Dispatches from Iraq

What follows is the second half of Matt's two-part entry. For new readers, Matt is a good friend of mine who is a sergeant in the Stryker Brigade based in Ft. Lewis, WA. He is in the middle of a one-year tour of duty in Northern Iraq. The first part of this entry ran two weeks ago. If you missed the original installment click here first, then come back. We've taken out the names of others involved in this story and simply changed them to phrases like "my buddy" or "another solider."

I was sure something I've long dreaded was finally a reality -- sure that we had lost someone. A brother called up on the radio, “Turn around! 2-4’s been hit!” I relayed the information throughout the cab of our Stryker, and as we turned around, small arms fire echoed from our 5 o’clock.

We dismounted as the Stryker approached the explosion site. Miscellaneous car parts and small pools of blood were strewn throughout the street. My squad took a visual summary of the situation. Most of the passengers had exited the 2-4 one way or another, so casualty evacuation wasn’t necessary. We decided we needed higher ground to better engage the enemy.

The best vantage point ended up being a tall hill beyond a valley to our left. We took cover behind a small mud hut and realized the valley was a swamp. As we returned fire from behind the shabby little mound of clay, 2-1 and 2-2 rolled up the road behind us like thunder. I glanced back to the wreck of the Stryker, where my buddy hopped up to the roof of the engulfed vehicle and started returning fire manually with the 50-cal machine gun. It is usually a computer-fired weapon, so seeing him up there rocking the 50-cal was to me something akin to watching Zeus throw thunderbolts from the heavens. KA-KA-KA-KA-KA! Every fifth round a red tracer showing us where to direct our fires.

At this moment, another soldier arrived at what we all thought was a fairly large puddle of Mosul swamp water. As he tried to jump across it, his thirty-or-so pounds of equipment got the best of him, and he went down in to waist-deep crap. Not to be deterred in such an important situation, he picked himself up, and headed up to a good position on the hill and relayed the results of his jump as if we hadn’t seen it. “Hey, Sergeant. It’s deep.”

Another soldier and I followed suit, albeit with a disgruntled pause at the edge of the crap-water. Sploosh! and Sploosh! we went. We bounded up the hill, and jumped behind cover, firing back at the enemy position in a fortified school. The rest of our squad jaunted across the swamp to join us, complete with questioning stops at the crap-crossing. This time it was my turn to relay the situation with the pool.

“Dude, it sucks,” I yelled, and I made a motion to my waist to show them how deep it was. By the time the whole squad had gained the high ground, the enemy had stopped returning fire, and the 50-cals were still tearing in to the building. Another platoon had arrived as backup, and we were directed back to our building to continue the assault on the school. We ran back, across the crap-water, and in to our vehicles. We rolled up to the school, and our platoon cleared it while the spare rounds in the pyre of 2-4 cooked off in the distance.

The enemy had already escaped. Yet, they hadn’t won. The suicide bomber that had executed the Vehicle-Borne Explosive Device (V-BED) was dead. They had used enough explosives to virtually disintegrate a Ford Explorer in to unrecognizable bits, and yet our worst injury was a broken arm and some burns. As I sat there cold and wet in my Stryker and watched the bonfire burn long in to the night, I thought about how upset I had been before the explosion. I thought about how well our platoon had joined together despite earlier differences to fight those bastards. I thought about how much better we would be able to react if this happened again, and how much confidence I have in the vehicles we’re riding.

Mostly though, I thought about my buddy rocking that 50-cal. I had a bad day, but it was going to be alright.

Click here for more news on the Stryker Brigade.

Feedback