War Stories (35 page)

In the second demonstration of Marine ingenuity in as many days, the gunner mechanics have managed to pull the shot-up fuel pump and remove an armor-piercing 7.62mm slug from it in the process. They then jury-rig the fuel system. After examining the holes in our aircraft, the mechanics determine that no vital parts have been damaged and the bird can limp back to the safety of friendly lines.

As we lift out, Maj. Tim Kolb, flying another HMLA-267 Huey, comes alongside to escort us back to safety. After we land, I learn that he was the HMLA-267 pilot who evacuated the wounded corporal
from Capt. Aaron Eckerberg's broken CH-46 after the dust storm from hell. It really is a very small Marine Corps.

By the time I get back to RCT-5, everybody aboard the CH-46 is asleep except Col. Driscoll. As I climb onto one of the litters, he whispers, “You okay?”

“Yes,” I reply.

“Good. You're grounded.”

CHAPTER TEN

FALLEN IDOLS

   
OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #29

      
With RCT-5

      
Saddam City, east Baghdad

      
Tuesday, 8 April 2003

      
2300 Hours Local

G
etting shot up in the UH1N on April 6 didn't really get me “grounded,” but I did get a more sympathetic than usual hearing when I asked to go with one of the ground combat units as they entered Baghdad. With the acquiescence of MAG-39 and RCT-5, Griff and I put on our packs, shouldered our cameras and satellite broadcast gear, and joined Sam Mundy's 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines for the move across the Diyala and into the Iraqi capital.

Now that we've finally crossed the river, we're in the midst of the filthiest slum I've ever seen. This is Saddam City. The Iraqi dictator mandated that the Shi'ites who fled to the capital of Iraq had to live in the “planned community” he named after himself. It is a rabbit warren of crumbling, multistory, Soviet-style apartment buildings without running water or functioning sewage systems. It's worse than
anything I've ever seen in Calcutta, Haiti, or Bangladesh. The whole place is home to more than a million “internal refugees,” teeming with naked children, their stomachs distended from malnutrition. There is raw sewage running in the streets, and piles of trash—some of it smoldering with a stench that is enough to make even Marines who haven't bathed in weeks smell good.

And how we smell is something that's suddenly much more obvious. For the past nineteen days—since D-day—we've all been wearing chemical protective suits: baggy bib overalls and a hooded jacket. The tough, tightly woven, Teflon-treated nylon outer shell is hot, but the activated charcoal lining that protects the skin from chemical or biological agents also absorbs odors. Now that we've entered Baghdad, CENTCOM has advised everyone that Saddam is unlikely to use such weapons in his capital city, so we have shed the suits for the first time in nearly three weeks. We're all much more comfortable wearing field uniforms, but the inevitable consequence of not bathing is now greatly evident.

We're told to keep our gas masks on our hips and keep the chemical suits in our packs just in case this psychotic regime decides to do the unthinkable. Throughout the campaign, chemical weapons have been a threat, and every Marine unit has been on the lookout for any signs of WMD. In every Iraqi military installation we have overrun, the Marines have found large quantities of chemical protective suits, atropine antidote syringes, and Russian, Chinese, Yugoslav, Czech, French, and Jordanian gas masks—even some empty chemical artillery rounds and aircraft dispersal canisters—but they haven't found any of the chemical agents they're designed to hold. Given all the defensive preparations both sides have made in providing chemical protective equipment for their military forces, there's no doubt that both the Iraqis and the coalition forces expected Saddam to use them. What's unclear is where the weapons are now.

What is obvious to all, however, is that if Saddam uses such weapons against the American or British troops, he won't kill many of us—thanks to our protective NBC suits and masks—but he will succeed in killing thousands of Iraqi civilians. Up until now, we've all played it very safe. In addition to the protective gear, every unit has sophisticated, state-of-the-art chemical detection equipment—in some cases even a specialized vehicle for this purpose. And though this apparatus has given us several “false alarms” over the course of the past three weeks, causing us to quickly “mask up,” no one suggests that such alerts be ignored. We've all worn our NBC suits, put on our “rubber duckies”—rubber overshoes—when necessary, and kept our rubber gloves handy. But Marines being Marines, they have also taken additional steps, just in case the expensive high-tech equipment doesn't work as advertised. Before leaving Kuwait, almost every unit's NBC NCO bought some chickens and pigeons. The birds, kept in cages on the back of a Humvee, serve as the caged canary in a coal mine—they will succumb to smaller amounts of a chemical agent than humans. Griff, fascinated by what the Marines called their FEWGAD—“fowl early warning gas alarm device”—spent almost an hour “interviewing” Geraldine, one of the RCT-5 chickens. He decided not to videotape the other chicken, nicknamed Kung Pao; he thought the name was too descriptive of the bird's ultimate fate.

Our entry into east Baghdad with RCT-5 is almost anticlimactic, although it hasn't been for other Marine and Army units. After patrolling north along the Diyala River for forty-eight hours searching unsuccessfully for another crossing point, RCT-5, which led the 1st Marine Division the whole way from Kuwait, became the last Marine Regimental Combat Team to enter Saddam's capital. Without a third crossing point, Gen. Mattis decides that RCT-7 will seize a
damaged footbridge in the south, just above where the Diyala joins the Tigris, as well as a larger damaged highway bridge farther to the north.

Col. Steve Hummer, commanding RCT-7, gives the task of capturing the southern footbridge to 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, led by Lt. Col. Brian McCoy. For the northern span, the mission is assigned to Lt. Col. Jim Chartier's 1st Tank Battalion, supported by 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines and the LAVs of 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion.

For the first time, the Iraqis have made a serious effort to use obstacles to delay the forces closing in on Baghdad. Until now we have all been amazed that bridges, so essential to moving the thousands of military vehicles in this operation, have been largely intact. But now, as the 1st Marine Division is literally at the gates of the capital, the Iraqis have succeeded in badly damaging all the bridges over the Diyala on the eastern approaches to the city. Mattis is undeterred. Overflights by UAVs and helicopter pilot reports—along with some nighttime patrols by Marine Recon teams—convince him and his engineers that all the spans are repairable. He orders an attack for the following morning.

The attacks on the bridges begin simultaneously early on the morning of April 8 with heavy artillery bombardments. The day is overcast, and for a while it looks as if we're in for a repeat of the MOASS sandstorm of two weeks ago. And though the weather never turned as foul as what we'd experienced on the road north through the desert, the ceiling is low enough to limit close air support to only what the Cobras can deliver.

After a heavy prepfire by the 11th Marines' 155 howitzers and, later on, 81mm mortars, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines conduct a classic infantry assault across the damaged footbridge. McCoy had brought up a dozen M-1 tanks on the west bank of the river to provide covering
fire over the heads of his troops, and the tanks succeed in keeping the Iraqi defenders on the far side of the river pinned down.

As the assault commences, the Iraqis make a futile attempt to halt the Marines' advance. They begin by firing artillery at the Marine vehicles assembled and clearly visible on the east side of the river. The tankers simply button up the hatches on their Abrams and continue firing, though one enemy round hits an AAV not far from McCoy's CP, killing two and wounding four.

The Iraqi fire does nothing to stop or even slow the attack, however. Two companies of Marines force their way across the damaged footbridge using boards and metal engineer planking to span holes in the structure. More than half a dozen intrepid photojournalists—some embedded correspondents, some not—follow McCoy's Marines over the Diyala and into east Baghdad.

Meanwhile, a few kilometers to the north, 1st Tank Battalion, 3/7, and 3rd LAR are forcing a crossing over the larger highway bridge into east Baghdad. Again, the cameras of embedded journalists capture some of the very dramatic close combat at this bridgehead and the subsequent movement into the city. The videotaped footage offers stark testimony to the courage of small-unit leaders who lead the fight as they maneuver into the Iraqi capital. As with the footbridge farther to the south, Marine, Navy Seabee, and Army engineers quickly move in behind the infantry to repair the span under the protection of the armor.

As the Iraqis try to deal with the two RCT-7 bridgeheads, RCT-1 is forcing a third crossing farther north. Col. Toolan's troops use AAVs to traverse both an irrigation canal and then the Diyala. This creates a sufficient diversion for the engineers with RCT-7 to lay down a pontoon span next to the captured footbridge and repair the highway bridge, enabling it to carry the heavy Marine armor into the city. Finally, late in the day, RCT-5 rolls across the Diyala behind RCT-1. As
soon as his lead elements are assembled, Dunford drives hard to the north, on the west bank of the Diyala, making a long right hook. He is aiming for a rendezvous with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division along the banks of the Tigris.

Griff and I ride into the city with 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines through streets littered with garbage and lined with people. From the open hatch of an AAV, our cameras record Iraqis waving and cheering. Children, many wearing little more than rags, run beside our armored column, splashing barefoot through puddles of raw sewage, waving and yelling. The sixteen Marines in our vehicle are standing on the troop seats, facing outboard with their weapons at the ready. Behind us, an LAV, its 25mm chain gun traversing ominously, is not threatening enough to keep children from running up beside the large wheeled armored car and asking for food.

The poverty and hunger are so obvious that these battle-hardened Marines reach into their rucksacks, and soon candy, crackers, peanut butter, cheese spread, jelly, and even whole MREs are raining out of the slowly moving vehicles. Fearing that a child will fall beneath the treads or wheels in an effort to retrieve the morsels, someone finally puts a stop to the spontaneous “relief operation” by broadcasting over the tactical net, “Everybody, knock off throwing the food!”