thedrifter
09-09-03, 06:03 AM
09-04-2003
A Letter from Tikrit
Editor’s note: This letter written the week of Aug. 26 is from Lieutenant Colonel Steven D. Russell, the Battalion Commander of the 1st Battalion of the 22nd Infantry, 4th Infantry Division. It provides a stark contrast to the “gloom and doom” tone of news media reports from Iraq. While written to the family members of his unit, Russell’s letter deserves to be read by all Americans.
Dear Friends and Family,
I wanted to send you another update on our continued operations in Iraq. I will try to give you a commanders perspective of what it is like here, even though you may have seen much of our activity in the news lately.
Hot! That’s what it is. The heat sears our hands as we hold our weapons, pick up tools and handle parts. When we travel in vehicles, the wind instead of cooling us fans us with a heat comparable to a blow dryer and thus actually increases the effect of the temperature. Even our fingernails get hot.
Even so, we endure. The Iraqis are suspect of this. They cannot imagine that we can operate in our battle gear and armored vehicles in the August sun and therefore another explanation must be given other than our toughness and willpower. Since we are Americans, we must have made some technology that allows us this freedom of movement. Iraqis ask us about our air-conditioned helmets and how they are powered. They talk on the street of our cooling vests and air-conditioned underwear. Despite all our efforts we cannot find these for purchase.
The markets in Tikrit do offer some items for relief from the heat however. We have traded greenbacks for underpowered, Chinese made air conditioners and fans with small benefit. Like most things in Iraq, they put up an initial impressive facade. Given the appearance of functionality, they soon give out or work with marginal effectiveness. We still welcome them and the fact that we have the means to attempt to use them is far better than what the average Infantryman expected when we arrived here.
Since my last note of July 26th, we have been extremely busy. The time seems to fly but time also seems surreal to many of us at this point in the mission. Each day becomes just another one. Days of the week blur and were it not for our watches and the incremental changes in the moon, we would have scant idea of time at all. We count the days because they promise initial relief from the heat and subsequent hope of seeing our loved ones once more.
The soldiers of the battalion, while unable to see their loved ones, have had improvements in contacting their families. We tried to get a phone or two for the companies and this has greatly improved communication. Yet, the ATT satellite phones do not always track properly and the Iridium phones have had their keypads short circuit due to the heat. An ATT phone tent now serves as another possibility, even though the expense is a little much about 5 times the normal rate for phone cards. But the calls we have made have been wonderful.
We finally won the battle to get email. It took a lot of effort but now the soldiers can at least drop a note every few days with better turn-around on news to their families. We set up 3 terminals for the soldiers to use in the battalion headquarters and the companies rotate on a schedule. I hope these efforts have given all of you a better line of communication to our soldiers. We will keep improving the communication as we can.
Beginning the 27th of July, CSM Martinez and I made the rounds to the companies to award the Combat Infantry Streamer to each Infantry Company guidon. It is a great honor to the units and one of which they are very proud. Also during these visits, we took the opportunity to talk to the soldiers about their concerns. These ranged from the need for certain items of mission essential equipment, to small comfort items to help them relax when they are not on patrols, to how to better communicate with their families. We have been able to improve in all of these areas. We fought to get the newer body armored vests for all of our soldiers and won though not without exertion. Now all our soldiers are better protected.
After coming back on the 27th from Bayji (north of Tikrit) where B Company is, we had activity that quickly reminded us that we have much work to do even while feeling proud of our accomplishments. Someone placed a bomb in front of a house in central Tikrit. The blast blew open the gate and damaged the wall of the courtyard. The Iraqi family there asked our soldiers to help them move to relatives that night as it was after curfew. My operations officer, Maj. Brian Luke, obliged and as the family was escorted a few blocks to the east, one of our soldiers noticed a shovel leaning against a wall. Spec. Garcia began to look at the dirt and the shovel. Within minutes, 44 anti-tank mines, 20lbs. of C-4 explosives and 200 lbs. of propellant were unearthed. More digging. Nine grenades, four mine initiators, an AK-47 and thirty 60mm mortar rounds soon followed. This same building had been cleared not a few days before.
As this developed, a burst of gunfire erupted to the south in an arc across the main highway toward the governors building. A Company soldiers soon enveloped an area of two warehouses. The soldiers entered the first and spotted five men, one armed with an SKS rifle. The Iraqi men immediately dropped it when they saw the Americans and our men quickly deduced that these men were just food guards. They continued on to the next warehouse. A man stood in the shadows as the soldiers approached. SPC Morgan entered with his fire team and shouted at the man to come forward in English and Arabic. The man darted into the shed instead and appeared a second time with an AK-47. Spec. Morgan aimed his rifle at the man and killed what turned out to be the assailant that had attacked the governor’s building. An enemy and lots of deadly mines and explosives were now in our hands.
We continued to thin the ranks of those attacking our men the last week of July and we also received detailed information as to the location of an important bodyguard of Saddam Hussein. This particular man was often seen in photos with Saddam and his family. The locals also knew him as a vicious murderer. In a lightning raid, the Recon Platoon and A Company secured 3 houses in residential Tikrit. We were looking specifically for three men; two were bodyguards and one an organizer for the former regime. Within 45 minutes, we had all three men. The raid made national news and the men were extremely valuable to our efforts. The main target Saddam’s personal bodyguard didn’t give up without a fight. Our scouts found him upstairs, emboldened with liquor, attempting to grab a Sterling Submachine Gun. Butt strokes and quick action prevented his death. He swung at the men but soon found himself being drug down the stairs, his head hitting each step. Subdued and in his courtyard, with slight bleeding to the forehead, bulbs flashed from the several media present. The news quickly spread in Tikrit to the elation of all, who now saw this former cutthroat of Saddam brought into our custody.
News of our success spread across the media as well. Soon, several news services embedded with us and covered our operations. Most were convinced that we were on the heels of Saddam. We just continued with our mission, our focus unchanged. The 30th and 31st became eerily quiet. This was perhaps the first time in weeks that nothing happened - no gunfire, no attacks, nothing.
Our raids continued with success. On the 1st of August, we bagged three more men with ties to Saddam. While I cannot specify the ties, I can say they were involved with the personal family duties and staff. Now each raid seemed to feed upon the other, with encouraging results.
Discouraging news shortly followed. We learned from a frantic local sheik that same evening that the bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein were to be delivered to his village the next day and then buried in the local cemetery. Not pleased at the news as this village also has our men in it we worked all evening to confirm this. We were told to do nothing. The corpses were to be turned over to the Red Crescent after being flown to our city. We were instructed to provide no escort or involvement. We watched at a distance as three corpses (the third being Mustafa Qusay’s 14-year-old son killed while firing an AK-47 under a bed) were laid into the dirt. Arrogant men, some veiled, surrounded the graves in pathetic prayerful worship over these murdering lifeless forms. They piled dirt mounds above their sunken corpses and then secured an Iraqi flag to each mound with dirt clods along the edges. The funeral passed uneventfully. But a candy box in the middle of the main highway in town would shatter the quiet of the previous two days.
The enemy launched an attack in the early evening using improvised explosives. The first was nearly identical to the second except in result. Each bomb appeared to be a box (one candy, the other Kleenex) packed with C-4 explosives and nuts and bolts serving as projectiles. How they were detonated remains unknown.
Our Recon platoon traveled up the main highway through the city center. Congestion by the telephone exchange offices narrowed the lanes to one. A median, elevated with planters, served as a directional backstop for the candy box concealed among so much other trash in this unsanitary country. The first scout passed by but the second seemed to disappear in a concussive mass of flame and smoke. Glass flew everywhere from the telephone exchange building. Policemen inside were knocked off their feet. Windows from a taxi full of kids blew into the youth as the pavement took on an appearance of an unfinished mosaic of glass.
continued....
A Letter from Tikrit
Editor’s note: This letter written the week of Aug. 26 is from Lieutenant Colonel Steven D. Russell, the Battalion Commander of the 1st Battalion of the 22nd Infantry, 4th Infantry Division. It provides a stark contrast to the “gloom and doom” tone of news media reports from Iraq. While written to the family members of his unit, Russell’s letter deserves to be read by all Americans.
Dear Friends and Family,
I wanted to send you another update on our continued operations in Iraq. I will try to give you a commanders perspective of what it is like here, even though you may have seen much of our activity in the news lately.
Hot! That’s what it is. The heat sears our hands as we hold our weapons, pick up tools and handle parts. When we travel in vehicles, the wind instead of cooling us fans us with a heat comparable to a blow dryer and thus actually increases the effect of the temperature. Even our fingernails get hot.
Even so, we endure. The Iraqis are suspect of this. They cannot imagine that we can operate in our battle gear and armored vehicles in the August sun and therefore another explanation must be given other than our toughness and willpower. Since we are Americans, we must have made some technology that allows us this freedom of movement. Iraqis ask us about our air-conditioned helmets and how they are powered. They talk on the street of our cooling vests and air-conditioned underwear. Despite all our efforts we cannot find these for purchase.
The markets in Tikrit do offer some items for relief from the heat however. We have traded greenbacks for underpowered, Chinese made air conditioners and fans with small benefit. Like most things in Iraq, they put up an initial impressive facade. Given the appearance of functionality, they soon give out or work with marginal effectiveness. We still welcome them and the fact that we have the means to attempt to use them is far better than what the average Infantryman expected when we arrived here.
Since my last note of July 26th, we have been extremely busy. The time seems to fly but time also seems surreal to many of us at this point in the mission. Each day becomes just another one. Days of the week blur and were it not for our watches and the incremental changes in the moon, we would have scant idea of time at all. We count the days because they promise initial relief from the heat and subsequent hope of seeing our loved ones once more.
The soldiers of the battalion, while unable to see their loved ones, have had improvements in contacting their families. We tried to get a phone or two for the companies and this has greatly improved communication. Yet, the ATT satellite phones do not always track properly and the Iridium phones have had their keypads short circuit due to the heat. An ATT phone tent now serves as another possibility, even though the expense is a little much about 5 times the normal rate for phone cards. But the calls we have made have been wonderful.
We finally won the battle to get email. It took a lot of effort but now the soldiers can at least drop a note every few days with better turn-around on news to their families. We set up 3 terminals for the soldiers to use in the battalion headquarters and the companies rotate on a schedule. I hope these efforts have given all of you a better line of communication to our soldiers. We will keep improving the communication as we can.
Beginning the 27th of July, CSM Martinez and I made the rounds to the companies to award the Combat Infantry Streamer to each Infantry Company guidon. It is a great honor to the units and one of which they are very proud. Also during these visits, we took the opportunity to talk to the soldiers about their concerns. These ranged from the need for certain items of mission essential equipment, to small comfort items to help them relax when they are not on patrols, to how to better communicate with their families. We have been able to improve in all of these areas. We fought to get the newer body armored vests for all of our soldiers and won though not without exertion. Now all our soldiers are better protected.
After coming back on the 27th from Bayji (north of Tikrit) where B Company is, we had activity that quickly reminded us that we have much work to do even while feeling proud of our accomplishments. Someone placed a bomb in front of a house in central Tikrit. The blast blew open the gate and damaged the wall of the courtyard. The Iraqi family there asked our soldiers to help them move to relatives that night as it was after curfew. My operations officer, Maj. Brian Luke, obliged and as the family was escorted a few blocks to the east, one of our soldiers noticed a shovel leaning against a wall. Spec. Garcia began to look at the dirt and the shovel. Within minutes, 44 anti-tank mines, 20lbs. of C-4 explosives and 200 lbs. of propellant were unearthed. More digging. Nine grenades, four mine initiators, an AK-47 and thirty 60mm mortar rounds soon followed. This same building had been cleared not a few days before.
As this developed, a burst of gunfire erupted to the south in an arc across the main highway toward the governors building. A Company soldiers soon enveloped an area of two warehouses. The soldiers entered the first and spotted five men, one armed with an SKS rifle. The Iraqi men immediately dropped it when they saw the Americans and our men quickly deduced that these men were just food guards. They continued on to the next warehouse. A man stood in the shadows as the soldiers approached. SPC Morgan entered with his fire team and shouted at the man to come forward in English and Arabic. The man darted into the shed instead and appeared a second time with an AK-47. Spec. Morgan aimed his rifle at the man and killed what turned out to be the assailant that had attacked the governor’s building. An enemy and lots of deadly mines and explosives were now in our hands.
We continued to thin the ranks of those attacking our men the last week of July and we also received detailed information as to the location of an important bodyguard of Saddam Hussein. This particular man was often seen in photos with Saddam and his family. The locals also knew him as a vicious murderer. In a lightning raid, the Recon Platoon and A Company secured 3 houses in residential Tikrit. We were looking specifically for three men; two were bodyguards and one an organizer for the former regime. Within 45 minutes, we had all three men. The raid made national news and the men were extremely valuable to our efforts. The main target Saddam’s personal bodyguard didn’t give up without a fight. Our scouts found him upstairs, emboldened with liquor, attempting to grab a Sterling Submachine Gun. Butt strokes and quick action prevented his death. He swung at the men but soon found himself being drug down the stairs, his head hitting each step. Subdued and in his courtyard, with slight bleeding to the forehead, bulbs flashed from the several media present. The news quickly spread in Tikrit to the elation of all, who now saw this former cutthroat of Saddam brought into our custody.
News of our success spread across the media as well. Soon, several news services embedded with us and covered our operations. Most were convinced that we were on the heels of Saddam. We just continued with our mission, our focus unchanged. The 30th and 31st became eerily quiet. This was perhaps the first time in weeks that nothing happened - no gunfire, no attacks, nothing.
Our raids continued with success. On the 1st of August, we bagged three more men with ties to Saddam. While I cannot specify the ties, I can say they were involved with the personal family duties and staff. Now each raid seemed to feed upon the other, with encouraging results.
Discouraging news shortly followed. We learned from a frantic local sheik that same evening that the bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein were to be delivered to his village the next day and then buried in the local cemetery. Not pleased at the news as this village also has our men in it we worked all evening to confirm this. We were told to do nothing. The corpses were to be turned over to the Red Crescent after being flown to our city. We were instructed to provide no escort or involvement. We watched at a distance as three corpses (the third being Mustafa Qusay’s 14-year-old son killed while firing an AK-47 under a bed) were laid into the dirt. Arrogant men, some veiled, surrounded the graves in pathetic prayerful worship over these murdering lifeless forms. They piled dirt mounds above their sunken corpses and then secured an Iraqi flag to each mound with dirt clods along the edges. The funeral passed uneventfully. But a candy box in the middle of the main highway in town would shatter the quiet of the previous two days.
The enemy launched an attack in the early evening using improvised explosives. The first was nearly identical to the second except in result. Each bomb appeared to be a box (one candy, the other Kleenex) packed with C-4 explosives and nuts and bolts serving as projectiles. How they were detonated remains unknown.
Our Recon platoon traveled up the main highway through the city center. Congestion by the telephone exchange offices narrowed the lanes to one. A median, elevated with planters, served as a directional backstop for the candy box concealed among so much other trash in this unsanitary country. The first scout passed by but the second seemed to disappear in a concussive mass of flame and smoke. Glass flew everywhere from the telephone exchange building. Policemen inside were knocked off their feet. Windows from a taxi full of kids blew into the youth as the pavement took on an appearance of an unfinished mosaic of glass.
continued....