thedrifter
03-28-03, 09:54 PM
March 28, 2003
Wounded Marines describe fierce firefight for Nasiriyah
By David J. Lynch
USA Today
CAMP VIPER, Southern Iraq — On the southeastern outskirts of Nasiriyah on Wednesday, Gunnery Sgt. Tracy Hale led his Marines to relieve a unit guarding a bridge.
But soon after arriving, Iraqi guerrillas launched a devastating attack on their position. A foot-long projectile spun through the air and detonated against an above-ground fuel tank. The explosion lit up the gathering dusk.
In the next few minutes, the Iraqis used rocket-propelled grenades to destroy four 7-ton trucks and a like number of Humvees. Hale scrambled to get his men over a compound wall to safety as enemy rounds flew like a swarm of lethal insects.
In desperation, the Marines called in an artillery strike on their own position. It was the only thing they could do to pin the enemy down as they got out of the area.
On Thursday, Hale was one of several dozen Marines brought to a combat medical facility here after being wounded in, or around, the strategic crossroads of Nasiriyah. No Marines had been killed in Hale’s battle.
The Marines entered the southern Iraqi town Sunday to seize a pair of bridges needed to ferry troops and supplies north toward Baghdad. Since then, they have been fighting pitched battles with Iraqi guerrillas who wear no uniforms and respect no laws of war.
U.S. officers didn’t expect the enemy to collapse completely when the war began. But they certainly didn’t foresee fighting as intense, and unpredictable, as the Marines have encountered in Nasiriyah.
Soldiers wounded in the city and its environs describe a surreal battle. Iraqi tanks dug into defensive positions in the middle of city streets. Guerrilla fighters pushing women and children into the streets to screen their advance. Phony surrenders that last only as long as it takes to reach a prepared firing position, stocked with loaded automatic weapons and mortars.
But even in the safety of the recovery tent, surrounded by his buddies, Hale was still shaken from the attack he and his men had lived through. “It was unreal. It was something you don’t ever want to go through,” said Hale, a veteran of the first Gulf War.
When Hale’s unit arrived at the scene, they discovered two houses stocked with ammunition, including rocket-propelled grenades, and Iraqi uniforms. As they waited for engineers to rig explosives and blow up the house, Hale and his men stood, just “shooting the breeze,” in a walled compound around a gas station.
Then the attack began and the Marines called in the strike.
The U.S. rounds fell — “boom, boom, boom” — as the Marines evacuated the area. “The rounds were landing right in front of us,” Hale said. “I broke my leg. That’s the last thing I remember.”
“You don’t know where to go. Five feet to the left isn’t any better than five feet to the right,” said Corp. Bret Woolhether, 20, of Fond Du Lac, Wis., who had a shrapnel wound in the hand.
By Thursday morning, 63 of about 120 Marines who had been part of the relief detail had arrived at this aid station for treatment. Hale thinks it’s a miracle none was killed.
‘Pretty much sitting ducks’
Marine Sgt. Bruce Cole was also injured in a battle around Nasiriyah this week.
As Cole’s unit advanced northwest out of the town, which sits along the Euphrates River, rain-sodden turf forced its tanks and wheeled vehicles to stick to the paved surfaces of Highway 1. “We were running with our flanks wide open,” Cole said.
At one point, the native Texan’s unit halted to allow tanks and armored vehicles to probe farther ahead. As he and several fellow Marines clambered out of their vehicles, they found themselves sandwiched between firefights to their south and north. “We were pretty much sitting ducks,” he said.
Cole and his men pushed forward to rejoin their armor. But guerrillas ambushed the line of adrenaline-fueled men, firing at the tanks and Humvees from positions just 100 yards from the road. That’s when a bullet tore into his arm. “It felt like somebody hit me with a bat,” he said.
The bullet ripped through his lower arm, midway between the wrist and the elbow, tearing a hole through the triceps as it left his body. The force of the shot, fired by a shadow enemy, knocked an M-16 from Cole’s hands.
“We had multiple skirmishes along (the road),” Cole, 39, said looking up from his cot at the medical facility.
“It was a difficult battle to discern good guys from bad guys. I saw nobody in uniform.”
“They’re not capitulating as quickly and as frequently as I think a lot of people may have anticipated,” he said.
Body parts in road
A few cots away, Sgt. Chris Merkle, 31, was sitting up for the first time this day. The Marine reservist, a FedEx deliveryman in peacetime, was a survivor of a crash along another highway leaving Nasiriyah.
Merkle was riding in a 7-ton truck, part of a convoy fleeing an area of frequent shooting, when his vehicle swerved and plummeted off a bridge. Ejected from his perch behind the cab, Merkle said he landed on his head “like a lawn dart.”
The San Clemente, Calif., resident escaped the crash with a sprained neck and back and is eager to rejoin the fight. But he hasn’t forgotten the detritus of battle littering the road he drove down.
North of Nasiriyah, he saw three buses, like those used to ferry Iraqi irregulars into battle, charred and smoking by the roadside. Body parts of men who presumably had been Iraqi fighters stained the pavement.
The wounded have helped fill the 80 beds here. Sandstorms and Iraqi attacks have hampered the aid station’s supply convoys, so there aren’t yet enough tents. Doctors are sleeping under the stars to make sure patients have somewhere to sleep, said Navy Cmdr. Scott Flint, 41, of Surgical Company Charlie.
This is a war that many in the United States expected would be all but painless. That hasn’t been the case.
“Nasiriyah was supposed to be a six-hour fight. It’s already been five days,” Marine Gunnery Sgt. Hale said.
“Five days of 24 hours a day, non-stop shooting.”
Sempers,
Roger
Wounded Marines describe fierce firefight for Nasiriyah
By David J. Lynch
USA Today
CAMP VIPER, Southern Iraq — On the southeastern outskirts of Nasiriyah on Wednesday, Gunnery Sgt. Tracy Hale led his Marines to relieve a unit guarding a bridge.
But soon after arriving, Iraqi guerrillas launched a devastating attack on their position. A foot-long projectile spun through the air and detonated against an above-ground fuel tank. The explosion lit up the gathering dusk.
In the next few minutes, the Iraqis used rocket-propelled grenades to destroy four 7-ton trucks and a like number of Humvees. Hale scrambled to get his men over a compound wall to safety as enemy rounds flew like a swarm of lethal insects.
In desperation, the Marines called in an artillery strike on their own position. It was the only thing they could do to pin the enemy down as they got out of the area.
On Thursday, Hale was one of several dozen Marines brought to a combat medical facility here after being wounded in, or around, the strategic crossroads of Nasiriyah. No Marines had been killed in Hale’s battle.
The Marines entered the southern Iraqi town Sunday to seize a pair of bridges needed to ferry troops and supplies north toward Baghdad. Since then, they have been fighting pitched battles with Iraqi guerrillas who wear no uniforms and respect no laws of war.
U.S. officers didn’t expect the enemy to collapse completely when the war began. But they certainly didn’t foresee fighting as intense, and unpredictable, as the Marines have encountered in Nasiriyah.
Soldiers wounded in the city and its environs describe a surreal battle. Iraqi tanks dug into defensive positions in the middle of city streets. Guerrilla fighters pushing women and children into the streets to screen their advance. Phony surrenders that last only as long as it takes to reach a prepared firing position, stocked with loaded automatic weapons and mortars.
But even in the safety of the recovery tent, surrounded by his buddies, Hale was still shaken from the attack he and his men had lived through. “It was unreal. It was something you don’t ever want to go through,” said Hale, a veteran of the first Gulf War.
When Hale’s unit arrived at the scene, they discovered two houses stocked with ammunition, including rocket-propelled grenades, and Iraqi uniforms. As they waited for engineers to rig explosives and blow up the house, Hale and his men stood, just “shooting the breeze,” in a walled compound around a gas station.
Then the attack began and the Marines called in the strike.
The U.S. rounds fell — “boom, boom, boom” — as the Marines evacuated the area. “The rounds were landing right in front of us,” Hale said. “I broke my leg. That’s the last thing I remember.”
“You don’t know where to go. Five feet to the left isn’t any better than five feet to the right,” said Corp. Bret Woolhether, 20, of Fond Du Lac, Wis., who had a shrapnel wound in the hand.
By Thursday morning, 63 of about 120 Marines who had been part of the relief detail had arrived at this aid station for treatment. Hale thinks it’s a miracle none was killed.
‘Pretty much sitting ducks’
Marine Sgt. Bruce Cole was also injured in a battle around Nasiriyah this week.
As Cole’s unit advanced northwest out of the town, which sits along the Euphrates River, rain-sodden turf forced its tanks and wheeled vehicles to stick to the paved surfaces of Highway 1. “We were running with our flanks wide open,” Cole said.
At one point, the native Texan’s unit halted to allow tanks and armored vehicles to probe farther ahead. As he and several fellow Marines clambered out of their vehicles, they found themselves sandwiched between firefights to their south and north. “We were pretty much sitting ducks,” he said.
Cole and his men pushed forward to rejoin their armor. But guerrillas ambushed the line of adrenaline-fueled men, firing at the tanks and Humvees from positions just 100 yards from the road. That’s when a bullet tore into his arm. “It felt like somebody hit me with a bat,” he said.
The bullet ripped through his lower arm, midway between the wrist and the elbow, tearing a hole through the triceps as it left his body. The force of the shot, fired by a shadow enemy, knocked an M-16 from Cole’s hands.
“We had multiple skirmishes along (the road),” Cole, 39, said looking up from his cot at the medical facility.
“It was a difficult battle to discern good guys from bad guys. I saw nobody in uniform.”
“They’re not capitulating as quickly and as frequently as I think a lot of people may have anticipated,” he said.
Body parts in road
A few cots away, Sgt. Chris Merkle, 31, was sitting up for the first time this day. The Marine reservist, a FedEx deliveryman in peacetime, was a survivor of a crash along another highway leaving Nasiriyah.
Merkle was riding in a 7-ton truck, part of a convoy fleeing an area of frequent shooting, when his vehicle swerved and plummeted off a bridge. Ejected from his perch behind the cab, Merkle said he landed on his head “like a lawn dart.”
The San Clemente, Calif., resident escaped the crash with a sprained neck and back and is eager to rejoin the fight. But he hasn’t forgotten the detritus of battle littering the road he drove down.
North of Nasiriyah, he saw three buses, like those used to ferry Iraqi irregulars into battle, charred and smoking by the roadside. Body parts of men who presumably had been Iraqi fighters stained the pavement.
The wounded have helped fill the 80 beds here. Sandstorms and Iraqi attacks have hampered the aid station’s supply convoys, so there aren’t yet enough tents. Doctors are sleeping under the stars to make sure patients have somewhere to sleep, said Navy Cmdr. Scott Flint, 41, of Surgical Company Charlie.
This is a war that many in the United States expected would be all but painless. That hasn’t been the case.
“Nasiriyah was supposed to be a six-hour fight. It’s already been five days,” Marine Gunnery Sgt. Hale said.
“Five days of 24 hours a day, non-stop shooting.”
Sempers,
Roger