Creeker Chronicles
A compendium of anecdotes and stories by
Contributing Editor Ross Simpson
ROCKING THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION
With U.S. combat operations at an end in Iraq, it seems timely to publish this story about the first day of combat operations, as experienced by Fern Creek Class of ‘60 alum Ross Simpson, an Associated Press correspondent who was an embedded journalist with 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, known as 1/5. The battalion had the distinction of being the “tip of the spear,” the first U.S. ground unit to invade Iraq. Ed.
Members of the media embedded with 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, on the afternoon of March 20, 2003,were told that 1/5 was going to invade southern Iraq nine hours before all other coalition forces, including the Army's 3rd Infantry Division. The reason given to this reporter and three colleagues was the early movement was a reaction to the torching of at least three oil wells in southern Iraq.
A copy of a briefing paper presented to the 1st Marine Division told a different story. “War commenced prematurely due to information received from CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) regarding the presence of Saddam in Baghdad,” read the opening paragraph.
Two days before the ground war began, Major General James N. Mattis, commanding officer of the division, flew from his headquarters at Camp Matilda in northern Kuwait to Camp Coyote, where 1/5 was preparing for D-Day.
“Chaos,” as Mattis would be known on the battlefield, told this reporter and members of Weapons Company, 1/5, that intelligence indicated the Iraqis were beefing up their armor in our sector. There were reports of up to 90 Iraqi Soviet built T-72 tanks advancing toward the border. This information forced the division to change a battle plan that had been in place for six months; however, we now know the CIA liaison at division headquarters was incorrect in his assessment. The tanks turned out to be the same six tanks that had been present for at least twenty days. When the war began, invading Marines found that the Iraqi tanks across the border were unoccupied. What the Marines found were tanks lined up neatly in tactical formation, with Iraqi crews standing next to them, holding out wads of cash to advancing Marines. None of this information was ever shared with this reporter or others with me. We found out later, by chance. Here is what I observed and reported the night 1/5 crossed into southern Iraq. Combat Engineers Lead The Way
Parallel sand berms with an electrified fence between them have separated Kuwait from Iraq since the first Gulf War. This arrangement extends along their entire 124-mile common border.
On the night of March 20th, 1/5 broke through the berms and became the first of the U.S. invasion force to enter Iraq.
“We can’t wait any longer,” said Lieutenant Colonel Fred Padilla, the battalion commander, as junior officers gathered under the camouflage netting draped over the amphibious assault vehicles that served as his command post.
“Hondo,” as he was known on the battalion radio net, had just received word from intelligence personnel that Iraqi troops across the border had begun torching oil wells. It was mid-afternoon on March 20th.
At least three wells were ablaze by the time 1/5 began to uncoil itself into the desert like a steel snake, slithering through sand berms on the border. A natural gas separation plant and above ground pipelines at a pumping station had also been set ablaze.
The colonel told me and three other correspondents embedded with his battalion that we could make an “administrative call” to our offices in Washington, but we couldn’t tell them we were about to invade Iraq. After we crossed into Iraq, Padilla said we could “fire up” our satellite phones and tell the folks back home that U.S. Marines had just “kicked in the back door to Saddam’s house and were coming for him.”
Lance Corporal Allan Chitty from Sacremento, California and Corporal Russ Barajas of Clinton, Wyoming were the first Marines to cross the border. They operated armored combat earthmovers (ACE) from the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, but they didn’t have to punch holes in the Kuwaiti berm. That had been done by plow-equipped tanks of the 7th Kuwaiti Tank Battalion, before they retreated through the Marine lines.
Unlike amphibious assault vehicles and tanks that have three and four-man crews, respectively, the earthmovers have only a driver.
“It’s lonely in there,” said Barajas, who remembers falling asleep at the controls a couple of times, drifting onto the shoulders of the six-lane super highways in south-central Iraq. “Other than that, it was cool,” laughed Barajas.
Only Chitty’s ACE, “Annabelle,” would complete the 400-mile cross-country trip from Camp Coyote to the banks of the Tigris. Barajas’s unnamed armored combat earthmover would break down and have to be abandoned en route to Baghdad.
PFC Thomas Dowler, an engineer from Farmville, Virginia was one of the first Marines to set foot in Iraq. Dowler rode into Iraq in an amphibious assault vehicle, before dismounting to help guide the remainder of the battalion into enemy territory.
“It was pretty cool, knowing we were ahead of everybody,” said Dowler, who says he and fellow engineers stood in the open hatch of their vehicles and watched artillery shells burst in the darkness ahead of them, scattering thousands of deadly anti-personnel bomblets over the battlefield.
“We had to wait for the dozers to knock holes in the north berm before we could mark the lanes with green-colored chemical lights,” said Corporal Dylan Richardson, another combat engineer from Ontario, California, who also served as a traffic cop inside the border.
Just like Richardson, Corporal Jonathan Montalvo from San Antonio, Texas was excited to be doing something besides bouncing off the walls of a tracked vehicle. Montalvo didn’t know it at the time, but his wife was giving birth to twins, a boy and a girl, back home in San Antonio, while he was crossing the border.
Montalvo learned about the twins two days later, when he received a message from the American Red Cross. Three weeks later he used this reporter’s satellite phone to call his wife, from a driveway in front of Al-Azimiyah Palace in Baghdad. He and members of 1st Combat Engineer Brigade had cleared the driveway of debris after a ferocious battle to seize the palace on the Tigris River, just after daylight on April 10th.
Jumping the Gun
The 1/5 wasn’t scheduled to invade Iraq until 6:00 a.m., March 21st, but fires in the Rumeila oil fields forced their operations officer to call an audible at the line of scrimmage, like a football quarterback. “War Path….War Path…War Path, this is Geronimo. Bravo command prepare to move.”
“Geronimo” was the tactical call sign for Headquarters and Service Company. Other units in the battalion had similar Native American call signs. Alpha Company was “Apache.” Bravo Company was “Blackhawk.” Charlie Company’s call sign was “Cherokee.” Second Tank Battalion was “Ironhorse. The 81mm Mortar Platoon in Weapons Company answered to “Mohawk,” while the antitank platoon, known as Counter Mech, the other half of Weapons Company went by the handle, “Tomahawk.”
Coalition airstrikes that Maj. Gen. Mattis had promised were scheduled to begin at 8:30 p.m. local time on March 20th. Preparatory artillery fire would begin at 9:00 p.m. Almost 1,200 men, and a few women truck drivers in the logistics train, would begin crossing the border at 9:00 p.m. Kuwait time.
In the military, even the best laid plans are subject to change, and this one changed dramatically, later drawing criticism from Army brass, who claimed the Marine Corps jumped the gun.
Weather Won't Cooperate
The weather turned bad on the day before the invasion. Visibility was poor. High winds drove dust and sand into our eyes and into every crevice imaginable. Marines spent the day hunkered down in their Humvees and armored vehicles. That night, we spent a miserable, cold night, huddled in poncho liners and bivvy sacks, trying to sleep sitting upright. If you think it’s difficult to fall asleep on a bus, train or plane, try falling asleep in the backseat of a Humvee in full combat gear. It was torture.
Sandbags piled on the floor as protection from land mines caused the ligaments in my knees to be stretched tight as guitar strings. My legs ached so badly, I thought they’d never recover. After sitting hunched over for several hours, I could no longer stand the pain, so I got out of the vehicle and did some stretches to restore the flow of blood and feeling to my legs and feet. I tried lying down on the rock-strewn desert to get some sleep, but after fighting a losing battle with the wind and eating more than a helping of sand, I climbed back into the Hummer and began monitoring the radio net, while the lieutenant and his driver got a few winks. Iraqi soldiers a couple of miles across the windswept border must have been as miserable as me, because at 2:30 in the morning, I heard Hondo on the radio announcing that 30-35 Iraqis had surrendered to Marines in front of us. Then, at 6:20 a.m. we learned the war with Iraq was getting underway.
Word of the beginning came from the BBC, on a shortwave radio I brought with me. In Weapons Company, reveille sounded at 4:30 a.m. Between reveille and 6:00 a.m., Marines in the battalion were ordered to “Stand To.” In other words, they sat in their vehicles, motors running, fully dressed in combat gear, waiting for orders to move, in Marine lingo, “Oscar Mike.”
Sergeant Steve Oldham from Portland, Oregon, the Mark 19 gunner in Lt. Stalnecker’s command vehicle, held the shortwave radio next to his chest mike and keyed in the battalion frequency, so everyone in 1/5 could hear “LIVE” reports from the BBC.
A few minutes later, everyone in the battalion listened intently as their Commander-In-Chief, President George W. Bush, addressed the nation from the Oval Office and officially announced the beginning of hostilities.
We couldn’t hear the bombs falling on military targets in Baghdad, nor could we hear an estimated 1,000 Tomahawk missiles that were fired from US Navy warships operating in the Northern Arabian Sea and surrounding area. We celebrated when one of the Tomahawks took out a 155mm howitzer that was capable of hurling high explosives 20 miles, into our herringbone formation in northern Kuwait.
As President Bush concluded his remarks, our driver, Corporal Ryan Gillard from Tri Cities, Washington, one of three other Marines in Counter Mech who were born on my birthday, October 18th, touched his good luck charm on the dash of his Hummer and asked if we were ready to go. The lieutenant said he was. Oldham, up in the turret, replied, “Always. Let’s rock ‘n roll,” as he worked the bolt back and forth in his 40mm grenade launcher, to clear any dust that might jam his heavy machinegun.
Sgt. Oldham had taken me aside before we left the dispersal area. “I know you guys in the media are noncombatants, but there is no such thing as a noncombatants on the battlefield,” he said, pulling his 9mm Beretta from his leg holster. He removed the magazine and handed the pistol to me.
“Do you know how to use one of these weapons?” asked Oldham.
“Yeah,” I replied. “How about an M-16?” he asked as he reached into the turret and handed me his rifle. “Keep the selector switch on semi-auto,” said Oldham, “and pick your targets just like you did in basic training.” Oldham also instructed me on how to load the 40mm grenade launcher. “I know you guys aren’t supposed to carry weapons out here,” said Oldham, “But if this crew gets killed in battle, you’re gonna have to decide whether to surrender and run the risk of being tortured, or pick up a gun and defend yourself.”
The choice was mine, but Oldham assured me that he and the others would defend me to the death, if I were to be wounded, and hoped I would return the favor in case they fell in battle.A Letter, Just In Case
I have covered military campaigns since the Invasion of Panama in 1989, with stops in scenic spots such as Somalia, but I have never written that so-called, “Last Letter” until this campaign. I quickly jotted down the following note to my wife and put it behind our picture in my wallet.
15:23 (3:15pm)
March 20
Dearest Judy
This might be my last note to you. Just got briefed deep in the desert. We are going to attack Iraqi forces in about four hours. We are now within range of the guns and are vulnerable out here on the desert floor. The past 20 days have been the best in my life, living side by side with the country’s finest young men. I hope and pray we all survive, but I know some will die. If I don’t come home, kiss the children for me and hug the grandchildren. Tell them how much Pa Pa loved them and I will be waiting for them in Heaven.
All my love……… Ross
I wasn’t the only one writing a last letter. Each of us in Gun-3 told the other crewmembers where to find similar notes on our bodies, in case we were killed. We told each other where we kept our valuables. I told my three buddies to divide up the $3,000 I was carrying, so that somebody in Graves Registration wouldn’t find it.
Morbid as it may seem, just knowing we had “taken care of business” was comforting. Whispering a final prayer, I adjusted my chin strap, and gave my gear one last check. “It’s show time kiddies,” I remember saying as Gillard pointed “Pale Rider,” into the wind. Gillard wanted to name the vehicle “Widow Maker,” but that didn’t go over very well with the two married Marines in the vehicle.
Being a Clint Eastwood fan, Oldham suggested they name the vehicle, “Pale Rider.” After all, Oldham was the gunslinger and Stalnecker was the preacher. Stalnecker, the son of a Baptist minister, was just a few months away from getting out the Marine Corps to enter the ministry in Oceanside, California, where his wife and two children were awaiting his return.
Crossing The Line Of Departure
As the battalion bounced across the barren desert toward the south berm, artillery batteries from the 3rd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment began firing on the far right flank of 1/5. I could see bright reddish-orange flashes and hear the deep, throaty roar, as they boomed out 155mm rounds in the direction of the burning oil wells on the horizon.
Visibility was becoming very limited. Huge clouds of talcum-like dust were kicked up by tracks in front of us. By the time we reached the south berm, we were covered with it. First section of Counter Mech platoon, commanded by Stalnecker, was in direct support of Alpha Company, one of three infantry companies in 1/5. Staff Sergeant Bryan Jackway commanded section two, supporting Charlie Company
By the time 1/5 moved toward the border, a “blood moon” hung over the battlefield.
“Good fighting weather,” commented Staff Sergeant Pat Keister, the platoon sergeant in Counter Mech. Keister rode into battle in a high-back Hummer. In the back under the canvas covering, Keister carried several days supply of rations (MREs) and a pigeon in a cage.
Sally, the pigeon, wore custom-made camouflage gear, and was supposed to warn the platoon if Saddam’s troops used chemical or biological weapons. It was the responsibility of the driver, Lance Corporal John Staples, to keep Sally well fed and watered. In keeping with the battalion’s “cowboy and Indian” theme, Keister’s call sign was “Stagecoach,” but Marines in Weapons Company would really ruffle his feathers when they called him “Chuckwagon,” or referred to his vehicle as the bread truck.
Keister took their ribbing, but was deadly serious when he told his young Marines to keep their heads on a swivel after they crossed into Iraq.
“All I want to see and hear are rounds going downrange and enemy vehicles lighting up,” said Keister, whose career began as a light machinegunner in Bravo Company. Keister had seen the intelligence reports and knew what was waiting across the border. A brigade of about 800 Iraqi soldiers was reported to be waiting in fighting holes and bunkers in the oil fields.
Major General James N. Mattis, commanding general of the 1st Marine Division flew to Camp Coyote from his headquarters in northern Kuwait to brief members of 1st Battalion, 5th Marines on the order of battle and the latest Intelligence involving Iraqis who were waiting for them across the border. Mattis, who is called the George Patton of the Marine Corps, told the battalion he wanted them to go through the Iraqi defenses like s--t through a goose, a favorite expression of General Patton during WWII. Today, Mattis is a 4-star general, in charge of the United States Central Command, with jurisdiction over Iraq and Afghanistan.
Lt. Colonel Fred Padilla, the battalion commander, called his company and platoon commanders to his command track in mid-afternoon on March 20, 2003 and told them 1/5 was going to invade Iraq at 8:30 p.m. local time.
Ross borrowed a razor and shaving cream from a machine gunner in Alpha Company and shaved off his mustache on orders from the Battalion Sergeant Major.
Sgt. Steve Oldham, the Mark 19 heavy machine gunner and the driver, Cpl. Ryan Gillard, in background, check their weapons before heading across the border into Iraq on the night of March 20, 2003.
Ross with Greg Hudson, the "gunny" in Weapons Company, 1/5 who supervised the uploading of ammunition at the Ammunition Supply Point, just below the Iraq border. Hudson is from Bowling Green, Kentucky and always ask Ross to get him the UK basketball scores when he filed a "live" satellite report to AP in Washington.
Lt. Jeremy Stalnecker, commander of Counter Mech Platoon shows his embedded correspondent where the battalion is going to cross the border on the night of March 20, 2003.
Sally, the battalion pigeon was our chemical warfare alert bird. She was outfitted with custom-made cammies and a battalion crest.
Stockpiles of TOW and Javelin anti-tank missiles, 81mm mortar shells, 40mm grenades, .50 caliber machinegun ammunition and 5.56mm rifle ammunition was pre-positioned at ASPs, or Ammo Supply Points, like this one for 1st Battalion, 5th Marines in northern Kuwait below the Iraq border.
Ross with the American flag he carried in his kevlar helmet and had Marines in 1st Battalion, 5th Regiment autograph it, including Major General James N. Mattis, the commander of the 1st Marine Division who Ross first met as a Lt Colonel in the Gulf War.
Dictating The War
To keep an accurate account of the assault into Iraq, I dictated notes into my tape recorder the night 1/5 entered southern Iraq:
7:45 p.m. local time . . . “Tracks from Charlie Company are working their way around some barbed wire barriers on the Kuwait side of the border.” 8:45 p.m. . . “Vehicles ahead of us and beside us are getting stuck trying to climb over sand dunes. We fell face first as our Hummer climbed over a sand dune and plunged into a deep ditch. An AAV next to us is stuck. So is a British “breadbox,” a large canvas-covered truck that is traveling in our column.”9:00 p.m. . . “I can see green chem sticks on poles as combat engineers mark lanes to the south berm. Quite a pounding of targets across the border. No rest for the Iraqi army.”9:02 p.m. . . “We have just crossed the Kuwaiti side of the border, and head out across “no man’s land.”9:35 p.m. . . “We have just crossed through the north berm and are now inside Iraq.”Stalnecker, Gillard and Oldham were wearing night vision goggles, but the dust was so thick, they couldn’t see very far. Neither could other Marines going through the breach. Lance Corporal Thomas Wells Jr. from Sacremento, California saw a truck stop in front of him, but when Wells slammed on his brakes, a truck behind him destroyed the “Water Bull” he was pulling, spilling four hundred gallons of precious water; however, there was no damage to the nuclear, biological and chemical suits Wells was carrying.Urgent Call For Help
Moments after we crossed one of the lanes cut into the north berm, I listened to a radio conversation between Hondo and Geronomo-3, his operations officer.
“I hear small arms fire about a click or two away from my current location at Relief Point Bravo, and see tracers in the vicinity of Apache’s position.” said Hondo.
“They are developing a situation and will call back when they have more information,” replied Major Steve Armes.
“Break break. Ironhorse, Ironhorse. Blackhawk,” radioed the commander of Bravo Company.
“Ironhorse should be able to address that,” said Stalnecker, as the first section of nine Humvees in Counter Mech platoon passed an Iraqi border post, just beyond the electric fence.
Although Alpha Company appeared to be in trouble, Stalnecker wasn’t worried. The 2nd Tank Battalion was in the lead. There were wagers between the crews as to who would score the longest-range tank kill. The longest recorded was 4,100 meters.
“They have tanks out there,” Stalnecker told his crew. A moment later, “Apache 6,” the commander of Alpha Company., came up on the radio to say that his tracked vehicles were heavily engaged with at least three tanks and dismounted Iraqi infantry. The commander called for the 2nd Tank Battalion and Javelin missile antitank teams to come up quickly. If the Iraqi tankers had managed to get within a thousand yards of the aluminum-skinned amphibious assault vehicles, they could have turned the “Tuna Boats” into flaming coffins for 18-20 riflemen who were packed like sardines into each AAV.
Corporal Ramen Spears from Brentwood, California answered the call for help. Spears, who normally rode in Counter Mech’s second section, was temporarily assigned to Alpha Company for the invasion.
He reported, “As my assistant gunner (PFC Wilkinson) and I ran down the rear ramp of our track, the sky was all lit up with .50 caliber tracers and 40mm grenade fire.”
Kneeling well beyond the range of the enemy’s 100mm main gun, Spears lifted the weapon to his shoulder and took aim at his target. When ready to fire, the Javelin makes a sound like a toilet flushing. But Spears said this one did something it wasn’t supposed to do. “The weapon started making funny sounds without me even pressing the fire triggers,” said Spears.
Take The Shot!
Fearing the $75,000 missile might blow up, killing him and his gunner, Spears let go of the trigger when a light on his $200,000 Command Launch Unit indicated he had a problem.
“PFC Wilkinson was as white as a ghost when I put the missile down and yelled to the platoon commander that there was no way I could take the shot and told him he needed to get my other team out of the other track. The two-man team was seated in the front of the troop compartment, and had to be passed over the heads of Marines. The scene resembled a “mosh pit” at a rock concert.
Listening to radio transmissions, you could sense the urgency of the situation as Apache-6 implored the Javelin team to “Take the shot! Take the shot!”
The gunner ignored the shouts. Corporal Jason Lee said he took the shot when certain he would knock out the tank. When Apache-6 radioed, “One Javelin AWAY,” the gunners were able to reach the safety of their vehicle before the missile blew the turret off the Iraqi tank, killing its four-man crew.
Spears was told the next morning that there wasn’t much left of the tank or its crew.
“Human yogurt, as we like to say,” smiled Spears, as he recounted how the 14-pound dual warhead drilled a hole into the turret and exploded inside the crew compartment.
“I hope they are having happy thoughts, because they didn’t know what hit them,” said Spears as he remembered a historic moment for the Marine Corps: the first Javelin kill in the history of the new weapon.
The tank that Cpl. Lee knocked out was more than 3,000 meters away, too far for Abrams tanks from the 2nd Tank Battalion that were in the area; but they were able to close the distance and destroy the other two Iraqi tanks.
First Lieutenant Keith Montgomery’s tank was the lead element for 1/5 when the battalion came across the border. When he couldn’t identify what was to his front, Montgomery ordered his crew to recon by fire.
“We fired an MPAT (Multi-Purpose Anti-Tank) round and destroyed an Iraqi tank,” said Montgomery
Gunnery Sergeant Michael Woods, who was interviewed by this reporter in the spring of 1998, on the Udari Range in northern Kuwait, when it looked like the United States was going to war against Iraq, killed the other enemy tank. Woods gave the order to fire when his crew came across the breach and acquired a positive silhouette on an Iraqi tank at about 1,000 meters.
Alpha Company, 2nd Tank Battalion was divided into two sections. Montgomery, the platoon leader, commanded the first section; Woods commanded second section. Together, they provided an iron wedge for 1/5. When I asked why his crew misspelled “Beligerent” the name of his tank, Woods laughed and said, “We didn’t have room to add another ‘L’ on the evaporator tube.”
In combat, the only thing that matters is putting rounds down range faster and more accurately than the enemy, and “Beligerent” smothered the Iraqi armor with armor-piercing shells. “We observed secondary explosions after we hit the target,” said the slow-talking Marine from Kansas City, Missouri; but his gunner, Lance Corporal Christopher Brumloe from Spartanburg, South Carolina isn’t sure the Iraqi tank was manned at the time.
“We thought the tank was traversing on us, but we didn’t want to take any chances in the dark, so Gunny Woods gave us the fire command,” said Brumloe.
Some people in Alpha Company claim the Iraqis staged tanks like decoys to get U.S. forces to deploy early, but Brumloe says he would rather take a shot at an abandoned tank and live to fight another day, rather than not shoot and risk that tank engaging his crew and killing him and his three buddies.
Counter Mech was still trying to move forward to provide suppressing fire for Alpha Company when the Javelin, fired by Cpl. Lee hit the enemy tank at 9:27 p.m. local time. Eight minutes later, Counter Mech platoon’s lead vehicle crossed through the north berm into Iraqi territory.
Ahead were three more weeks of hard combat before the battalion seized its final objective in Baghdad.
Final Thoughts
As I prepared to announce the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq on the Associated Press Radio Network, in late August 2010, I thought about Lt. Shane Childers, a platoon leader from Alpha Company, who was shot and killed a few hundred yards from my position on D-Day plus one. I thought about the more than 4,000 other U.S. servicemen and women who have died in Iraq, since we crossed the Line of Departure on March 20, 2003.
We Americans hate to think that they died in vain; but really, what did their deaths accomplish?
Their sacrifices contributed to the demise of a dictator and his two ruthless sons and the deaths of al-Qaida leaders who filled the vacuum; but, Iraq doesn’t have a functioning government, the people we freed from tyranny don’t have access to royalties from the vast oil reserves their country possesses and insurgents are killing them by the dozens with improvised explosive devices. Has anything really changed in more than seven years?
We’re told by our government that the Iraqi army and security forces will now take over combat operations; but friends of mine on the ground in Iraq tell me the Iraqis aren’t ready to defend themselves and probably never will be.First Battalion, 5th Marines may have rocked the cradle of civilization, but the baby is still crying and now it’s being left to fend for itself.I hope history proves me wrong, but I believe Iraq is going to unravel like cheap rope, much like South Vietnam did, when U.S. combat troops left there 35 years ago.