Part 10 (2/2)

Some of the sheiks could not be trusted. ”There was always bias in everything,” Lieutenant Corcoran commented. ”You couldn't take anything they said . . . at any sort of face value.” Some were playing a double game, maintaining ties with insurgent groups and the Americans. A few were funding insurgents or had family members involved in cells. Arresting these veiled enemies usually caused more trouble than it solved. Few of the sheiks were indomitable allies. That simply was not the culture of the place. The tribes' loyalties were to themselves, not any outsider, whether that was the government in Baghdad, Americans from the other side of the world, or al-Qaeda, for that matter.6 For the Cottonbalers, the crux of their plan to turn over the security and economic growth of Tikrit to the Iraqis revolved around the Iraqi Army and the police (collectively called Iraqi Security Forces or ISF by the Americans). Among the many bad decisions the Americans had made in 2003, the disbanding of Iraq's army was one of the worst. It eroded the security of the country and dumped many thousands of disaffected, militarily trained, unemployed, angry Iraqi young men into circulation. Realizing what a colossal screwup this had been, the Americans had since re-created the Iraqi Army and, by 2005, as the war grew more unpopular in America, they invested most of their hopes in turning the war over to this new security force. Thus, the soldiers of 2-7 Infantry spent much time and effort training Iraqi soldiers and a.s.sisting the local police with security. Wood established a Military a.s.sistance Transition Team (MITT), parceling out his soldiers to work on a daily basis with the Iraqi Army. The Americans also launched a public information campaign to support this transition effort. They broadcast radio messages, handed out leaflets, and even rented billboards to post glossy ads featuring images of dedicated, professional soldiers and policemen.

Compared with the overall poor quality of the army and the police in Iraq at that time, the Cottonbalers were fortunate to work with soldiers and policemen who were at least reasonably proficient and reliable. The soldiers were mostly Sunnis from the province. They wore desert camouflage utilities (DCUs), helmets, boots, and a range of military equipment. Many had military experience in Saddam's army, especially the officers. The Iraqis had little regard for NCOs (a major reason why Saddam's army had been weak), so the Americans emphasized the importance of sergeants and tried to build an NCO corps essentially from scratch. ”They tried,” Staff Sergeant Kenneth Hayes, an MITT team member, said of the soldiers he a.s.sisted. ”There's some clowns and then there's some good soldiers actually trying to do the right thing. There was a dropout rate. We'd lose guys. But most guys were trying to do the right thing.” In characteristic American fas.h.i.+on, few of the U.S. soldiers knew the local language, culture, or customs. They communicated with their charges through interpreters or they would speak to the Iraqi soldiers who knew some English. As was typical in Iraq, corruption could be a real problem. One time, for example, the Americans supplied their counterparts with brand-new AK-47 rifles, only to find out that the Iraqi commander had stolen the rifles from his men so that he could sell or give them to his family members and fellow tribesmen.

Over time, the corruption ebbed a bit and the army units got better. Eventually, after much intensive training from the Americans, the Iraqi soldiers ran their own operations without all that much a.s.sistance except for logistical support. ”It was nice to have them because they did a lot of raids . . . that were in farmlands so we didn't have to worry about getting anybody in our company to go out there and do it,” Sergeant First Cla.s.s Michael Deliberti of Charlie Company said. ”Then they started taking MSR [main supply route] OP [outpost] for us.” The sergeant's company commander, Captain Jason Freidt, felt that ”a lot of 'em not only built confidence in themselves but the population developed confidence in them as well.” Captain Kelvin Swint, who headed up a MITT team and worked every day with the Iraqi soldiers, believed that ”they were committed to cleaning up that area.” Throughout 2005, the Cottonbalers' Iraqi Army partners conducted multiple operations and even a.s.sumed responsibility for the security of one FOB. This did not necessarily represent victory, but it was a step in the right direction.

The blue-s.h.i.+rted police, of course, were local men and not as well trained, well armed, or reliable. In some ways they were more important than the Army, though. The soldiers represented outside, American-sponsored authority, mainly at the province level since few of the Sunni soldiers had any love for the Baghdad government. Like the Americans, the Iraqi Army could, of course, enhance security wherever the soldiers went, but their influence was still limited because most were not from the areas where they operated. The police, as local men with the same tribal and family ties as everyone else, represented the best hope for stability. They were of mixed quality because some were insurgents, had ties with insurgents, were ambivalent about the situation, or, most commonly, they were frightened of reprisals. ”When I first got to Owja,” Captain Freidt said of the section of Tikrit that his company patrolled, ”the only police station I had, guys would be doing guard outside and they would be wearing ski masks. None of the policemen wanted anybody else to know that they were part of the Iraqi Security Forces.”

The situation did get steadily better, but the police and the soldiers were always prime targets for the insurgents, especially in off-duty hours. The insurgents, of course, were confined by no rules of war and virtually no human decency. Like mafiosi, they would hunt down the off-duty ISF members and their families and kill them. In one attack, an Iraqi Army officer's brother got his legs blown off, and, in the memory of a Cottonbaler sergeant, ”all he [the brother] was doing was coming outside to go to the hospital 'cos his wife was pregnant.” A terrorist walked up to another off-duty staff officer and pumped nine bullets into him. Insurgents killed the wife and brother of one police chief.

In fact, while most of the IEDs were meant for the Americans, the majority of car bombs and suicide bombings were directed at the police or the Army because they represented such a mortal threat to the predominance of insurgent groups in Tikrit. Throughout the spring and summer, the bombings happened with terrifying frequency. ”At one point we had one going off every three days,” Lieutenant Colonel Wood recalled. These bombs killed three hundred civilians and inflicted one hundred casualties on the Iraqi police and soldiers. The most infamous such bombing took place on February 24 at a police station the Americans thought of as the best in the whole province. A car bomb took the lives of ten policemen at the station and wounded several others. Another time, insurgents detonated a car bomb in a crowd next to a police station, killing thirty-one people and wounding eighty-one more. The aftermath was truly horrible. ”The ambulances were cramming as many wounded and dead as they could hold,” Lieutenant Jon G.o.dwin wrote. ”The air was so thick in some areas with fumes of burnt rubber and fuel mixed with the smell of burnt human flesh it was suffocating. Several bodies were still on the ground and had been covered with burkas. The surrounding businesses and apartments had the windows blown out of them. After the fire trucks had put out the flames, the water had mixed with the puddles of blood and turned gutters into small streams tinted red.” Another time, at the site of a suicide bombing, he saw the remains of four victims who looked as though they had been petrified in ashes, similar, he thought, to those who died in the volcano at Pompeii, Italy. Charged with gathering forensic evidence, he ”found the bomber's face a block from the explosion and I collected it into a garbage bag.” An Iraqi policeman then led him to a spot where the rest of the bomber's head was lying grotesquely in a blob. ”Even though I didn't make any actual contact with the remains, I think I used a whole bottle of hand sanitizer after the incident.”

In spite of the gruesome bombings, the Americans never had trouble recruiting men for the security forces. These men were motivated by a combination of financial need, personal pride, protection of their turf, and some level of loyalty to the Americans. The Americans provided medical care, financial a.s.sistance, and security for the police after the bombings and this solidified a bond of sorts between them and their Iraqi colleagues. This, in turn, produced some tangible results. The police and the army both steadily improved, although never to the level of proficiency where the Americans thought they should be. Still, security was getting better and economic growth soon followed. By the fall, bombings were in steep decline, although IEDs and kidnappings were on the rise, so Tikrit remained dangerous. Elections went off with no substantial problems. For 2-7 Infantry, the record in Tikrit was mixed. The population still held no special love for the Americans or strong allegiance to them. There were no dramatic failures or successes, just steady, albeit glacial, progress that redounded more to the tactical than the strategic advantage of the American position in Iraq. Such were the complicated realities of pre-surge counterinsurgency in a midsized Sunni city.7 3-7 Infantry in Western Baghdad.

Without control of Baghdad, the Americans literally had no chance to succeed in Iraq. The capital city was a megalopolis, with a 2005 population of 6.5 million and growing quickly. Baghdad was so large, so profoundly central to Iraq's economy, and so central to Iraq's vexing political situation that it was at the very center of the fighting. The city teemed with insurgent groups of all shapes, sizes, and agendas-s.h.i.+te militiamen, Sunni rejectionists, Saddamist stalwarts, foreign jihadis, organized crime, al-Qaeda butchers, and most commonly, half-interested anti-American neighborhood resistance fighters. ”You've got Mustaafa and Muhammad who are just p.i.s.sed off,” one intelligence officer said in describing the latter type of insurgent. ”They're not getting enough water. They're standing in a line and they can't get a job.” So they lashed out. The population density and the concrete jungle of neighborhoods comprised the perfect environment for insurgents to operate, like proverbial fish in water. Baghdad made Fallujah look like a rural hamlet. By 2005, the capital city, similar to other parts of Iraq, was plagued with daily violence. Some of it was internecine, Sunni versus s.h.i.+a. Much of the violence was directed against the Americans, the Iraqi Army, and the police. IEDs, car bombs, and suicide bombings were predominant; firefights and pitched battles were comparatively rare.

COPYRIGHT 2010 RICK BRITTON.

Amid this chaos, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Funk and his 3-7 Infantry Cottonbalers a.s.sumed responsibility for the Ras.h.i.+d district in southwest Baghdad. This AO included the Baghdad International Airport and Route Irish, an extraordinarily dangerous, IED-infested highway that led from the airport into the heart of the city. The 3-7 was configured like the 2-7, with the same combined arms mix of infantry, armor, engineers, and support troops, many of whom functioned as dismounted infantrymen. This battalion of 800 soldiers was charged with the task of controlling a district containing about 800,000 people (and growing by the day), an area of operations that two battalions had previously covered. Ras.h.i.+d featured a mixture of Sunnis and s.h.i.+tes. Transient groups of poor squatters were growing in size and scale. Most of them were s.h.i.+tes attracted to the area by the possibility of finding menial jobs in the growing city. Funk divided Ras.h.i.+d into sectors and a.s.signed each of his companies a sector to cover. Quite commonly, platoons were responsible for several blocks, containing tens of thousands of people.

As in Tikrit, the soldiers lived in an FOB and commuted to war. Later, during the surge, the Americans would learn that the only way to defeat the insurgents was to live (and sometimes die) among the people by spreading out into combat outposts throughout Baghdad's many neighborhoods. This wise but painful approach dramatically diminished the influence and potency of insurgent groups. But, at this point in 2005, the United States was still fighting its ineffective FOB-centric war. Most of the 3-7 Cottonbalers lived in FOB Falcon, a sprawling, dusty, walled base with tents, barracks, a motor pool, an excellent dining facility, and the usual amenities. ”There is plenty . . . the soldiers can do to relax their minds and bodies,” Lieutenant Reeon Brown, an infantry platoon leader, wrote in a letter. ”The gym here is as big as a warehouse. It is opened 24 hrs a day as well as numerous Internet cafes, where soldiers can e-mail loved ones. Every soldier stays in a two man room with ac [air-conditioning].” They also had satellite television and sufficient opportunities to watch movies or play video games.

Sallying forth from their remote base, these very few would have to decisively influence the very many, a daunting job indeed. The 3-7's herculean task was merely a symptom of what was going on in Iraq as a whole-the Americans had nowhere near enough ground troops, especially infantrymen, to pacify the country and achieve their ambitious objective of transforming Iraq into a peaceful democracy. This difficult situation was a direct consequence of overreliance on air and sea power, at the expense of ground power, a mistake American policymakers had been making time and again since the start of World War II.

The previous outfit in Ras.h.i.+d was a cavalry battalion with plenty of vehicles but very few infantrymen. As a result they rarely ever got on the ground to speak with people. They would drive from place to place, at high rates of speed to avoid IEDs, always careful to stay away from areas they thought of as too dangerous. ”Their method [of] relations.h.i.+ps with the community was to wave to 'em from the vehicles,” one Cottonbaler infantry platoon leader related. As a cavalry unit miscast into an infantry role, this was all they were equipped to do. Moreover, they had bought into the notion so common among Americans in Iraq that personal safety necessitated the protection of armored vehicles or an FOB. In their view, getting on the ground was way too dangerous.

The Cottonbalers were not comfortable with this. Regardless of the initial dangers they might face, they believed in getting to know the locals and establis.h.i.+ng a strong on-the-ground presence in every area. ”We thought the decisive terrain was the people,” Funk said. The colonel was a six-foot-five giant of a man with a sizable personal presence and a wry sense of humor. He knew that, in southwest Baghdad, personal relations.h.i.+ps would help his people accomplish their mission like nothing else could. ”We have to develop a level of trust in the people and they in us and we have to develop in them the confidence that we are there to do good for them. So the notion of speeding around at Mach Seven, gun ablazing . . . wasn't getting the results . . . that we all thought we needed.”

Thus, the 3-7 soldiers spent many hours on the ground, patrolling the streets. They had a bit more time off than their counterparts in 2-7, but the pace of operations was still similarly hectic. On average, a grunt enjoyed a day and a half off per week. Often, on dismounted patrols, they were protected by up-armored Humvees with .50-caliber machine guns or M240 machine guns mounted in their turrets, or Bradleys or even the occasional tank. Most of the time the patrols had a defined purpose, such as visiting a certain person, checking out a certain neighborhood, or apprehending a wanted insurgent, rather than just riding around waiting to get attacked.

Ever vigilant, the infantry soldiers circulated up and down the crowded commercial streets and among the diverse blend of neighborhoods. Every earth-toned house, large or small, seemed to have a satellite dish perched atop its roof. Many of the men marveled at this weird blend of s.p.a.ce-age technology with old-world poverty. ”They introduced themselves to local power-brokers and imams [religious leaders], visited schools, police stations, and mosques, and went door to door introducing themselves and pa.s.sing out contact information,” Alpha Company's unit history declared. ”There were some very wealthy neighborhoods as well as some brutally poor ones. Where former regime officials lived the infrastructure was relatively good, whereas in other areas sewage clogged the streets and created small lakes.” The sewage created the powerful stench of human waste, dust, and rotting garbage that soldiers grew to a.s.sociate with Iraq. Experiencing the smell was like standing in a landfill, next to a sewage treatment plant, on a hot day. It was nauseating but the soldiers grew used to it. ”You noticed where the corruption really was,” Specialist Javier Herrera, a machine gunner from Miami, Florida, recalled. ”Some neighborhoods looked pristine. Others . . . looked like everybody from this [nice] neighborhood just picked the trash up and put it in their neighborhood.” He and the other soldiers were especially amazed at the resourcefulness and abject poverty of the squatters. They would collect aluminum cans, pack them with mud, and build small houses with them. ”Then they would tarp . . . a blanket or something . . . and make a roof. It rarely ever rained during the summertime so they were good to go.”8 After many months without much of an American presence, quite a few of the Iraqis were shocked when the soldiers began to mingle with them. ”They looked at us like we'd just come out of a s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p,” Lieutenant Kevin Norton, a platoon leader in Bravo Company, quipped. ”To actually walk up to a cafe . . . dismounted, on the street, in a security posture . . . but walking down the street . . . where you can get close to people and wave to 'em, say hi to 'em . . . to them was unbelievably shocking.” Some people were so excited to see the Americans that they hugged them and gave them flowers. To them, the Americans represented a new way to solve local problems and enhance security. Others were more reticent or suspicious. Few, if any, were overtly hostile. One street might be full of friendly residents. The next block might be empty or packed with sullen people. ”Daily patrols would visit homes and talk to families about . . . what the Iraqi government was doing for them and improvements in the ISF,” Alpha Company's history said. ”Each patrol leader had his own business card that he would pa.s.s out with contact information.”

They also gave out their cell phone numbers and flyers that described all the work the Americans were doing to improve living conditions. Through interpreters and an a.s.sortment of halting Arabic and English, they conversed with scores of people on nearly every patrol. As time went on, the soldiers' understanding of Arabic increased and, of course, many of the people knew some English. Children tended to have the best linguistic skills. They would often translate in exchange for chocolate. ”Everyone out there is a potential informant or a potential insurgent,” Captain Ike Sallee, the commander of Alpha Company, a.s.serted. ”If you really want to get this place secure, you've got to change perceptions. You've really got to focus on changing people's minds.”

The Cottonbalers understood the vital importance of human intelligence. In essence, they were soldiers doing a policeman's job. Only by cultivating local informants, building trust and rapport with the people in their respective neighborhoods, and gathering good information from them could they foil the insurgents. Only ground troops could do this very personal job. The 3-7 Infantry basically had to start from scratch in this regard. ”Beyond overall demographics of the area and figures [power brokers] at key locations, we really had nothing,” Lieutenant Ben Follansbee, an infantry platoon leader in Alpha Company, explained. Lieutenant Colonel Funk was shocked to learn from his predecessor that almost 90 percent of that unit's intelligence information was coming from higher headquarters rather than from everyday soldiers on the ground. ”Well, geez, I think that's backwards,” he thought.

He was absolutely right. It is an incontrovertible fact that, in combat, the best intelligence information comes from on-the-ground sources-human contact. The higher up the chain, the more distant intelligence a.n.a.lysts tend to be from their subject, and the more reliant they tend to be on such technological sources as satellite photos or audio intercepts rather than bona fide human contacts. Human informants can sometimes be of questionable reliability but, in a counterinsurgency war, they are vital. After all, in such a war, knowledge is practically everything: Who is an insurgent, what motivates them, when and where will they strike, what is an acceptable counterinsurgency approach within the constraints of the local culture? All of these are central questions. ”As the S2 [battalion intelligence officer],” Captain Steve Capehart said, ”when we . . . got on the ground and gathered information and built a rapport, it made my job a h.e.l.l of a lot easier.” Truly, counterinsurgency is an intelligence officer's game. Indeed, as the Iraq War unfolded, infantry companies began using their artillery forward observation teams as company intelligence specialists. ”Nothing beats having your own informal network down at your level that helps you develop something,” Funk said.

Over time, through sheer repet.i.tion and endless human contact, the soldiers of 3-7 developed these sorts of relations.h.i.+ps with Iraqis, s.h.i.+te and Sunni. ”You were a detective,” one small-unit leader said. ”You'd go out there and you were questioning, on the ground. You're an amba.s.sador. You're going out trying to fix what's broken, trying to help the people, win their affection, see if you can get 'em on your side. At the same time, though, you're also a combat patrol leader.” This meant that they always were on the lookout for any threat, especially suicide bombers. They also made sure to maintain good discipline-soldiers covering corners, covering each other's movements and the like-to project an aggressive posture. This deterred many of the insurgents, who were more inclined to attack soft targets.

As mutual trust accrued, the locals began pa.s.sing along good information. Over 90 percent of the battalion's intelligence data eventually came from such sources. As the Americans got better information, it minimized one major by-product of poor intelligence: the disruption, and popular resentment, caused by raids on the wrong houses, or the incarceration of innocent people. ”I would say that maybe half of the IEDs we found was because a local . . . would say 'Ali Baba' and actually point out where it was,” Lieutenant James Cantrell, a platoon leader in Delta Company, said. One friendly local kid, whom the soldiers called Johnny, regularly pointed out the location of IEDs. ”Every [weapons] cache we found was from somebody calling in the information,” Lieutenant Follansbee said. Before long, tips began pouring in by phone and personal contact. The majority of the time, the information was correct. One of Follansbee's squad leaders, Staff Sergeant Michael Muci, found that acting with restraint, even on raids, counted for a lot with the Iraqis. ”We knocked on the door. We didn't go cras.h.i.+ng in. That saved a lot of ha.s.sle. You're a foreigner and you come into these people's house because someone said something . . . so our platoon always knocked. The people liked that. We gave 'em courtesy” and respect. They also made sure to give any women in the house plenty of privacy. As a result, the platoon's area was usually very quiet.

Like their regimental brothers in Tikrit, the Cottonbalers of 3-7 also worked closely with the Iraqi Army and the local police. In a way, the Americans felt sorry for them because they were in so much danger from insurgent reprisals. ”It took a lot of guts for them to be in the military,” Sergeant Jason Wayment said. ”They would stay in their compound for three or four days and then go home for two days. If anybody saw 'em leaving the place, going to their house, then they'd get killed.” Wayment personally knew of several soldiers whom insurgents killed while they were on leave. Specialist Herrera knew one NCO who was so concerned for his safety and that of his family that he did not go home for six months.

The army compounds and the police stations were sometimes attacked by insurgents. By and large, the ISF men were brave, but not very skilled or savvy. ”They're not very disciplined people,” Specialist Joshua Macias, a mortar platoon soldier who often worked with the Iraqi soldiers, opined. ”You'd try and tell 'em something and they'd go off and do something else.” They did not pull guard duty and maintain security the way the Americans knew they must. The grunts had to be careful about correcting them, especially in front of their peers, because this would cause them to lose face. It was also shameful for them to admit that they did not know something. In response to questions, they would often shrug and say ”Insha'Allah,” a fatalistic phrase that means ”G.o.d willing.” The expression was a source of great frustration for the proactive, blunt-speaking Americans. ”If you ask an Iraqi if he's gonna do something, if he says yes, it might get done,” Lieutenant Colonel Funk commented drily. ”If he says no, obviously, it won't get done. If he says Insha'Allah that means it ain't gonna get done. It's the universal Arabic way to say if G.o.d wills it, it will get done but don't count on me, buddy.”

Soldiers and Ministry of the Interior (MOI) commandos often partic.i.p.ated in American raids and patrols. The police maintained traffic control points (TCPs). By and large, the quality of all these security people got better as the months wore on, but they were still not all that good or as reliable as they needed to be. Most of the Americans did not completely trust them. More important, many of the locals did not like or trust them. Often, the Americans found themselves trying to persuade residents to change their negative perceptions of the ISF and their own government. Still, in a larger sense, they were an a.s.set because, as Lieutenant Colonel Funk pointed out, ”[they] don't have to be as good as us. They just have to be better than the insurgents they're fighting.” In southwest Baghdad, by the fall of 2005, they were significantly better than most of the guerrillas.9 In spite of 3-7's wise approach to counterinsurgency in Ras.h.i.+d, there was no way a battalion of eight hundred soldiers could hope to truly control such a densely populated area. The danger of IEDs and suicide bombers was always profound. For the troops, this urban environment was stressful and unforgiving. The 3-7 Infantry spent many months intensively patrolling Route Irish, a stretch of road that had gotten out of control over the course of the previous year (reporters routinely referred to it as the most dangerous road on Earth). The highway bristled with IEDs of all varieties. The most common were drop-and-go types. Insurgents would cut a hole in a van, slow down a bit, and simply drop the IED on or alongside the road. Others were hidden in trash or buried in curbs or in the gra.s.sy median between the eastbound and westbound lanes. The Cottonbalers found and detonated countless IEDs on Route Irish. They also outlived all too many explosions. ”We were on Route Irish a lot,” Lieutenant Cantrell said. ”We realized that you can survive IEDs.” The soldiers weathered many near misses. ”We saw a flash,” one Alpha Company soldier remembered about an IED that exploded near his Humvee one night. ”The IED went off . . . about four or five feet in front of our vehicle. Thank G.o.d . . . I stopped in the middle of the road and it blew up about four or five feet in front of us.”

Eventually, new technology and new tactics took Route Irish away from the insurgents. The Americans began to equip most of their Humvees with the Warlock system, a piece of equipment capable of jamming the signals of cell phones and garage door openers that the terrorists used to detonate IEDs. Even more than Warlock, though, new tactics secured Route Irish. Not only did they saturate the road with patrols night and day, but they began to restrict access to the road. Engineers built concrete barriers and wire screens to prevent pedestrians from walking along the road. Then the Iraqi Army maintained checkpoints at every possible vehicular access route. To top it all off, SEAL and Cottonbaler sniper teams performed overwatch missions, shooting anyone they could positively establish as planting an IED. Before long, Route Irish got dramatically better, to the point of almost complete safety. ”That's why you really don't hear about Route Irish anymore,” one soldier said, with disgust dripping from his voice.

Throughout the rest of Ras.h.i.+d, the best way to defeat IEDs was to know the area. Over time, the Cottonbalers got to know their neighborhoods so well that they could spot anything that was amiss. ”You have to patrol the same area over and over,” Lieutenant Peter Robinson, a platoon leader in Easy Company, said. ”My guys could look at the curb and tell you the cinder block's been moved.” They came to know instinctively what was normal and what was threatening. ”There's absolutely no way to replicate that except by patrolling over and over.” The only problem was that, once the Americans came to dominate one part of Ras.h.i.+d, the insurgents would simply relocate to another, creating a whack-a-mole scenario. There simply were not anywhere near enough soldiers in the battalion to control the whole AO.

The battalion's worst incident occurred on April 19 when a suicide bomber attacked a dismounted patrol from Alpha Company's 1st Platoon. The grunts had just dismounted from their vehicles and were on their way to a school in the Jihad neighborhood when a car drove into the middle of their formation and detonated. The h.e.l.lish blast instantly killed Corporal Jacob Pfister and Specialist Kevin Wessel. Four other soldiers were wounded, two of whom had to be evacuated out of Iraq. Just moments after the blast, the platoon's vehicles turned around and roared back to the terrible scene. ”People in the buildings around us were shooting at us,” Sergeant James Malugin, a gunner on one of the Humvees, recalled. The gunners returned fire. As they did, medics did everything they could for the wounded and other soldiers policed up the remains of the two dead soldiers.

Several other Cottonbaler patrols, and many Iraqi policemen, scrambled to the scene. The standard procedure in these tragic instances was to seal off the entire site. Eventually, the shooting from the buildings petered out. ”Once we got there, quickly everything was cordoned off,” Staff Sergeant Gerard Leo, a gunner from Charlie Company, recalled. ”We were watching the buildings. We weren't letting anyone walk near. The kids were trying to come out and play and we were chasing 'em back into their homes. The . . . guys were medevacked and gone within minutes.” In addition to Pfister and Wessel, two other battalion soldiers lost their lives during the year in Iraq-Corporal Stanley Lapinski of Bravo Company and Corporal Manuel Lopez from Delta Company.

In another harrowing incident, a suicide car bomber attacked a Charlie Company traffic control point. The soldiers had set up barbed wire and orange traffic cones to maintain at least one hundred meters of standoff between themselves and the traffic. The troops were in the process of questioning a man whom they suspected of selling illegal gasoline. All of a sudden a white car veered around the cones. ”I'll never forget it until the day I die,” Staff Sergeant Michael Baroni said. He was standing several yards away from his Humvee, watching the terrible scene unfold, as if in a dream. ”As soon as he swerved around the cones, it was all like slow motion. You could just hear the vehicle just ga.s.sing down [accelerating]. He hit the wire. As soon as he hit the wire . . . we pulled our weapons. By that time my gunner and my loader just started opening up on him. I remember just seeing the guy [suicide bomber] go down . . . on the winds.h.i.+eld and then the fireball, and feeling the heat. It detonated . . . about fifteen feet or ten feet behind my Humvee . . . so close, the wreckage was . . . underneath my Humvee.”

At that moment, Baroni could think of little else except the welfare of his men. He had promised their families that he would bring them home safely. Amid the smoke and flames, not to

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