After a day that left me as worn and
brittle as a dried palm frond, I settled into the broken plastic chair behind
my desk and started to war-game our upcoming Air Assault mission. The plan had long since briefed to the
maneuver units, but for the hundredth time I peered over the aerial imagery
looking for details I might have missed. Planning and execution are dual sides
of the same coin, and both have become as familiar as the scent of dust and
death. But the stretch of time between
the two… that never gets any easier to bear.
And so I sat there - my body creaking in
places it shouldn’t, and my mind burning with restless flames - and once again
imagined the tactical choreography that would soon unfold. Hour after hour slipped by as my mind played
and replayed its own hyperkinetic chess match, conjuring up a hundred possible
pitfalls and a thousand possible solutions. Eventually the fever died and the flames guttered, and I knew that there
was little else I could do to prepare. I
looked up at the clock face and suddenly felt the serpentine coils of fatigue
encircling my chest, as if acknowledging the late hour somehow brought this bone
cracking weariness to life. I left a wakeup call with the CP along with orders
to wake me up by any means necessary and then collapsed into bed.
And so, after meticulous planning and days
of waiting, the Air Assault onto Devil Island started with
little more then a soft knock on my barracks door. When SGT Lead rapped on my door my eyes creaked
open like a rusted gate, lurching and swinging as if to cast off the scattered
flakes of corrosion, and slowly the blurry darkness came into focus. I walked over to the wall, flipped on the
lights and stumbled towards the CP. Halfway there I realized I didn’t put any shoes on before walking across
the hall, but to my surprise I was still wearing my DCUs and boots. It took a few seconds for me to remember that
I hadn’t so much gone to sleep as collapsed, and for the thousandth time this
deployment I promised myself I would take a day to sleep in… someday. I got a quick update from the CP while I was
pouring a cup of coffee and then returned to my room to suit up. My first order of business was changing out
socks. You can wear a uniform until it
is stiff with salt, but ignore your feet for a day and you are courting
disaster. Once I’d finished lacing up a
fresh set of boots I started gearing up. First on were my tough thermoplastic kneepads, my fingers tracing the
deep grooves a hundred sudden impacts had carved into their knobby faces. Then I snapped on my duty belt, the weight of
the Beretta pistol in its thigh rig immediately pulling it into a jaunty but
comfortable angle. I latched the elastic
loops of the thigh holster to one leg, then buckled the drop pouch to my other,
and then started to check my armor. The
IBA armor is relatively simple to don, but its sheer bulk makes fine movements
difficult. Rather then fumble around
through its myriad pockets I checked each in turn, adding or subtracting the
tactical gear I would need on this specific mission. Once each pocket was bulging with ammunition
and mission specific gear I hefted it onto my shoulders and mated its Velcro
fasteners. Then I snapped on my Kevlar
helmet, hefted the assault bag that held the backup radios, extra batteries,
and other command and control necessities, and grabbed my ballistic
glasses. As I left my room I kissed my
index finger, held it to my wife’s picture and said a silent prayer. The mission had begu
By time I piled into the vehicle that was
shuttling our troops to the airfield the bed of the truck was already full of
the lively banter that seems to presage any big operation. SSG Spite and my interpreter were a half step
behind me, and as I loaded and watched them climb into the LMTV I wanted to
laugh at this incongruous pair. SSG
Spite is the type of NCO forged in another age, the kind of man whose stern
face and grizzled appearance instantly demand respect of his peers and
subordinates alike. Our interpreter Mo is
the exact opposite, a pot bellied 30-something Iraqi with a fondness for second
wives and a perennial grin. Mo was
carrying our long range antennas strapped across his back, and standing there
in the predawn light they looked a little like a glowering golf pro and a loyal
caddy preparing for a day on the links. Despite their differences both men were ruthlessly competent in their
respective fields, and as I watched them climb up I once again wondered what I
had done to deserve such an incredible headquarters element.
Through some miracle of dexterity SSG
Spite managed to mount the vehicle with a full cup of steaming coffee, and as
the LMTV rumbled to life we all placed bets on how quickly the coffee would
slosh out of the open up. As luck would
have it we were all wrong, SSG Spite managed to balance the boiling liquid with
the grace of a Chinese acrobat. As we
dismounted he reminded us all that drinking coffee in a hurtling vehicle was
par for the course in his civilian career.
As we lined up on the airfield we were
joined by a reporter from the Dutch Press, and as he jogged up he apologized
over and over for arriving late. I
assured him he had arrived with plenty of time, then I gave him a short class
on how to hot load a Blackhawk. A few
minutes after the lesson ended the Blackhawks roared in from the scarlet light
of a new day and settled into rapidly expanding plumes of dust. As we roared over Devil Island on our approach I had a sudden flash of surprise, the aerial imagery didn’t reveal the dense
thickets of overgrown underbrush. As we
settled into a pyre of windborne sand I mentally adjusted the timetable to
account for the thick vegetation. By
time the helicopters were clawing back into the sky 1LT Murphy had his troops
in a security posture and the lead elements were clearing the thickets around
the LZ. The Battalion Commander and the
Air Force forward controllers linked up with my headquarters element and we
started running the myriad communication checks with the BN TOC.
Once the Northern portion of the island
was clear the soldiers settled into overwatch positions and the rest of the
element to arrive. Once again the Blackhawks
fluttered down, and once again their rotors turned the area into a sandblasted
wasteland. When they left the LZ was
stripped of vegetation, the dry weeds replaced with the last of our combat
troops, an EOD team, and a Navy Petty Officer and his bomb sniffing dog.
Several hundred meters into the sweep we
encircled the sole residents of Devil Island, a farming family
living alone in a squat mud brick settlement. The headquarters element and a security detail remained in the
settlement while 1LT Irish led his platoon on sweeps to the South. The family welcomed us warmly, and as SSG
Spite and the Airmen set up their respective communication arrays the BN
Commander and I started talking with the family. The head of the household ensured us we
wouldn’t find any weapons or explosives on his island, with one exception. When we pressed him on the details he offered
to show us first hand, so we gathered the EOD experts and started towards the
scene. After a short walk he took us to
a shallow groove in the earth carved by a heavy metal round. The EOD team fearlessly walked into the
jagged crease and started to safe the round. After a few tense seconds they lifted the round over their head and said
“it’s an illumination casing, its safe”. We all let out the breath we were silently holding, and we made our way
back to the compound. Within a few seconds the new troops fell
into their assigned positions and started sweeping the island, while my
headquarters and the BN Commander followed in tight formation.
I spent the next hour shuttling between
the search elements, our temporary headquarters, and the family patiently
waiting to get back to their daily schedule. Every time I returned to the shaded
headquarters alcove for an update SSG Spite and I poked fun at our Air Force
detachments equipment. They took the
jokes in stride, knowing full well that we were just jealous that the Army
hadn’t equipped us as well as the Air Force had equipped their troops. Every other minute a radio message would
crackle over one of the radios and as it did all laughter died in its tracks as
every ear cued for the message. Once the
radios went momentarily dormant the jokes would start up again, each of us
trading good natured insults in the grandest military tradition.
Despite the dense underbrush the troops
managed to comb through the island on schedule, and by late morning the island
had been cleared. The troops were fanned
out in defensive positions on both sides of the island, and as we waited for
the Blackhawks to move to the Pickup Zone (PZ) several of the elements spotted
individuals across the river attempting to spot our positions with
binoculars. The troops kept their
weapons trained on the individuals, their fingers hovering a millimeter from
the selector switches. The silent spotters
were astute enough to avoid picking up weapons, but rather then allow them to
continue gathering information I had SSG Spite vector in the Apache attack
helicopters while the Air Force crew had F-16s fly overwatch with their all
seeing optics. As the air came alive
with the sound of American air power the spotters melted away, leaving our
troops scanning desolate stretches of river bank. As we waited we heard a net call from our
sister company on the other objective, warning us that they were going to conduct
a controlled detonation of a cache they discovered. A few minutes later the radio
crackled with the words “one minute to detonation”, and that in turn was
followed by the deep, angry thump of explosive force. As the sheet of scattered force boomed by
Finally we received word that the
Blackhawks were inbound, and the defensive positions started returning to the
PZ. Our headquarters and security detail
were the first on the scene, and as we waited there in the tall reeds troops
started to slowly gather in their respective chalks. A few minutes before the Blackhawks arrived
each chalk radioed up their status, and I smiled when I heard that all
personnel were up and all equipment was accounted for. As the Blackhawks made their final approach
each chalk threw out a smoke grenade to mark their position, and the birds settled
down in a biting torrent of earth and air. We hot loaded the birds, and by time I had clipped in the nose was
pitching forward boring a tunnel into the sky.
When we landed back at the FOB we barreled
out of the Blackhawks and started the long walk back to the barracks. As we walked back SSG Spite summed up our
mission succinctly by saying “we took a Dutch reporter, an Air Force team, and
a Navy dog handler and EOD team on an Army Air Assault to a remote island in
the Tigris River - how is that for joint
operations?”. Once we were back in the barracks I walked back into my room and
looked at the imagery on my desk. It
didn’t turn out quite like I thought, but our objective had been cleared and we
had no casualties. That was victory
enough… at least for today.
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