river. Not being our sector, we alerted the Brigade Reconnaissance Troop commanded by CPT Des Bailey. But they were several kilometers north of the activity at that moment, so we decided to cross the river and go to the location in support of the troop’s efforts. As we closed near the troop, their convoy came under RPG and small arms fire about four hundred meters to our front. They returned fire with .50 cal machine guns, grenade launchers, and rifle fire. The brush caught fire as a second outburst occurred. We lent support with Bradleys and Infantry.

The next morning, a bloody sandal was found in a concrete aqueduct. The charred area around the attackers’ launch point attested to the one-sidedness of the fight. None of our soldiers in either attack were wounded.

By the 5th of September, we found ourselves guarding Tikrit and its environs in a most unusual way. We received instructions to ensure no attacks came for a four-hour window. No bangs, no booms, no fuss. A tall order but one we clearly understood.

The Secretary of Defense would be in Tikrit and it would be complicated if Mr. Rumsfeld appeared announcing the success of Iraqi security forces and clearly visible signs of progress to the backdrop of gunfire and bomb blasts. We secured the town without incident.

We also introduced to the Tikriti people our Iraqi Civil Defense Corps on this day. They were amazed. Only a couple of days from graduation, these young men walked proud on the streets of their countrymen. Bystanders looked in amazement. One woman clutched her heart and exclaimed, “Our army! It had returned!”

Our training efforts have been very successful in the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. Learning from my experience with the Afghan National Army project in the spring of 2002, we put together a program that was far lesser in scale but just as great in importance, given our geography and world attention.

We formed a cadre of officers and sergeants out of hide, led by CPT Jason Deel and SFC (Sergeant First Class) Robert Soden, to conduct the training and to select and hire the new force. We vet the males through the tribal sheiks. Each recruit has to be “guaranteed” by the tribal head in an official document.

Taking advantage of the local customs, we also guarantee that the force will truly be Iraqi because it is solely composed of those men that they choose. To date, we have trained over 350 in our battalion alone and we have had no problems of enemy infiltration. The Iraqi soldiers have proven themselves worthy of their new government and have not been afraid to take risks in our area of operations. We back them fully and conduct operations with them side by side.

Our battle for the streets of Tikrit continued. A sniper team placed near 40th Street to watch over that troubled area had a battle of their own. On September 6th, SPC Cantu and his team moved from a rooftop hideout to cover another location. As they did, three Iraqis engaged them with gunfire and then fled. Not satisfied with the outcome and undaunted by the terrain, Cantu led his team across catwalks and rooftops in the direction he believed the assailants had fled.

Once at the corner, they saw the men congratulating each other and flushed with their imagined heroics. Their victory party was soon shattered by the gunfire of our soldiers. Cantu and his team blasted the men, killing two and wounding the third. The same day C Company, 3-66 Armor continued the battle of the bunkers, killing one and wounding another. The enemy continued to pay a heavy price.

A major concern of ours during this time was how to get at the thugs planning these attacks. We began to place a series of outposts and ambushes in the most likely areas of enemy activity. The locations varied from downtown to suburbs to villages. The labor was not in vain. On the night of the 6th to 7th of September, we raided three suspected locations based on tips, and detained seven thugs and weapons. The night of the 7th, one of our outposts in a northern suburb noticed a group of men with AK-47s coming to an abandoned house for a meeting. We suspected this house all along and had 1LT Mike Isbell’s men from C Company posted there, but they were actually looking for a bomber at a house in the opposite direction. Even so, our men opened up on the group, wounding one and capturing five others.

On the 9th of September, a foot patrol from C Company led by SSG (Staff Sergeant) Sanchez, found itself under fire from a white car driving by an alley. The enemy fired RPGs and rifles. Our men immediately returned fire and blasted the car, forcing the enemy to flee. We were unable to locate the thugs thereafter.

We were however able to locate more of those planning their evil deeds. On the night of the 10th we cordoned three businesses along 40th Street. Among the goods in the stores were TNT and C-4 explosives, clocks, mercury for detonators, mortar ammunition, AK-47s, and shotguns—quite a variety for the discriminating shopper.

Toys

Most interesting of all were several radio-controlled cars that were being converted into bombs. The cars themselves were discarded but the bombers were taking the electronic guts from them to attach to blasting caps. Then they would wrap them in C-4 and place them inside a container of some kind for camouflage. The “hobbyists” would then use the remote control (R/C) steering device to initiate the bomb, as a convoy would pass. The range on these devices is about one hundred meters. In a built-up urban environment, that is about the same as one hundred miles in terms of seeing who could initiate the bombs.

To counter some of the threat of this, I took one of the R/C controllers and taped the levers down. The toy cars all operate on essentially the same frequency. We put it on the dash of our humvee, flip it on, and use it as a poor man’s anti-explosive device—risky perhaps, but better than exploding bombs through discovery learning.

Since this time, we have received all sorts of good ideas and gadgets to counter the bomb threats. Unfortunately, most of these devices are full of promise and short on delivery. The jamming equipment in “high speed” vehicles also jams our radios—not the best solution.

Other items have been huge white Chevy Suburbans with NASA-like antennae. We might as well paint bull’s-eyes as an added touch. These are like going to war in a Winnebago—fine for the movie Stripes but not fine in reality.

Elections

Mid-September arrived with promise. The heat still insufferable, our soldiers performed each task magnificently, whether ambushes, patrols, training native levees, or engaging the local officials in democratic processes.

We graduated our first class of Iraqi Civil Defense Corps soldiers and began training the second. We formalized the “Council of Sheiks” and made the head tribal leaders the representatives rather than open it up to everyone who had a complaint. This allowed us to focus on the best issues. Our mayor began to get his footing and established an effective system of public works. We hired our third municipal police chief—the first was fired, the second was transferred. Our cooperation with the Saladin Government continued to gel.

With this backdrop, MG Ray Odierno tasked all the units to select delegates for each city and province to form representative councils to aid the governors of the three provinces covered by the 4th Infantry Division. Having already engaged many of the sheiks and leaders beforehand, we found an able group of ten sheiks and five professionals from which to choose four representatives for Tikrit. Other cities did the same and then we all came together at the 1st Brigade headquarters for the representative election of thirty-four delegates to serve on the Saladin Province Governing Council.

The big day came on September 13th. I met with our Tikritians in a private room after all were gathered in a general assembly. Iraqi judges were present for each selection and to oversee the ballot count with each battalion commander.

I gave each prospective councilman the floor. The qualifications for why they should be selected varied. One touted his 9th-grade education and character. Others spoke of their law or engineering degrees or were medical doctors. Some had held political office before. My favorite was a tribal head sheik that stated simply, “I am Sheik [so-and-so].” That was the sum of his qualification and he passed the floor to the next individual. He was not elected, but he did get several votes.

On the afternoon of the 18th we were coming back from a visit to B Company in Bayji. Not far to the south, two humvees and a wheeled ambulance were transporting a sick soldier north along Highway 1 to the military hospital. Little did they imagine that before they arrived they would add to their casualty list.

At about 1600 hours, as the lead vehicle neared the spiral arches on Highway 1 south of Owja, a terrific blast shattered the vehicle’s windshield, front tires, and side. The humvee belonged to a first sergeant from 1-66 Armor who was leading the convoy. We heard a distant whump, and then a radio transmission requesting assistance. The driver lay bleeding but conscious when we arrived. The soldiers there all seemed shaken by the event, which was understandable. The armored battalion’s sergeant major arrived shortly after we did.

I remember looking at the young man laid out on the ground. His leg was mauled but not seriously damaged. His mouth and face were covered in blood. He seemed worried and was obviously in pain. The sergeant major and I told him to take a deep breath, relax, and that he was going to be OK. He calmed a bit and then said he needed to spit. He had collected blood in his mouth from what appeared to be some missing teeth.

The men from that unit did a good job putting their convoy back together. They grabbed their casualties and equipment. Fortunately for the wounded soldier, he was traveling with an ambulance and medics so he was going to be fine. I told their men that we would recover their vehicle and remaining gear and to not worry about it. We would get it to them at the brigade aid station.

We did a hasty examination of the area and found the remnants of a Motorola radio bomb. These were not your average bombs. The range on them was several kilometers. As we were in an open expanse of desert along the highway, there was no telling who had initiated the device—except that he was a coward. Several Iraqi cars were also damaged by the blast, although we never learned if any Iraqis had sustained injuries.

We returned to our command post, ate, and then went out on patrol again. We were up in villages to the north that night when we heard some disturbing radio calls from across the river. A section of humvees from the brigade’s reconnaissance troop had been caught in an ambush on a levee road. They were responding to reports of an RPG being fired in the area. The lead and trail vehicles came under tremendous fire that killed three soldiers and wounded two others. The remainder of the men fought off the attackers and maintained contact with the enemy.

Soon, the rest of the troop rallied to them and requested medical evacuation support. We immediately responded from our side of the river. I sent C Company with Bradleys and Infantry to support CPT Des Bailey. All of the wounded and killed were brought to our aid station. CPT Brad Boyd supported the cordon of a couple of farms in the area until late afternoon the next day.

Three of the six attackers were captured outright. A total of forty were eventually hauled in and from these all of the attackers were brought to account. Even so, the result could scarcely remove the pain of such loss. The men all belonged to the artillery battalion supporting our brigade and the troop. Our best comfort lay in taking it back to the enemy.

The next evening, we moved across the river in force with our battalion. CPT Mark Stouffer’s A Company, CPT Jon Cecalupo’s tank company and the S3 and I patrolled the entire swath of land with Bradleys, M1A2 tanks and Infantry from our task force. We continued to support Des Bailey’s troop with a section of Bradleys and some mortars for some time after this. In the coming weeks, the people cried for us to stop operations in the area. CPT Bailey handled them as they deserved to be handled—and captured or killed those equally deserving.

Taps

As LTC Dom Pompelia’s and CPT Bailey’s units recovered from their loss, we prepared to pay our respects to the fallen. The night before the memorial service—the 20th of September and my mother’s birthday—COL James Hickey called me. He said he had received a Red Cross message. I did not think this unusual, as many of my soldiers had received these unfortunate messages, including me when my grandfather died in July. I was not prepared for the news he gave me. He said that my stepfather had died only a few hours before and that my family had requested my presence. I was stunned. I was accustomed to loss on the battlefront but not the home front. I immediately missed him. Just a few days before, I had received one of his letters.

After calling home, I knew my place had to be with my family. I called my commander back and told him I needed to go home for the funeral. He understood and supported me. I told him the battalion would be in good hands with MAJ Mike Rauhut, my executive officer. I left the next day.

While I Was Away

A world away, C Company patrols received fire from the industrial area of the city. The Iraqi Police were also attacked at their main police station. The attacks seemed feeble and the enemy appeared content to “miss-and-run.” There were no casualties.

The next day, MAJ Mike Rauhut led the battalion on a magnificent raid into the farmlands south of Owja. Based on an informant’s tip, the “Gators” of A Company cordoned the lush, densely vegetated farm. A bountiful harvest of weapons awaited—23 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, 4 RPG launchers with 115 rocket-propelled grenades, 400 hand grenades, 1 mortar with 39 rounds of ammunition, 51 smoke pots, over 1,000 pounds of C-4 explosives with 1,300 blasting caps. This deadly crop was laid out in our trucks for eventual destruction.

The “Cobras” of C Company had their palace rattled by RPG fire on the 29th of September. An informant on the 30th led our operations officer MAJ Bryan Luke to a cache of sixty rocket-propelled grenades. After weeks of successful raiding, the enemy was severely disrupted. He struck back with more roadside bombs.

On the 1st of October I received a phone call from CPT Matt Weber, our rear detachment commander. He told me there had been an attack with casualties and that MAJ Rauhut was trying to contact me. He got a call through a few minutes later. The news was not good. A sinking feeling washed over me. Here I was, strangely out of place standing in a Texas parking lot while Mike described what happened.

CPT Curt Kuetemeyer’s convoy from our support company was traveling north in downtown Tikrit along Highway 1 where it turns into the main street. Passing the soccer stadium, his vehicle approached the Tuz-Tikrit highway turnoff. Suddenly he went deaf and saw a bright flash to his left. The air immediately turned brown with dust and had a sickening sulfur smell. He knew something was terribly wrong. The humvee seemed pilotless. Hit the brakes! he thought. Then he thought the brakes must be damaged. He braced for impact.

At a T-intersection in the highway stands the road sign directing a turn off for the city of Tuz. The vehicle crashed the curb, flattened the road sign, and bounced to halt. He could see flames all around him. CPT Kuetemeyer immediately took stock of his soldiers. They were in bad shape. He could see his driver slumped and still seat-belted behind the wheel. The soldier behind her was badly burned and pinned in. The soldier behind CPT Kuetemeyer was in better shape and was also trying to free himself from the vehicle. Despite the shock of the concussion, Curt seemed intact and able to move.

SPC Guckert and FSG Davis in the vehicle behind saw their company commander’s vehicle hit by the blast and watched in disbelief. They braced themselves as they entered a brown, flaming fog. They pulled up to the blazing vehicle. FSG Davis yelled for Guckert to pull security and ran to the vehicle. Guckert ordered SPC Bemak to pull security as well and then immediately made a radio transmission for help, her voice calm and in charge. She described the situation and guided life-saving help to the scene, fully aware of her dangerous surroundings. CPT Kuetemeyer and FSG Davis managed to pull the three wounded soldiers from the burning vehicle. They performed an emotional and grisly task, fighting the flames as they attempted to save their comrades in the burning vehicle.

SPC Guckert then informed another convoy that was passing by about the situation. These soldiers pulled security around the vehicles to assist. SPC Guckert joined CPT Kuetemeyer and FSG Davis, encouraging the wounded to hang in there as they rendered aid. Guckert then grabbed her aid bag and began to administer first aid.

CPT Brad Boyd from C Company showed up and provided immediate help with his men. The wounded soldiers were taken by humvee to the battalion aid station. There, our surgeon MAJ Bill Marzullo and our physician’s assistants CPT Alex Morales and 2LT Armando Buergette struggled to save CPT Kuetemeyer’s driver. She died of her wounds. The other soldiers were treated for serious burns, concussions, lacerations, and broken bones.

Meanwhile, Highway 1 returned to normal after C Company recovered the vehicle. There will never be an opportunity for Iraqis to dance on our equipment. Not in this town. We would kill the whole city first.

On the 3rd of October I boarded a plane in Dallas to return to Tikrit.

Meanwhile, in Tikrit, the soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry and the 4th Forward Support Battalion gathered at Saddam’s “Birthday Palace.” The Aggressors of A Company, 4th FSB stood on the asphalt still marked with lines for Saddam’s military parades. A chaplain stepped forward and prayed. A Purple Heart and Bronze Star Medal for making the ultimate sacrifice were laid on a pair of boots overshadowed by a lone rifle with a Kevlar helmet planted on top. At a podium, commanders and friends struggled to find words that vocabularies failed to adequately provide. Soldiers stood at attention. Private First Class Analaura Esparza-Gutierrez’s name rang out for roll call. She did not answer. Taps resonated in mournful tones. Tears rolled down faces as they remembered her life.

Back to Tikrit

Forty-eight hours later, I was back in Tikrit. The situation had become more intense. Our successful raiding on the members of Saddam’s supporting cast would have to be put on hold so we could deal with trigger pullers. The roadside bombs were taking their toll. In our area, the soldiers conducted mounted patrols and sweeps. These were directed patrols for the most part.

The feeling was that the patrols should be armored to lessen the effects of the bombs. I did not agree. While it is true that the effects of the bombs would be lessened, so would our ability to see the bombs on the roads and respond. Soldiers on the ground and wheeled patrols in open vehicles have the best chance of spotting bombs. Additionally, there were demonstrations starting to develop in several cities in Iraq.

Quick responses by our men on October 3rd prevented a demonstration from taking hold and it was rapidly dispersed. My plan now was to prevent them from ever forming. Having been surrounded with fifteen other soldiers by a crowd of five thousand angry people before in the summer of 1999 in Kosovo, I was determined not to have that happen again.

On October 9th and 10th we received intelligence about planned demonstrations. I ordered our forces to flood the suspected area with soldiers, tanks, and Infantry vehicles. It worked. Meanwhile, our scouts silently observed a suspected bomber’s house in a suburb to the north. In the evening, this outpost repositioned and received fire from a distance. SSG Shoffner’s group was not hit, returned fire, and continued its mission. We then raided several houses in downtown Tikrit tied to bomb makers and bomb layers. Four thugs were captured.

The next night, our training compound for the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps received several mortar rounds. A few crashed the main building but caused no appreciable damage. Saddest loss was the hot water heater that fed the building. C Company, the Iraqi soldiers under our command, and our scouts immediately set out in pursuit. They found and captured three individuals attempting to leave the area from where the strike was launched.

October 12th dawned with the promise of sweltering heat. SSG Charles Darrah of our PSYOPS team left our compound and made it about five hundred meters before a tree on the right side of the road exploded in a downpour of leaves, twigs, concrete, and shrapnel. He and one man received slight wounds but another was more serious. He had nasty leg and arm wounds on one side. He was later evacuated and is recovering well. Another bomb was sighted at the gas station in our northern suburb. An Iraqi fingered two men plotting their evil plans. We found one and captured him. The bomb attack was averted.

Farther north, the “Bears” of B Company patrolled an area on the outskirts of Bayji known by our soldiers as the “projects.” The day before they received a cool reception that turned colder when locals began to throw rocks and shake fists. They decided to return to this troubled spot again. 1st Platoon Bradleys, led by a tank commanded by 2LT Erik Aadland from B Company, 3-66 Armor rattled up a trail connecting to a hardball road.

The lead Bradley followed the tank closely and off to the right. The trail Bradley followed to the left. Suddenly the trail vehicle erupted. Smoke and flame shot through the driver and engine compartment. SSG Donald Smith’s night vision goggles tethered around his neck disappeared in the blast. The gunner was wounded above his right eye but otherwise OK.

The vehicle abruptly stopped. The soldiers scrambled out of the crew compartment hatch. SSG Smith took account of his men and the other Bradley reported that B14 had struck a mine. The men evacuated the driver out, who was in critical condition. Pulling security, they called for the medevac helicopter on which they eventually loaded him. He was rushed by Black Hawk to the field hospital.

Recovery assets drove forward and towed the vehicle back to 3-66 Armor’s compound. As they were doing so, the sparks from grinding metal of blown-off road arms appeared to ignite the fuel in the vehicle. The Bradley began to burn and then its ammunition cooked off. The vehicle was a total loss. The driver never made it either. Another Regular dies. We received the news shortly thereafter and felt at once both angry and sad.

We continued our operations in Tikrit the next day, conducting our bomb sweeps along the main roads and those that connect them. C Company had primary responsibility of the built-up area of the city. In the afternoon, 1st Platoon patrolled with Bradleys and Infantry in the part of the city we call the “chevron” because on the map, it makes a pointed shape at the northern third of the city. 1LT Jason Price was leading a two-vehicle section along the street parallel to the mosque with the soccer field. They turned right, heading east toward Highway 1 and the “Lucky Panda” ice-cream shop continuing to look for bombs along the curbs.

SSG Bordes in the trail Bradley had his turret turned to the rear to provide 360-degree security. He looked forward as the vehicle travels while his gunner, standing up to provide additional eyes for the bomb threat, looked toward the rear. A short distance after they made the turn, SSG Bordes blacked out.

He came to in a daze, realizing something was wrong. He saw his driver was OK after talking to him and could see his gunner standing next to him. He stood back up to make sure he was OK as well, and noticed that he was lying back against the hatch, his helmet gone. The shoe-box-sized Integrated Site Unit (ISU) in front of him was blown apart and pushed against him as well. SSG Michael Bordes called for a medevac and attempted to render what aid he could. No aid could be rendered. His gunner slumped into the turret, already dead.

1LT Price called the medevac and his crews did what they could while also pulling security. The vehicle was hit by an RPG, which penetrated the ISU. We determined that two men had fired a volley of RPGs from a blind corner in the built-up housing area.

As the gunner was the one looking to the rear, he was the only one who could have seen where the shot came from that killed him. CPT Brad Boyd arrived at the scene and they cleared the area looking for the attackers. FSG Michael Evans, SSG Felipe Madrid, and SSG Bordes eased the gunner out of the turret and onto a stretcher. CPT Jason Deel with the Civil Defense troops took him to our battalion aid station.

I received the news coming out of a meeting with local officials and rushed to the scene. There was nothing I could do. The Bradley was not damaged except for its sight and 1st Platoon took it back to the company’s compound. I called for a fire truck to wash down the streets. I wanted no visible traces of anything for the enemy to gloat over. We took our losses and cracked down on the city looking for the perpetrators. Locals provided some useful information and a manhunt netted partial results over the next couple of days.

The soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry and some from 3rd Battalion, 66th Armor gathered at Saddam’s “Birthday Palace” on the 15th. The “Bears” of B Company and “Cobras” of C Company stood on that same asphalt used for Saddam’s military parades.

A chaplain stepped forward and prayed. Again Purple Hearts and Bronze Star Medals for making the ultimate sacrifice were laid on pairs of boots overshadowed by lone rifles with Kevlar helmets planted on top. At a podium, commanders and friends struggled to find words that vocabularies failed to adequately provide. Soldiers stood at attention.

SPC James Edward Powell’s name rang out for roll call in B Company. He did not answer. Neither did SPC Donald Laverne Wheeler Jr. of C Company. Taps resonated in mournful tones. Tears rolled down faces as we remembered their lives, and rifle shots cracked in three sharp volleys, interrupting these reflections—a startling reminder of the price of our freedom.

Raids and a Shopping Bag

Two sisters played in front of their house on the 16th of October near one of the city laundry shops in Tikrit. Two women and a man walked along the street about mid-morning. One of the ladies carried a black plastic sack, the kind that is so common among all of the shops and food stands. They conversed a bit and then walked away.

The seven-year-old sister noticed that the lady forgot her sack on the road. She and her twelve-year-old sister went over to pick up the bag and carry it to the lady who forgot it. The seven-year-old made it only a few steps when she was ripped apart by a powerful blast. Her sister was mangled and blinded. She could not walk. She struggled to pull herself to her house, leaving bloody handprints on the concrete and the gate where she lived.

Our soldiers arrived very quickly. The locals were frantic. The parents of the girls wailed in horror and disbelief not knowing what to do. We, the evil Americans, helped an innocent Iraqi girl with life-saving aid. The men evacuated her to the hospital. She survived but is now blind. If only the images of this morning that the men now have imprinted in their minds could be blinded as well. Her sister could only be buried.

LTG Tom Metz, commander of III Corps, paid us a visit on the 17th along with many of the old friends I used to work with at Ft. Hood on the Corps staff last year. We briefed him on our operations and he thanked us for our efforts here, as our division falls under his command at Ft. Hood. It was good to see some familiar faces. MAJ Tim Karcher also was among the group. Our paths have continued to cross since Tim was a lieutenant.

The next several days were fairly calm. We had found more roadside bombs but rendered them harmless—usually by shooting them from a safe distance. We were also able to capture more 60mm mortar ammunition and some RPGs, along with another fine citizen of Owja, Saddam’s birthplace.

The evening of the 20th, more mortars fell near our C Company, 3-66 Armor’s compound. The “Cougars” had several of these indirect-fire attacks. This one was slightly more accurate. The soldier manning the .50 caliber machine gun on top of a storage building at the front gate felt the concussion of the shells and heard the crack of each round as it came in—each one getting closer. He turned around to head for cover behind some sandbags. As he did, one round landed in the nook between the gate and the building. The shrapnel caught him in the armpit and leg. Fortunately, his body armor prevented serious injury. He recovered well and has returned to duty.

Intelligence reports had indicated that several of these indirect-fire attacks were organized in a farm village north of the old Republican Guard military complex. The complex was rife with weapons and many made their way into private hands when the army collapsed. We also believed they had connections to Saddam’s supporting cast of thugs who harbored him or, at a minimum, supported his efforts. We raided a series of houses on the 22nd and turned up explosives, grenades, an RPG, a heavy machine gun, and other items. While not the mortarmen, they certainly were set upon doing harm. Now they are doing time.

The night of the 23rd, the mortar attackers returned to the “Cougars.” This time, the “Cougars” were ready. Seeing the flash of the weapon in the far distance, they engaged a car with two men inside who had placed the tube in the trunk to make their escape. The car fled at high speed. Amazingly, it continued to flee even after several hundred machine gun bullets fired from one of our tanks hit it. We learned later that one of the occupants had been killed. It could not have happened to a nicer guy.

I decided to join the observation posts the next night in the northern suburb where the “Cougars” operate. We set up an independent outpost to add to the effort rather than complicate it. My men and I infiltrated a nearly completed house that overlooked the highway. As we took our assault ladder and balanced the bottom rung on a wall to get to a balcony on the third story of the building, I privately wished I was twenty like the men around me. I made it fine and we set up the observation post without incident.

A family next door conducted their evening routine, oblivious to our presence. While watching the highway and residential area around it, I thought how tough it must be to raise a family here. We saw unusual characters and traffic until the curfew took effect and made notes on this. The night proved quiet, no doubt due to the machine gun marksmanship of our tank company. We left in the early morning darkness.

On October 25, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolf-owitz visited our battalion. He was interested in the success we were having with our Iraqi Civil Defense Corps training. He spent quite awhile with us and was very much at ease. He spoke freely with our troops and did not distance himself as so many visiting officials do. He was impressed with our training. We were already feeling the result of the great work the Iraqi soldiers were doing augmenting security in the city.

Black Hawk Down!

There were other visitors that day. Rotor blades clipped through the air about three hundred feet off the deck. A pair of Black Hawk helicopters not from our division came cruising down the Tigris River mid-afternoon carrying officers visiting their troops. The soldiers in the lead helicopter heard a crack. Flames immediately mixed with smoke on the blades. The helicopter started to free-fall.

Only several hundred feet off the ground to begin with, the pilots pointed it as best they could to a field. They simply reacted. The aircraft was unresponsive and burning fast. They managed to land it roughly somehow. The soldiers ran from the blazing craft. The trail helicopter watched in shock at the scene before them and swooped around to pick up the survivors—which miraculously was everyone on board.

Only twenty-five hundred meters to the south, our soldiers saw the aircraft go down from our headquarters. We immediately raced across the river to the craft—now a burning mass of aluminum. CPT Stouffer and CPT Boyd were both in the area with their command convoys and headed there as well.

The other aircraft lifted off with all passengers safe as we approached the scene. I told Brad Boyd to take his soldiers north of the crash site and try to find the possible attackers. Mark Stouffer linked up with the battalion Quick Reaction Force that was from his unit and cordoned the eastern road bisecting the farmland. The chopper was fully gutted by this time, about fifteen minutes after the crash. I ordered the command post to call the local fire department to come and put out the flames.

We found some evidence that an RPG probably knocked down the helicopter but it was hard to be sure. It might have been a surface-to-air missile as well. COL Hickey brought the Brigade Reconnaissance Troop over to secure the site and we searched about one hundred vehicles along the road into the villages.

We found nothing—although informant tips a couple of weeks later led us to some of those responsible. We recovered the wreckage from the farm field and brought it to the 4th Aviation Brigade’s airfield, once again firm in our dictum that no Iraqi will ever dance on our equipment in our area of responsibility. The helicopters were from the 101st Airborne Division and were flying around special visitors. Though rattled, they were unharmed.

A Writer’s Visit

We received an unusual visitor on the 26th, whose stamina for a seventy-eight-year-old man amazed me. Robin Moore—author of The Green Berets and The French Connection—paid us a visit to gather interviews and information on a new book he was writing. It was quite a treat to meet and listen to him.

Our normal embedded press also continued to report the work of our great soldiers. We have learned a tremendous amount about how the press operates since we have been here. They are largely very professional, are not afraid of risks, and they file accurate stories for the most part. Even in cases when they are not accurate, it is more a function of inaccurate things given to them rather than speculation on their part.

We have also learned that the editors of their news organizations may never pick up the many good things that they file. A sense of frustration develops even among them when a story they worked gets bumped for the splash headline of “Another Soldier Killed in Iraq Today.”

They acknowledge that the public has the right to be informed of our casualties, but the reporters on the ground also concede that it does not convey the true picture when that is all that gets reported. Our raids continued to be covered well but the impacts of them would only be appreciated later.

The evening of October 28 was a sad one. Our intelligence officer, CPT Tim Morrow, was wounded by gunfire while on a patrol in the city focused on leaflet distribution. Fortunately, he is a tough man and we were able to get him to the aid station for life-saving procedures for a gunshot wound through the upper chest. He is now recovering well and is very near being returned to duty with us at this writing. His knowledge of our area and the enemy was hard to replace but we are thankful he is going to recover. CPT Clay Bell has since joined the Regulars to pick up where CPT Morrow left off and is doing a superb job.

As Halloween approached, we were nearly ready to implement a plan we had worked on for some time. Prior to my emergency leave, I told my staff I wanted to solve the problem with Owja—Saddam Hussein’s birthplace. This town of about thirty-five hundred people continued to be a thorn in the side. Every time we broke up a former regime cell or captured a funder or planner, they all seemed to have ties to this town. Ultimately, we hoped they would still have ties to Saddam.

I thought through the problem of how to keep the insurgents from “swimming” in the population at large, finding safe harbor to plot their evil deeds. I wanted to scoop up the insurgents into a “fishbowl” to view them better. I remembered studying Napoleon’s actions with a census in the Rhineland to root out insurgents and took note of techniques used by the French in Algeria. To counter insurgents in the Rhineland, Napoleon had his men conduct a census of sorts. They would ask at each home who lived there. Then they would ask who lived next door on each side. Then they would go to the next house. If the answers varied, they would focus on the missing names that people did not list but that their neighbors did. It proved effective. In Algiers, the French isolated the Wilayas to prevent insurgents and weapons from passing through. Though both of these efforts were on a much larger scale and were not the same, there were certainly aspects of the operations that we could use for ourselves.

The Census

I told my staff I wanted to fence the entire town and conduct a census. They wondered if I had somehow lost my mind. But without a complete cordon, only the fairly honest people would show up. If the town was locked down, then the only way they could get out was to register.

It was a monumental undertaking but one I felt we could do and still carry out our other missions. The benefits would be several: if the criminal elements stayed, their movements would be known; if they left, they would have to give up their operational support base and would be much more visible and vulnerable to being fingered living in their mud huts on their farms; and if they stayed and changed their ways, that would still have desired effects.

We began the effort at midnight on the 30th. I went to the tribal head sheik in the village and informed him of our actions and what would be required: all males over the age of fifteen must be registered and receive a pass to enter or to leave the town. To get the badge, they had to report to the police station and fill out the information form. Once badged, they could come and go as before but were subject to search at a single entry point into and out of town. All other exits would be closed off. He was shocked but complied fully.

By morning, rolls of concertina wire could be seen scattered along the bordering streets like tossed rings. Soldiers unraveled the wire. The scratch of the serrated steel wire on the concrete signaled the end to normal life in Owja. Soon the scratch gave way to pounding sledges for the reinforcing pickets. We buttressed the effort with about fifty Iraqi men from the local “rent-a-worker” group in town, complete with a paid contractor.

Simultaneously, the intelligence and signal staff readied the computer and camera databases to begin the issuing of badges. Scores of Iraqi men showed up at the police station by 0900. They waited for their badge and, once in hand, were allowed to exit the one remaining open avenue leading to Highway 1. By November 3rd, we had badged twelve hundred Owjite males.

The operation amazed not only the Owjites but the international press as well. They all seemed to be fascinated at the audacity of the move. Many drew comparisons to Gaza or Jerusalem but in reality, that never entered our minds. Nor was it a fair comparison. For one, we had an entire rifle company inside the wire with them. Second, we were not trying to separate one culture from another. Third, the town was not sealed but controlled—they could still come and go provided they had their identification. We did prevent the departure of about three dozen individuals and informed the sheik and tribal town elders that we would question them at a later time—which we did.

The impacts of the fencing of Owja were outstanding. We disrupted the enemy’s command and control structure. If he fled, we were able to spot him in the villages. If he stayed, we could monitor his movements. The result had been that over the next several weeks we began to get intelligence and people we had been looking for since June and July.

A momentum and sense of excitement restored our belief that we could knock the supports out of Saddam’s protective circle. While we did not know the extent that the cordon would have on the terrorist infrastructure or Saddam, we knew it had to have some kind of impact.

Cat and Mouse

On October 31, C Company found another roadside bomb. They dismantled it before it could be used. Later that evening, several thugs in the northern suburbs fired a 60mm mortar toward the “Cougars’” compound. Nothing was hit but our snipers observed the muzzle flash and were able to acquire the enemy at long range. They managed to get off enough rounds to wound two of the individuals.

Meanwhile, in a village toward the far north of our sector, our Recon Platoon observed several men fire AK-47s in the air. “Cougars” closed on the house and engaged the rooftops with small arms. Meanwhile, supporting Apache helicopters on patrol joined in and lit up the house with 30mm cannons. It turned out that several off-duty police were smoking hash and having a jolly time. They dove into a basement and were found there by our soldiers when we cleared it. It is a miracle they were not killed.

November finally clicked by on the calendar. It opened with a combination of raids that netted some important cell leadership and also with patrols that intercepted several roadside bombs. We began to see many varieties of explosive devices. Doorbell switches became a favorite, followed by keyless locks, toy cars, and in one case a pressure switch. Our sweeps continued to net the majority of them before they could be detonated.

In Owja, the enemy attempted harassing fire and mortar cheap shots—both without effect. Our men returned fire and an elusive hide-and-seek game developed. In the city proper, a black Opel or Toyota sped by and lobbed an RPG at a Charlie Company patrol. The men returned fire but as they did, a large Mercedes truck inadvertently pulled into the line of fire and the attackers escaped down a back alley. Other patrols netted eight mortars with some ammunition while the scouts raided the northern suburbs again—and took into custody the last of a set of brothers we had been pursuing for some time.

By the 4th of November, the Owjites seemed resigned to their new fenced routine. I met with the tribal sheik and the town elders. We had a series of frank and honest discussions about the need for the Bayjat tribe to reconcile with the rest of Iraq. They were concerned about this because they felt that without some reconciliation, they could have no future. They would be forced to fight or die. I told them that one would surely lead to the other and that the reconciliation should be pursued.

I took it up as a topic with the Monday morning sheik council meeting and it provided for some lively discussion. They admitted it was needed but they would not welcome them back simply because they said, “I’m sorry.” They asserted that this was not their way. Reconciliation had to come from blood compensation. As I listened to all these men weave their tribal and feudalistic discussions, I was very thankful that I was an American.

That evening, the discussions did not seem to deter a band of thugs who engaged the “Gators” of A Company. Firing from the vicinity from an old air defense bunker, the cutthroats launched an RPG at one of our patrols. They also followed it with rifle fire. Undaunted, the “Gators” gave back in spades. The thump, thump, thump of a Bradley’s 25mm chain gun preceded the crack, crack, crack, crack of 25mm shells impacting the bunker. The soldiers cordoned the area but the thugs were able to beat a retreat from a defiladed position before the cordon was set.

The next night, this cat and mouse game continued in Owja. Our soldiers remained alert as usual. Suddenly, the power cut out and the village became black. This preceded a clattering of small arms fire fired wildly but apparently within the wired village. The soldiers searched the town but the attackers blended into the village population. The next day, CPT Stouffer shut the only gate into and out of town. The attackers were not found.

November 6th did net one attacker though. On the “chevron” in the northwest part of the city, a C Company ambush observed a man setting up what appeared to be a roadside bomb. He began by tying wire to a lamppost and then proceeded to run it to a location across the road. He did not accomplish this immediately. Each time he saw military vehicles in the distance he would back off and then sit passively on the side of the road to appear as one of so many Iraqi men who squat on the side of the road. Watching the pattern, the “Cobras” clearly viewed his activities and confirmed he was planting a roadside bomb. The soldiers placed him in their sites. What followed next was a given. Their rifles popped into action, and the man dropped on top of his own device. Another Fedayeen dies.

November 7th dawned with somewhat cooler weather, but by mid-morning became a very pleasant day. GEN John Abizaid arrived to receive another update from the leadership of the 4th Infantry Division. He and MG Ray Odierno came to the 1st Brigade at about 0900 and all the battalion commanders met with him and our commander, COL Jim Hickey.

I had served with GEN Abizaid before in Kosovo and Germany when he commanded the 1st Infantry Division. The update went well and we had very open and frank discussions with him about the best ways we gathered intelligence. He was very open to our observations. He offered that our leads on Saddam were good and that we needed to have the confidence that everyone develops patterns—Saddam would be no different. He closed with some guidance to all of us as commanders and commented on how he saw the fight continuing.

Informants

While we were meeting, two Black Hawk helicopters headed south along the Tigris River in Cadaseeah. At about 0940 the lead helicopter suddenly burst into flames and nosed toward the river. The aircraft began to break apart even before it hit the ground. Soldiers from C Company, 3-66 Armor of our task force saw the craft in flames and disappear behind the bluffs.

The radio began to crackle. A helicopter was down. It was on fire and crashed near the river on a sandbar island near the bluffs in Cadaseeah. The command post received the report from Cougar 5, 1LT Phil Thompson. SSG McClean and SGT Jago of the “Cougars” got to the scene very quickly. What they saw was traumatic. They found the bodies of four soldiers—and the partial remains of a fifth. The helicopter scattered along a straight pattern. The lighter the pieces, the less they traveled.

The main body of the aircraft tumbled into a ball and burned profusely. 1LT Thompson and CPT Brad Boyd of Charlie Company, who had heard the radios and arrived shortly thereafter, worked together to do what they could. SGM Cesar Castro had been with the “Cobras” and followed them as well. The sandbar had bulrushes about eight to ten feet high. About a quarter of the island was on fire. The flames continued to spread.

I came out of the meeting at about 1000 hours. My driver and operations sergeant reported the news to me. We raced north to Cadaseeah. When we arrived, the island was leaping in smoke and flames.

Our first task was to get the fire out. Any recovery of remains could not be done without that. From what I could see, I could not imagine any survivors. We drove down to the island. I called for city fire trucks. My convoy and soldiers with FSG Michael Evans began to stamp out the flames to try to clear the trail that ran down to the island. CPT Jason Deel and the Iraqi Civil Defense soldiers arrived. I employed them on the north end of the island to look for wreckage or remains. Our soldiers focused on the south end that had most of the wreckage.

We contained the flames. CPT Boyd, FSG Evans, SGM Castro, MAJ Luke, and I set out to find any other soldiers. We had accounted for five. We had reports of six. Soon, we discovered the sixth soldier in the body of the aircraft. I will not describe to you what we saw. We found the soldier’s smoldering dog tags and got a name confirmation. Then we began the grisly work of recovery.

As we worked, several leaders arrived from our unit and the other units involved. We told them we would secure the site, recover the remains and the wreckage. By nightfall, we had accomplished all of this. We took the wreckage to the same spot where we took the helicopter from October 25th’s crash. It was an exhausting, tragic day. That night, COL Hickey and I determined to shake up the town. This would not stand. The insurgents had to understand that our Army was more than just humvees.

On the 8th of November, we planned to level several areas where the insurgents had found safe harbor. One was at the very site of the crash. A partially built house sat on the bluffs north of where the helicopter had been attacked. Locals reported that spotters had used a cell phone to signal the attackers from there.

At curfew, we rolled a tank platoon from “Cougars” to Cadaseeah. “Cobras” maneuvered Infantry and Bradleys to a building where we had taken fire from on occasion. The “Gators” deployed south of Owja toward the bunker where we had several fights before. Within an hour, tank rounds, TOW missiles, AT-4s, and machine guns leveled the buildings. U.S. Air Force jets screamed overhead. Bombs sailed across the river at targets designated by COL Hickey. Our mortars and artillery cracked in support.

When morning came, the locals were terrified. They told us they had not been this frightened since April. Good, I thought. Tell that to your Fedayeen-supporting, Saddam-loving neighbors. Don’t they realize we have the might and resolve of the United States of America at our disposal? Don’t they understand that burned in our memories is the investment broker making the best of two horrifying choices as he leaped from the World Trade Center Towers? More importantly, these terrorists were clearly evil. If we could remove them, the innocent Iraqis who had suffered for so long would be better off and could get on with their lives.

Capitalizing on the momentum, we rolled our vehicles into the city. We brought in tanks, Bradleys, and about three hundred Infantry. We did it at the height of the business day. In Cadaseeah, two individuals belonging to one of Saddam’s controlling families had a plan of their own. They transported a powerful bomb in a small taxi, intent on some sinister plot. What they had not counted on was the bump in the road they hit on the way out that somehow (providentially, I believe) connected the electrical circuit to the blasting cap. The taxi immediately became a flaming convertible. Eventually the vehicle smoldered out, still occupied by two evil men frozen in their charred poses.

That night, we blasted at previous insurgent mortar locations with our own. One had a cache in it and we saw a secondary explosion when our rounds hit it. In the days that followed, the town became subdued and quiet. We resumed our patrols. Our informant network grew. People began to cooperate whereas before, they would not.

Whatever the correlation, one thing is for certain—we were making progress. We would not win the people of Tikrit over. They generally hate us. We are kind and compassionate to those who work with us, but many detest us here as a general rule. But they do respect power. Some have questioned our forcefulness but we will not win them over by handing out lollipops—not in Tikrit. Too many of my bloodied men bear witness to this. The die-hard Saddam loyalists are the “Beer Hall” crowd of Munich in 1945. They can’t believe it is all gone.

Draining the Marshes

Reporters had asked me many times about the status of the hunt for Saddam. I told them he was still a priority but that we would accomplish our other missions whether we caught him or not. Frequently they would ask whether or not I thought he was in the area. I told them I believed he surely could be because his support base was clearly in Tikrit. But rarely would we get an Elvis sighting that was timely. Usually it would be third- or fifth-hand information and almost always, “He was here four days ago.” Thanks buddy. That helps.

We were however starting to gather momentum. We knew the four controlling families that we believed surrounded Saddam. The problem was how to get them and once we got them, how to get the big guy. We had some incredible good fortune with a series of raids. The 720th Military Police under LTC Dave Poirier snagged a key member of a set of brothers we had been pursuing all summer. He was not the major player but we believed he would lead us to his other brothers who were major players. We were right.

In the early part of November, this brother began to sing. He gave us key information about his older brothers. One thing led to another. Soon, Special Operations Forces found the key brother we had been seeking since late June. No Iraqi knew it at the time. They found him in a sparse, mud-brick farm well west of Tikrit. When they got him, he dropped his head in resignation. His war was now over as well.

We were once again on the trail. We had been broadly around it in September and October but the increase of trigger-pulling activity among the enemy necessitated our division of labor between the thugs pulling triggers and the thug bosses. Now we had a clear blood trail on the inner circle and an excitement began to build. If we could break the inner circle, we felt it would come down fast. It did. On the 13th of November, we conducted raids with some other forces in Tikrit. Four more men were pulled from the swamp. While lesser players, they were related to some recent attacks and also had some key information.

The locals seemed to reach a peak in discontent—not that they ever loved us. We had oft been criticized in our efforts to win hearts and minds. But how can you win a black heart and a closed mind? The people we were dealing with could not be swayed. They understood power and respected that. Anything else would be a chance to strike back at us. November continued to have numerous roadside bomb attacks but providentially, we had been spared casualties.

Even so, we came back at them with a powerful display of our weaponry. On the 17th of November, our battalion rolled tanks, Bradleys, Infantry, scouts, and Civil Defense Iraqi soldiers into town. I wanted to remind them that our Army was more than just humvees. We had teeth and claws and would use them.

Our teeth and claws sunk into more dark hearts on the 19th with a very successful raid combined with other forces. They took two targets and we took two. The raid resulted in some key figures captured—some related to the attacks on our helicopters. The potential for more information would surely produce more raids. The swamp began to drain. An image of the alligator began to appear below the surface.

While developing more information, we continued an indirect war with the trigger-pulling thugs. Mortars impacted Owja, narrowly missing the A Company “Gators.” An SS-30 rocket missed the “Cobras” as it fell short, making a bomb-sized crater in town and blowing gates off of walled compounds and destroying a car. The 10th Cavalry found the launch area on their side of the river and engaged several individuals, killing five. They were from Fallujah.

Indirect attacks were not the only threat. The roadside bombs continued to be the favorite. On the 24th of November, CPT Jon Cecalupo who commands our “Cougars” of C Company, 3-66 Armor was leaving the battalion command post when he made a right turn onto Highway 1. As he did, a powerful blast showered the convoy. But for some reason, the effects were small. The bomb, detonated by a wireless doorbell, had been placed in the opposite lanes. Consequently, the blast blew away from him instead of on him. We were thankful. We did not need another commander to face what CPT Curt Kuetemeyer faced in his command convoy.

A while later, I took my own convoy over to where the attack had occurred. What we found was the result of a clean-burning bomb, probably C-4 explosives. We talked to the local shop owner, who was well liquored. I could tell he was not involved because his own later model BMW was peppered with concrete shrapnel—making him innocent or completely stupid. Both seemed likely. But we were satisfied that they did not know who had executed the attack.

With our convoy that night were a couple of visiting reporters—one from the Pittsburg Tribune and the other from NBC News. We discussed the incident briefly and as we did, one of my soldiers, SPC Mike Bressette, said, “Sir, we are standing next to a bomb.” I looked at my feet to discover a cinder block capped with cement on the holes. Protruding from the holes were red, pig-tailed wires connecting the two halves for sympathetic detonation. A sense of mortality immediately washed over me as I said, walking backwards, “Yes we are!”

We backed off and set a cordon. SFC Gil Nail, my operations sergeant who travels in my convoy, set up at what we figured was a safe distance and shot one round of tracer into the device. Immediately it began to burn. Soon, a white-hot jet shot up from the block as if it were a magnesium flare. Suddenly, we heard a medium-sized pop—the blasting cap. Thinking it would continue to burn after the blasting cap failed, we continued to keep the area clear and waited while it burned. Suddenly, a violent explosion ripped the night air.

Laughter and banter ensued as a shower of shrapnel and sparks flew over us and provided a nice light show for the evening. “I think it’s burned out now, Sir,” our men asserted. The reporters watched us in amazement and Kevin Sites from NBC caught it all on film. We resumed our evening patrol.

Ramadan

As the Muslim holiday of Ramadan approached at the end of November, leaders throughout Iraq urged a lifting of curfews in the cities on the condition that no violence would occur or they would be reinstated. Our good will lasted about five minutes.

Shortly after what would have been curfew, automatic weapons fire erupted near the Division main gate. No one was hurt and we were never able to determine from the unit there what had happened. On the 25th, we found more roadside bombs. A big one had an 82mm mortar round with plastic explosives packed around it. They set it in the median of the main highway downtown. We found it and shot it to explosion without incident. Also that evening, some thugs fired an RPG that went skipping down the front road near one of our towers. It failed to explode and no one was harmed.

The next several days were calm. We used the lull to continue our swamp draining by refining some of our intelligence with observation and human sources. In the meantime, we also began to find evidence of weapons caches being brought in for future use. On the 28th we found another SA-7 anti-aircraft missile as well as thirty-five boxes of mortar fuses. We swept the same locations the next day and found over five hundred 120mm mortar rounds still in the boxes. All of these munitions were hidden in the city trash dump on the west side of Tikrit.

*   *   *

December arrived with rains that, no matter how hard it came down, failed to wash away the dust and filth of this land. The nastier weather also made for a reduction in attacks on our forces, but they did not cease. A roadside bomb on the main street in downtown Tikrit heralded the 1st of December. An alert but unarmed security guard watched as a man pulled up in a sedan and waddled to the median carrying a heavy five-liter vegetable oil tin. The car sped off and the man ran into a back alley. The guard called the police who, in turn, called our forces. They flagged down CPT Brad Boyd of C Company while out on patrol. His men shot up the bomb that exploded powerfully in the center of town. No one was harmed and no major damage was done except to the brickwork on the median.

By December 2nd, information continued to flow. A hot tip produced some HOT Missiles—missiles manufactured jointly by the French and Germans. They are wire guided and are similar to our TOW missiles. The cache contained twenty of these and was a relief. Then, the next night we conducted a joint raid in downtown Tikrit. The inner circle network of brothers protecting Saddam was further exposed. Our raid captured another of these brothers. Three more down. More information would follow. Scales, eyeballs, snout, and tail began to break the surface of the murky waters.

As the swamp continued to abate, there was no shortage of unusual happenings. CPT Mitch Carlisle, one of our battle captains in the command post, summed it best: “Every day in Iraq is the strangest day of my life.”

The 4th of December was no different. We received a call that a soldier’s mother was at the Division gate with an antiwar group and a number of reporters. The soldier was from one of the divisional support units. We were instructed to ignore it. As they were not demonstrating, we did. I began to visualize a weird and imagined exchange in my mind. “MOM! Could you please go home? You are embarrassing me in front of my friends!”

The next several days produced positive results all around. A couple of raids disrupted enemy activity in Owja, Tikrit, and Cadaseeah. We continued to find roadside bombs and disarm or detonate them. In the midst of this, we gave pause on the 6th of December to light a Christmas tree in our headquarters. We sang carols and generally had a good time. We ended by singing “Feliz Navidad,” since nearly half of our battalion is Hispanic.

We had another breakthrough on the trigger pullers on the 8th of December. We raided four targets in Cadaseeah that netted eight thugs and explosive-making materials, including several radio-controlled cars. The next day we sucked more water from the swamp. An important tip netted a man long associated with Saddam as the “Gators” of A Company raided a remote Western Desert farmhouse. Simultaneously, Special Operations Forces pulled his brother out of a city to the south. These two men provided additional information to add to the steady stream already flowing from the swamp.

As their intelligence was analyzed, we did not sit idle. We found an important link to mid-level guys and ran it down very quickly. The evening of the 10th ended with two brethren and a variety of nasty weapons. At the time I described it as a “Fedayeen Candy Shop.” Any type of attack could have been planned with the variety of weapons found buried in the front yard of a filthy house on the outskirts of Tikrit.

We captured roadside bombs, Pepsi can bombs, RPG launchers with rockets, two different and complete mortar systems (one in the outhouse!), small arms, ammunition, grenades, explosives, and radio-controlled devices for bombs. The upshot of it all was that the occupants denied all knowledge of the find. They said that the Army must have put it there. Oh, we did not think of that! Of course, our own Army issues the Mark 1 Pepsi Bomb. And I would never have seen the mortar system in my own outhouse. Their war is now over.

On December 11th the “Gators” raided a farm based on a tip from a Fedayeen meeting. They captured six men along with small arms, grenades, and ammunition. One case of submachine gun ammunition was actually under the bedding of a baby crib—complete with baby! They left the baby but took the ammunition and the nice PPSH-41 Russian submachine gun to which it belonged. It was dated 1943 and was in museum-quality condition. It now hangs on our wall with other nice finds.

The next day, our soldiers discovered another roadside bomb and blew it up with gunfire. Meanwhile, Special Operations Forces pulled the information of the last couple of weeks from our joint raids and got a jackpot—the inner circle brother we had been tracking all summer. Four down. We began to see the alligator. COL Hickey and others broke the good news to us that evening. The excitement continued to build. That evening, C Company’s “Cobras” were on patrol in downtown Tikrit. Two thugs in a black late-model Toyota sedan with right-hand drive dashed down the street on which the men were patrolling. The passenger hung an AK-47 out the window on the left side of the car and fired a burst at the squad. SGT Trujillo brought his rifle into action almost immediately. He fired four rounds at the moving car. All four rounds hit the man with the AK-47 in the head.

The driver, seeing his cousin’s head explode, decided to immediately stop and put up his hands. That the soldiers did not kill him before he raised his hands is a testament to the discipline of the men. They showed him quarter but the thug certainly had no doubt about who came out on top as he was shoved to the pavement and subdued. The men pulled the attacker from the vehicle. His bleeding body collapsed onto the street. The men checked him for wounds but all were in the head. There was nothing that could be done. His faint breathing quickly ceased. An idiot dies. His war—and that of his cousin—was now over.

Phone Calls and the Capture of Hussein

The morning of the 13th I received a phone call from my commander. I listened as COL Hickey explained the snowball of information now gathering. He told me to alert my soldiers for any contingency and to have a force ready at a moment’s notice. He planned to use us and the brigade reconnaissance troop, which he would bring down from the Western Desert. We were going after the alligator.

We had been through the drill many times before. Des Bailey and I had worked together on many a raid in the farmlands east, across the Tigris. Each time, excitement builds because each time could be the catch. Not two days before I had told the press that there was an intensity and excitement about Saddam comparable to our operations in July and August during the well-publicized hunt for him. Sensing my honesty about the matter though no facts were conveyed, several decided to hang around Tikrit despite the urging of their editors. They were not sorry they did.

COL Hickey told me that we could expect something in west Tikrit—that’s about what he knew as to the locale. As soon as he had better information, we would act swiftly. By late afternoon the information came. But the location had changed from west Tikrit to east Tikrit and across the Tigris River. We kept a ready force on our side and opposite ad Dawr. COL Hickey proceeded to assemble the forces on the east side for the operation. Special Operations Forces and brigade elements that included LTC Reggie Allen’s 1-10 Cavalry, LTC Dom Pompelia’s 4-42 Field Artillery with attached engineers (Dom was still on leave and so his exec, MAJ Steve Pitt, would command the artillery soldiers), and CPT Des Bailey’s G Troop, 10th Cavalry readied for the operation commencing at 2000 hours.

Our brigade elements provided the cordon while the Special Operations folks hit two farmhouses. In the courtyard of one was the now famous hole from which a haggard Saddam Hussein was pulled. The special ops soldiers pulled him away and then whisked him off to safety. COL Hickey ordered the site to be secured for future exploitation. He called MG Ray Odierno and gave him the good news. While I suspected as much because of the orders we were receiving on the radio, it was not until about 2230 that COL Hickey phoned and broke the good news. “Sid Caesar!” he said. (In the summer time frame, the higher command published “what if” pictures of Saddam if he tried to change his appearance. COL Hickey often joked that one of them looked liked Sid Caesar.)

“Oh, my God!” I said, as I thanked God silently while the boss explained what happened.

“Not a word,” he said. “The announcement must be official and it will take some time.”

“Roger, Sir. I understand the importance of it.”

Contained, self-composed, but about to bust at the seams as I hung up the phone, I kept silent to the men about the news that would change the world. I felt proud and thankful to have been a part of it from the beginning. I could not help but think back to an e-mail that I received from my wife in late October. She said that a man named Dick Dwinnell called her and encouraged her to send me a message. In it, he said that he knew I was a praying man and as a leader one of my missions was to find Hussein. He said that if my staff and I prayed for God to help us find Saddam, He would help us. That next Sunday we did just that. I asked the brigade chaplain, MAJ (CH) Oscar Arauco to lead us. For the next several weeks he continued to lead us until our battalion chaplain, CPT (CH) Tran, returned to us from an illness. And now here I was taking it all in on the evening of the 13th of December.

The next day, the world was abuzz. Rumors and rumblings finally gave way to confirmations. Then the electrifying announcement came from Baghdad. Now we could finally talk about it. That evening when we patrolled the town, it was quiet as a mosque mouse. The city appeared at 2130 the same as if it were 0300. In each flop house, apartment, and home you could see faces lit palely by the television. The regime’s war was now over, too!

After the Event

We braced ourselves for the activity sure to follow—especially in Tikrit. We saw a spike in violence after Saddam’s spawns were killed in Mosul in July. We didn’t have to wait long. While activity was low on the 14th, we did have a couple thugs fire on a C Company patrol south of the “chevron” in town. None of our men were injured although the alleyways and distance prevented maintaining contact with the attackers.

A new type of resistance raised its head on the 15th of December—demonstrations. We had experienced a few attempts at them in late September and early October but broke them up as soon as they tried to assemble. This month was no different. I was meeting with the tribal council of sheiks at about 1000 hours and had gotten through the preliminaries when my operations sergeant came and interrupted our meeting. He whispered that there were several hundred students forming at the tip of the “chevron” and a separate group on the main street. I closed the meeting with apologies and we mounted up our humvees and sped in the direction of the demonstrations.

CPT Brad Boyd had already moved to the “chevron” to contain about five hundred male students. They were marching south along Highway 1 and appeared to be heading toward the second reported group on the main street. CPT Mark Stouffer heard the chatter on the net and readied some of A Company to support.

I took the command convoy and sped north along Highway 1 where it turns into the main street. In the distance we could see a group of about 250 people, mostly women. Brad reported that he had forces closing on the northern group. Looking ahead, I called on my guys to ready the bullhorn. I had learned in Kosovo the value of having a bullhorn that doubled as both siren and loudspeaker. We bounced up sidewalks to get nearer the crowd and then flipped on the blaring siren when we were near the back of the crowd.

The picture that followed reminded me of that Blues Brothers scene where they drive the big car into the demonstration on the bridge. Startled women and their flowing black robes scattered in all directions. Cowardly men once at the head of the group suddenly melted into the population at large. Our soldiers grabbed the various Saddam posters and shouted for all of them to clear out or be arrested. Gaining the element of surprise, we bought a bit of time. I called on CPT Stouffer to come to my location to take over traffic control and to keep the main highway open. He was already moving.

Meanwhile, CPT Boyd brought his soldiers around the group and through careful maneuver, herded the group into a dead end. Soon, the scratch of concertina wire could be heard surrounding the trapped troublemakers. His men had already gained moral dominance by heading straight for the angry-faced thug leading the group and then proceeded to subdue him—soundly. Once accomplished, the rest of the crowd scattered but really had no place to go.

After I handed over the downtown situation to Mark Stouffer, we headed up to the “Cobras.” Brad had the situation well in hand and the police chief arrived. We were able to work out the situation and turned over the ringleaders to the police. The remainder were given a reprieve, searched, and sent on their way. The groups had one thing in common—certain educators in town organized them all. I intended to take this up with the governor the next day.

That evening we reviewed our procedures for handling crowds. Under Saddam, no demonstrations were allowed. Under the new government, they were not allowed. No matter. We would not allow them, period, and refused to have our supply routes cut off by demonstrators. When December 16th dawned, we anticipated more of the same.

At about 1000 we received reports of another demonstration forming north of town. CPT Boyd filled up his convoy, headed toward the reported location, and called forward one of his elements. Heading north along the “Birthday Palace” boulevard, he spotted a white Mercedes near one of the drains along the side of the road. The Mercedes masked the drain and then pulled out at a high rate of speed. Sensing danger, CPT Boyd turned to his driver, SPC Miguel Romero, and yelled instructions that were never followed.

A deafening roar combined with concrete, smoke, shards, and concussive blast. FSG Mike Evans, in the second of three vehicles, saw a billowing cloud of smoke engulf the view to his company commander’s humvee. The smoke expanded until it reached the other side of the four-lane road. The sound of small arms cracked in the midst.

Hoping that the lead vehicle had passed before the bomb detonated, FSG soon discovered that was not the case. SPC Romero heard his company commander firing at the car. FSG Evans’s humvee pulled up to his commander’s vehicle. SSG Patrick McDermott was already at his commander’s side checking him. He then told SPC Romero to pull the vehicle out of the area across to the other lanes, which he did.

FSG Evans and the other soldiers laid out a base of fire in support of their commander in the direction of the vehicle, but it soon faded into the built-up part of the city. The first sergeant then focused his attention on the soldiers in the lead vehicle. CPT Boyd was OK—a little bloody but OK. He had wounds on his face, arm, and legs.

The doctor sitting behind him was pulled out of the truck and assessed as the worst of the three. He had a nasty face wound as well as arm and leg wounds. The gunner on the .50 cal machine gun took some light shrapnel to the hands, arms, and legs. They immediately pulled out the stretchers and called to alert our aid station. The company Quick Reaction Force arrived in five minutes, pulled security, and recovered the humvee.

SPC Brian Serba along with SPC Broz had already stuck IVs, applied bandages, and administered 5mg of morphine to CPT Boyd and the doc. FSG Evans brought the casualties and convoy to the battalion. I received the news from my XO, MAJ Mike Rauhut. I put on my gear and prayed that they would be OK. I asked God to spare them. We had gone seven weeks without a single casualty and now we had three. After getting my gear together, I ran to the aid station as they arrived.

The scene was familiar. We have been through it many times. The soldiers came into the converted kitchen as field medics held IVs steady. The surgeon and physician assistants went on autopilot, making one hundred quick assessments and giving as many orders on what was needed. The medical platoon soldiers seemed to find everything that was asked for and hand it to them.

I walked up to C Company’s wounded doc and comforted him in his pain. He lay on the table knowing what to do, but now he was the patient. I spoke to him to let them take over … to take a deep breath … that he would be fine. I caressed his head as I spoke to him, not being able to do anything except comfort him and pray. He was in good hands. As I pulled my hand from his head, I could feel his blood on it. I had been through it before. But it is never easy. I feel responsible for them.

CPT Boyd was just as tough on the stretcher as on the street. My challenge with him was to order him to relax. He was cold. But they had to dress his wounds. I told him that the doctors were in charge and to listen to them. We found moments of humor together there … in an awkward way … the way that only soldiers can understand. It was hard to hold back my emotion but I did. I could tell by their wounds that they were going to be fine. They would be out of the net a bit though.

The docs continued to work them over. As they did another doc entered the aid station. He was a Special Forces medic from the guys on our compound. He said nothing. He simply walked in, snapped on some gloves, and quietly began to work. I don’t think that any of us even knew his name but he was one of us—a soldier.

The first sergeant brought his commander out with the others and they placed them on the ambulance. I ordered Brad to put his head down because he kept trying to raise it and the tight fit and his head didn’t go well together as they slid him into the slots on the ambulance. The vehicle sped away to the hospital. Media were nearby the whole time. They were not the enemy. They had been on patrols with us and knew the men on the stretchers. But they did the only thing they knew to do. They began to record it. They did it in a dignified way so as not to show the faces of the men on the stretchers. We did not really notice them at the time.

I called the first sergeant and told him to assemble the soldiers from the convoy. I explained to them to channel their emotion. I cautioned them to use it to take it to the enemy, but not to see all people as the enemy. We still had a lot of work to do and these men would return. I did not want to lose more. The men seemed fine. They had already accounted for their equipment and readied for the rest of the day. It was not even noon. I readied my command group as well. I had planned to see the governor. We were going to get at the educators behind the senseless demonstrations. As we readied, a report of a gathering demonstration in downtown crackled over the net. We sped to the location.

As we arrived, we noticed that two of “Cobras’” Bradleys had just pulled up in a herringbone on the northbound lanes in town. The men started spilling out the back and several sergeants began to point to a side street east. Suddenly, a rifle cracked off just as I got out of my vehicle. Then another. On its heels was a good burst from an M240B machine gun. I ran up to the squad and asked what they were shooting at. They said someone in the crowd threw what appeared to be a pipe-like object. Believing it to be a bomb, they fired a burst above the crowd. I told SSG John Minzer to take control of his men. The crowd had already scattered in all directions. Joe Filmore, our translator from San Diego, questioned several of the students nearby. We told them to scatter immediately or be arrested. They wasted no time getting out of there.

We remounted and headed toward the government building. As we passed the shops on the streets, the looks were like daggers. Men spat and narrowed their eyes in sideward glances. Uppity. They were getting Uppity. Fine. I would solve this right now! I already had three casualties this day. I did not want any more.

I put out a net call on the battalion for the commanders to assemble at the “Birthday Palace.” I told them to bring everything that could roll and all the Infantry they could spare. Then I called Reg Allen over at 1-10 Cavalry and asked for some attack aviation support for 1400 hours. I told him I was going to do a heavy-handed patrol of the city and clear the streets. I had known Reg since he was a first lieutenant. We had gone to the Armored Officers Advanced Course together. He said I could have anything I needed. He is a good man.

We assembled at the “Birthday Palace” with a large force. I opened an imagery map on the hood of the humvee, and pulled the lead tanks and plastic soldiers from my butt pack on my gear. We talked through a quick concept and then executed it about twenty minutes later. CPT Jon Cecalupo brought the “Cougars’” tanks down the main street. The “Cobras” followed behind and did a herringbone with about eight Bradleys downtown. The ramps fell and our Infantry ran at the sidewalks, immediately clearing the crowds. Reg’s aviators swooped overhead at intimidating heights. CPT Mark Stouffer followed with A Company’s “Gator” Infantry and Bradleys as well and then CPT Darryl Carter brought up the Iraqi Civil Defense troops. The town immediately became calm. We patrolled in this way for the next several hours, looking for trouble. But no one would give it.

As the soldiers swarmed the city, I called for the PSYOPS truck. We went to the governor and he drafted a tough message to tell his own people. Then he asked if he could go with us to play it around town. I thought it a great idea so he hopped in my humvee and off we went. He sat behind me with a loaded pistol (my kind of governor!) while we drove at idle speed around the city. His bodyguard flanked him and our soldiers watched the shock on the faces as their own governor was telling them to knock it off or his forces would use lethal force and demonstrators would be imprisoned. The wind was out of the sails. We’ve not had a demonstration attempt in the last week and a half.

That evening I went to the field hospital to see the guys. Brad’s gunner was already released back to his unit. He would need some time to recover but could do it from his unit. C Company’s doc was moved to Baghdad. He needed some additional care.

I found Brad lying on a hospital bed in the inflated tent hospital. He looked pretty good and seemed to be in good spirits. I told him that I was sending CPT Mitch Carlisle to fill in for him until he could be healed. He told me he did not want to be evacuated further. I told him I would do what I could. While we were talking, a chaplain came in and asked in a low tone if I was the commander of 1-22 Infantry. I told him yes. He said we had another casualty.

The patrol from elements of our B Company cross-attached to the armor battalion in Bayji moved along a route looking for roadside bombs. The lead vehicle faced its turret forward and the trail vehicle faced the turret to the rear. An RPG swooshed on an arc that connected to the turret of the platoon leader’s vehicle. The gunner had been leaning up and was looking for bombs when it hit. The rocket hit near the TOW launcher and then the gunner took nearly all of the blast. Only God and his body armor saved him. The platoon leader was also wounded but not critically.

When they brought him into the hospital, all I could do was pray. I begged God to spare his life. The chaplain and I prayed over him. I knew he would have a very long haul. I stayed with him until they took him into surgery. Mike Rauhut and I stood there and reflected on a very tough day. We traveled back to the command post and I knew the day was not over yet. I had to make the phone calls. When I arrived, CSM Martinez had the phone ready … but was I[?] I called the wives of our wounded and answered their questions as best I could.

I felt it would be best to tell them everything about their loved one’s condition. While tough for them to hear, I knew they wanted to know. I knew my wife would. So I tried to be honest with them. I would rather have attacked into the Feda-yeen than have had to make those calls. At least, this time, I was not calling to explain how their loved one died. You never really know what to say.

I slept soundly that night. By dawn, we patrolled a mostly passive city. The people smiled and some even waved. It was just as if nothing happened. A sense of disgust returned. That day I went to Auja and met with Sheik Mahmood.

We had a good discussion about Auja, the future of the Tikriti people, and the larger issue of how the Sunnis would fit into a new Iraq. After this visit we continued our patrols and then went back to the palace. I gave CPT Chris Morris, our scout platoon leader, a concept for getting the bomber on the “chevron.” I told him I wanted him to plan an operation that would set a trap with observation posts and snipers to last about four days.

The night of the 17th only had one roadside bomb—another cinder block bomb. Hand-drawn on the cement caps was the phrase “Allah Akhbar” (“Allah is powerful,” or “God is great”). Anyone wondering about whether or not they hate us should come and fight these thugs. There is no doubt in my mind that they would kill us in our own cities. Instead, we will kill them here.

The next day was calm. The town was actually civil. Chris Morris inserted his scouts for the ambush along the “chevron.” The rain fell. The temperature dropped. The enemy stayed inside. I guess the man dresses get a little drafty this time of year. We patrolled our area and checked on the guys out in the rain. Their morale remained good. The week before, I had talked to several of the units. I got all the enlisted together by company and then the sergeants. It was good to hear what was on their minds. We looked forward to Christmas, and I urged the soldiers to stay focused on the mission. Home would be when we set foot there. Not before.

The “Cougars” patrolled on the 19th in Cadaseeah. They saw a Saddam poster on a shop. The men dismounted their tanks and checked it out. A cursory search of the vegetable shop revealed grenades and plastic explosives mixed with the cucumbers and tomatoes. They might as well have hung a sign that said “Idiot Lives Here.”

The men searched all the shops in the complex and found another with a garden variety of explosives. As it developed, we sent some Infantry support to them from 1LT Mike Isbell’s platoon of “Cobras” and then we ended up arresting two men. We left an observation post on the houses of the shop owners and pulled in two more men over the next two nights. One turned out to be one of the guys who bombed Brad’s convoy.

Tidings in Tikrit

A chill is in the air now—mixed with the pall of wood smoke hanging over the city. We were once bathed from head to toe with sweat, but now cover ourselves with items to keep warm and dry. The temperatures here have cooled, but the situation seems to change as often as the weather. The environment in Tikrit at this writing is simmering—not a boil, but simmering.

The last few days have been fairly calm. The roadside bombs have ceased for several days now, since the arrest of the individual in Cadaseeah. We’ve had sporadic events but nothing out of hand.

The morning of December 23rd, the Fourth Infantry Division had a prayer breakfast. MG Ray Odierno reminded us all that we should be thankful to celebrate it and to remember those who will not be with us this year. Last night we had a wonderful candlelight service at the battalion. LTC (CH) Gil Richardson, the division chaplain, gave the message to our soldiers and we sang Christmas carols.

Today we spent Christmas in Iraq. While away from family we have their love and prayers. While away from our nation we have their gratitude. While away from home we have the bonds of friendship with fellow soldiers. I am thankful to be an American fighting man.