thedrifter
08-15-05, 01:17 PM
Marines, insurgents tangle on Falluja road
By Alex Quade
CNN
Editor's Note: In our Behind the Scenes series, CNN correspondents share their experiences covering the news. Correspondent Alex Quade went along with U.S. Marines as they searched for -- and found -- deadly roadside bombs in Iraq. Her report on a day in the life of Dragon Platoon appears on "The Situation Room" at 3 p.m. ET.
FALLUJA, Iraq (CNN) -- "Ma'am, you know your cameraman is in the kill-zone?" That was just a small reminder of the danger we were in, from a Marine driving the Humvee I was in.
"Yeah, he likes to get just as close to it all as you Marines!" I replied. Then ... bah-boom!
What the military calls "a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device" -- in plain English, a car bomb -- blew up. Right in front of us.
CNN cameraman David Allbritton and I had spent this April day with the 3rd Battalion, 8th Regiment, a weapons company from the Camp Lejeune, North Carolina-based 2nd Marine Division. We were embedded with Dragon Platoon. Its task was securing the important, main convoy supply route between Baghdad and Falluja, hunting for IEDs -- improvised explosive devices.
IEDs are the No. 1 killer and maimer of U.S. troops in Iraq. Every day, every one of the 140,000 U.S. servicemen and women in Iraq face the threat. Anything can be turned into a bomb: soda cans, garbage, animal carcasses, sandbags, potholes in the roads, cell phones, cars, etc. Explosives, mines, tank rounds -- anything can be disguised and rigged to go off remotely.
When the car bomb blew up, we were near Abu Ghraib prison. It's an area of notorious unrest, considered a hotbed of the Iraqi insurgency.
The Marines of Dragon Platoon noticed an abandoned car and decided to check it out, since it was on the main supply route and could be a threat to U.S. convoys.
We watched as Marines circled the vehicle for about 20 minutes, systematically checking for telltale signs that it might be packed with explosives. Were the tires riding low? No. Wires hanging out? No.
Finally, they decided to push the car off the supply route with one of their Humvees, which had been "up-armored" with steel plating and ballistic-resistant windows to give it improved protection.
That's when an insurgent triggerman, the Marines say, watching us from the surrounding neighborhood, set it off. The triggerman, they say, waited for the right moment to cause maximum damage to U.S. troops and equipment.
As the Humvee pushed the car off the road ... boom! A huge orange fireball engulfed the vehicle. Remarkably, there were only minor injuries. David Allbritton and I were both wearing vests, helmets and antiballistic eyewear protection. He was knocked off his feet and thrown back 12 feet, but I saw he was alive and looked like he'd be OK, so I grabbed my minicam to record what was happening in front of us.
As it turned out, Allbritton had a few shrapnel burns and had hurt his back, but we were both running on adrenaline and continued documenting the blast. It was an inferno and chaos. Iraqi forces being trained by the Marines were shooting into the air all around. We didn't know if there was incoming fire.
Throughout the confusion, the Marines were crawling into the fireball that had been the Humvee to pull out all the ammunition and weapons inside. They retrieved anything that could possibly be recovered and used later by insurgents. As journalists, we taped everything in front of us. We also tried to stay out of the troops' way.
It was an extremely volatile and dangerous situation, because the Marines were worried there might be a secondary device timed to go off. When we got back to the forward operating base, the Marine leadership was waiting for us. They insisted on seeing our video. They said the Marines we were with "did not follow procedure," due to pushing the car out of the way.
There were some majors in the room who did not want us to air the video. I argued that this is the kind of thing that U.S. troops deal with every day, that nobody was killed and that the American public had a right to see the video.
But there was never any issue that airing the video would violate military embed guidelines and we did so with no further complaint. Later that night, we still had to write, edit and transmit the story to Atlanta -- a long, time-consuming process. We finished at 4 a.m. and were back out on patrol at 5:30 a.m. with another Marine unit.
Ellie
By Alex Quade
CNN
Editor's Note: In our Behind the Scenes series, CNN correspondents share their experiences covering the news. Correspondent Alex Quade went along with U.S. Marines as they searched for -- and found -- deadly roadside bombs in Iraq. Her report on a day in the life of Dragon Platoon appears on "The Situation Room" at 3 p.m. ET.
FALLUJA, Iraq (CNN) -- "Ma'am, you know your cameraman is in the kill-zone?" That was just a small reminder of the danger we were in, from a Marine driving the Humvee I was in.
"Yeah, he likes to get just as close to it all as you Marines!" I replied. Then ... bah-boom!
What the military calls "a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device" -- in plain English, a car bomb -- blew up. Right in front of us.
CNN cameraman David Allbritton and I had spent this April day with the 3rd Battalion, 8th Regiment, a weapons company from the Camp Lejeune, North Carolina-based 2nd Marine Division. We were embedded with Dragon Platoon. Its task was securing the important, main convoy supply route between Baghdad and Falluja, hunting for IEDs -- improvised explosive devices.
IEDs are the No. 1 killer and maimer of U.S. troops in Iraq. Every day, every one of the 140,000 U.S. servicemen and women in Iraq face the threat. Anything can be turned into a bomb: soda cans, garbage, animal carcasses, sandbags, potholes in the roads, cell phones, cars, etc. Explosives, mines, tank rounds -- anything can be disguised and rigged to go off remotely.
When the car bomb blew up, we were near Abu Ghraib prison. It's an area of notorious unrest, considered a hotbed of the Iraqi insurgency.
The Marines of Dragon Platoon noticed an abandoned car and decided to check it out, since it was on the main supply route and could be a threat to U.S. convoys.
We watched as Marines circled the vehicle for about 20 minutes, systematically checking for telltale signs that it might be packed with explosives. Were the tires riding low? No. Wires hanging out? No.
Finally, they decided to push the car off the supply route with one of their Humvees, which had been "up-armored" with steel plating and ballistic-resistant windows to give it improved protection.
That's when an insurgent triggerman, the Marines say, watching us from the surrounding neighborhood, set it off. The triggerman, they say, waited for the right moment to cause maximum damage to U.S. troops and equipment.
As the Humvee pushed the car off the road ... boom! A huge orange fireball engulfed the vehicle. Remarkably, there were only minor injuries. David Allbritton and I were both wearing vests, helmets and antiballistic eyewear protection. He was knocked off his feet and thrown back 12 feet, but I saw he was alive and looked like he'd be OK, so I grabbed my minicam to record what was happening in front of us.
As it turned out, Allbritton had a few shrapnel burns and had hurt his back, but we were both running on adrenaline and continued documenting the blast. It was an inferno and chaos. Iraqi forces being trained by the Marines were shooting into the air all around. We didn't know if there was incoming fire.
Throughout the confusion, the Marines were crawling into the fireball that had been the Humvee to pull out all the ammunition and weapons inside. They retrieved anything that could possibly be recovered and used later by insurgents. As journalists, we taped everything in front of us. We also tried to stay out of the troops' way.
It was an extremely volatile and dangerous situation, because the Marines were worried there might be a secondary device timed to go off. When we got back to the forward operating base, the Marine leadership was waiting for us. They insisted on seeing our video. They said the Marines we were with "did not follow procedure," due to pushing the car out of the way.
There were some majors in the room who did not want us to air the video. I argued that this is the kind of thing that U.S. troops deal with every day, that nobody was killed and that the American public had a right to see the video.
But there was never any issue that airing the video would violate military embed guidelines and we did so with no further complaint. Later that night, we still had to write, edit and transmit the story to Atlanta -- a long, time-consuming process. We finished at 4 a.m. and were back out on patrol at 5:30 a.m. with another Marine unit.
Ellie