War Stories: Operation Iraqi Freedom Read online

  Tuesday, 11 March 2003

  1300 Hours Local

  TAA Ripper is a dusty, dun-colored, tent camp parked on a barren, flat, windblown desert plain, lacking both vegetation and recognizable terrain features. It is scorching hot and the heat rises in waves off the desert floor. Behind every moving tank, armored vehicle, or truck, a plume of talcum-like dust rises and hangs in the air. Without a GPS receiver, it’s impossible to know where you are or where you are going.

  Canvas cities like this one are spread over the desert in northern Kuwait—“up close and personal to the Iraqi border,” as a Marine gunny puts it. Each one of these Tactical Assembly Areas is “home away from home” for a U.S. or British ground combat unit. From the air they all look about the same: row upon row of large tents, surrounded by a ten-foot-high wall of earth topped with razor wire. This one is the temporary home of the fabled 7th Marine Regiment—one of three Regimental Combat Teams in the 1st Marine Division, the major ground component of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (known simply as I-MEF).

  The entrance to TAA Ripper reminds me of the cavalry outposts in the Old West. Only instead of a log-walled fort, it’s a sandbagged watchtower with a Marine manning an FN M-240G light machine gun who yells, “Halt.”

  Griff Jenkins, Adam Housley from the FOX News Channel bureau in Kuwait City, and I disembark from the air-conditioned comfort of our GMC Suburban to stand in the blazing sun while a team of Marine MPs examines the big SUV, inside and out. Since the beginning of the year, Marines have been killed over here by terrorists, so these guys aren’t taking any chances.

  With the inspection of the vehicle complete, we’re waved inside the compound and directed to the Regimental Command Post. As we disembark again, a rifle company of Marines shuffles past, weapons slung over their shoulders, the sweat showing on the sleeves and trousers of their desert camouflage uniforms. They all have gas masks on their hips and bulky chemical protective suits in rucksacks. Web belts and carrying harnesses are crammed with canteens and canvas pouches for transporting the tools of war: magazines, grenades, ammunition, first aid kits, and radios. Their flak jackets and helmets are covered with grime, and dust swirls in the dead air as they pass. It occurs to me that the antiwar activists in Hollywood and the striped-pants bureaucrats at the United Nations who have succeeded in delaying the inevitable ought to see them.

  Most of the Marines at TAA Ripper have been here for two months or more, having left California—either Camp Pendleton or the Marines’ sprawling desert training base in Twentynine Palms—back in January. They are blissfully unaware of the political machinations at the United Nations that have held them in this dusty desert limbo for more than a month, poised like a diver prepared for a plunge at the end of the board. Few seem to be aware of the protests by the “Blame America First” crowd in San Francisco and on the streets of many European cities.

  They do know that the French have “wimped out once again.” And they are quick to remind any journalist who will listen that it’s okay because, as one Marine put it, “the French have always been there when they needed us.”

  In front of a nearby tent is a small crimson banner on a silver-tipped staff. Gold letters stitched onto the fabric read, “Co. L, 3rd Bn, 7th Marines.” I enter the relative darkness of the tent and it’s like a furnace. As my eyes adjust to the gloom I spot, a few feet inside the entrance, a Marine, head down on a field desk, clearly asleep. Behind him on a plywood shelf are two radio sets, the coiled handset cords looping down into the sand. Beside the sleeping Marine, open on the field desk, is a yellow, dog-eared edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution dated February 6, 2003. Mail from home takes almost three weeks to get here, and any newspapers enclosed in a care package circulate through a thirteen-man squad, then around the rest of a forty-five-man platoon, until the paper is worn thin and the print is barely legible.

  This newspaper has clearly made the circuit. The lead story is all about the dramatic speech Secretary of State Colin Powell had made the day before at the United Nations, laying out the case for going after Saddam Hussein. The story is complete with satellite photos, diagrams of chemical weapons facilities, and transcribed intercepts of Iraqi communications. Next to one such translated conversation between two Iraqi officers, some Marine wag had written in ballpoint pen, “These guys talk too much.”

  I decide not to awaken the sleeping Marine and proceed back outside, to be accosted by a crowd of Marines who had been on the way back to their billets from the mess tent when they spotted our civilian vehicle. They have surrounded Jenkins and Housley and are peppering the pair with questions such as “what’s happening back in the States.”

  This goes on for several minutes until a gunnery sergeant comes along and shoos the Marines off with a growled “Go clean your weapons” type of command. The Marines scatter, and as soon as they are out of earshot, he tells the three of us that Col. Steve Hummer, the regimental commander, is “down at Commando”—the 1st Marine Division CP (command post)—“for a briefing.” The gunnery sergeant adds, “He won’t be back before nightfall.” Since we have to be back in Kuwait City before dark, in lieu of an interview with the regimental commander we accept his offer of some chow and walk to the mess tent. On the way he answers our questions and describes their situation, though he is careful to say nothing about their mission.

  Most of the troops are billeted in frame tents holding twenty to twenty-five Marines, roughly half a platoon. The plywood floors, 2x4 support frames, and canvas have been erected by a U.S. military contractor. Contractors have also poured concrete pads for generators, maintenance space, communications equipment, and other heavy equipment, and installed some utilities.

  “The rest of what you see here,” the gunny continues, “we brought in with us when we came from the States, or we offloaded it from the MPS.”

  “MPS” is Marine vernacular for the Maritime Prepositioning Ships—the large “roll-on roll-off” vessels full of military equipment, weapons, and ammunition that are strategically placed to expedite the deployment of U.S. military units. Five such ships were dispatched from their Indian Ocean base at Diego Garcia to Kuwait back in January.

  “This MPS offload was a lot easier than during the first Gulf War, because of all the contract stuff,” says the gunnery sergeant, pointing around the area—and he looks at me, knowing he’s baited the hook.

  “Okay, I’ll bite. What ‘contract stuff’?” I reply.

  “The construction and logistics contractors, Colonel,” the gunny answers. “The civilian outfits that put all this stuff up. They have been working on these base camps out here in the desert for more than a year. This stuff didn’t just all happen overnight. Some very smart people started planning for this gunfight in the desert a long time before we got our predeployment orders back in December.”

  As we approach the mess tent, an enormous green scoop loader with a Seabee logo grinds past us and dumps a bucket load of sand atop a prefabricated concrete shelter. Navy Construction Battalion and Marine Engineer personnel wearing hard hats instead of helmets are constructing these bunkers throughout the camp. The gunny gestures toward the structure being buried beneath the sand and says, “This camp is closest to the border, so we’re adding a few more bunkers just in case Saddam hits us before we hit him.”

  We enter the mess tent and join a long line of Marines. The food service is also a contract operation, run by a Kuwaiti contractor. The Marines are being served by locals from a steam line on plastic trays rather than the old metal mess kits that had been in use when I retired. The food isn’t great, but it’s palatable, and there is salad, fresh fruit, and ice to put in the drinks—all things that can’t be found in an MRE, the “Meal, Ready-to-Eat” combat rations.

  “Any concerns about ‘locals’ preparing and serving the food—and coming and going around this base?” I ask the gunny.

  He pauses to reflect a moment, then says, “Some, I suppose. But the contractor has been vetted, all the workers are to
o, by the Kuwaiti security service. They are escorted on and off the base and closely supervised while they are here. Most of them are from Bangladesh or the Philippines. I guess the risk is worth it, because for every one of them back here fixing food, it releases one of our own. That means we have another shooter in a combat unit.”

  We finish our meal and go back outside. A “show and tell” has been arranged for fifteen to twenty foreign journalists. The goal, I’m told, is to familiarize these overseas reporters with Marine Corps weapons, equipment, and organization. Because FOX News Channel isn’t part of the contingent, we’re not allowed to bring any cameras. Apparently the press corps covering the war doesn’t want to be covered itself, so I just tag along.

  It’s quickly evident that these masters of the overseas media are less interested in the weapons on display than they are in what the Marines who use them have to say. They swirl around the young troopers like sharks looking for prey. Questions fly about everything from the weather to opinions on the UN, antiwar protests, and their commander in chief, and how long they have been here waiting for the war to start.

  In response, the Marines, most of them corporals and sergeants, are brutally frank. Despite the delay in getting done what they came here to do, these young warriors revere their commander in chief. And whether the nice folks at the UN or the critics in Europe and antiwar activists in the United States like it or not, these Marines have a refreshing certainty about their mission, Saddam Hussein, and the need to evict him from Iraq. This isn’t because they are naïve or “poor, uneducated minorities,” as some liberal politicians have alleged in advocating a reinstitution of conscription. Supporters of a draft say that it’s necessary to equalize the pool of conscripts, so that white upper- and middle-class Americans are made to serve as well as those from lower economic groups, and minority groups. Yet these all-volunteer troops are already predominantly white, middle-income Americans and they are all high school graduates. Minorities are, if anything, underrepresented in these units.

  The “mission focus” of these young Americans in uniform doesn’t stem from being “brainwashed” by their superiors. And not because these Marines are “bloodthirsty,” as some of these foreign journalists seem to believe. In fact, none of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, or Marines with whom I have spoken over the last several days has told me that they are over here “itching for a fight.”

  What has apparently been missed by many of the media elites who are here covering the preparations for a fight in the Iraqi desert is the fact that no one who has ever really been to a war ever really wants to go to another one. And a remarkable percentage of these young men already have combat experience. One commander I spoke with estimated that nearly half his officers and senior non-commissioned officers have served under fire before—in the first Gulf War, the Balkans, or Afghanistan, and in some cases, all three. They know better than any correspondent, reporter, or politician the true nature of war: that it is the most terrible of human endeavors.

  Yet precisely because so many of them have combat experience, they are anxious to get on with the task at hand. They know that the sooner it gets started, the sooner it will be over. Many of them express frustration that what was supposed to be a blitzkrieg has become a “sitzkrieg.” One young NCO says, “We’re the best there is, but this is going to be the most ‘telegraphed punch’ in military history.”

  And that’s not the only problem with further delay. A “recon Marine”—one of those whose job it is to penetrate deep inside enemy territory to scout out routes, objectives, and enemy targets to be hit—says, “We do our best work under conditions of marginal visibility. We don’t like to operate when the moon is like a big light bulb in the night sky.”

  I watch as the foreign reporters scribble furiously while talking to an NBC NCO—one of those responsible for ensuring that the Marines survive an attack by weapons of mass destruction. The “NBC” isn’t the network—it stands for “nuclear, biological, and chemical.” His comment gets their attention: “The longer we wait, the more time Saddam has to plot and carry out a chemical, biological, or nuclear attack—and the hotter it’s going to be wearing those protective suits and masks.”

  As the reporters head back to their vans, I ask a Marine staff sergeant how he thinks it went. He shrugs and replies, “They will probably say we were whining and complaining, but what the troops were saying is all just common sense. What I don’t get is why we’re letting these foreign reporters hang around with us. They are more hostile than the Iraqis.”

  I walk over to eavesdrop on the departing correspondents, who are now hammering away at their escorts. One female correspondent, with what sounds to me like a French accent, is asking—or is it telling?—one of the Marine minders that she has “never seen so much bravado, machismo, or arrogance” in her life. The young NCO listens to her complaint, appears to mull over her grievance, and then replies, “Yes, ma’am, that’s why they call themselves United States Marines.”

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #5

  HMM-268 Forward Operating Base

  Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait

  Wednesday, 12 March 2003

  1445 Hours Local

  We’re finally embedded in our assigned unit: Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron (HMM) 268. From now until the end of the war, we’ll be living with and flying with the Red Dragons. Their twelve CH-46 helicopters are parked on the flight line about 150 meters from the squadron ready room—a frame tent with a plywood floor erected next to a steel maintenance building that serves as the headquarters for Marine Air Group (MAG) 39. I note that there are several large sandbagged bunkers within a few feet of the building.

  My FOX News Channel colleagues received my assignment to this squadron with some amusement. Since I had served as an infantry officer for twenty-two years, everyone—myself included—assumed that the Pentagon public affairs officers who are running the embedding process would send me to a Marine ground combat unit. And since FOX News Channel’s Greg Kelly is a Marine AV-8 Harrier pilot, we all expected that he would be posted to a Marine aviation component. So much for assumptions.

  As it turns out, Rick Leventhal and Christian Galdabini are heading off in a FOX Humvee to cover the Marines’ 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. Greg Kelly and Mal James have been assigned to cover the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, so they are taking the other FOX vehicle. Both the Kelly and Leventhal teams have what seems to be several tons of equipment. But since Griff Jenkins and I are covering—and therefore flying in—Marine helicopters, we must carry all of our equipment on our backs or manhandle it on and off the birds.

  To accommodate the weight and space restrictions on the helicopters, Griff and I spent countless hours in Kuwait City reconfiguring our loads and repacking our gear until we were down to an absolute minimum. We finally managed to squeeze all our electronic equipment, satellite gear, cameras, miles of videotape, batteries, electrical leads, transmission cables, and computers into two rugged Pelican cases. We also have a small diesel generator for emergency electrical power. All of our personal equipment, clothing, chemical protective suits, shaving kits, canteens, extra boots, ponchos, gloves, dust goggles, flashlights, and assorted “comfort items,” like toilet paper and baby wipes, get jammed into our Osprey backpacks.

  When we’re “saddled up” with our body armor, gas masks, and backpacks, carrying the Pelican cases and generator, we look like a couple of pack mules, but we can quickly move all our equipment on or off a CH-46 helicopter in just two trips up and down the ramp.

  Lt. Col. Jerry Driscoll, the squadron commander, seems genuinely glad to see us. He introduces us to the pilots and aircrews and takes us around the Ali Al Salem Air Base so that we can get our bearings. One of the squadron pilots, 1st Lt. Ken Williamson, is assigned to serve as our liaison and run interference for us with the air group. He introduces himself as “the oldest flying first lieutenant in the Marine Corps,” and delivers us to our new home, the “field grade tent�
�� in the squadron area, with the admonition, “You guys should have stayed with the lieutenants and captains. We live closer to the bunker.”

  The officers and Marines of the squadron are all billeted in frame tents identical to those of the 7th Marines. But here, even though this entire canvas city was erected in January, when the squadron first arrived in Kuwait, the Seabees are just now in the process of installing modular showers and replacing the portable heads with “toilet trailers.” It’s the first time in my Marine Corps experience that I’ve seen the “air wing” living rougher than the “grunts.”

  Lt. Williamson points out the U.S. Army Patriot PAC-3 missile battery and an anti-aircraft missile battery providing protection from incoming Iraqi Scud missiles and any other threat from the air. Before leaving us in our new abode, he points to a telephone pole with a large loudspeaker on top. “That’s what we call the ‘Great Giant Voice.’ If you hear them announce a missile attack or a chemical alarm, grab your gas mask, flak jacket, and chemical suit and head for the nearest bunker and stay there until the ‘all clear’ is sounded.” Griff immediately looks around for his gas mask and realizes he’s left it in the ready room.

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #6

  HMM-268 Forward Operating Base

  Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait

  Thursday, 13 March 2003

  0900 Hours Local

  “Dust storm!” Maj. John Graham, the squadron XO (executive officer), muttered late last night as he stumbled into our tent in the darkness, trying to find his folding cot. I rolled over and went back to sleep. Now it’s three hours after sunrise but it’s impossible to see more than a few feet outside our tent. Inside, the air is full of fine dust that settles on everything. Gusts of wind whip the sides and roof of our shelter with a racket that sounds as if it could rip the canvas apart. The 2x4 frame holding the tent up groans as though the beams might snap at any moment. Without the sun to warm the desert floor, it’s actually cold, and I pull on a sweater beneath my field jacket.