Carnivore Read online

  Just sitting on the ground, eating and talking with my crew and the guys who walked by, seemed an almost alien experience after living inside the Brad for days. The lack of sleep, lack of food, and being under almost constant attack for a week had aged Soprano 20 years. He went from looking like a baby-faced teenager to a tired 35-year-old. Jason Sperry, my driver, wasn’t much better. I didn’t want to even know what I looked like. My knees were so swollen from standing up for days that it was hard to walk. For the first time since the start of the war I got to change my socks.

  The meal was lukewarm eggs and sausages. It was a good meal, and it was good to see the faces of my friends and fellow soldiers. We had traveled far and been through hell, but amazingly enough we hadn’t lost anybody. We were all still there.

  Specialist Ryan Hellman from S-3 (Headquarters Platoon) pulled up in his Humvee with Staff Sergeant Todd Young. They knew what we had been through and wanted to check on us.

  “Jesus, how you guys doing?” Hellman asked us. He eyeballed the Carnivore, which wasn’t nearly as pretty as the last time he’d laid eyes on it.

  I was having a hard time doing much more than blinking, and polite conversation seemed almost impossible. I looked past him at his ride. “I’m stealing your antenna,” I told him.

  “What?”

  I took the matching unit—what we called the radio antennas because they were interchangeable—off his Humvee to fix the radio on the Carnivore. “You need anything else?” Hellman asked me.

  “What do you have?” I asked him.

  Young gave us some more batteries before they moved on. Captain Stephen Balog, the unit chaplain, came by to see us as well. Seeing his friendly face meant a lot and made me feel a little more human.

  After eating I walked over to catch up on small talk with the First Sergeant—just being able to do that was a luxury. Turns out the .50-cal on his M113 APC hadn’t functioned at all, not since we’d crossed into Iraq. The troop hadn’t gotten a chance to test fire any of our weapons before they’d cut through the berm, and Grigges had been riding around for a week with a nonfiring machine gun. We put our heads together, and with a little tinkering and one big hammer, we got his .50 working again. Meanwhile, some of the guys were trying to ride one of the camels that were there. The camels belonged to the bedouins in the area. The riding attempts did not go well, except as entertainment for everyone watching.

  Just being able to work on the Bradley without having to worry about being shot at was better than I can explain. I replaced some of our shot-up track shoes. I worked on our TOW launcher, which had been damaged at As Samawah, but it was a lost cause. Then, sleep.

  I had a good sleep. It was a peaceful sleep. I wasn’t anxious, I wasn’t nervous, I wasn’t worrying about the upcoming fight that everyone had been worrying about for months. I wasn’t worrying about Bradleys and tanks. I wasn’t worrying about anything.

  CHAPTER 16

  THE GREAT BAGHDAD TANK BATTLE . . . SORT OF

  The break couldn’t last forever, and after three days at Objective Rams we saddled up again and headed for Karbala. Karbala was a good-sized town about halfway between An Najaf and Baghdad. It was northwest of An Najaf, and we rolled mostly through desert to get there. We didn’t encounter any resistance to speak of, and once at Karbala we set up in an overwatch position.

  Sitting back in the sand wasn’t what most of us wanted to be doing, although we hadn’t exactly been starved for action. Our job was to make sure the Iraqi army could not get into the rear of the division. Boring was a welcome change, at least for a few hours, but honestly I wasn’t disappointed when we got the word that JSTARS had picked up a huge element heading in our direction. A brigade-sized element. Time to go back to work.

  Finally, the terrain worked in our favor, and we lined up all three troops abreast and charged toward the oncoming enemy, just like in training—only to discover that they were camels. Lots and lots of camels. Camels moving quickly across the desert apparently look a lot like dismounted infantry on ground radar. Oh well.

  We spent a lot of time around camels while we were over there. I can’t say I really enjoyed it. Camels are mean. They bite you, blow spit on you, and shove you with their head if they don’t like you. If you feed them crackers and run out while they’re still hungry, again they’ll shove you with their head. They’re like mean, spoiled kids, but because most of the ones we came across belonged to bedouins, shooting the ones that pissed us off would not have been a good way to endear ourselves to the local population. They probably taste horrible anyway. I would wager that most of the people in this country in favor of animal rights have never spent any time with camels.

  After we’d scared the crap out of the giant herd (or whatever it’s called) of camels, command had us move north along Highway 9, the main route between Karbala and Baghdad, and set up north of town in a blocking position. There was a tank brigade still out there, somewhere, and we needed to find it. The only thing we found was an unmanned antiaircraft gun site with five 57 mm guns. Destroying them was easy—Broadhead ran over them with his tank. We weren’t there for long when we got the word that it was time to head to Baghdad. It was April 3, 2003.

  The 2nd BCT moved out, and we rolled out behind them until we got to the other side of the Euphrates. That would mark the third time I crossed the river. The 2nd BCT then proceeded to head west, and we moved out east along a narrow highway heading up to Baghdad.

  Running up to Baghdad on the main road, we were stopped because of a stack-up of vehicles ahead. Airman Shopshire was in the vehicle in front of us and saw movement in the bushes on the side of the road. He jumped down and saw an Iraqi officer who at some point had been shot in the ass and was apparently looking to surrender.

  Holding his rifle on the Iraqi, Shopshire gestured at him to walk toward us and then commanded him, “Qif!” We’d been told that qif meant “slowly,” but what it actually means is “stop.” The Iraqi stopped, and Shopshire gestured for him to keep on coming, and as soon as the guy took another step Shopshire said “Qif!” again. The Iraqi stopped. This happened over and over, and the Iraqi had no fucking idea what was going on; all he knew was that he didn’t want to get shot again.

  Shopshire yelled, “Why won’t this bastard keep walking?” He was getting pissed off and started yelling at the Iraqi at the top of his lungs, “Qif! Qif!”

  The Iraqi looked from Shopshire to the rest of us with an expression on his face like, “What the hell do you want from me?” Finally, the Iraqi was able to successfully surrender without getting shot.

  I ended up being the lead vehicle for Crazy Horse, and to be honest, even though I like to lead from the front, that was not the place I wanted to be. We just knew Baghdad was going to be guarded by tanks, lots and lots of tanks. The whole U.S. Army was expecting a huge tank battle in the fight for Baghdad, and that road was only wide enough for one vehicle at a time. All it would take was one hit from a T-72, and not only would I and my whole crew be dead but everybody behind us would be stacked up like ducks in a shooting gallery.

  We rolled as slowly as we could to make sure that Soprano could get a good look ahead of us. It was an urban area, with neighborhoods and commercial buildings everywhere. Our first contact came from a Toyota truck with six or seven guys in it with small arms. Soprano fired 25 mm at it. The first round landed just in front of the truck, and the next three rounds landed in the cab—that started and ended that fight. Not long after, I came upon an Iraqi fighting position dug in next to the road and we shot that up. Usually the troops in those little emplacements would try to hit us with RPGs.

  “Soprano, Sully, you see anything that even looks like a fighting position, you light it up.” I did not want to get hit with an RPG. I’d had quite enough of RPGs already.

  “Copy that.”

  Dusk was approaching. We still had a long way to go and that meant I had to pick up the pace, because the last thing anybody wanted was another Ambush Alley. However, moving faste
r meant it would be harder to spot any Iraqis until we were right on top of them. It was a double-edged sword. Even though we owned the night with our superior night vision equipment, we all preferred to fight in the daylight.

  Two miles from Baghdad I saw two 152 mm cannons aiming right at me. I slewed the turret to the first cannon and yelled, “Two guns, left one hundred meters, HE, fire!”

  Soprano was on the ball and quick on the trigger. Five, then 10 rounds hit the two cannons. The ammo on one went up in a huge fireball, killing the three-man gun crew. The other gun crew scrambled out of their position and jumped into a big ammo truck. Soprano went to coax and fired a long 100-round burst into the cab as the truck was trying to drive away. Two men died in the truck and the third jumped out of the passenger side of the cab, but when he hit the ground, he fell under the back wheels of the truck and got rolled up. He ended up wedged between the wheels and the bed of the truck, bringing it to a stop on the side of the road. Broadhead let loose with his .50-cal, and the ammo in the back of the truck started going up.

  We moved forward a short distance and came to an intersection where there were bunkers on both sides of the road. Soprano and Sully took out all the soldiers in them, then we started rolling out again.

  Broadhead was looking back and thought the exploding ammo truck looked really neat. He stopped his tank and took a few pictures back down the row of our column, and when he got back to his radio, the profanity coming out of it—Broadhead had halted the column so that McCoy’s tank was right next to the exploding ammo truck, and while he had been taking pictures, ordnance and pieces of exploding truck were whinging off the side of the Commander’s tank. We thought it was funny as hell, but Captain McCoy sure didn’t.

  We got word that some 58 Delta scout helicopters had spotted armored vehicles at Saddam International Airport (which was later renamed Baghdad International Airport—BIAP), and we got the orders to head in that direction and destroy them. As we were rolling in, with the Carnivore in the lead, Broadhead in Camel Toe behind me, and Sergeant Wallace in his Bradley behind him, the fourth vehicle in the column slid partly off the road into a canal, blocking the road so that the rest of the troop couldn’t pass. While they worked to clear the road, the three of us, two Brads and Broadhead in his M1, headed toward the airport.

  We hadn’t expected a fight in As Samawah and ended up in a two-day gun battle where we killed thousands of Iraqis. Rolling up toward An Najaf on a side road, in the rear to protect the supply train, we’d first rolled through the longest ambush in military history, then got stuck at the canal bridge at Objective Floyd and nearly died. We just knew Baghdad would be the site of a huge armor battle—but the fact is that while we spotted all sorts of T-72s and BMPs parked next to and in between buildings, we simply shot the hell out of them. I think most of them were unmanned; their crews had abandoned them.

  Being at the front of the line, we knew to engage any armor we saw, but the troops coming behind us, sometimes days later, had some issues. Hitting a BMP or T-72 with a DU round kills it and everybody in it deader than dirt, but a lot of the time you can’t tell it’s been hit. DU kills with velocity—it punches holes but doesn’t necessarily cause an explosion. After a few engagements with close calls, our armor developed a technique—hit the enemy armor with DU rounds so you know it’s dead, then hit it with HE so everyone coming behind you can tell it’s dead.

  The objective was to get to Baghdad, but once we got to the area our troop didn’t have any specific orders, such as hold this bridge or guard that intersection. I don’t know if that was because we were making such fast progress or because the orders never filtered down from high command, but all we knew was to head up to the big city and kill anything and anyone that posed a threat and didn’t surrender. Maybe they figured we’d be too busy fighting in an urban environment to worry about holding specific intersections.

  After our three vehicles cleared out the area around the airport, we hooked up with the rest of the troop and continued toward our next checkpoint, which was an intersection near Abu Ghraib prison. Once there, I saw Iraqi infantry trying to dig in. Two of the soldiers got into a pickup truck and tried to drive away, and Soprano lit them up with 25 mm HE. The rounds exploded the truck and set it on fire.

  As soon as we set up in a blocking position, more cars and trucks started coming down the road at us. The Carnivore was on the right side of the road and Camel Toe was on the left, with the rest of First and Second Platoons set up around and behind us. Civilian vehicles spotted us and usually did U-turns and did their best to get out of the area. From time to time we had a truck full of soldiers charge our position—I didn’t know whether to admire their courage or marvel at their stupidity. Toyota pickups are not a good vehicular choice when doing battle with Bradleys and M1s.

  Compared to what we’d already seen, there wasn’t a lot of action happening in the outskirts of Baghdad. The headquarters platoon set up behind us with the supply vehicles, and that area became known as the new Crazy Horse Café.

  Most of the action was happening elsewhere. “Contact! I have nine T-72s and have multiple dismounts ahead of me,” I heard Sergeant Williams call in. The T-72s were dug in in a nearby palm grove. Apparently the Casanova was a tank magnet. He could also see more than 100 dismounts moving in front of him. The Troop Commander called someone higher up for help, which the air force was more than happy to provide.

  “Keep your head down, you have air inbound,” McCoy told him.

  Williams moved the Casanova to a safer position as the Air Force came in fast and low. He watched as the A-10s headed straight at him, then roared over his head and dropped two 500-pound bombs into the palm grove right in front of him. The closest bomb hit just 100 meters from his Bradley, which was way too close. As the A-10s circled around to do another run, Captain McCoy got on the radio net and called off the remainder of the air strike.

  “That’s not going to work, friendlies are way too close, you’re going to have to go in there and destroy them yourself,” McCoy told Williams over the radio.

  “Roger that,” Williams told him, still seeing spots from the bomb blast.

  Bradleys work in hunter-killer teams with M1s, and Williams’s wingman was Staff Sergeant Crawford in Fourth Platoon. They engaged the T-72s and dismounts together. The A-10s had destroyed a lot of tanks, but there were still plenty of them in the palm grove showing no signs of damage.

  With darkness closing in on them, Sergeant Williams took out the closest enemy tank with a TOW missile. It was a good hit, and there was no doubt everyone in the T-72 was dead, but the tank itself did not explode, although it was on fire. Williams engaged the second T-72 with his 25 mm main gun as the first tank burned in the palm grove, sending a big column of black smoke into the darkening sky.

  Williams hit the second tank with one, two, then three rounds of DU, and with the third armor-piercing projectile the T-72 lost its turret in a huge fireball. Crawford in his M1 engaged the dismounts with his .50.

  Williams’s dismount, Specialist Clint Leon, was at the back of the Casanova engaging dismounts and watching the first T-72, the one they’d hit with the TOW missile, burn. In short order it exploded as well. His eyes were drawn to movement beyond the palm grove in the gathering gloom, and he saw 20 Iraqi troop transport trucks heading their way, headlights off.

  “Shit!” There was too much noise to be heard, and he reached over and smacked the top of Williams’s helmet where he was standing in the open hatch. When Williams turned around, all Leon had to do was point.

  Williams immediately got on the line with his gunner, Sergeant Tom Hudgins. “Trucks right, four hundred, HE, FIRE!”

  Hudgins was the squadron’s Bradley top gun, and he had his first round off almost immediately. The first round missed, but he quickly adjusted his aim and fired a long burst. Three HE rounds hit the cab of the first truck in line, and four hit the bed. On fire and peeled open like a tin can at a shooting range, the truck lost most of its forwa
rd momentum and the second truck in line rammed into the back of it. Most of the soldiers in the back of the second truck went flying through the air.

  Sergeant Crawford’s gunner in the M1, Sergeant Christopher Sheridan, lit up the survivors of the second truck with the coax. While he was doing that, Williams slewed the Casanova’s turret to the last truck in line.

  “Last truck, HE, eight hundred, fire!” The last vehicle in the convoy was a fuel truck, and it disintegrated in a huge ball of fire when Hudgins put four rounds of HE into it. Flaming fuel ran all over the road and fields to either side, blocking the escape of the Iraqi soldiers from the remaining trucks as both the Bradley and the M1 began firing up the rest of the convoy. The burning fuel silhouetted the soldiers trying to run for cover.

  The Casanova had moved to within 100 meters of the first truck when one of the nearby tanks Williams thought was destroyed backed up and turned at him. In a hurry he grabbed the Commander’s override for the main gun, slewed his turret, and fired a long burst of 25 mm DU into the front of the T-72. How effective were the DU rounds? Those 25 mm rounds went through the T-72 and hit a truck behind the tank, destroying both of them.

  There were only a handful of Iraqi soldiers left alive and they ripped off their uniforms and ran away naked. Williams let them run, as they were no longer a threat, but that close call with the T-72 he’d thought was dead had him worried. There were still half a dozen tanks in the now-dark palm grove, and he didn’t know if they had been destroyed by the A-10 strike, were unmanned, or were just lying in wait. For the next two hours he worked his way through the palm grove and the middle of his sector, hitting any armor he found that wasn’t already in pieces or on fire, just in case. Crawford’s M1 pulled overwatch, and between the two of them they took care of the enemy armor and any dismounts crazy enough to attack American armor with AK-47s.