"SOUTH OF BAGHDAD, IRAQ - In the afternoon, when the fighting had died down, the soldiers moved in among the date palms to collect the Iraqi weapons and check the dead for documents.
"The dogs had quieted down and some donkeys were chewing their fodder in a farmyard nearby. Nests of blankets around the mortar positions showed how the Republican Guard infantrymen had been surprised by A Company's sudden arrival in front of them at dawn.
"Some Joes picked among the helmets and other gear for souvenirs. As others hefted ammo crates to the collection point where they would be destroyed, some artillery rounds whistled overhead and exploded in the palm groves across the highway.
"'That stuff's going the wrong way. Let's get this stuff and get out of here,' said Capt. Philip Wolford. The destruction of Iraqi defenses around the bridge to Al Hillah had been accomplished, and it was time to pull out.
"Wolford was walking with two Army interpreters toward the bodies when several rapid bursts of rifle fire sounded about 100 feet away, where the Joes checking the area had spotted some uniformed Iraqis hiding.
"'We just killed two of them!' a GI shouted, his voice full of adrenaline, but sounding more like an excited kid than a killer. But the heavy thunking noise of AK-47 fire resumed from an overgrown irrigation ditch nearby, and those of us going to check the bodies stepped behind palm trees.
"'Estes lem, estes lem!' shouted Staff Sgt. Chris Grisham, the interpreter, running toward the fire as he called on the Iraqis to surrender. The shooting continued, answered by heavy volleys of M-4 fire and an M-203 grenade launcher.
"I think I got him!' yelled the GI with the grenade launcher. When the shooting picked up again, Wolford ran ahead with his 9 mm pistol drawn, firing and yelling, 'Anyone got a grenade? When you throw it, bound up on him while he's still stunned!'
"The GIs followed the captain's advice, shot one teenage Iraqi soldier in the head and pumped rounds at the other, who moaned but kept crawling.
"'I got him! I got him! Stay down, (expletive!)'' a GI yelled. The Iraqi, bleeding from a shrapnel wound to his rump, had had enough. He moaned loudly.
"'Shut up!' the GIs yelled.
"'How's that 203 round taste, (expletive!)' the grenade shooter yelled. 'That was me!'
"'I told him "estes lem!"' Grisham said. The Iraqi, lying on his face, waved his hand dismissively and managed to spit out with what sounded like something between resignation and disgust, 'Estes lem. Estes lem.'
"Two more Iraqi holdouts lay 15 feet farther down the ditch, one dead and the other with a chunk of his leg torn out by one of the grenades. As the soldiers pulled him out, we thought it was over, but AK-47 fire erupted again from a position 100 feet away. The GI fired one grenade, checked his aim and fired another. The AK-47 fire stopped.
"'Let's get out of here,' Wolford said.
"'First time I've ever been shot at. Pretty exhilarating,' Grisham said.
"It was the first day of battle for most of A Company, 11 days into the war, after long days of travel and longer days of waiting for orders out in desert staging areas.
"Our day had begun before dawn, when the 4/64 Armor Battalion mounted up for the ride into a town whose name doesn't appear on the Army maps, at a Euphrates River bridge crossing that is a key link between the Republican Guard forces at Al Hillah and Karbala.
"'The Assassins' of A Company began the assault, racing through the west side of town to secure the southern approach and then secure the northern entrance to the town. The mechanized infantry company, called ``Attack,'' split off on the eastbound main road and began a bitter street fight through the center of town to seize the bridge.
"The Assassins began taking fire from Iraqi infantry with RPGs, recoilless rifles and other small arms. We later learned this town was held by a battalion of Republican Guard light infantry, heavily outgunned by the 4/64 but still able to put up a fight.
"Red Four, the tank known as 'Achtung Baby,' commanded by Gulf War combat veteran SFC Jonathan Lustig, reported over the radio that Red platoon had contact with the enemy and answered with .50 caliber fire and main gun rounds.
"In the fire support Bradley, Staff Sgt. David Williams said, 'I see somebody. A lot of people running down the road, running.'
"'I'd be running too,' said Lt. Nick Kauffeld, standing in the open hatch.
"Then Kauffeld yelled, 'Oh (expletive)! RPG!'
"Gunner Williams said, 'Fire?'
"'Yeah, fire!' Kauffeld said. The Bradley rocked with the recoil of its 25 mm cannon.
"'I don't see anyone moving around anymore,' Kauffeld said.
"Wolford could be heard yelling orders over the radio at White platoon leader Lt. Robert Redmon, behind him in the column.
"'There are dismounts behind that wall. Take down the wall,' the CO yelled. A few seconds later, 'I don't hear you firing White One.'
"There was a thunderous main gun discharge.
"Wolford yelled, 'We just killed seven dismounts, they're lying on top of that bunker complex. There's still another bunker. Take it out, White One.'
"There was another boom of main gun fire, shaking all vehicles within 100 feet with its shock wave.
"'One bunker destroyed, sir,' Redmon said.
"Wolford reported seeing two RPG rounds bounce off tanks ahead of him in the column. Another tank commander reported seeing an RPG round fly right over the medic track. And an infantry Bradley was struck by an RPG round that pierced its outer layer of armor, causing a fist-sized hole, but did not penetrate the vehicle.
"Up ahead, Red Four reported that a vehicle was ignoring repeated warning shots, and continued to approach the tanks.
"'Engaged and destroyed one civilian vehicle,' Lustig said. 'He's got the message now.'
"The company had pulled up at its assigned position, and was engaged with what turned out to be a platoon of Republican Guard dug in among the date palms. It took less than half an hour of heavy machine gun and main-gun fire, followed by a brief artillery barrage, to subdue the Iraqis. Soldiers who had stripped off their uniforms began emerging waving white cloths, and some of the tankers began dismounting to meet them.
"A family of terrified farmers came out and were directed to the highway's median strip, where the women in burkhas and two little girls in dirty pink and red smocks wept, refusing offers of candy. Wolford tried to calm them, showing pictures of his own children.
"The Iraqi soldiers knelt with their hands up on the road and then lay face down as ordered, but looked up, some with dark stares, some scared and shaking, some with what looked like smirks. Grisham was clearing an Iraqi officer's Russian-made pistol when it went off, briefly wiping the smirks off those faces.
"'Good thing it was pointed this way,' Grisham said with a grin, indicating the trench line, from which sporadic fire was still coming, answered with heavy bursts of .50 caliber fire. 'First round I've fired in this war.'
"But the battle was calming down now, and the 'Hajjis,' as GIs call the locals, were beginning to come out, walking by with their hands in the air and white cloths overhead to show their good intentions. A pair of boys on a horse cart did the same. The American medics worked on an Iraqi soldier whose big toe had been blown off, another shot through the buttocks, and later the others with severe injuries from the brief afternoon firefight.
"Fighting continued at the bridge, where the infantry reported seeing Iraqi gun-mounted trucks on the far side moving behind lines of women and children. But it ended with reports of only two casualties among the Americans, an engineer and a TV newsman, who both received minor shrapnel injuries from a mortar near the bridge.
"Total Iraqi KIA and POW figures were not immediately available. In A Company's sector, 22 were taken prisoner and five confirmed killed in the date palms, while an estimated 15 to 20 were killed on the road in. The POWs reported that their captain and half the platoon had run for the bridge when the tanks showed up.
"Lustig said he considered it a light to moderate combat experience.
"'I feel the company moved very deliberately and stuck to the commander's intent to move with speed and destroy everything,' Lustig said. 'I don't know if we destroyed everything, but we got them rethinking things.'
"The soldiers mulled over their experience, some quietly, many sharing stories of what they had seen and what they had done.
"'I'm kind of glad we went the easy route first,' said Williams, noting that the initial plan had called for the Assassins to cross the bridge and camp on the other side, exposed to whatever the Iraqis sent down from Al Hillah. No one had liked that plan, not even the commander, particularly because there was no firm intelligence on what kind of forces the Iraqis had in the area.
"'I'm glad I got to shoot some rounds. You get the jitters out of you,' Williams said.
Spc. Johnny 'Smitty' Smith was more inspired by the ride through town and the firefight he had experienced. He's due to get out of the Army in June, but he said with a grin, 'That (expletive) gonna make me re-enlist!'"
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