Johnson: 'Yacht club' races to trouble spots
Captain's hats and dark blazers lacking, but mission is snappy
December 18, 2003 Rocky Mountain News
SAMARRA, Iraq - The explosions began about 1:30 a.m. - terrific, cot-shaking blasts that stirred even the most dog-tired of the soldiers here.
They grew louder by the hour, culminating with a 3 o'clock repercussion that pretty much put an end to all sleep inside this vile place, which the GIs euphemistically call the "Vanguard Yacht Club."
To the east, just across the Tigris River, Fort Carson-based soldiers and armor of the 1-8 Infantry began early Wednesday encircling and closing off all access to this holy Muslim city in the heart of the so-called Sunni Triangle.
For weeks now, Samarra, a city of nearly 200,000, has been a major staging area for mortar and other attacks against American troops, who are attempting to pacify insurgents and begin the rebuilding of villages in central Iraq.
The raid had been scheduled to launch in the wee hours Sunday, but was called off after the capture of Saddam Hussein. Command would give the city a few days to respond to the news and perhaps cease arms trafficking and attacks on U.S. soldiers.
The GIs prayed, and some took communion in the last hour before the convoys into Samarra began. We were taken with Fort Carson's Lt. Col. Laura Loftus, commander of the 4th Combat Engineer Battalion, to an old Iraqi army garrison, now windowless, riddled with holes and piled with excrement.
Her troops would patrol the Tigris and seal off two adjacent islands in the river by boat, denying passage to anyone seeking to flee the city across the river.
Come daylight, infantry troops would swarm the city, almost shoulder to shoulder, knocking on doors - kicking or blowing them open if necessary - to search for weapons.
"We have received so much mortar fire from the middle of the city," Loftus said, "and we haven't been able to shoot back for fear of hitting civilians. Now, we are going to find out exactly who's been doing the shooting."
Jet-boating the Tigris
It is 6:30 a.m. Wednesday when we are awakened and told to head to the attack boats waiting behind the yacht club. Over my cot is what could be the only remaining painting of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
"Uncle Ray-Ray" is the name some soldier has spray-painted across the dictator's belly.
The mortar fire that was expected to hit Vanguard has not arrived. The explosions being set off by the U.S. infantry can still be heard across the river.
They stick me next to Pfc. Matthew Marshall, a fresh-faced kid not likely 20 years old, who cradles a 249 machine gun and pats the seat next to him.
"My saw is all we'll need," he says, patting the weapon. "You'll be fine, sir."
Our jet-powered boat flies across the water to the west bank of the river, to an island where a mortar base believed responsible for the incessant attacks of past weeks is believed to be located.
Spc. Paul Konechne, a National Guardsman from South Dakota, steers the boat into an inlet, at the mouth of which is a small hut. Marshall and the five other soldiers on the boat stand and train their weapons on the hut's front door.
Two soldiers leap from the boat and race to the hut, violently swinging open the front door. "No one's home!" one yells.
It goes on like this all morning.
We stop a pair of fishermen going about their labors just after sunup. Every weapon on the boat is trained on the two men. The fat one standing at the bow of his tiny boat pleads, "Wait a minute!"
Slowly and deliberately he bends down. Standing back up, he holds a plastic bag containing maybe five fish over his head, smiles uneasily and shrugs. The five soldiers all lower their weapons and laugh hard.
Colonel reassures fishermen
We see nothing but extreme poverty, and those two words don't do justice to what we have seen. And no one who lives here - at least in their telling of it - knows of any bad men.
A corn farmer wearing a headdress, long black robe and patent leather shoes swears it is just him and his ancestors on the farm. He shows us around, back to a room containing a tomb covered by a green ceremonial cloth.
At a different shack, the home of a middle-age woman who is caring for two young children, soldiers uncover a machine gun and several clips of ammunition, along with an AK-47 rifle.
Iraqis are allowed only one gun in the home, so the machine gun and clips are confiscated. They let her keep the rifle. She praises them.
"With your help," she tells a sergeant, "I hope we never get hurt again."
Our last stop is a tiny village of maybe four mud and brick homes. Four men greet Loftus, 39, who has walked miles this day alongside her men.
She sleeps in the rain with them, eats with them and asks them to do nothing she is unwilling to do herself. It is why the men here say they love her. It is why, too, they are extremely protective of her.
The four men plead ignorance of any weapons in the village. Rather, they tell Loftus of their fear of the fighter jets that race across every hour or so. Can she do something?
"We are afraid something will happen because they fly here," one of the men tells her through an interpreter. "Saddam wouldn't let us fish in the south. Now the planes here in the north endanger us. How are we supposed to feed our children?"
The colonel patiently tells them the planes will not harm them, that no one wants to stop them from fishing, that she and the Army are here to protect them.
It takes nearly 10 minutes, but the men finally seem to understand. She graciously waves away their offer of tea and, instead, wishes them good health and good fishing.
By nightfall, not one American soldier is reported wounded or killed by enemy fire. One lieutenant is said to have suffered minor injuries when shrapnel flew from a steel door his men blew up. About three caches of weapons and explosives were also reported seized.
"A good day, everything considered," Loftus said, standing amid the flies and rubble of the yacht club. "A very good day."
Inside, the men return to their cots. But if the mortars come again, it may be a long, sleepless night.
Bill Johnson and photographer Todd Heisler are on assignment in Iraq.
rockymountainnews.com |
