House to House: A Tale of Modern War (20 page)

Ellis is still in trouble. We’re not having much luck reaching the insurgent rocket teams to the south behind those Texas barriers. Our guns work them over, but their RPGs continue to airburst around our Brad. Brown and his crew are still engaged on the other side of us and are unable to get to Ellis.

Finally, Sergeant First Class Cantrell arrives in his Bradley. Our platoon sergeant has been busy elsewhere, throwing his ferocity and his weight into the fight to save First Platoon. We’re glad to have him back. He rolls around the corner, passes Ellis, and lets fly with a TOW. A small corner window in a building halfway down the road vanishes in smoke. The explosion of the missile and then a big secondary explosion rock the street. Cantrell and his gunner, Sergeant Brad Unterseher, have just killed an insurgent who must have had a stockpile of RPG reloads. Close behind Cantrell comes Staff Sergeant Jim, driving that glorious Abrams. First Platoon has no doubt benefited from their service. That battle’s under control. Now they’ve come to bail us out.

Jim’s gunner blows the Texas barriers apart with HEAT (high-explosive antitank) rounds. Cantrell’s 25 mike-mike stitches the street where a scattered squad or two of insurgent fighters are rallying. Their attack broken, they fall back across Highway 10 and disappear into the industrial district.

All morning long, Stuckert has been babysitting his alleyway as the other guys pinch his ammo. He has yet to take a shot. Frustrated, he stayed in his sector of fire while the firefight raged around him.

Suddenly a man pops into Stuckert’s alleyway. He’s wearing an American Kevlar helmet and body armor. Stuckert doesn’t hesitate. He trains his gun on the man and rips off a long burst. He stays on the trigger and whipsaws the barrel back and forth, raking his target. Any human being, armored or not, simply cannot take the absurd volume of lead spewing from Stuckert’s SAW. The man disappears in the fusillade.

Stuckert is finally in the game. He turns to the other guys, smiles and nods, then reloads. He looks at Flannery and laughs.

“Hey Flan-tastic. You like that shit? You like that, huh?”

Stuckert is calmly pleased with things now. Not me. Stuckert’s victim was wearing our gear. While we did get intel that this would be happening, I fear we’ve killed one of our own. I do a quick head count. Fitts notices it and says, “Hey, Sarge, he did good. Stuckert did good. We’re all here.”

I nod. Fitts addresses the platoon, “Hey, this fucking enemy of ours is wearing our shit, men.”

Well, at least we know two hundred rounds from a SAW will negate Kevlar helmets and body armor.

We’ve stopped the enemy cold. His counterattack failed, thanks to the timely arrival of the Brads. Had it not been for our tracks and Sergeant Jim’s tank, we would have been in real trouble.

As it is, I’m concerned that the first thrust came from our rear to the north. How’d they get behind us? We had cleared that entire neighborhood and didn’t see a soul while dismounted. Yet they managed to work their way behind us in force.

We know we face a crafty, skilled enemy. We’ve seen them bound in two-man buddy teams. They move with fire elements covering their advance. These guys aren’t the raw Mahdi militiamen we killed in Muqdadiyah. They are a military force.

Yet we’ve scored a significant victory this morning. We suffered only one slight wound and killed many, many bad guys. More importantly, we withstood a multidirectional attack for over three and a half hours. I’m proud of my men, and my confidence in them is cemented by their actions today.

My own confidence grows. This morning, I was a leader. I walked the firing line, encouraging and directing the men. When we needed to expand our fields of fire, we were flexible and figured out a way onto the other rooftop. I never triggered my own weapon; I was too busy managing my boys. Fallujah is turning me into a real squad leader. I take pride in that.

The last AK fire drains away. Our guns fall silent, their barrels smoking in the cold morning air. Bucket loads of 5.56mm brass click and tinkle underfoot.

It is time for us to continue the advance. Although there is more mopping up to do, securing Highway 10 is crucial to cutting Fallujah’s resistance in half.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Stay Puft Marshmallow Cock

They’re following us.

Not five minutes after we leave the house to mount up in our Brads, the muj flow around into the alleys and side streets. From a safe standoff distance, they watch our convoy, they pace our southern advance on parallel roads, they nip at our coattails just out of our reach. Sergeant Jim’s tank leads the way while the rest of us follow inside our Brads. My track, Staff Sergeant Brown’s, is a mess. The strafing runs Brown executed in the fight left our Brad severely bullet-scarred. Two of the dismount viewports are destroyed, and all the gear on the exterior has been punctured. Nevertheless, he has ample fuel and plenty of ammo for the Bushmaster. Brown and his crew are more than ready for another fight.

In column formation, we drive down the southern road past the ruins of the Texas barriers Jim destroyed with his 120mm. We’ve moved four hundred meters from our rooftop redoubt. Around us, insurgents dart from corner to corner, always just out of our vision and range. It is an
Escape from New York
scene that leaves us tense and adrenaline-filled.

We reach a three-way intersection with a frontage road that stretches out east-west parallel to Highway 10. Highway 10 has been designated “Phase Line Fran.” It is our main objective in Fallujah. We’ve reached it less than twelve hours after breaching the city’s northern berm.

Gossard and the other Bradley gunners rake the buildings around us, prepping the area with high-explosive rounds fired into windows and doors.

We dismount into the silent street and enter a beautiful house right on the edge of the highway. It is three stories tall, and the second floor opens onto a rooftop balcony that covers at least a thousand square feet. An exterior stairwell gives us access to the roof over the third floor, providing an excellent view of the area around us.

We get word that First Platoon has reached Highway 10 as well. They set up in a building about five hundred meters to our west. Captain Sims establishes his command post between us. Again, we form a solid front, but our position lacks depth. And this time we know the enemy is swarming around our rear and flanks. We can’t stop them. Where the Marine battalion on our western flank is, we have no idea. Fortunately, the muj stay at arm’s length and refuse to expose themselves. They seem content to be shadows.

Lieutenant Meno sets up on the roof of the second floor. Pratt takes McDaniel and a 240 Bravo machine gun up to the third-floor roof. Part of my squad heads up there with them. Fitts and I set up 360-degree security as Michael Ware pulls out his satellite phone and tries to hook up to CNN for a live broadcast. Fitts and I have no interest in CNN, so we duck into the house and plop into a couple of plastic chairs. We might as well take advantage of the stillness of the moment. I pull out a precious cigarette and light it. Fitts pulls out a Black & Mild cigar Sergeant Hall gave him. For the moment, we sit and inhale in relative tranquility.

The walls around us are ripped from shrapnel strikes. Aside from these two chairs, not a piece of furniture is intact. Cabinets look like Swiss cheese. Glass litters the floor, and every dish and decoration is in pieces.

These are the telltale signs of Gossard’s work on the Bushmaster. He prepped this house before we dismounted and did a superb job, placing each high-explosive round in the corners of the rooms he targeted. By hitting the corners, he maximized the blast effect. He made every shot count and saved ammo.

Outside on the second-floor roof, Michael Ware makes contact with CNN. He starts his first on-the-scene report for the network. Yuri sits beside him. The quiet around us enhances the clarity of Ware’s transmission.

That is, until a lone gunman appears on the frontage road. He walks into the open, weapon at the ready. The insurgents are reconning by sacrifice again. The platoon doesn’t hesitate. The rooftops explode with machine-gun fire and the sharp crack of our rifles. The muj runs for it, bullets chasing him all the way. A hundred and fifty rounds later, he’s facedown on the asphalt, his body peppered and torn.

Tracers zing into us from a position to the northeast. Our men on the third floor return fire. More fire opens up from the northwest, near the mosque we’ve just cleared. As we moved south, the insurgents must have moved back into that area. This is not a good sign. We didn’t have the time to destroy all the supplies and equipment we found there.

An insurgent dashes from an alleyway toward the mosque. He’s got an M16 slung over one shoulder, a Kevlar helmet on his head, and an olive drab chest protector. He even has neck and groin protectors attached to his body armor.

The men hesitate, unsure if he’s an Iraqi soldier or an insurgent. Nobody has seen an enemy fighter with an M16 before. He sprints for a building across the road and to our north. As he runs, our men see he’s wearing U.S. Army–issued boots and an American desert camouflage shirt under his body armor.

He’s also carrying a car battery.

The platoon opens fire, but it’s too late. He ducks inside the building and disappears.

Michael Ware has just been handed the opportunity of a lifetime. He’s live with CNN, and our current firefight lends drama and excitement to his report. He’s on the satellite phone, talking in rushes between bursts of gunfire.

A deafening thunderclap engulfs our house. Then another. And another. My chair snaps, and I tumble to the floor. Fitts crashes down next to me as a massive concussion wave blasts through the room. The floor quakes. Shrapnel scythes the walls and ceiling. Smoke billows out through the windows. I try to sit up, but another explosion rocks the building, casting shards of metal into the room.

I lie flat and just try to stay alive amid the debris. One more gigantic detonation slams our building and shakes it violently. I wonder if the walls will collapse. I’m dimly aware that the men outside are firing furiously. I have to get out there.

The smoke begins to clear. The walls are scored with new scars. The windows had briefly been funnels of death. Had Fitts or I been behind them, it would have been lights out. We are lucky to be alive. The collapsing chair probably saved me from harm.

We scramble to the second-floor roof, where I find Ohle behind his SAW. He sends a long, angry burst up the road to the north. I am relieved to see every soldier safe behind the sturdy cover of the roof’s parapet. I can’t make out what is happening on the roof above, but their weapons are barking enough for me to think that everyone must be okay.

“What are we shooting at?” I ask Ohle.

“There’s a fucking dude. He went into that house over there.” Ohle pauses, points, then gets back behind his SAW.

The entire block is shrouded in smoke. Telephone poles have snapped like toothpicks. The road we came down is pockmarked with holes. Chunks of asphalt lie scattered around. To the west, an entire building is little more than a burning heap of rubble. Bullets that were inside the building periodically cook off from the heat of the blast, sending lead in random directions.

The M16-armed muj has devastated this neighborhood. He had wired up his battery and detonated more than ten massive explosive devices all at once. Half of them were strapped to the telephone poles at our Bradley commanders’ eye-level. Others were embedded in the road or hidden alongside. The multilevel explosive ambush created a typhoon of steel in the street. There’s not one building in sight left intact; all are riddled with shrapnel holes and most have big gouges torn out of their walls.

But the topper was the final explosion. The house that is now burning was one big improvised explosive device. Had we chosen it as our next foothold, we would all be dead. Once again, a single insurgent could have killed our entire platoon.

A heavy machine gun opens up on us. It rakes the street beside our house. It seems like small potatoes now. We try to suppress the gunner, but we can’t see him. We’re not even sure which building he’s using for cover. Our weapons rattle. The firefight is on.

Fortunately, a Bradley is close at hand. Here comes Brown, rolling up the shattered street. The turret spins. The Bushmaster booms. The insurgents respond with RPG fire. A rocket whips right over Brown’s head and blows up in a house across the street. Brown is unfazed. He stays put while Gossard pours rounds into enemy positions.

At the same time, our company’s forward observer, Sergeant Shaun Juhasz, sees movement across Highway 10. Insurgents are creeping up to firing positions to the south of us. Juhasz calls in an artillery fire mission. Seconds later, the air is full of the
whoosh…booom!
of 155mm shells. It is the first time since we entered the city that we’ve had our own indirect support, and Captain James Cobb, our task force fire support officer, lays it on thick. Soon, the buildings in the industrial districts of the south side of Highway 10 are smothered in smoke and flames.

On the roof, we unload grenades onto the enemy to the north. Knapp adds a few frags to the mix, just to liven things up a bit. This fire and the presence of Brown’s Brad finally convince the muj to break contact again. As the 155 shells fall behind us, the incoming from the north ceases.

The artillery barrage peters out. The fight is over.

“Was that guy the enemy or was someone from your media pool running batteries to you,” I jokingly ask Michael Ware.

“That was crazy, mate. Just blew up out of nowhere.”

I hear a shuffling noise and turn to see Sergeant Alan Pratt coming toward me.

He is walking with an exaggerated bowlegged sidle that looks ridiculous. I crack up and give him a big smile, glad that he can go for a laugh even in the midst of all this.

“Sergeant Bell,” Pratt says in a weak voice, “I’m hit. I been shot.”

“What?”

He limps toward me, leaving boot prints in blood in his wake. The levity we’d felt just a second before evaporates. Pratt really is hit.