thedrifter
03-19-06, 07:49 AM
Ambushed
How an IED almost cost a photographer his left arm. A personal account.
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Laurent Van der Stockt
Newsweek
Updated: 4:40 a.m. ET March 19, 2006
March 19, 2006 - I knew something was wrong when I saw the empty street. Last December, a few days before the Iraqi elections, I was embedded as a news photographer with a Marine unit patrolling in Karmah, a small town just outside Fallujah in the heart of the Sunni Triangle. The Marines were on foot, greeting the Sunni residents door to door and chatting with them in the streets. The idea was to show the people there a friendlier, less intimidating side of the U.S. occupation. The Marines listened to the residents’ complaints, and handed out candy to children.
But the mission wasn’t entirely diplomatic. The Marines were also looking for known insurgents. They were authorized to search homes, interrogate residents and place snipers to fend off an enemy that blends in with the population. In the past, the Marines had rolled through towns like Karmah in caravans of Humvees, but after months of devastating IED attacks, commanders decided to try a new tactic: Foot patrols. The thinking was, if the Marines didn’t spend so much time on the roads, the insurgents would have fewer opportunities to stage their deadly ambushes. Small groups of a couple dozen Marines would stay in the town for several days at a stretch, instead of trucking out and back from the large, fortified Marine base down the road.
There was, as the Marines discovered, a problem with the plan. The insurgents changed tactics too. They began planting explosives in the streets of the town itself. Insurgent scouts would track the Marines’ movements from the rooftops, and detonate the IEDs, buried in the ground, when the Marines were a few yards away. One of the ambushes nearly cost me my left arm. The morning started calmly enough. The Marines were setting out in search of an insurgent on their wanted list. They’d received a tip that the man might be found at an auto repair shop in town. The Marines questioned some people, but the man wasn’t there. On the way back, the unit’s radio operator got a call. Someone had spotted a black sedan like one involved in a sniper attack that had wounded a Marine in the head the day before. The Marines didn’t get excited at the news.
“There are a thousand f---g black cars in this place!” one smirked darkly. But a little while later, while patrolling the town, the Marines spotted a young man, maybe 18 years old, running away from them. They chased him down, hoping to find out why he had fled. The young man ran down a side street and jumped the iron gate into a courtyard, a feat of athleticism that impressed the Americans. The young lieutenant leading the group rang the bell at the gate and waited for someone to answer. I was next to him, taking pictures, when a feeling of dread came over me. The street, usually busy with people, was deserted. The blast came a second later. A blinding flash of light coupled with a thunderous explosion so loud that it left me deaf for 24 hours. The kid we’d seen running away had likely been the one who set the device’s timer.
Then I realized I had been hit. I looked down to find my arm in bad shape. The flesh and bone below the elbow were badly damaged, and I was losing blood. It was only later that doctors discovered an AK-47 slug in my arm, along with the shrapnel. Apparently, a rooftop sniper had fired at me at the same time the IED went off, shattering the limb. I was in pain, but oddly, mostly what I felt was anger. It was the third time I had been injured in combat zones. In
2001, I’d been shot in the leg by an Israeli sniper in Ramallah. A decade earlier, a mortar blast in Yugoslavia had injured the same arm. My response was to pick up my camera and start taking pictures of the dusty chaos.
Fortunately, only one Marine had been injured, and not badly. It turned out the person who planted the IED had buried it too deeply in the ground, which directed the force of the blast upward instead of horizontally—hindering its explosive force. We were put onto trucks headed to the Marine hospital in Fallujah. But along the way, the convoy was hit by another IED. That blast was too far away to do any damage. I am now back home in Paris. It will take a year of bone grafts and reconstructive surgery to rebuild my arm. No matter what they call them, there is nothing “improvised” about the way the insurgents are using IEDs to kill Marines and soldiers in Iraq. The device went off just a few yards away from where the men were standing. It was planned that way.
Ellie
How an IED almost cost a photographer his left arm. A personal account.
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Laurent Van der Stockt
Newsweek
Updated: 4:40 a.m. ET March 19, 2006
March 19, 2006 - I knew something was wrong when I saw the empty street. Last December, a few days before the Iraqi elections, I was embedded as a news photographer with a Marine unit patrolling in Karmah, a small town just outside Fallujah in the heart of the Sunni Triangle. The Marines were on foot, greeting the Sunni residents door to door and chatting with them in the streets. The idea was to show the people there a friendlier, less intimidating side of the U.S. occupation. The Marines listened to the residents’ complaints, and handed out candy to children.
But the mission wasn’t entirely diplomatic. The Marines were also looking for known insurgents. They were authorized to search homes, interrogate residents and place snipers to fend off an enemy that blends in with the population. In the past, the Marines had rolled through towns like Karmah in caravans of Humvees, but after months of devastating IED attacks, commanders decided to try a new tactic: Foot patrols. The thinking was, if the Marines didn’t spend so much time on the roads, the insurgents would have fewer opportunities to stage their deadly ambushes. Small groups of a couple dozen Marines would stay in the town for several days at a stretch, instead of trucking out and back from the large, fortified Marine base down the road.
There was, as the Marines discovered, a problem with the plan. The insurgents changed tactics too. They began planting explosives in the streets of the town itself. Insurgent scouts would track the Marines’ movements from the rooftops, and detonate the IEDs, buried in the ground, when the Marines were a few yards away. One of the ambushes nearly cost me my left arm. The morning started calmly enough. The Marines were setting out in search of an insurgent on their wanted list. They’d received a tip that the man might be found at an auto repair shop in town. The Marines questioned some people, but the man wasn’t there. On the way back, the unit’s radio operator got a call. Someone had spotted a black sedan like one involved in a sniper attack that had wounded a Marine in the head the day before. The Marines didn’t get excited at the news.
“There are a thousand f---g black cars in this place!” one smirked darkly. But a little while later, while patrolling the town, the Marines spotted a young man, maybe 18 years old, running away from them. They chased him down, hoping to find out why he had fled. The young man ran down a side street and jumped the iron gate into a courtyard, a feat of athleticism that impressed the Americans. The young lieutenant leading the group rang the bell at the gate and waited for someone to answer. I was next to him, taking pictures, when a feeling of dread came over me. The street, usually busy with people, was deserted. The blast came a second later. A blinding flash of light coupled with a thunderous explosion so loud that it left me deaf for 24 hours. The kid we’d seen running away had likely been the one who set the device’s timer.
Then I realized I had been hit. I looked down to find my arm in bad shape. The flesh and bone below the elbow were badly damaged, and I was losing blood. It was only later that doctors discovered an AK-47 slug in my arm, along with the shrapnel. Apparently, a rooftop sniper had fired at me at the same time the IED went off, shattering the limb. I was in pain, but oddly, mostly what I felt was anger. It was the third time I had been injured in combat zones. In
2001, I’d been shot in the leg by an Israeli sniper in Ramallah. A decade earlier, a mortar blast in Yugoslavia had injured the same arm. My response was to pick up my camera and start taking pictures of the dusty chaos.
Fortunately, only one Marine had been injured, and not badly. It turned out the person who planted the IED had buried it too deeply in the ground, which directed the force of the blast upward instead of horizontally—hindering its explosive force. We were put onto trucks headed to the Marine hospital in Fallujah. But along the way, the convoy was hit by another IED. That blast was too far away to do any damage. I am now back home in Paris. It will take a year of bone grafts and reconstructive surgery to rebuild my arm. No matter what they call them, there is nothing “improvised” about the way the insurgents are using IEDs to kill Marines and soldiers in Iraq. The device went off just a few yards away from where the men were standing. It was planned that way.
Ellie