IN THE FIELD: With the 3rd Infantry
A Test of 'Endurance and Discipline'
F R O M T H E F R O N T L I N E S
[William Branigin is a reporter on the Virginia desk of the Washington Post. He is embedded with the 3rd Infantry Division.]
By William Branigin
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 25, 2003; 9:38 AM
WITH U.S. FORCES IN CENTRAL IRAQ, March 25 - It seemed like the convoy to nowhere.
With the combination of a severe sandstorm, unfamiliar terrain, blackout conditions and driver fatigue working against them, about 40 vehicles of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division took 10 hours to travel 27 miles last night and early this morning.
After setting out at 6:30 p.m. yesterday from a stopping point where they were delayed by a mortar attack, a column of angry, frustrated and exhausted soldiers riding in tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, fuel trucks, medical tracks, Humvees and various other support vehicles finally joined the rest of their units at a dusty encampment southwest of Baghdad at about 4:30 a.m. today.
"It was a test of endurance and discipline," said Capt. Steve Hommel, 41, of San Diego, the chaplain of the division's 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment.
Drained by an armored road march that U.S. commanders said was unprecedented in its size, speed and distance traveled, drivers kept falling asleep at the wheel and veering off their route or nodding off during pauses. When soldiers behind them would fight through a blinding sandstorm on foot to wake a sleeping driver and get him moving again, another driver elsewhere in the convoy would fall asleep, and the whole ordeal would start over.
Traveling part of the route off-road, drivers would also lose sight of the vehicle in front of them in the sandstorm and veer off in another direction.
Weighing on commanders' minds, amid the confusion, was the fate of a Sunday convoy whose drivers got lost in southern Iraq; seven were killed and five were captured. As last night's convoy moved in fits and starts, with long pauses while those in charge tried to get everyone moving at once, the frustration built to a boiling point. Angry exchanges, curses and threats of physical harm crackled across radio headsets in the darkness.
"This is not the way to project military power," one sergeant snapped as he tried to get his soldiers moving together.
"This is what you get when you go three days with catnaps and don't let soldiers get their rest," another complained.
The difficulties stood in sharp contrast to what commanders said was, overall, a highly successful road march from Kuwait north into central Iraq.
The U.S. task force consisting of the 3rd ID and elements of V Corps moved more than 7,000 vehicles 240 miles in two days, according to Capt. Anthony Butler, 32, of Helena, Montana, the commander of the 3rd Battalion's headquarters company.
"It's the largest armored convoy in history," said Hommel, a Gulf War combat veteran who has since given up arms to become a chaplain.
Driving with no headlights through the sandstorm over open desert, "you couldn't see anything," said Capt. William Marm, the 3rd Battalion maintenance officer in charge of the convoy. "When guys can't see anything, they stop." Making matters worse, some of the vehicles did not have radios, making it hard to tell who was awake and who was holding up the convoy.
"I can't keep my eyes open," a bleary-eyed Pfc. David Turner, driver of an M88 recovery vehicle, told his sergeant at one point on the radio. "I'm falling asleep while driving standing up," said Turner, 21, of Binghamton, N.Y.
The commander of an M1A1 Abrams tank radioed that he was lost, couldn't see anybody and was almost out of fuel. It turned out he was only a few hundred yards from the perimeter of the encampment at that point.
Upon arrival at the destination, officers called a meeting to ream out drivers who had delayed the convoy.
"We basically chewed some ass," Marm said. "We were pissed off because people were sleeping, getting stuck and not letting people know they weren't moving."
Given the sleep deprivation taking a toll on the troops, commanders decided today would be a day to "refit, refuel and rearm," Butler said.
But even as soldiers worked to get their equipment in order, there were continued efforts to, in the current military parlance, "shape the battlefield" for an upcoming offensive aimed at toppling President Saddam Hussein.
Through the early morning and into the afternoon, the booms of U.S. artillery could be heard echoing across the arid plains.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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