Authors: Wesley R. Gray
We began the operations briefs. Even by Iraqi standards the preliminary Iraqi order had failed. Don't get me wrong, the content was solid. The briefer communicated his ideas and everyone understood how we would accomplish the mission. Even so, the Iraqis made a rookie mistake in formulating the plan. They assumed they could fit 222 individuals into the Haditha FOB, a space designated for a maximum of 100. The Iraqis may enjoy the idea of being stacked on top of one another, but I didn't want an Iraqi sleeping on top of me.
Captain McShane did not endorse their plan either. “What about the idea of using peoples' homes as patrol bases?” he asked. “We can switch every day or so.” Although such an idea would certainly infuriate the locals, we thought it was better than stacking 222 bodies in a shoebox. But McShane's ideas did not persuade the Iraqis. Captain Hasen said, “We are
Iraqis; we do not want to invade another Iraqi's home. The Americans may be willing to do this, but we refuse to do this!” Hasen's critique was correct, but he did not offer any alternative solutions. McShane, visibly frustrated, fired at the Iraqis, “We must do this. You have presented no solutionsâwe are doing it our way now!”
McShane's plan angered every Iraqi in the room. Unfortunately Iraqis are not Marines. Marines will come to the position of attention, salute, and carry out the mission their commander gives them, even if the commander is a dope. Iraqis will do no such thing. McShane, who was used to being in command, still had not grasped the difference between commanding and advising. There are two things Americans should never do with Iraqis in public: Never tell them they are wrong and never command them to do something. Both of these infractions shred an Iraqi's pride and honor, effectively murdering him in the eyes of society. An equivalent offense in our culture would be to get on a bus, call the first black person you saw a “nigger,” and tell him to sit in the back of the bus. These things do not sit well.
The Iraqis had a point. McShane's counterproposal was an untenable option. It would rightfully cause Anbar Sunnis to view Americans as occupiers and was sure to create even more insurgents in the region. In addition, setting up patrol bases in local homes would expose us to VBIED and grenade attacks. It would not work.
The upcoming operation was causing tempers and emotions to fly sky high, not only between the MiTT and the IA but also among the MiTT members. During our nightly MiTT meeting Lieutenant Adams asked Staff Sergeant Haislip to get batteries for all the Humvees. Haislip responded, “That ain't my job.” Adams, a prior-enlisted Marine for twelve years, responded in the way he knows best. “Haislip, I didn't ask you if it is your job. Just fuckin' do it!” On Haislip's behalf Staff Sergeant Donaldson said, “Lieutenant Adams, aren't batteries your issue as the supply officer? Why aren't you taking care of that?” Adams was seething. He said, “Stay in your fuckin' lane, intelligence boy. How about you figure out what the hell is going on in the area of operations and let me figure out how to get the batteries?” The team was on the brink of mutiny. The boss jumped in, but his yelling only heightened the frustration. “Everyone shut up and quit fuckin' bitching! No more talking.” These people cannot handle the stress of planning the mission, I thought, God help us when we move to the execution phase of the mission.
The Mission Begins
The day came to kick off Operation
Nimer
(Tiger). All the soldiers from our battalion would be in the operation, along with elements from 3rd Iraqi Battalion in Hit and 1st Iraqi Battalion in Rawah. With a mere 222
jundi
involved, the Marines thought it would be routine. But no matter how routine an operation might be for Marines, nothing is routine for Iraqis.
As is typical in Iraqi operations, of the 222
jundi
involved, only 80 would actually see combat; the rest would sit back in the COC at the Haditha FOB. I will never understand why Iraqi communications and coordination can be so poor when they keep a vast majority of their troops in the command center to alleviate these problems. I guess the answer is simple. The more Iraqis you have involved in planning and coordination, the more arguing and disagreement you will receive and thus the worse performance you will have.
The basic operations plan was to flood the Triad cities with Iraqi soldiers conducting heavy combat operations. The hope was that this offensive would keep the insurgents occupied just long enough so that 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines (2/3) would be able to transition into the area to replace the outbound Marines from 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines (3/3). Insurgents historically time their attacks when new Marine units RIP (relief in place) into the area of operations. They correctly assume that the new Marine battalion will be slow in adjusting to the environment and the stress of combat. Our goal was to keep our fresh marines, 2/3, from being blown up by IEDs, shot at by small-arms fire, or mutilated by RPG explosions.
In preparation for battle we assembled an enormous convoy with supplies, soldiers, weapons, and a bunch of bad attitudes. The first stop on the convoy would be the Haditha FOB. There we would coordinate with the 3/3 Marines on how this operation was going to work. We had a vague plan, but we needed to iron out the details. We had traveled with the
jundi
before in enormous convoys with upward of thirty vehicles, but we had never traveled through the narrow, IED-infested streets of Haditha with a convoy larger than six vehicles. This mission would require navigating ten vehicles through the city (see
photo 14
).
On pins and needles we zigzagged through the one-lane streets of Haditha. We hauled ass through the main marketplace, ensuring that no insurgents had any time to stage an attack or toss a grenade into one of the Leylands full of
jundi
and gear. Miraculously we arrived in one piece at the austere Haditha FOB.
Although the Haditha FOB is perhaps the size of a football field, it has living conditions that would make a caveman cringe: bullet-ridden walls, collapsed roofs from mortar damage, trash and barbed wire strewn about, shattered glass and shrapnel along the ground, and more sandbags than someone could count in a lifetime. Haditha is one of the most dangerous places in Iraq, if not the entire world.
Pulling up to the FOB with ten vehicles was not an impossible task; however, pulling up to the FOB with ten vehicles operated by Iraqi drivers was. After multiple vehicle wrecks and collisions, the chaos began to subside and we got our orders. Our convoy would be broken into two elements, one staying at the FOB and the other heading to the Water Treatment Facility (WTF), our proposed combat patrol base. The WTF element would include me, Doc McGinnis, Major Gaines, and Staff Sergeant Chesnutt from the MiTT; Martin and Moody would be our terps. We also would have six infantry Marines from 3/3 who operated exclusively in Haditha. The final piece of the pie would be a crapload of motivated
jundi
with four Leylands full of gear to accomplish their mission. “Let's move out,” Major Gaines ordered. We started the convoy out the east gate toward the center of town. The motivation level was striking. Everyone was gung-ho for combat.
Swack! The convoy immediately stopped. Two of the Iraqi drivers had managed to smash their Leylands into each otherânot an auspicious beginning. We continued out the east gate. As we rolled into the town Nuts shouted, “Gents, the streets are clearing up ahead and people are running the hell out of the way, I recommend you get in the truck and standby.” All Marines know that you are screwed when the locals evacuate a bustling area because it is a sure sign an insurgent attack is imminent.
Before we knew it we were taking incoming sporadic machine-gun fire from insurgents flying across the intersection. The insurgents had planned an ambush, but our slow departure meant we did not advance into their ambush at the time they desired. If we had progressed at our original pace, we would have been in the teeth of the ambush. We wanted to hunt insurgents, but we needed to establish a patrol base at the WTF before dark. We would fight the insurgents in the future, but it would be on our own terms and not theirs.
We snaked the convoy around, headed away from the insurgent ambush and toward the west exit, which led us into the outskirts of town. Going out the western gate created another problem. We had never been on this route before and were entirely at the mercy of the Iraqis' navigation skills to
get us back to the center of town. Relying on Iraqis for anything besides a cup of chai (tea) with heavy sugar was rarely solid advice. To make matters worse we were being led by the infamous Mulazim Jaffer, a young second lieutenant Iraqi army officer who was a few 155-mm artillery rounds short of an IED.
Moving at fifty miles per hour along a single lane dirt road, the only thing I could see was the road directly in front of me, dust clouds the size of a tornado coming off Jaffer's Humvee, and perplexed townsfolk in my peripheral vision. I yelled to Major Gaines, “Sir, you think we should try to get him to slow down before he gets in a serious wreck and this operation is over before it even begins?” With all the bustling on the road, and the radio traffic in both Arabic and English flowing through the cab of the Humvee, he could only respond, “Jamal, I can't hear you.”
Jaffer somehow had managed to snake through the outskirt village and find his way back to the main road through town, Route Boardwalk. Just as I felt relief as a result of our seemingly good luck, I witnessed Jaffer's lead Humvee come screaming around a blind corner onto Route Boardwalk. As soon as his Humvee banked a left onto Boardwalk, a chubby Iraqi man driving a red motorcycle came flying along the left side of the Humvee. The next thing I saw was a vintage 200-cc motorcycle violently careen off the road and a short fat Iraqi go flying through the air spinning around in a helicopter-like fashion.
The motorcycle crashed fifty feet away along a house fence and stalled. The Iraqi man was not so lucky. While flying at twenty feet in the air, the man had blasted into the nearest telephone post at twenty-five miles an hour, bounced off the post, helicoptered a few more times in the opposite direction, and crashed to the ground. For a few seconds I could not see the man, as the dust cloud from his landing engulfed him completely.
“Holy shit, Sir, that guy has to be dead!” Major Gaines was equally shell shocked at what we had witnessed. We both took a deep breath. We were in the middle of the hottest neighborhood in Haditha, we had just killed a local, and we were traveling in a large convoy with limited firepower. What in the hell were we going to do? Gaines made a quick decision. “Jamal,” he said, “pull up on the south side of the road to block traffic, the Iraqis will block north, and the rest of the convoy will have to standby. We'll give Doc five minutes to assess the situation.”
“Roger, Sir, makes sense to me,” I responded as I smashed the accelerator to block the road, hoping to stop any traffic from entering the scene. “Doc,
get your ass out there and tell us what we need to do next,” Major Gaines commanded. “Roger, Sir,” Doc replied. “If this guy is dead, or not about to die, we are going to get the hell out of here. If he is about to die, we need to abort the mission and bring him back to the dam so they can perform surgery on him.”
The situation was getting tense. It seemed everyone in the town had come out to see what was going on. By my count twenty-five locals were on the scene and the crowd was multiplying by the second. We were in the worst possible situation imaginable. Furious Sunni Iraqis surrounded us and were ready for vengeance.
My heart was racing for Doc. That poor bastard was out there trying to explain to the Iraqis through an interpreter that it was an accident and that the Iraqi soldiers were sorry for causing the man harm. It seemed as though he was out there for an hour, but in just a few minutes, he returned. “I don't know if that guy has Allah on his side or what,” Doc said, “but he is alive with some minor lacerations and perhaps a broken rib. He is good to go. I think his fat ass actually saved his life. Let's get the fuck out of here before we end up on the receiving end of an RPG!” We reformed the convoy and continued north along Route Boardwalk until we reached the WTF a few miles ahead.
As we pulled away from the scene of the crime, I felt terrible for the man and for all the people in the village. Tribal members and family were rushing to the man's aid. Women were outraged, screaming at the convoy as we left them in our dust trails. It was a disaster. Our situation had been so precarious that we had no option but to leave, and while I felt bad about leaving the man there, our actions kept the insurgents from killing a platoon's worth of
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sitting in the back of Leylands. We lost some hearts and minds this go-round. But now was not the time to dwell on this, as we were quickly approaching the WTF.
Establishing a Patrol Base
Recent HUMINT (human intelligence) reports had concluded that the WTF was a base of operations for insurgent activity. We went in expecting the worst but hoping for the best. We approached the main gate to the facility, which was surrounded by a six-foot-high wire fence that had not been serviced since the rule of Saddam Hussein.
The WTF was a small facility the size of two football fields placed side by side. From a tactical military perspective it was perfect as a defendable
patrol base. The patrol base had a five-hundred-meter buffer that separated the compound's fences and the nearest residential areas, multiple exit points that allowed options from which to commence patrols, and a convenient location alongside Route Boardwalk that allowed us to maintain visibility on IED activity at all times.