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  Thompson told me, “Look, I’m never going to touch the gun. You’re gonna shoot everything. I’ll read the fire commands off and all you have to do is yell ‘Identified’ and ‘Fire.’”

  What could I say other than “Okay”?

  We headed to the range and shot in Table 8, which is individual crew gunnery qualification. There is a daytime and a nighttime qualification. During the daytime qualification I pulled a perfect 700. The scoring went off a point system then, and you had a specific amount of time to engage a target. You also had a swing task, in which you could have six engagements in the daytime and four at night or seven in the daytime and three at night.

  One of the swing tasks we had during the nighttime qualification was a moving engagement. I shot a perfect 300 at night, so I shot a perfect 1,000 points total, and out of the four squadrons that came down and shot there, ours was the only one to get a perfect 1,000 points. And I had found my calling.

  I can’t take too much credit. Thompson was right on with all his fire commands. He was reading them off cue cards. Ludville was really good too. He got us in and out of the positions quickly so I was able to engage all the targets and destroy them in the time allotted.

  My job, after hearing the fire commands, was to say “Identified” and “Fire.” When the first round hits, you zero the reticle and then use Kentucky windage for subsequent rounds. With the Bradley, you use a one-two-three system: fire one round to see where it hits, adjust, then fire two rounds to see if you’re on the target, and then fire the next three to destroy it. You’ve got an exact number of rounds to do the job, and for whatever reason it was easy for me. Maybe because that was how I’d always shot growing up. If I was using a rifle with a scope, I’d never adjust the scope, I’d just see where it was hitting and then adjust my aim accordingly.

  However, at that time the regiment had a policy requiring the gunner on a vehicle to be an NCO. After the Table 8 was done, all the crews who shot “Distinguished” (900 and above) were drinking champagne with Colonel Snodgrass, the Squadron Commander. Our crew went up there to meet with the Colonel face-to-face, and he found himself looking at a Specialist, an E6, and a PFC.

  “Well, who’s the gunner?” Colonel Snodgrass asked.

  Sergeant Thompson said, “Sir, PFC Johnson is.”

  The Squadron Commander immediately looked over at the Troop Commander and said, “Hey, what’s our policy on NCOs being in the gunner position?”

  My Troop Commander said, “Well, sir, Johnson is an excellent gunner, he just doesn’t have the time that we needed in there yet without getting a waiver for him to get . . .” And he was just pulling some stuff out of his ass, saying how great I was, hoping his brain would catch up to his mouth.

  The Squadron Commander looked at the Sergeant Major and said, “Hey, tell the S3 to get me some Corporal stripes. We’ll promote this guy now.” So, bam, I got Corporal just like that. Really quick. At that point, after going through OSUT, I’d been in about 18 months, so I’d been in for barely enough time to get that promotion.

  One day we were sitting at OP (Observation Post) Alpha in the Fulda Gap, and word came across the radio that there were some VIPs in the area, touring various military installations. It turned out to be CBS News anchor Dan Rather. Okay, yeah, whatever. We didn’t care—until we got the word that Rather was coming up to OP Alpha and wanted to take a look inside our Bradley, because he’d never been in one before. Uh-oh.

  We lived in our Bradley. When we were up at OP-A, we were inside our Brad 24/7 for days at a time, if not longer, only leaving to hit the latrine. This was an era before iPods and portable video game systems, and we were normal guys, so a large portion of our entertainment dollars was spent on porn. We had Miss Aprils and Miss Junes, boobs and beaver shots taped up everywhere, magazines lying around all over the place in the back of the Brad. And let me tell you, German porn magazines, at least at that time, were the best in the world, because you could find anything you wanted. If you wanted a porn magazine featuring two chickens and a nun getting it on, you could probably find it. We were still scrambling to sterilize our vehicle when Dan Rather came rolling up. We got it cleaned up just in time, and Rather was none the wiser.

  We spent the next couple of months at Fulda, then went back down to Grafenwoehr again to do a CALFEX (combined arms live fire exercise). Bradleys and tanks roll up and shoot at the same time, the mortar platoon engages the targets, and then we have our artillery company take their turn. We had an artillery battery with us, and after they’d shoot we would have A-10 Warthogs and Cobras come in and engage targets. It’s a huge combined arms finale, all done with live ammo.

  We were the last troop to fire on that particular CALFEX. It had been a long training rotation for us and I can remember the squadron XO, a Major, and the S3 Major bragging about how the range had run so smoothly. Things were already getting packed up, and the next morning we’d be prepping and putting stuff on the train to go back to home station.

  With two engagements left to be done, we were down in our far defilade in front of the tanks. The tanks were behind us, but off to our left by about 400 meters, and we were waiting for the targets to pop up.

  The tanks had their own targets, and we had ours. Each target array was in a fan. Ours were off to the right and theirs were off to the left. Well, the tank squadron had a supply Sergeant who, while he was officially a “tanker,” had never shot an M1 before. They were trying to get him to the E5 promotion board, but the Sergeant Major’s policy was that if you weren’t working your MOS (military occupational specialty), you couldn’t get promoted. So they went ahead and stuck him in this tank so he could get some trigger time and be eligible for promotion. He slewed his turret to the right, picked up a hot spot in his thermal sight, and engaged it.

  The tanks were loaded with tungsten armor-piercing training ammo. Most military armor-piercing ammunition is saboted, meaning the projectiles themselves are narrower than the barrel they’re being shot from and enclosed in a plastic sleeve or sabot (which is French for “shoe”). Being narrower and lighter than a standard round, these tungsten rounds fly out very fast, and it is this velocity, combined with their hardness, that allows them to penetrate armor. Even though it was a “training” round, it really didn’t lack any lethality.

  Problem was, the Sergeant behind the trigger slewed his turret too far and engaged my wingman, Bradley 34. The first round hit the periscope, punched through it, hit the driver between his shoulder blades, then stuck in the transmission. That was Jerry Westmoreland, and the first round killed him.

  I was in our Bradley, Bradley 35, gunning for Sergeant Thompson again, and he announced, “They’re engaging.”

  I was watching downrange and said, “I don’t see anything.”

  Then the Platoon Sergeant in 34 came over the radio, yelling, “Incoming! Incoming! Incoming!”

  We were trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about. We were between 34 and 36, and all of a sudden 36, right next to us, exploded and caught fire.

  I yelled at Sergeant Thompson, “Hey, they got hit!” and started out of the turret.

  Sergeant Thompson said, “What are you doing?”

  “We gotta help those guys. We can’t leave ’em there.”

  I jumped out of the back of the Bradley and ran over to 36. When I kicked open the hatch the driver, Williams, was inside screaming. I grabbed him and helped him out, but as I did so, his skin was coming off in my hands.

  I got him out and behind his Bradley. Sergeant Chase, Bradley 36’s Commander, reached down through flames to grab his gunner, Sergeant Hope. Chase grabbed Hope by the back of his fly suit and pulled him out. Hope was just limp, but Chase got him on the ground.

  Once I saw all those guys were out of their vehicle I ran over to Westmoreland’s track, Bradley 34. I reached in and grabbed Jerry. His hatch was open and he had transmission fluid all over him. The kid probably weighed 165 pounds, but it was like pulling four tons. It was just dead b
ody weight. When I got him up to about shoulder level, I could tell that he was missing parts.

  I put him back inside the vehicle and pulled the field cutoff to shut it down. I got behind the Bradley and started to help unload the other guys. By this time, Bradley 36 had rounds cooking off inside it. The 25 mm was cycling, the coax was going full auto, the whole vehicle was basically burning and blowing up. We got everybody out, though. The medevac was there really quick and I helped get those guys loaded.

  Squadron did everything it could to cover its ass, saying they had the right people in the tower, but I don’t blame them. It was just one of those training accidents that happen throughout the Army. Trucks roll over, helicopters crash. This was a kid killed on the range because of a stupid mistake.

  I talked to everybody, trying to get Sergeant Chase the Soldier’s Medal. He could have gotten away easily, but he reached in through the flames and pulled Sergeant Hope out of the vehicle. And they pretty much just pushed it underneath the carpet. He didn’t get a medal or anything else.

  That incident had a lasting effect on many careers. Westmoreland’s Platoon Sergeant, as far as I could tell, he just jumped out of his vehicle and got behind the berm, but he didn’t try to help anybody. He didn’t get relieved, but he got sent away to another unit. Both Sergeant Hope and Sergeant Chase had some emotional problems dealing with what happened, and Williams and the other guys, they got out of the Army. It was a traumatic event that was completely unanticipated. It was the Cold War, when nobody expected anything to actually happen. The Army was a career, we weren’t going to be fighting anybody, and then this happened.

  That was my first test under fire. I don’t know why my first reaction was I need to get over there and get those guys out of the vehicle. Most everybody else—they just weren’t doing anything. I ran toward the fire. That was the point when I realized that apparently I was a little different from everybody else.

  CHAPTER 4

  RAINDROPS KEEP FALLING ON MY HEAD

  The 48th National Guard Infantry was supposed to head out for Desert Storm in 1990, but there was a problem. They never scored well enough in NTC (National Training Center) or RTAP (Reserve Transition Assistance Program) training to actually be deployed. That was a big issue, a really big issue. They couldn’t be deployed.

  In 1991 I was with the 197th Infantry Brigade(Mechanized) (Separate). We were part of the 18th Airborne Corps. The Division Commander for the 24th Infantry Division was General Barry McCaffrey. General McCaffrey needed another brigade to replace the 48th NG, so he snatched the 197th. We were a training brigade, and McCaffrey had a pretty good saying about us. He said we were “without a doubt the best training infantry brigade in the United States Army” at that time. And we were. We did all sorts of training, tons of dismounted stuff, lots of fire and maneuver exercises. We went to NTC three times. We were a separate brigade and a lot of the other units wanted us to work with them, so we were constantly training and on the move, either at Fort Benning or NTC or Fort Polk. We were one trained-up unit.

  Once General McCaffrey snatched us up, he made us his 3rd Brigade. That’s why now you have the 1st and 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, but the 3rd Brigade is at Fort Benning. The 197th never went back to being an independent brigade, they continue to belong to the 24th Infantry Division.

  We had M113 APCs. My 113 was a Vietnam-era vehicle that actually had patches on it from where it was shot up in Vietnam. It had been refurbished several times, that’s how old it was. The .50-caliber machine gun was a relic, too. The serial number on it had a bunch of Xs in it where they had coded it out and brought it back into service again.

  When people ask me how many soldiers you can fit in the back of a 113, my response is, “Comfortably?” You can always fit one more, like when kids used to see how many of their friends they could fit into a phone booth. Our 113 had a crew of seven.

  We shipped out to Saudi Arabia in late August 1990. We repositioned several times, then finally headed way out west in preparation for the invasion, almost to the border. I think the closest town in Iraq was As Salman, and we were due south of it. We had the 101st with us, and the French coalition troops were part of our flank as well.

  The plan was for the 2nd ACR and VII Corps from Germany to charge from Saudi, around Kuwait, and punch up and hit the Iraqis, who were deploying. The Marines were to slam straight through Kuwait into Iraq. Our brigade was doing the flanking movement for the 24th Division. The other two units in the division, 3/15 and 2/15 Infantry with Bradleys and M1s, were supposed to hit the big stuff while we flanked and headed up to take the airfield.

  Our goal was Objective Brown, outside of the Toledo airfield. I was the vehicle Commander and had the Lieutenant on my vehicle. When the time came we rode out at oh-dark-thirty and worked our way through a marsh covered over with two or three feet of sand. It looked like solid ground, and it would have been for a car, but when a tracked armored vehicle hit it, you’d break through and start sinking. It slowed us down some.

  We traveled all that day and into the next night before we reached our objective and made contact. At that point we had traveled—well, it seemed like the longest movement to contact in history, until we went back into Iraq in 2003. It was the equivalent of driving from the panhandle of Florida to Atlanta, maybe 250 miles. Something ridiculous like that.

  Objective Brown wasn’t the airfield, but a mass of wadis and some rolling hills outside of the airfield. It was the defensive position for one of their infantry battalions, as Toledo was an Iraqi air base. Brown was probably five or six miles from the flight line of the airfield and about a mile from the highway that looped around the outside. We had satellite reconnaissance photos of the battalion and knew they were set up there. It was actually right in the town of Ur. If you remember your Old Testament, Abram was born in the town of Ur. God changed his name to Abraham, but old Abram was born right where Saddam’s battalion was stationed.

  Well, at the time our NODs (night observation devices—night vision goggles) were PVS-7s. They weren’t very good. The hatch was open, and I had my head and shoulders out of the hole. We were getting close to Objective Brown, and I could see some people tagging me with flashlights. I told the lieutenant, “They’re flashing flashlights at me. They’re signaling me.” All our vehicles were aligned, and we were a pretty good distance from whoever was signaling me, 300 meters or more—although at night, in the desert, it’s really hard to tell distance.

  I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, and I was distracted by watching a firefight way off in the distance, tracers going back and forth. Then Simmons, my driver, told me, “Hey, my night sight quit.”

  I told him, “Well, put another battery in it.”

  “I just put a battery in it. It just quit.”

  And I said, “That’s bullshit. You didn’t put a battery in it. Stop lying. Just put a battery in it.”

  These guys who were signaling us, I wanted to find out if they were surrendering or what, and my driver kept fucking with the night sight. Then he told me, “We got a leak somewhere.”

  Jesus, what now? I said, “What do you mean, we got a leak?”

  He said, “Something’s . . . I’m getting splashed on by water.”

  What? I didn’t know what the hell was going on, so I stuck my head down inside the hatch and when I did, I felt that the outside of his periscope, for his night sight, was broken. So I said, “Simmons, how did you break your periscope?”

  He’s playing innocent. “I didn’t do anything.”

  I told him, “Bullshit. You took it out to put a battery in it and you broke it putting it in. How did you drive all the way up here with it broke?”

  He was insistent. “I didn’t do anything to it.”

  Then the water splashed up on me. What the hell? “Where the hell’s the water coming from?” It wasn’t coming from the sky, it was coming from the front of the vehicle. Oh shit, I thought, here we go. “Did you bust the radiato
r?” The radiator sits up on the front, and I thought that was it, or we’d broken a fan drive and it was overheating and spraying me. But the water was cold.

  So I turned around and took a good look, and the water can on the front of the vehicle was leaking everywhere. I yelled at Simmons, “What the hell did you do to the water can?”

  He yelled back at me, “I didn’t do anything to the water can!”

  About that time we started shutting the vehicle down. I was on top of the vehicle and could hear what sounded like somebody pinging a metal roof with a hammer. I lifted my CVC helmet up a little higher and said, “What the hell is that noise?”

  Then Sergeant James McCormick yelled, “Contact! Contact!”

  It suddenly dawned on me. For the past ten minutes I’d been up on top of my vehicle arguing with my driver about his night sight as we were getting fired upon. Those weren’t flashlights, they were muzzle flashes, and between the noise of the 113’s engine and the helmet, we couldn’t hear the rifles. They were just pounding the shit out of us.

  They were only about 300 meters away, but they didn’t have night vision, so they were just shooting at the sound of our engines. The Iraqis were positioned in a pseudo-ranger triangle for security, with their machine guns set up at the corners. They also had a tank at each corner of the triangle, as well as a few assorted armored personnel carriers and other vehicles here and there.

  It could have been quite a battle, but they’d already been bombed long and hard by the U.S. Air Force. We had three tanks with us, and when everybody hit them in the middle of the night with .50-cals and Mark 19 full-auto grenade launchers, the tanks launching HEAT (high explosive antitank) rounds, it was just overwhelming. Any Iraqi who could stick their hands up and wave at somebody to get their attention to surrender was doing it. We took a lot of prisoners.