War Stories: Operation Iraqi Freedom Page 11

  This confirms my worst suspicions and I say, “Oh Lord, then Griff must have been the eighth person aboard. How can I get out to where the bird went down?”

  “I’ll check” he replies and then adds, “I’m sorry, Colonel.”

  As I’m boarding our bird to await word on how I can get to the wreckage, and silently praying, Dear Lord, please let Griff be alive, my satellite pager goes off. It’s the FOX News Channel foreign desk in New York. I dial the number in Manhattan on my Iridium sat-phone, identify myself, and am informed that CBS has just run a story that there has been a helicopter crash with sixteen American and British casualties—and do I know anything about it.

  I reply, “Yes. I saw it happen and I have it on tape, but there is uncertainty about how many were aboard, and my field producer Griff Jenkins may be among them. Please don’t make any announcements about this until I can get confirmation. I’ll call you as soon as I have more.”

  As I put the phone back in my flak jacket pocket, a civilian pickup truck, driven by Capt. Frank Laemmle, one of the HMM-268 squadron pilots, pulls up next to our bird. He’s been here since yesterday, helping to run the pickup zone and serving as a liaison with the British. He asks if the MAG-39 Operations officers can look at my videotape to see if it might help them figure out what happened to Dash Three.

  We ride together in the cab of the truck to where the pilots have gathered next to Col. Spencer’s UH1N and I play the tape for them to see. One of the assistant operations officers asks if they can have a copy of the tape to take back to Ali Al Salem Air Base for use in the investigation of what brought Dash Three down. Since I have no way of transmitting what’s on the cassette to New York from out here anyway, and because what’s in my camera can’t air until the next of kin of the casualties are notified, I agree.

  As I turn to reboard the truck for a ride back to my bird, I see, through my NVGs, Gunny Pennington walking up. He says, “Look who I found!” and steps aside to reveal Griff.

  To the surprise of everyone except Pennington, I yell, “Thank God!” and grab Jenkins around the neck, giving him a big hug. Clearly confused by my embrace, he gives me one in return and then explains, “When we came back after turning around, there was too much dust, so Dash Two had to land way on the other side of the zone rather than next to you, where we belonged.”

  Instead of riding in the truck, we walk back to the helicopter where my gear is stowed. I’m immensely glad to see him and tell him about my up-and-down emotional uncertainty about whether he had been aboard Dash Three.

  When we arrive back at the bird, I call New York and tell the FOX News Channel foreign desk duty officer with great relief that I’ve found Griff alive and well, and that I’ve been asked to make a copy of our tape and not to air what’s on it until the NOK notification is complete. I then tell him that four U.S. Marines are confirmed dead and eight British commandos are believed to have been killed when Dash Three went down.

  It is nearly dawn. Without sleep for more than twenty-four hours, I’m consumed with several overwhelming emotions: great joy that Griff is safe, but also a feeling of sadness and guilt that I was grateful that he had survived while others did not, and the sense of profound sorrow I’ve had every time I see Marines lose their lives. War truly is the most horrible of human endeavors.

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #11

  HMM-268 Forward Operating Base

  Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait

  Friday, 21 March 2003

  2000 Hours Local

  With first light, the weather over the Basra LZs improves considerably, allowing the helicopter assault, aborted the night before, to be carried out. But by then the seven remaining HMM-268 helicopters have returned to base, replaced by British Pumas and CH-47s. The MAG-39 S-1 has already prepared the usual terse official casualty report for release after the Marines Corps had personally notified the families of those killed:

  On 21 March at approximately 0200 local, Major Jay Thomas Aubin, 36, of Waterville, Maine; Captain Ryan Anthony Beaupre, 30, from St. Anne, Illinois; Staff Sergeant Kendall Damon Waters-Bey, 29, of Baltimore, Maryland; and Corporal Brian Matthew Kennedy, 25, from Houston, Texas, were killed when their CH-46 helicopter crashed in Kuwait while carrying out combat operations in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

  The British Marines, already heavily engaged north of Basra, are unable to confirm who was aboard the ill-fated helicopter for more than forty-eight hours, and when they do, CENTCOM adds the names of the British commandos killed in the crash:

  Major Jason Ward, Captain Philip Stuart Guy, Warrant Officer Mark Stratford, Color Sergeant John Cecil, Operations Mechanic Second Class Ian Seymour, Lance Bombardier Llewelyn Karl Evans, and Marine Sholto Hedenskog.

  By 1000 an investigation into the cause of the crash is already under way. After a few hours of rest, Lt. Col. Driscoll summons his pilots and then his aircrews to brief them on the crash—and rally them for the day’s missions: four aircraft assigned as cas-evac, for 5th Marines, four more birds on ready alert for other emergency missions, and the remaining three into maintenance.

  A few minutes before 1100, the “Great Giant Voice” sounds the alarm and everyone heads for the bunkers. For the Marines, donning a gas mask, pulling on the chemical protective suit, and finding a seat inside the sandbag-covered concrete is now getting to be old hat. When the Patriot battery to our west opens fire with two loud concussions, nobody even flinches. Near the entrance, two Marine NCOs are playing cards. Several others are reading paperback books through the “bug-eye” lenses of their gas masks. Even Griff is getting the hang of this now. He’s not only better about keeping his gas mask with him, but I notice that when the “All clear” is finally sounded, he’s fast asleep.

  While I’m on the air a few minutes past noon—it’s 0505 in the eastern U.S.—the squadron receives a “tasking” from the Direct Air Support Center (DASC) to position two helicopters forward, because both 5th and 7th Marines are in heavy contact with elements of the Iraqi 51st Mechanized Division, where casualties are expected.

  Griff and I break down our gear and head up to the flight line with Maj. John Graham, the squadron XO. Lt. Col. Driscoll had intended to fly the mission, but his MAG-39 and 3rd MAW (Marine Aircraft Wing) superiors wanted him to remain in Kuwait to be available for next-of-kin notifications and the investigation into last night’s crash.

  Just before Griff and I depart for the flight line, I find Jerry Driscoll alone in the rear of the ready room tent, drafting the most difficult correspondence anyone ever has to write: letters from a commander to the relatives of his dead Marines. Having had to write such missives myself, I know exactly how he feels. The burden of command is never heavier than at a time such as this.

  The flight north to where the 5th Marines are engaged is unremarkable. Flying a CH-46 at thirty to fifty feet over the desert at better than one hundred knots is certainly challenging to the pilot and copilot. At that altitude and speed, the ground—and therefore death—is less than a second away. That reminder comes, no doubt, on the heels of the Dash Three crash. But for those in the back of the aircraft, it is tedium—reminding me of the old adage that “war is 95 percent boredom and 5 percent stark terror.”

  As we whip over the trackless desert that is southern Iraq, we can see large herds of camels, an occasional dried-up irrigation ditch, the heat rising in ripples out in front of us, and little else. There is not a tree or an oasis of any kind in sight. I’m glad I packed my GPS and topped off my water before we left.

  After a half an hour or so, off to our right—east of our flight path—the smoke and flame from three of the seven oil well heads that Saddam loyalists succeeded in blowing up become visible. And then the call from the 5th Marines air officer—call sign “Fingers.” They have two emergency and one priority cas-evacs. He transmits the grid coordinates over the secure radio, and after Maj. Graham enters them into the helicopter’s GPS navigation system, we alter our course to make the pickup.

  As w
e make our approach, I can see up ahead what appears to be several small dwellings and, inside a chain-link fence, an oil installation. It’s one of the GOSPs that were the initial D-day objectives for the 5th and 7th Marines.

  A radio call to the unit on the ground confirms that we’re at the right place, but the voice on the ground informs that “the zone isn’t hot, but it isn’t cold either.” Leaning out the hatch with my camera running, I see a green smoke grenade go off marking the landing point and showing the wind direction. The officer or NCO running this zone knows what he’s doing.

  The LZ is surrounded by several LVTs and armed Humvees. When we get closer, I notice that there is no one up and walking around. The Marines are all prone or crouched while manning the .50-caliber, 240-Golf machine guns, or TOWs on the Humvees. The “up guns”—coaxial-mounted 40mm grenade launchers atop the LVT turrets—are all aimed outside the little perimeter.

  As the two birds touch down on the dirt roadway, Marines rush toward us carrying three litters. Two are loaded aboard our helicopter; one is placed aboard Griff’s bird behind us. Following instructions not to broadcast the identity of wounded or dead combatants from either side, I allow my camera lens to catch only the faces of the litter bearers as they run on and off the bird.

  They are nearly all very young. Wearing their chemical protective suits, flak jackets, and Kevlar helmets, they are sweating profusely. As the litters holding the casualties are strapped in, Maj. Graham tells Cpl. Mireles, our crew chief, to give the litter bearers several boxes of our bottled water to take back with them.

  Our two shock-trauma medical corpsmen start treating the wounded even before we take off, and it’s only then that one of the docs notices that one of the two casualties, wrapped in a foil-lined shock blanket, isn’t a Marine—it’s a severely burned eleven- or twelve-year-old Iraqi girl, and her devastating injuries appear to be several days old.

  A radio call to the unit on the ground confirms that the child was brought to the Marines by a relative and that she had been burned in a cooking fuel accident before the war even started. The girl’s parents begged the Marine unit that captured the GOSP for help and they decided to load her on our bird with their wounded because there was nothing more that could be done for her in the field.

  Unfortunately, there is very little that the docs aboard our helo can do for her either. Kuwait refuses to allow any Iraqi prisoners or wounded—civilian or military—into their territory. Maj. Graham makes a command decision to take the burned girl out to the hospital ship USS Saipan in the Persian Gulf and he files a flight plan to do so.

  But as we head southeast for the Gulf, DASC calls up on the radio and asks if the two helicopters have life rafts aboard. They don’t. Everything that’s not essential to our mission has been stripped from the ancient birds to remove weight. We weren’t supposed to be operating anywhere near water so we don’t even have life vests aboard.

  Maj. Graham is now faced with a terrible dilemma: return the child to where we picked her up or take her and the other casualties out to sea in hopes that she can be saved. He asks over the intercom how we in the back feel about flying over water without flotation gear. We all agree—“Go for it.”

  Half an hour later we’re aboard the USS Saipan, an amphibious assault ship that I have been on many times before. She has a full hospital aboard and all that’s needed to treat the severest of wounds.

  While the birds refuel, Griff is given a tour of the ship, and the crew gives us as much cold water and freshly baked cookies as we can carry. Just before dark we return to the flight line at Ali Al Salem Air Base.

  HMM-268 READY ROOM, MAG-39

  Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait

  Friday, 21 March 2003

  2300 Hours Local

  Griff and I are preparing for a live feed for the 5 p.m. (EST) FOX News Channel broadcast and have our satellite transceiver set up outside the squadron ready room tent. And finally, as the first full day of war comes to an end, we have a chance to get a clear picture of what’s been happening.

  CENTCOM headquarters in Qatar reports that the Iraqi 51st Mechanized Division has collapsed, yielding more than eight thousand enemy prisoners of war, and for the first time an Iraqi division commander and his deputy have personally surrendered. On the far right, the British 7th Armoured Division is on the outskirts of Basra. The U.S. Marines’ RCT-7 has captured all of the crucial oil infrastructure targets in the vicinity of Az Zubayr, and 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines along with a company from 1st Tank Battalion have subdued Safwan. Farther west, RCT-5 has seized all of their objectives intact, including the six major GOSPs and the Ar Rumaylah oil fields. And on the far-left flank of the I-MEF advance, RCT-1 has raced more than fifty kilometers across the desert and is already just south of Jalibah.

  As before, dozens of Marines of all ranks are gathered around us to watch huge explosions rock the enemy capital on our TV. When FOX newsman David Asman, whose son is serving with Task Force (TF) Tarawa, informs us that the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division has advanced sixty miles into Iraq, there are cheers. The only bad news: Two more U.S. Marines—a second lieutenant with the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines and a corporal from 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines—have been killed in action. And there is one other unpleasant item: The missiles missed. Saddam is still alive.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  RUNNING THE GAUNTLET ON BLOODY SUNDAY

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #12

  RCT-5 Command Post

  10 km north of Ur, Iraq, south of the Euphrates River

  Saturday, 22 March 2003

  2300 Hours Local

  It’s been a very long day for the pilots, aircrews, and medical corpsmen of HMM-268. Our two birds have now been “on station” for more than twenty-four hours, and these guys have been flying for most of it. The pilots have taken to napping in the cockpits while the rest of us—crew chiefs, gunners, corpsmen, and the two-man FOX News Channel team—doze on the troop seats and litters in the back of the helicopters, catching sleep in brief snatches.

  Our two haze-gray CH-46 helicopters are parked directly behind the 5th Marines Regimental Command Post, a hastily erected tent and camouflage net thrown up over two back-to-back LVTC-7s (Landing Vehicle, Tracked, Command). This is Col. Joe Dunford’s “Alpha” Command Group. A mirror-image “Bravo” Command Group is leapfrogging ahead of us with the lead battalions of RCT-5. Once “Bravo” finds a good site, Col. Dunford will displace forward. He has moved his CP five times in the last twenty-four hours as the 5th Marines roared up Route 8 and then up Route 1, past the recently discovered ancient ruins of Ur—the birthplace of Abraham. But we didn’t take the time to visit.

  Throughout the last twenty-four hours, contact with the enemy has been remarkably light, as have the friendly casualties. It’s pretty clear that the speed at which the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force is moving has taken the Iraqis very much by surprise. Though we’ve had a lot of cas-evac missions, they have all been routine, many for wounded Iraqi EPWs (enemy prisoners of war). Best of all, none of the zones have been “hot.”

  Alongside the highway, there are scores of oil-filled ditches, called “flame trenches.” Apparently the Iraqis abandoned their positions before these could be set afire, since only a few have been blazing, spewing black smoke into the sky as we fly over or drive by in the Marine convoys. There are also hundreds of revetments for armored vehicles that the Iraqis had dug with bulldozers—nearly all of which are empty. In places where they did succeed in placing a tank or armored vehicle in a revetment, the enemy equipment is now a smoldering wreck, hit by F-18s, AV-8s, Cobra Gunships, or in some cases by fire from Marine M-1 Abrams tanks or the 25mm Bushmasters on their LAVs.

  It’s now becoming a ritual: Every time we land, even if for a few minutes, day or night, Griff and I rush out the back of our respective helicopters to find a Humvee, truck, tank, or armored vehicle to set up and plug in our equipment. With the help of a crusty Marine master sergeant, “Comms Chief,” we have jury-rigged a po
wer inverter—that converts 24 volt DC to 110 volt, 60 cycle, AC—through a “pigtail” plug so that we can connect to almost any Marine vehicle and power our broadcast equipment.

  While one of us sets up the satellite antenna and hooks up the power, the other positions the camera and connects it to the audio-video link on the satellite transceiver. And instantly we’re surrounded by Marines of every rank who are hungry for news of what’s happening elsewhere in the war—waiting to catch a glimpse of our FOX News Channel satellite feed on the small monitor.

  They aren’t alone. A correspondent embedded with a combat unit has anything but the “big picture” of what’s going on in the war. That perspective may be possible for reporters at a major headquarters facility like CENTCOM, I-MEF, or the U.S. Army’s V Corps, but in a ground combat unit or a front-line helicopter squadron, one sees only a very narrow slice of the war. What’s happening just a few miles away might as well be in another solar system. Other than occasional opportunities to stick my head inside the CP tent and look at the operations map or sit in on a commander’s briefing, my best sources of information on how the war is going elsewhere are the live reports from other embedded correspondents. While we wait to go on the air, Griff and I watch, just like the Marines, as FOX News Channel correspondents Greg Kelly, with the 3rd Infantry Division, and Rick Leventhal, embedded with the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, describe what’s happening with their units.

  That’s how we learn that the 3rd Infantry Division has been racing through the desert—well off to our west—spearheading the main attack for the U.S. Army’s V Corps. Supported from the air by USAF B-2s, B-52s, F-117s, A-10s, F-15s, F-16s, and their own Apache attack helicopters, the 3rd Infantry Division is aiming straight for the southern approaches to Baghdad and pressing hard against Saddam’s Republican Guard Medina division.