I crawled out from inside the warmth of my sleeping bag and looked around as the cold air blew against my face. There was a thin layer of frost on my sleeping system and on the ground all around me. I clenched my hands together and blew on my hands attempting to no avail to warm them up. It was February 16th 2007, and we were about 3 clicks(kilometers) north of the Euphrates river and roughly 40 clicks south of the Syrian border. Our truck was located in the center of 5 CAAT(Combined Anti Armor Team) trucks, and we had spent the night on a little knoll in the middle of the desert. I looked around as the sun begin to peak it's head across the eastern sky, the sandy desert was flat and there wasn't anything in sight but the river to our south and a few scattered mud huts along the rivers bank. This place was desolate, it was Iraq. Dirt roads, rocks, and sand scattered in every direction, it was the definition of desert.
"Smack, smack, smack!! Why won't this stupid thing work?!" Yelled Dylan from our truck as he slammed the hood on the Humvee. "I just want some coffee, is that really so much to ask!?" We had acquired a device that was supposed to allow us to plug our power cords into our Humvee and get power from the batteries, but unfortunately it wasn't working and Dylan although he tried everything he could, he would never get his cup of coffee that morning. The morning started off quiet and it was quiet throughout the night. We had a Marine awake and on post during every hour of the night to keep an eye out and ensure our safety. I had the second to the last watch from 4-5am and Dylan had requested the 5-6 shift hoping to make some coffee before we headed out on the last day of our 3 day reconnaissance mission. Our Humvee of 5 snipers had left COP(command post) North 2 days prior with CAAT to conduct a recon of an area 35 klicks east of the COP for an upcoming counter IED mission we were planning within the week. The team included 3 members of Bounty Hunter 2, Dan Laubscher who was our team leader, Michael Arrendondo our point man, and myself. 2 members of Bounty Hunter 3 were also in our truck that day, Tony Powers who was BH3's team leader, and Dylan Gray the driver of our humvee for this recon. I was posted up that day in my favorite spot. I was in the turret behind the 240G machine gun able to stand up and see in every direction. I loved being the gunner, it wasn't the safest place in the truck but you were able to see everything around you and see things in the road.
It had been pretty uneventful for the last two days, we hadn't seen a whole lot besides the open desert and the Euphrates river. We visited a few small villages and we located and took pictures of a few tentative buildings and positions that we could possibly use for future missions; nothing was really ideal though. The day prior we had actually stopped and searched a white bongo truck(a 2 passenger van with a truck bed), in the truck we found IED(Improvised Explosive Devices) making material such as blasting caps and detonation chord. Although we didn't find any ordinance, this was enough evidence for us to detain 4 suspected insurgents that were in the truck. We hadn't destroyed the truck that day because we thought we could use the truck for a future mobile hide site for our sniper teams, however the truck had no fuel and so we couldn't drive it back with us. For this reason, the first thing we did that last morning was return to the site where the truck was located and destroy it by lighting it on fire. We set up a cordon around the truck, poured jp8(jet fuel) and oil on the inside the truck and watched her burn. It was a satisfying feeling knowing this truck wouldn't be used to emplace IEDs in the future, however I couldn't help but realize that I was sitting there watching someones livelihood smoke and burn in the morning air.
As we headed off and begin to work our way back towards the COP, someone shouted up from the truck below me as the engine whined and our truck begin to pick up speed, "hang on up there we've got a runner". "A what?" I shouted down. "we're chasing down a BOLO vehicle" came the response. A BOLO vehicle was a vehicle to "Be On the Look Out" for, typically the BOLO list had vehicles that had been identified as insurgent vehicles and the list had descriptions of the vehicles model, color, and license plate. Typically the BOLO list was a joke and sometimes had nothing more than assumptions and descriptions such as "Blue bongo, possibly a VBIED(Vehicle Bourne IED)" These lists were typically laughed at because it was like saying a white Honda Civic in Los Angeles country is a possible VBIED. You know how many white Honda Civics there are in LA?
It was hard to take these lists serious at times, however we did our best to investigate any suspected BOLO vehicle. As I looked ahead at the 3 trucks in front of me I saw a blue bongo truck tearing across the desert, "great" I thought "another blue bongo". It was always a rabbit chase with these things, we had attempted to chase down a few before this and they always out ran us because we were weighed down with armor, ammo, and personnel. I tightly grabbed a hold of the handles inside of the turret and begin cranking one handle clockwise allowing me to swing the turret to the right as we took a hard right on the main dirt road that ran east to west in this area. This motion was done on turns as it allowed us to keep our guns pointed in a direction to ensure security, and keep us from pointing our guns at the truck in front of us. As we made the turn I quickly spun the turret back to the 11 o'clock position as Dylan hammered down on the pedal and the Humvees engined whined and whined as it shifted gears and topped out in speed. Having been a humvee driver as well, I knew that we had reached a top speed of roughly 57mph which was as fast as an up armored humvee would go due to the extra weight of the Level 2 armor kit that had been added to the sides of our truck.
I looked up ahead and couldn't see the blue bongo anymore, all I could see was the 3 trucks in front of us and the dirt trails they left as the dust blew across the open terrain. The trucks in our convoy were getting pretty spread out now, normally we traveled with 50-100m dispersion depending on if we were traveling on dirt or hard ball and depending on the patrol speed, but at this point the trucks in front of us were at least 100m apart and our dispersion was increasing. I remember the cold morning air blowing in my face, my adrenaline was pumping and the engine was whinning, "Reeeeeeeeeeeeen"……
It all happened so fast…. I briefly caught a glimpse of three rocks on the right side of the road that seemed to be in a conspicuous line with one another. It was enough to convince me to duck down in the truck as these rocks could possibly be an IED marker for insurgents and civilians, as this thought briefly passed through my head it happened. "WHOOOOOOMP!!!" The truck shook and rattled violently as the tremor and shock ripped through my body. As I gripped tightly to the inside of the turret and held on, I felt a rush of hot air and debris coming up at my face quickly from beneath my feet. That was the last thing I remember as my head slammed against the buttstock of the machine gun and my body fell limp into the harness of the gun turret….
This story will be continued in the blog to follow, "A day of mercy: part 2" Stay tuned in the next few days for that blog, and make sure you subscribe to these blogs my entering your email on the left hand side so you don't miss it.
