Carnivore (10 page)

They could probably hear us coming a mile away. Hell, they could probably feel us in the soles of their feet. A 60-ton M1 at speed sounds like a screaming bulldozer on steroids. Broadhead's tank made the ground vibrate like the
T. rex
in
Jurassic Park
, and its tracks were trashing the asphalt road.

“Whoa, shit!” I heard Sperry say, as he slewed the Carnivore around a low wall, then had to swerve to avoid some people. Our tracks sprayed mud sideways. “Armor coming through here people, fucking
move
!”

“White 4, Red 2, you wanna slow it down some? We're swimming through soup and dodging chickens over here.”

“Red 2, roger that.”

We closed in on Objective Pistol, which was a railroad bridge in the town of As Samawah. Our mission was simply to hold it so the tank battalion coming up behind us could cross it. Most of Saddam's armor was further north, and everyone assumed the real war would start when the armor went head-to-head. As Samawah was just a small town, of no specific strategic importance, and we weren't expecting much of anything to happen there. Everyone knew Baghdad was where the real fight was going to happen. Still . . .

“Guys, heads up,” I told my crew. This was the first town of any size we'd encountered in our run north. Apart from a few mud huts and bedouins in tents, we had hardly seen any Iraqis, much less the Iraqi army. “I know you're tired, I'm tired too, but now's not the time to get your ass shot off 'cause you're not paying attention.” How much sleep had I gotten over the last three days? I tried figuring it out in my head. Less than an hour a day. No wonder I was so tired.

“Dismounts, three hundred meters!” Broadhead called out. I saw them.

Broadhead and I rolled to a stop, vehicles idling. We were within 300 meters of a bridge over a canal in As Samawah. Just past the canal bridge was Objective Pistol. Broadhead was in the middle of the road, and I was still off the road to his right.

There were about 30 guys on the near side of the canal bridge, in and around a small concrete building or bunker reinforced with sandbags. They had several vehicles as well and were not in uniforms. We could see they had AKs, and maybe an RPG-7 (rocket-propelled grenade launcher). You'd have to be a damn good shot to hit either of our vehicles with an RPG at that distance, and their AKs wouldn't do anything unless Broadhead or I caught a round in the face.

The AK-47 is probably the most-produced military rifle in world history, and it has a reputation for reliability. While they aren't necessarily as accurate as our M4s, someone who knows how to shoot could definitely hit a man's head at 300 meters with a few shots. My helmet theoretically would stop an AK bullet, but I didn't really want to test that theory. Soprano traversed our turret and pointed our 25 mm main gun toward the group.

“Don't fire,” I told him. “Just hold on.”

The M1 Abrams is America's main battle tank (MBT) and has been since the early 1980s. It is both longer and wider than the Bradley, and just about double the weight of a Bradley. Instead of a 25 mm full-auto main gun it had a 120 mm cannon on the front, with a .50-caliber M2 machine gun for backup, as well as an M240 7.62 machine gun coaxially mounted to the main gun. Ammunition for the M1s main gun comes in two types—an armor-piercing DU round, and a HEAT (high-explosive antitank) round. The HEAT round doesn't cause a general explosion like a bomb; rather, it is more focused, like a shaped charge, and designed to defeat armor. M1s have a crew of four—commander, gunner, loader, and driver.

The M1 was designed to be superior to the top-of-the-line Soviet MBT, the T-72, of which the Iraqis had plenty. No one had any doubt that the U.S. Army would win any tank battle with the Iraqis. The M1 would also withstand a direct hit from an RPG-7 warhead. My Bradley, on the other hand—let's not find out.

While a few had seen some action during the 1991 Gulf War, for all intents and purposes the Bradley Fighting Vehicle was untested in combat. The design itself was the result of a decades-long internal Army struggle so divisive it was the basis for a movie starring Kelsey Grammer,
The Pentagon Wars
. The movie concluded that the design of the BFV had been compromised by politics so badly that the vehicle literally was a deathtrap. It was too big, too heavy, too slow; the armor wasn't thick enough and the main gun was far too small to be effective. Personally, I loved the damn things, but I hadn't seen any serious combat in one. I had a feeling this war was going to settle the argument, one way or the other.

We reached the bridge at approximately 7
A.M.
on March 23, 2003. I don't believe either side had fired a shot in the war up to that point. We were the first major American force (apart from Special Forces teams) to reach that far north.

We stared at the group on the bridge, and they stared back. After a few seconds, Broadhead, who was standing up in his turret, waved at them. That may sound dumb, but it wasn't.

Our rules of engagement at the time were very limited. We had all been told that the Iraqis were just waiting for the Americans to arrive. As soon as we showed up, they would start hugging us and throwing flowers and asking us to kiss their babies and date their girlfriends. If we saw anyone with weapons, we weren't to fire at them, because as soon as they saw we were Americans they were going to join us in fighting Saddam.

I don't know if you watched the news, but it didn't quite happen that way.

O
bjective Pistol was a bridge that went over railroad tracks. We could see it maybe a couple of hundred meters beyond the canal bridge in front of us.

Broadhead waved at the crowd of armed Iraqis manning the crossing, and, as soon as they realized we were Americans, the guys manning the bridge opened up on Broadhead with AKs and RPGs.

“Shit, are they shooting at us?” Soprano asked me.

“At Broadhead,” I told him. “It'll be our turn soon enough. Heads up!” I told my crew over the radio. “This just turned into a shooting war.”

Broadhead ducked down and got on the radio with command. “Contact! Contact! I have troops engaging me with small arms.” He provided our location and, just to make sure, asked, “Am I cleared to return fire?” I am almost positive this was the first engagement of the war involving regular army troops, just after 7
A.M.
local time, March 23, 2003.

Captain McCoy responded immediately. “Roger, White 4, return fire.”

Broadhead opened up with his .50-cal on the fortified position, and the sound of the big gun was huge, echoing off every wall and building along the road. As powerful as the .50 is, it didn't do shit against the concrete and sandbags. The Iraqis kept firing back, now at us, too. Some ducked down, but the rest just stood in the middle of the road. At that distance, mostly firing on full auto, they were doing good to just hit the road near us. Well, nobody said every fight had to be fair.

“Gunner!” I called out to Soprano. “Targets, three hundred meters, HE, fire!”

Whatever doubt I might have had about the fighting effectiveness of the Bradley and its 25 mm main gun was quelled right then and there. Our main gun barked a short burst, and the Carnivore shivered from the recoil. The 25 mm high-explosive rounds landed in the middle of the men shooting at us and bodies flew everywhere. Their bunker was hit, one of their vehicles was struck—the HE was like an explosive tornado right in the middle of them.

“Shit, that worked,” Soprano said.

I grabbed the Commander's override, which gave me control of the main gun, and turned the 25 mm on their bunker. With just a few rounds I destroyed it. Broadhead and I kept firing, taking out another 10 or so guys in the open.

Four Iraqis jumped into a truck and hauled ass in the other direction, and Broadhead and I lit it up. The truck flipped over and went off the road.

“Red 2, let me call this in,” Broadhead radioed me.

“Copy.”

Broadhead called in a contact report to command, and I relinquished control of the main gun to Soprano again.

A few seconds later, Broadhead was back on the radio. “Red 2, White 4, proceeding toward the objective.”

“Roger that, on your ass.” We still hadn't reached our objective, the railroad bridge, which we could see in the distance. “Sperry,” I told my driver, “stay with him.”

Broadhead took the lead, running straight down the middle of the road, and we pulled up onto the road behind him. We rolled slow and careful, checking either side for threats or an ambush, but there was nothing. All the civilians who'd wandered out to rubberneck as we'd rolled up had vanished. As we approached the bridge, I found myself staring at all the dead men, even though I'd seen plenty of bodies before.

“Keep your head on a swivel,” I told my guys.

Right after we'd crossed the canal bridge, an Iraqi army truck appeared in the distance, heading straight for us. It stopped and spun around, and we could see it was full of Iraqi soldiers. There was a civilian pickup truck between us and the army truck, so we couldn't fire. At this point the adrenaline got the better of Broadhead, and he started chasing the army truck in Camel Toe. The huge diesel engine roared. I was his wingman, so I told Sperry, “Stay on his ass!” We immediately took off after him.

We drove right over the railroad bridge and kept going, past our objective, leaving the rest of the troop on the other side of the bridge. At that point the M1s were almost out of fuel, and the rest of them were waiting for the fueler to catch up. Sergeant Christner's Bradley had some sort of comm issue and lost radio, and everybody else was way back there wondering what all the shooting was about.

As we went roaring down the road chasing Broadhead in his M1, Sully saw three dismounts firing at us from the left, trying to set up a machine-gun position. He turned the M240B on them and killed them all with a long burst, and I looked back to see what had happened. Nineteen years old—that was the first time he'd ever pointed a gun at another human being, much less pulled the trigger, but he didn't hesitate. I was tough on them, treated them like the kids they were sometimes, but my crew wasn't stupid: we were at war, and they knew it. War means killing the other guy before he kills you. We soldiers don't make policy or decide whether to start a war, but we damn well are going to do the job we've been trained for if we're sent into battle.

The Iraqi army truck we were chasing turned into some sort of walled compound on the left side of the road. I watched as Broadhead's M1 pulled into the gate and just stopped, blocking it. Even over the roar of the Bradley I could hear the shooting.

“Knock down the wall next to him!” I yelled at Sperry.

It's hard to argue with mass, and 34 tons (plus ammo) beats concrete every day of the week. As the dust settled I popped out of the hatch and beheld absolute mayhem.

The compound wasn't big, maybe 20 by 40 yards, and there were vehicles and Iraqis in uniform running everywhere. Everyone I could see had AKs or RPGs, and they were firing at us with all they had. The truck we had chased was right in front of us, the back of it still filled with Iraqis.

“Shoot!” I yelled at Soprano.

“What?” he yelled back. The noise was incredible. We were only feet apart and could barely hear each other.

“Shoot!” I yelled back. “Shoot the fucking guys!”

“Where?”

“Where?” I yelled at him in disbelief. “They're everywhere! Pick a direction and fucking start SHOOTING!”

At that point one of the 15 or so guys standing in the back of the truck launched an RPG at me. The backblast from the rocket engulfed the man behind him in smoke and steam, and blew him out of the back of the truck. As I watched the RPG flying toward me, it was as if time had stopped. The round came at me like someone throwing a softball. The RPG went right by my face and smashed into the antenna mount next to me. Unbelievably, it did not explode but went spiraling smoke up into the air, landed somewhere behind my Brad, and then exploded.

RPGs were everywhere in Iraq. The launcher is a simple tube the user rests on his shoulder, and the rockets are inserted into the front of the launcher. Press the trigger, and the rocket-propelled-grenade's motor is ignited and it shoots out, deploying stabilizing fins as it goes. For what they are, they're reasonably accurate, but how effective they are ultimately depends upon the skill of the user. Generally, the Iraqis couldn't shoot worth a shit.

Soprano was still looking at me like he was confused, so I grabbed the Commander's override and launched six 25 mm HE rounds into the back of the truck. Bodies went flipping everywhere, and the truck broke in half. Apparently that truck was so close Soprano couldn't see the guys in the back of it in his sight, which was still set on low magnification. My grabbing the override was all that Soprano needed to figure out what was going on, and he got back on the gun. The truck went up in flames.

I pulled my Beretta pistol out and fired seven shots into two Iraqis who had come out of their bunkers right next to my vehicle. When I shot at them, they were less than two feet away from me and climbing up. The first Iraqi fell after the third shot and I had to fire four more times at the second Iraqi before he fell. Then the pistol jammed.

Iraqi soldiers were all around us, mere feet from the Bradley, getting closer, and they kept trying to climb up the sides. One came out of a building, firing at me. Most of the rounds hit the turret and bounced off, but at least one of the rounds hit my vest. I fell down into the vehicle, thinking I was dead. Surprisingly, I wasn't, even though I didn't have a plate in my vest—only the command group had armor plates. Turns out it was a pistol round, a 9 mm or .380, and only went through the first layer of my vest. I had a purple bruise on my chest for three months from that bullet. I grabbed Soprano's M4/203, popped back out of the hatch, and started taking enemy out. I was shooting people charging me, hiding behind vehicles, climbing up the sides of my Bradley. It was insane. We were taking a huge volume of fire, from every direction.