Hillah, Iraq.
A full night’s proper sleep, and we are ready for serious progress on Levi’s Buff and Tan Plan Step 6a: Build a pool.Today we got a bunch of sand and gravel delivered, so we set up all the empty Hesco containers to form the sides of the pool.
Tomorrow a guy is coming with a Bobcat to load the sand and gravel into the Hescos. I am in charge of seeing to that while the Green Berets go to Baghdad to check on getting a pool filter (and take care of a bunch of other, less important things like re-enlistments, personnel paperwork, requisitions for supplies, and the like). With the Hescos filled, we can drape the heavy plastic liner, which will be sandbagged on the top of the Hescos. We will then use some plywood to deck the top. I think we are looking good for a grand opening on the 4th of July.
Tonight’s mission was planned by SWAT. They have done enough missions to see how things should go, so the Green Berets have shifted the planning and execution responsibilities to them. In keeping with the theme of repeating what has, to date, been only modestly successful, we were hitting a dozen targets sequentially in a small town. SWAT claims that they get shot at every time they go to this town, but I am not sure if this is because the town is particularly anti-Coalition. There might be the slightest possibility that they just don’t like SWAT. Either way, there were twelve bad guys in as many houses in this town that we were going to arrest. In addition to the usual anti-Iraqi and anti-Coalition activities of building IEDs, and aiding and abetting insurgents, these booger eaters just kill people to up their body count as part of an effort to increase their standing within the insurgent community, as well as consolidate their grip o’ terror on the locals. Apparently the locals didn’t appreciate it much, and told SWAT where they might be found.
The town itself is bisected by an east-west flowing river. The plan was to speed into town along the main north-south thoroughfare, then break into two assault elements. Assault force 1 would work the south side of town, and assault force 2 would work the north. This time SWAT was leading the way, with direct support from the El Salvadorans and theGreen Berets. Anglico’s job was to secure the bridge in the middle of town, and provide illumination mortar fire if called. This mission was the first in which we were nowhere near the doors being kicked in, and provided no direct support unless asked.The usual marshalling up, and we head out on time. En route, the Green Berets’ satellite radio went down, so Anglico had to call the headquarters to let them know that we were on the way to the objective. Unfortunately, that frequency is not preset in the radios in Anglicos’ vehicles. We had to set up a preset channel for the headquarters’ radio frequency.
Setting a preset in a radio sounds like a simple matter. This is distressingly untrue. These radios are pretty sophisticated. To my untrained eye, ours make the radios in the Space Shuttle look like a cheap Delco AM that you would rip out of your car because a gaping hole in the dashboard is more useful. The process of programming a preset while en route to the mission was one of the most amazing displays of technical knowledge and teamwork I have seen. The nearest analogy I can think of is providing tech support over the phone for installing a new printer/copier/scanner on your computer, loading the drivers, then setting the default paper size to something crazy like A4 with reverse collation. While driving an armored humvee. At night. With the lights off. Wearing night vision goggles. En route to a possible gunfight.
Our communications chief, a lance corporal, was driving, and dictating the instructions to the Warrant Officer. The process sounded something like this:”OK, sir. Press escape, then right, then right again, then enter, then left, then down, then enter, then key in zero, then 2, then 5, then hit enter. It should say ‘Load’. Now press right, then down, then down again, and then you should be at the frequency selector. You can select frequencies by moving between digits with left and right, and changing the numbers to up and down. Now press escape, then up, the right, then right again, then select the encryption, then hit enter, then enter again to confirm, then hit escape twice, right again to the receive only option, hit enter, then right or left, then escape, and now it should say transmit/receive, and that ought to do it.”The lance corporal did the most amazing job. I can maybe talk somebody into setting up landscape printing over the phone, but this kid talked his way through the entire process while driving a humvee with NODs and four people in it on the way to our objective. I can’t even talk on a cell phone without cruise control and a hands free set, but he never got out of place in the convoy. After a bit, I was so interested in the process and how well it was going that I almost forgot what we were setting about in the first place.We rolled into town, and the first assault element dove into the southern neighborhoods, and the northern were taken by the second assault element. The other Anglico humvee crossed the bridge behind the assault element, and set up security. We stayed on the south side. Then the strangest thing happened: nothing.
When I was in high school, we used to go into downtown Houston after dark. At the time, Houston would be empty after 9PM, so we could just park our car in the middle of Main or Travis streets, and get out of the car. Things were so empty that the traffic lights would just blink yellow. It was bizarre to see the difference between downtown during the day and the night. We could stand in the middle of the street and finally look at all the skyscrapers as much as we wanted to, and not have to worry about traffic.
I was reminded of that as we stood around watching and listening (the emptiness, I mean, not the skyscrapers). There was nothing going on, and things were quiet except for the barking of dogs, now so unremarkable that it continues to amaze me enough to remark on it. We listened to the operation’s radio traffic, and it was peculiar to be sitting in the middle of a quiet street, listening to reports of bad guys arrested, and others fleeing and being chased down. The contrast of the peaceful street and the action on the radio was fascinating. Sweet and sour combat.
Someone walked out of their house a block away to see who was parked by the bridge, then went back in. A pair of older guys pulled some folding chairs up on another roof to watch the action, but gave up after fifteen or twenty minutes. I asked the gunner if I could have my Gatorade, but he had drunk it all.
We kept on our toes by trying to figure out where the good guys were, and how we would defend if a mob came out. I kept checking around corners. A sandstorm had been going strong all afternoon, and the air was still so full of dust that it looked as if a heavy fog lay on the town, with the street lights shining orange. I feared a zombie attack more than booger eaters. Sorry, but it was too dark for regular pictures, but too bright for anything through night vision devices.
The operation went on around us for more than two hours. Occasionally, we would hear the explosion as a breaching charge opened a locked gate. Sometimes, we could see the portable spotlights shining. But mostly we tried to keep alert, and watch the dogs come and go.Finally, they finished up. They had arrested eleven bad guys, including our top three targets.
SWAT did a really good job. They didn’t just run around like Mr. Schluter’s Eighth Grade Earth Science Class at free sample night by Starbucks, and only stopped twice to chat with their friends at checkpoints on the way home. We turned the bad guys over to the jailers here on base, and finished debriefing around sunrise.
I have to get to bed so I can meet the guy doing work on the pool at 0800.