As our patrol came to a
close we turned onto a narrow road that has grown infamous in our small sector
of
As we sped down the road every eye was
focused on these bitter strips, as though the intensity of our gazes could
somehow paralyze their initiation. A sudden
deceleration brought my attention back to the road itself, and when I looked up
I noticed the lead vehicle coming to a dead stop. Before I could call up the lead vehicle SSG
Rock crackled over the net “We got something up here”.
Up ahead there was a small crowd of Iraqis
so engaged in a verbal exchange they were utterly oblivious to our arrival. I clicked on the vehicles PA system, passed
it to my interpreter and had him call out to the crowd. As soon as the amplified words washed over
the crowd they seemed to snap out of their conversation and started slowly
walking toward our vehicles. That was a
good thing, if they were insurgents they would have immediately fled like
scalded rats. As they made their way
over we had them slowly pirouette to prove they weren’t wearing explosive vests
and having checked them through binoculars we let them approach. As they came up to the HMMWVs they descended
back into the same heated exchange they had been engaged in when we arrived,
and it took almost a minute to get the story out of them.
Apparently each of these drivers had
noticed a suspicious vehicle sitting in the road which they believed was a
VBIED, and their argument concerned which one of them would have to check it
out in order to continue past the obstacle. When I heard this I started to laugh - the fact that there was an
alternate route less then a mile away seemed to escape all of them. We got them quieted down and then focused our
binoculars on the alleged VBIED. The
vehicle was a run down white sedan that looked utterly unremarkable… except
there were wires hanging down from the undercarriage. That alone was enough to raise our
suspicions, and we immediately started cordoning off the area. The drivers seemed annoyed that they would
have to make a detour, but we ignored their protests and quickly bustled them
off back down the road. As we were
sending them off a young Iraqi came forward and calmly stated that he was the
owner of the possible VBIED. For a minute I thought that would be the end of
it, but the drama was just beginning.
The man who had approached
us was indeed the owner, he had the vehicle identification to prove it. The problem was that his vehicle had been
stolen the night before, and though he didn’t get a good look he was certain
they were part of the AIF. He seemed
more embarrassed about the situation then anything else, but he made it
imminently clear that he wasn’t going to get anywhere near the car until we
checked it out.
As this was all unfolding the rest of our
patrol had split off to the cardinal directions and started stopping traffic
from moving through the possible kill zone. Just about the time our last vehicle was in position we placed the call
over the net for EOD assistance. We
explained the situation in a few clipped transmissions and once the information
had been passed up a voice came over the net and said “So this guy knows we are
going to blow up his car… right?” There
was a long pause as the translator passed the message to the owner, and an even
longer pause as he considered his options. Then the owner shrugged his shoulders and agreed.
As we were waiting for the EOD team to
arrive the conversation quickly turned to how much explosives would fit in a
VBIED that size. Some of my troops came
up with an impromptu calculus, attempting to decipher the compression of the
springs and use that as an indicator of just how large this rolling bomb might
be. Others threw caution to the wind and
just pulled a number out of thin air. Still others tried to visualize the size of the trunk and then mentally
extrapolate how much explosives it would take to fill that volume. All the guesses differed, but there was
general agreement on one thing – none of us wanted to find out firsthand.
After a bit the EOD team linked up with
our perimeter security on the other side of the vehicle, and after a
few
minutes the call came over the net “the robot is going in”. Alone the
bomb robots are little more then an
armored mass of circuits and servos, but in the hands of the EOD techs
they
seem to take on a life of their own. From
my vantage point the small robot seemed
to bob and weave around the frozen car like it was a metallic scavenger
snapping at its next meal. After a few
minutes of probing the robot made its way back and a voice came over
the net “We
can’t see any explosives, but there is unidentified wiring. We are
going to blow it”. As the call went out I heard a excited voice
shout in idle joy, I was only mildly surprised to realize the sound had
come
from my lips.
After the explosives had been prepared the
robot started its long trek back to the VBIED, pulling a large sled of
explosives behind it. SPC Sparta was in
the turret, and the additional height gave him the best view of the preparations.
The next conversation went something like this:
T6: How big is the charge?
SPC Spartan: It’s huge sir.
SGT Bard: How huge?
SPC Spartan: That thing is going to put a hole in the
world.
At this point the air was thick with
anticipation, it was like a giant dynamo was spinning up and charging the
atmosphere with force. The conversation
returned to how big we thought the VBIED might be, each person venturing their
guess and defending it with a fervor usually left for the outcome of the next
football season. As the arguments and
counter arguments came to an apex another call went out “Charges are set, five
minutes until controlled detonation”. As
the call went out everyon
The EOD
robot returned to the site to
analyze the remnants of the car, and once it confirmed the site was
free of
explosive residue the EOD techs moved onto the scene to view their
handiwork. The car had come to rest on
its roof, and it lay there in the road like a crumpled bug stripped of
its
legs. Once the EOD techs confirmed the
site was safe the cordon pulled inward to find out who had come the
closest to
guessing the weight of explosives. As luck
would have it we were all wrong, the car wasn’t a VBIED. As one of the
HMMWVs pushed the wreckage off
the road SSG Rock handed the car’s owner a claims card he could use to
receive
compensation for his loss. The owner
wasn’t even phased by his sudden loss, instead he thanked us for our
help and
asked if he could salvage the remaining pieces. We told him he was
welcome to whatever was left over, and as we pulled
away he was singing to himself as he used a tire iron to remove the
wheels that
hadn’t been blown off. As we made our
way back to the FOB we were all commenting on how calm the owner
seemed, even
after his car was annihilated. SGT Bard
was quiet for a few minutes and then said “You know what I think? I
think that was probably a hell of a lot
easier for him then just selling the car.” We all laughed, but he was
probably right. Not only did the owner get reimbursed for the
price of his car, he got to join us for a great show.
Posted by: Ken | January 13, 2010 at 23:15
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