War Stories (18 page)

A slight wind has come up, blowing a light cloud of dust and smoke our way as the word comes down to “saddle up” and launch. While the Royal Marines gather their gear and start boarding their assigned helicopters, Griff and I shake hands and we each head to our respective aircraft to grab our cameras so that we can start recording this first assault deep into Iraq.

After discussing the matter with Lt. Col. Driscoll and Maj. Chris Charleville, the HMM-268 Operations Officer, we have agreed that Griff and I will fly on different birds. By doing so, we'll minimize interference with ground combat element load plans, and spread out the weight/space requirements for our satellite equipment and camera gear. But there is another reason for splitting up our two-man team that no one mentions: if a bird goes down, we can be reasonably sure that half of our videotape and one of us will survive to tell the story.

Ten commandos, including the Royal Marine Battalion commander, all carrying heavy packs and weapons, cram themselves into my aircraft. Many of these Brits have seen action before—some of them in the Falklands back in 1981, others in Northern Ireland, Gulf War I, Bosnia, and Kosovo—and some of the oldest have served in all of these difficult and dangerous places. But tonight's mission may well be their toughest. If all goes as planned, this lightly armed infantry battalion will disembark north of Basra, Iraq's second largest city, and establish a blocking position. Their goal: to keep enemy reinforcements from reaching the Basra garrison—believed to be elements of the Iraqi 51st Mechanized Division and a Republican Guard regiment.

Other elements of the British 3rd Commando Brigade and the American 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) are to capture the oil port at Umm Qasr, just across the Kuwaiti border about thirty miles south of Basra, while Navy SEALs, Royal Marines, and British Special Ops units coming in from the Persian Gulf seize the oil terminals at Ma'amir and Al Faw. This complicated, high-speed endeavor is aimed at preventing the destruction of Iraq's wells and infrastructure and the kind of catastrophe Saddam wreaked on Kuwait and the waters of the Persian Gulf back in 1991.

As Gunnery Sgt. Pennington checks the troops to make sure that they are all strapped in, I climb through the forward personnel door,
grab my tiny Sony Digital Pro camera with its night-vision lens, and fasten a gunner's belt around my flak jacket, high on my chest. With the gunner's belt tethered to a tie down on the deck of the helicopter, I can move about inside the troop compartment and still step forward into the cockpit between the pilot and copilot or even lean out the right side personnel door hatch, just forward of the .50-caliber mount. To ensure that I can hear and record radio and intercom communications, Pennington has rigged up a “cranial” helmet for me and hooked it into the aircraft communications system.

Lt. Col. Jerry Driscoll is in the cockpit with Capt. Aaron Eckerberg, his copilot, running down the preflight checklist just as though we were about to take a training flight at Camp Pendleton. I hear the electronic ping of the Singars encryption system as each of the other birds in our flight “checks in” with Driscoll, confirming that they are “ready to turn”—that is, prepared to start their engines and lift off for Iraq. I hear a bird in our flight—I don't catch which one—call in to inform that Griff, using his newly acquired nickname, “Mailbag,” is aboard with his gear. All is ready.

Then, before the engines are started, another call over the radio: Navy SEALs and British Special Boat Service operators in the vicinity of our insert LZ are in contact with enemy troops. An AC-130 gunship and USAF A-10s are being called in to “soften up” the zone and take out enemy anti-aircraft batteries nearby. And so we wait. After about thirty minutes I notice that despite the tension, Pennington is following North's Rule of “sleep when you can.” Sitting on the floor, leaning back against a case of .50-caliber ammo, he's the picture of absolute confidence—and fast asleep.

Finally, shortly after 0200, the terse message comes over the radio from Col. Rich Spencer, the MAG-39 CO, “We're good to go. Godspeed, gentlemen.” The largest night heloborne assault in history is now underway.

The whine of the APUs (auxiliary power unit) on the rear of the birds is soon overwhelmed by the sound of more than one hundred engines and rotors turning. In front of us, total darkness. As we lift off, out the side of the bird my camera catches the plume of dust as we rise into the darkness. Inside, the Royal Marines insert magazines in their weapons and chamber a round. Pennington and Cpl. Nathan Kendall, the left-side .50-caliber gunner, lock and load their machine guns with belts of ammo as we head for the border at more than one hundred knots (about 115 mph) and less than fifty feet above ground.

My videotape of the assault lift shows that initially visibility is fairly clear as we proceed north toward Iraq, though there are increasing amounts of dust in the air, and occasionally I have to flip my NVGs up because the fires from several burning oil wells cause them to “flare” and temporarily blind me. I can clearly see the other three birds, flying close behind us, no more than five or ten rotor widths away, carrying elements of the Battalion Command Group. All four helicopters are supposed to land in the same zone to disgorge their passengers. The next four birds, trailing a mile or so behind us, will land in the assault LZ after we take off. As I aim the camera back into our troop compartment, only the eyes of the Royal Marines' camouflage-painted faces show clearly through my night-vision lens.

Seconds later, when I turn to “shoot” again out the open hatch, the sky has suddenly turned hazy. The ground below, whipping by at more than one hundred knots, is still visible through my NVGs, but out in front of us a local sandstorm—a miniature
sharqi
—has reduced forward visibility to just a few yards. The windblown dust, perhaps created by the firing on Safwan Hill, or the movement of thousands of our armored vehicles off to our west, has mixed with the smoke from a handful of burning oil wells, obliterating the sky. Through my NVGs, the air around us appears to be filled with “pixie
dust”—as though looking through the frosted glass inside a light bulb. As we approach the border, the highway that was built in more peaceful times to connect Basra with Kuwait City is just visible below us. I'm musing about seeing a car drive beneath us when I hear Driscoll say over the intercom, “Power lines ahead. We're pulling up to go over. Gunny, give me a ‘clear' when we're past.”

I step back inside as we pull up so that Pennington can stick his head out the open hatch. When we pass over the lines, I hear him yell “Clear!” over the noise. And then, as the bird starts to descend again, there is an urgent call over the secure radio: “Dash Three, Dash Four, pull up! Pull up!”

Suddenly, there is a blinding flash on the left side and slightly below our helicopter. Though our bird never wavers on its course, up in the cockpit, Lt. Col. Driscoll is instantly on the intercom and the radio: “What was that?”

Pennington responds first, his voice flat, coming through the lip mike: “Dash Three has gone down, sir.”

There is a moment of silence while the magnitude of what's just happened sinks in. My camera, pointed over the port side .50-caliber machine gun, captures the terrible fireball. I know the answer even before Driscoll comes up on the radio and asks the question “Any survivors?”

“Dash One, this is Dash Four. Negative. No way.”

Driscoll calls out on the secure Search and Rescue net anyway: “Helicopter down . . .” and then the grid coordinates from his GPS. “Request you launch the TRAP [Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Pilot] mission to that location.”

Within seconds of the crash, everyone on our helo has figured out what happened, though no one knows what brought Dash Three down. I can sense the stunned reaction, even though it is impossible to hear anything over the roar of the engines and rotors other than what comes through my earphones.

The Royal Marine Battalion commander unfastens his seat belt, comes forward, and sticks his head into the cockpit. He and Driscoll confer for a few moments and then he backs out and stands upright, a tiny flashlight in his hand. Standing right next to me, he flips through the pages of a small notebook until he finds the list of those who were manifested on Dash Three. He shakes his head and says, just loud enough for me to hear, “War's bloody awful. Those poor lads.” And then, looking back toward his Marines, he shouts, “We're pressing on!”

But we can't. In just a matter of a few miles and a few minutes, the weather and visibility detiorate considerably. The AC-130 working over our insert LZ reports heavy anti-aircraft fire and that the approach to our zone is obscured by ground fog, dust, and smoke from the oil fires. All this is being monitored by I-MEF HQ and the MAG-39 Air Ops Center. After several minutes of radio chatter, the command “Abort the mission,” is broadcast to all the aircraft. The decision has been made well up the chain of command to wait until after first light and to try again when the weather and visibility are better.

Now, with more than fifty helicopters in the air, the challenge becomes getting them all safely back to where we started without bumping into one another in the haze.

Driscoll calls the battalion commander back up into the cockpit to inform him of the decision that has just come down. As the Royal Marine lieutenant colonel backs out and heads back to his troop seat, he is clearly agitated.

Our route back to the pickup zone in Kuwait takes us back over the still-burning wreckage of Dash Three. As all aboard crane their necks to see what they can through the portholes, a thought suddenly comes to me:
Was Griff on Dash Two or Dash Three?

By the time we make it back to our landing point, it's nearly 0400 and I have all but convinced myself that Griff had boarded Dash
Two—the helicopter that had been parked about twenty meters to our right side when we took off for the assault. As soon as the commandos have disembarked and our bird shuts down, I run over to the helo parked to our right and ask the crew chief if Griff is aboard.

When he replies, “No, sir,” adrenaline surges through my gut, and I have immediate remorse.
How am I going tell his lovely wife, Kathleen, and daughter, Madeline, that Griff has been killed?

Overwhelmed with dread, I run over to several other birds as they land, but there is still no sign of Griff. He's been my producer for more than eight years and I'm sick at the thought that he is lying dead in the wreckage of Dash Three. Wearing my NVGs, I make my way back to my helicopter, but the pilots are gone, summoned to a briefing with the MAG-39 CO. Pennington is on top of our bird, checking things out with a small flashlight held in his teeth. When he climbs down and puts his NVGs back down, I ask him, “Do we know yet who was aboard the bird that went down?”

“Yes, but you can't report it until we notify next of kin,” he replies. And then he continues, “Major Aubin and I came to 268 from MAWTS [Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron]. He and Captain Beaupre were two of the best pilots I know. And Staff Sergeant Waters-Bey and Corporal Kennedy both really knew their stuff. They were all really good men. You know that, you've flown with all of 'em.”

“What about the PAX?” I ask, not wanting to say Griff's name.

“There seems to be some kind of mix-up on the manifest,” he responds. “Apparently the troop list only shows seven PAX, but before takeoff, Major Aubin reported ‘twelve souls on board.' That means there were eight in back, in addition to the crew. The Brits are checking.”

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.