Shock Factor (35 page)

While Lieutenant Boyce briefed Hendrickson, the platoon's medic climbed aboard Trimble's Humvee and went to work on Nate's wounds. Mike Giordano was not your typical medic. Gruff and growly, he often told the scouts, “I'll save your life if I have to, but I ain't your personal Jesus.”

The tough-guy comments concealed the medic's gentle side—at least until he started working gently on Nate's head. He stopped the bleeding, bandaged him up, and asked him if he was good to go. Gushwa, now that the adrenaline had drained away a second time, felt like crap. His head swam, he was seeing gray dots, and his neck felt like it was on fire.

But there was no one else to man the 240. From the look of things, Lieutenant Colonel Hendrickson was about to order them back into the fight.

“Good to go,” Nate told the medic. Giordano slapped him on the shoulder and climbed off the Humvee to go check the other men out.

In the meantime, the rest of the scouts began to check out their rigs for battle damage. All of them had been shot up. Staff Sergeant Paul's Humvee had been hit the worst. Its radio antennae had been torn off by the Mahdi gunfire, and shrapnel studded its metal hide. The men even pulled chunks of concrete off the back hatch.

Lieutenant Boyce came back to the platoon a few minutes later. The news wasn't good. The Mahdi had launched attacks all over Zone 22 and 50. They were in the open, shooting at anything American, attacking Iraqi police stations and Iraqi Army patrols. Hendrickson had brought up reinforcements—everything the battalion had available—and had ordered them to advance to contact down three of the main roads in northeast Baghdad. Hendrickson had tried to get air support. None was available. He tried to get artillery support. That was denied. The 39th Brigade did not want to have to rebuild the neighborhood if the Oregonians chewed it up with 155 and 105mm shellfire.

Failing that, he tried to get tanks. No luck. Everyone had their hands full that day. For heavy support, the battalion could count on a single platoon of Bradley Fighting Vehicles loaned to them from the 2/7 Cavalry. Hendrickson ordered the Brads to patrol down to the ambush site the scouts had just survived. To support them, Boyce's men would push down into a market area the Americans called Route Rogue, a few blocks north of the morning's kill zone. Charlie Company would cover the flank.

Hendrickson mounted up and rolled with the scouts. Trimble led the way again, this time turning onto Route Rogue in the heat of the mid-afternoon sun. Normally, this area bustled with activity. Rogue was the place to go in northeast Baghdad if you needed to buy consumer goods—sort of the Iraqi version of a Best Buy outdoor sale. Open market stalls and run-down storefronts lined the street. Iraqi merchants would stand beside their televisions, refrigerators, DVD players, and movie kiosks to hawk their wares and dicker with customers. Every time the Volunteers had visited the area during the day, the place was humming with activity.

Today, not a soul stood on the street. The shops were shuttered, the merchandise dragged inside to leave the sidewalk kiosks and stalls bare. The scouts stayed mounted and crept forward into the silent neighborhood. As they passed alleys and side streets, Nate could see crowds of people moving around on the blocks both north and south of the road they were on, as if business were usual over there. Obviously, they'd been told to stay clear of this one.

They drove past one alley, and Nate saw a man with an RPG lurking in its depths. He traversed left but couldn't get a shot on him before they drove past the mouth of the alley. He called up the contact, but by the time the second rig reached the alley, the man had melted into the crowd on the other end.

The platoon continued its slow advance down Rogue until it reached a larger intersection. Here, Hendrickson ordered a blocking position established. It was a tough spot to guard. The neighborhood was honeycombed with a maze of little alleys and side streets, none of which were large enough to accommodate Humvees. But they could certainly be used by the Mahdi Militia to attack the platoon. The gunners kept a close eye on them.

The battalion commander dismounted, carrying a Beretta M12 9mm submachine gun he'd grown fond of since the Volunteers had found it during a raid earlier in the year. Hendrickson carried it with him during meetings with local civilian leaders. In case there was trouble, the Beretta seemed like the perfect room-sweeper.

At the platoon's rear, Randy Mitts climbed out of his rig, as did Tyson Bumgardner. Hendrickson went over to talk with them just as Nate noticed a group of civilians coming toward them from an alley a few blocks away. They seemed to be excited, eager, as if they were about to watch a good movie. Tyson and Mitts spotted them too and kept a careful eye out for anyone with a weapon.

Was this a Bull Run moment? In 1861, as the Union and Confederate armies met at Manassas, crowds of civilians gathered with picnic baskets to watch the show. Some of them got trapped in the pell-mell Union retreat at the end of the battle.

To the south, the sound of gunfire swelled in the distance. The distinct rapid-fire
boom-boom-boom-boom
of the 25mm autocannon mounted on our Bradleys echoed across the neighborhood. The 27 guys had driven into the kill zone. Rashes of AK-47 bursts resounded next. Explosions followed. A fierce firefight soon raged only a few blocks away. The sounds echoed and bounced around the buildings, streets, and alleys, which made it impossible to pinpoint the origins of the gunfire.

Nate glanced back that way, saw nothing, then returned his eyes to the crowd. They'd inched even closer. He saw no weapons, but the chances of somebody with one pushing through the mass of people to take a potshot at the Americans seemed likely. He flipped the safety off on his M240 and triggered a short burst over the crowd's head. The warning shots had their intended effect. The people backed off.

To the north, another firefight broke out. The Mahdi ambushed the flank element from Charlie Company with small arms and RPGs. Now, surrounded by the staccato sounds of AKs and 240s, the scouts found themselves in the middle of an oasis in a neighborhood otherwise aflame with combat. It was a weird, eerie sensation, like being in the eye of a hurricane.

Behind the scout platoon, another crowd surged up an alley. Bumgardner, Mitts, and the LTC Hendrickson watched them with suspicion. Where they just curious? Or was this part of some Mahdi plan? Either way, the men held their weapons close and stayed ready for anything.

Something sizzled right over the platoon and exploded against one of the buildings on the south side of the street.

“
RPG!
” somebody shouted.

An engine roared. Chuck Mangus, who was manning the turret-mounted machine gun on Randy Mitts's Humvee, saw one of the Mahdi technicals that had chased them earlier sweep into an alley and barrel straight for the platoon. Mangus swung his turret to get his gun on target. The rig skidded to a halt. The militiamen in the bed were armed with machine guns and RPGs. One of the RPG men popped up over the cab and fired. Mangus saw the flash from the launcher. The rocket streaked right over his truck and exploded on the south side of the street.

Mangus went cyclic, tearing the pickup truck to shreds. The driver died instantly, so did his passenger. The RPG man was blown out of the bed by repeated impacts. He flopped to the ground, where Mangus hit him again and tore him apart.

The crowd behind the platoon parted. Two figures sprinted out from the crowd and ran behind a beat-up minibus parked on the side of Route Rogue.

Hendrickson saw them. The lead man carried an RPG. The trail one had a satchel full of rocket reloads. He flipped off his Beretta's safety and pulled the trigger. The full auto weapon sprayed nine-mil rounds downrange. The glorified Italian grease gun managed only to rip fresh holes in the nearby cars and walls.

The RPG man darted out from behind the minibus and triggered his weapon. To everyone there it looked as if he was aiming at Bumgardner. Tyson thought so, too, and in that split second, he thought he was a dead man. But the rocket deflected downward and exploded in the street fifty feet in front of the scouts. Bits of dirt and rocks and shrapnel flew in all directions. Smoke boiled from the impact site. Chunks of the roadbed pelted Tyson as he took a knee and drew a bead on the RPG gunner.

At the same moment, Mitts dashed behind a blue Chevy Suburban parked on the opposite side of the street. He opened through the vehicle's windows, shattering them with his first two shots. His third hit his target in the chest. Mangus also let fly with a long, raking burst. Bullet holes Swiss cheesed the minibus and probably struck the militiaman carrying the RPG reloads. Exactly which of the three Americans hit which of the two militiamen is unclear. In the chaos of such a moment, everyone remembers things a little differently. Mitts remembers everyone shooting at the same target, at least initially. But for Tyson, the moment was indelibly imprinted on his mind. He later recounted it, “I … instantly unloaded on that guy (the RPG gunner). I was on single shot but I remember firing so fast that my tracers looked like a red rope being sucked right into that guy's chest. I hit him with about half the magazine. Then he blew up.”

The American counter-fire had probably touched off a grenade or an RPG reload somewhere on the Mahdi militiaman. The blast vaporized him instantly. When the smoke thinned, the Volunteers saw a charred black circle in the roadbed where he had been standing.

A pair of shoes smoldered in the middle of that charred circle.

Tyson reloaded and ordered his gunner to lay down some fire. Bullets began skipping off the road around them, but it still almost impossible to determine where the enemy was. Meanwhile, Bumgardner saw Trevor Ward trying to unjam his M4. The weapon had double fed, and he couldn't get it clear. Tyson ran over to him even as more AK rounds ricocheted off the road. When it became clear the M4 wasn't going to be functional any time soon, he ordered Ward back to their Humvee to get an M249 SAW.

Meanwhile, Hendrickson ordered Mitts to go retrieve the RPG launcher. He headed over to Bumgardner and explained what they needed to do. Tyson wanted support as they moved down the block, so he told Ward to get in the driver's seat of the Humvee and back it down the road after them. That way, his turret gunner could cover their movement.

Civilians still lingered in the area. Some were hunkered down in front of shopfronts. Others peered from alleyways. It was an eerie feeling, heading toward all those watching eyes. But together, the two Oregonians bounded down the street.

They hadn't gone far when a small truck suddenly appeared in an alleyway, speeding straight at Tyson. The driver evidently had no idea a firefight was going on, and seemed surprised to see an American soldier in the street ahead. Tyson spun to the left and saw the truck coming unchecked. He fired a single shot from about fifteen meters away and put the bullet through the windshield directly between the driver and the passenger. Message received. The driver slammed on the brakes, then threw the truck into reverse and backed out of the engagement area.

The diversion had slowed Tyson down, and Randy had not noticed. When Bumgardner turned to continue on his way, he saw Randy quite a distance ahead, moving alone as civilians watched from both sides of the street. Tyson sprinted to catch up with his friend.

They linked up, and together moved past the blackened circle where the RPG gunner had been. His shoes still smoldered in the street. They hadn't gone far when movement caught Tyson's eye. He glanced to his right and saw a terrified Iraqi woman clutching three small children, cowering in a storefront.

Tyson motioned to her that she should move farther into the shop. For a moment, she stared, eyes wide at him and his rifle, then she did what he wanted.

The two scouts reached the shattered bus. Beneath the vehicle, the loader lay facedown in a pool of blood, his clothes ripped and torn. The stench of burned flesh and hair lingered, mingled with the acrid reek of gunpowder and explosives.

The RPG launcher was nowhere in sight.

An AK cracked. The bullet snapped past Tyson. He and Randy began searching the rooftops for the shooter. A moment later, another round ricocheted off the wall behind them. The two Americans hadn't seen where it had come from.

Tyson checked under the bus again. The loader hadn't moved, but the Oregonian couldn't be sure he was dead. He raised his rifle and was about to pull the trigger when the loader's eyes flew open. He looked right at Tyson, his face torn and covered in blood. With a shock, Tyson realized he was staring into the dying eyes of a teenage boy.

“Pleez, pleez don't kill me,” he begged in English.

Tyson froze, staring down his weapon at the broken human under the bus as he pleaded for his life.

“Pleez. Help. Me,” his forlorn voice, weak, in broken English, played across Tyson's ears.

Mitts saw all this happen from a few yards away and went cold. The Mahdi had been known to wear explosive vests, or detonate hand grenades when American troops approached them. All he could think of was his friend being blown to pieces before his eyes.

“Finish him, Bum,” Mitts said.

Tyson held his weapon to his shoulder, but didn't fire.

“Pleez … am student…” the loader cried.

“Where's the RPG?” Randy demanded.

The loader cried, “No RPG!”

“Kill him,” Mitts said.

Another bullet cracked overhead and whined off the wall behind them. The unseen gunman still had them in his sights.

Tyson was a college student back in Eugene. Six months before, he'd been going to school and playing soldier once a month. Now he was staring down his sights at a kid who could have been a classmate.

Until this moment, Bumgardner had never known fear in combat. He'd seen battle as a team sport with guns. But as he stared at the horror in front of him, a raw and primal terror welled within him. It was not fear for his own life, however, but fear he would make the wrong decision, the consequences of which would last a lifetime.