By Chris Boggiano: 5 November - The Recon Rehearsal (D-3)
The First Leader’s Recon
Three days before the battle kicked off, each platoon in our task force got to take one truck for what was supposed to be a reconnaissance of the city. Since I could only take one vehicle, I put the top leadership of my platoon all into one truck and we rode out along with the rest of the task force. Our little reconnaissance consisted of about 15 humvees with all of the different people that wanted to come along. Even though we were very heavy on leadership, I wasn’t too worried about the enemy trying to mess with us since we were going to stay outside of the city at a safe distance. Plus, we were rolling deep with 15 gun trucks.
Anyway, we took off from the base and were driving along the Military Bypass up to the city. SGT Cowles was driving, SSG Danielsen was sitting in the truck commander’s seat because I wanted to make sure he knew exactly where he was going when he led the task force into the city, SSG Amyett was in the gunner’s seat, and the XO and I were sitting in the back of the truck. The Military Bypass is basically the road that runs on the safe side of the highway that is along Fallujah’s eastern border. About halfway up the city, there is the large cloverleaf intersection between that highway and the one that goes directly through the center of the city. My platoon’s one truck was somewhere in the middle of our large group of gun trucks when we stopped about a kilometer short of the cloverleaf and sat for a while.
The Marines had cordoned off the city several days earlier and weren’t letting anyone into or out of Fallujah at that point. To accomplish their mission, they had set up on the cloverleaf to control all traffic. Well, apparently the unit at the cloverleaf was in contact with the enemy, which is why we had stopped.
“Hell, why don’t we drive up there and help them out,” I said when I found out that the Marines were getting shot at. There wasn’t too much that I was afraid of with 15 gun trucks, even if there really wasn’t any command and control – we were more or less 15 individual trucks instead of one cohesive unit. Of course, we just sat there for a long long time. I even got out and took my first piss on Fallujah while I was waiting to see what was going to happen, but apparently we weren’t going anywhere fast.
“I’ve got three guys on a rooftop, two with AK-47’s and one with an RPG,” SSG Amyett said. While the rest of us were bullshitting inside of the truck waiting to move, he had taken the opportunity to see what he could see in the city with the LRAS. Well, apparently he could see pretty well from where we were sitting. The three insurgents were over a kilometer away inside of the city, but there were no friendly forces in the area so I thought we might be able to call for fire on them.
“Call it up, see if they’ll let us fire artillery on them. SSG Amyett, get us a grid to their location along with a distance and direction.” Although I was riding in the backseat of a humvee on a reconnaissance of the city, I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to kill some terrorists.
“Phantom6, Outlaw2, the LRAS has three armed insurgents on a rooftop inside the city. Two of them have AK-47’s and one is carrying an RPG.”
“Roger, standby, let me see if we can call for fire on them.”
We sat in the truck and continued bullshitting for a few more minutes while we waited for the CO to get permission to drop artillery on them. All of it was something of a surreal experience at the time. We rarely got to call for fire back in Baqubah where we normally conducted patrols. Any contact that we got into with the enemy usually didn’t last long enough to get all of the permission necessary to actually do it.
“Outlaw2, Phantom6, send me a grid to their location along with a distance and direction from where you are at and we’ll see if we can fire on their position.”
I couldn’t believe it was actually happening. I knew I was in Fallujah and all, but to call for indirect for real was out of this world. All of us in the humvee had gotten pretty excited and checked with SSG Amyett every couple of minutes to make sure that the insurgents hadn’t left their rooftop. The idea that those guys thought they were totally safe and didn’t know we were watching them from over a kilometer away made it even better.
We sat there and waited and waited. Finally, our CO came over the net and told us that our task force was having some problems talking to the Marines to get clearance for the fires. Apparently, they were using a different encryption for their radios than we were at the time, so no one in our patrol could talk to the Marine regimental headquarter’s radios.
“Outlaw2, Phantom6, it looks like this mission isn’t going to happen today.” It turned out that our commo problem with the Marines meant that we couldn’t get permission to fire into the center of the city.
We were all disappointed to say the least, but there were a couple of valuable lessons that we learned that day. First, we learned that we were having problems talking to the Marines on the radio. Whenever two difference services come together with their own ways of doing things problems like that arise. It was disappointing not to get to kill the bad guys that day, but at least when the battle really started, the Marines and our task force were talking to each other.
The second lesson that everyone learned was that the LRAS was more than a box that sits on top of a humvee. A lot of the higher leadership probably had no idea what an LRAS was until we did that reconnaissance mission. After that, everyone realized its capabilities and how it could be used.
“Man, that sucks.”
“Yea, but if he spotted these guys in only a couple of minutes, we’re going to have a field day once the fighting begins if they’re dumb enough to hang out on rooftops.”
The Rehearsal
It was a couple of nights before the battle, and we were conducting a rehersal. My platoon’s job was to drive up the military bypass route to the northeast corner of the city and establish a big assembly area. From there, we would guide all of our task force’s tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, humvees, and support trucks into position to wait for the battle to kick off.
It sucked. It was pitch black and we couldn’t see from one end of the area to the next. The whole thing needed to be several hundred meters long and wide, but the ground was so uneven that we couldn’t see from one end to the other. Eventually, we got it sorted out and were sitting around.
The whole time, the Marines up on the highway that were surrounding the city were shooting. From our position in the low ground, I had no idea what they were shooting at though. I could only see their tracer bullets flying out into the darkness, but couldn’t see or hear anything come back in our direction. Additionally, they kept shooting star clusters in the air, which are basically big Roman Candles that light up the ground. From where I was sitting, it only seemed to silhouette the Marine trucks up on the highway.
“Hey, Chris, take the LRAS truck up there and see what the hell is going on.” My commander instructed me.
SSG Amyett and I hopped in his truck and drove over to the highway. It was a steep drive to get to the top. From the bottom, I thought we might even flip over, until I thought that the Marines had managed to get up there and so it couldn’t be that bad.
His driver floored it from the bottom and I could feel us losing speed as we approached the top. Our front two tires crested the edge just as we lost almost all of our momentum, but with the humvee’s four wheel drive, they were enough to pull us the rest of the way.
We pulled up next to a Marine truck and SSG Amyett and I hopped out.
“Hey, can you tell me who’s in charge up here.” I said to one of the Marines.
“Roger, let me get the skipper on the hooks.” He said to me.
Only then did I realize the Marines were speaking a totally different language. “Skipper on the hooks? Sergeant Amyett, do you have any idea what he just said.”
“I was thinking the same thing. I think he’s getting his boss, and the hooks must be their radio.”
Eventually, someone walked up to me.
“What have you guys been shooting at up here?” I asked.
“Well, we’ve been taking contact from those two lights over there all night long.” The Marine responded.
“Hey, how far are those two lights over there?” I yelled up to my LRAS gunner.
“1800 meters. And I don’t see anyone there.” He came back with.
After a few more minutes of conversation, I realized for the first time that the Marines weren’t nearly as well equipped as soldiers in the Army. They had been shooting all night long with machine guns that were only effective for 600 meters at a target 1800 meters away. On top of that, they did not have any night vision equipment to speak of, and that’s why they kept shooting star clusters – to make sure no insurgents were climbing up the berm at them. When they saw how well we’d been equipped, they thought we must have been Special Forces.
“No, I’m telling you most Army soldiers have this stuff.” I promised them. There had been a huge push to get us the latest and greatest toys when we deployed. Unfortunately, the Marines hadn’t been so fortunate, and they were at a huge disadvantage. For the first time, I could see how budget fights between the different services of the military could filter down to the lowest level.
We stayed up on the berm long enough for some of our tanks and Bradley’s to cross and drive toward the north side of the city. The Marines had been conducting feints into the city for the past couple of weeks to keep the insurgents off balance, and this was just another one of them.
“Hey sir, they want me to drop white phosphorous on the northeast edge of the city.” My forward observer said to me. He had his own radio and was talking directly to the guys who controlled our artillery back at Camp Fallujah. “Where do you want me to drop the stuff?”
I had no clue. It was dark as hell up there, and I had never seen the city in daylight. White phosphorous was like a big smoke screen, but with some special properties. First, it would burn anything that it landed on, and second, our thermal sights could see through it with no problem.
“Drop it by that light over there.” I instructed even though I had no idea if that was the corner of the city or not. It looked like it to me though so I went with it.
A while later, I could hear the rounds flying overhead and explode in midair. Out of each round, smaller canisters of smoke streamed to the ground. All of it looked like a big spider from the initial puff of smoke and the trails of smoke leading to the ground. After a few rounds of that, the entire area was covered in a white haze. It was all a practice for the main body’s assault into the city in a couple of days. They would use the phosphorous to obscure themselves as they pushed through the obstacle belt the insurgents had made around the city.
“Is that where you want it sir? I’ll register it if you have no corrections.”
Shit, I have no idea.
“Yea, looks good to me from here.” I hope I didn’t mess this one up.
Three days before the battle kicked off, each platoon in our task force got to take one truck for what was supposed to be a reconnaissance of the city. Since I could only take one vehicle, I put the top leadership of my platoon all into one truck and we rode out along with the rest of the task force. Our little reconnaissance consisted of about 15 humvees with all of the different people that wanted to come along. Even though we were very heavy on leadership, I wasn’t too worried about the enemy trying to mess with us since we were going to stay outside of the city at a safe distance. Plus, we were rolling deep with 15 gun trucks.
Anyway, we took off from the base and were driving along the Military Bypass up to the city. SGT Cowles was driving, SSG Danielsen was sitting in the truck commander’s seat because I wanted to make sure he knew exactly where he was going when he led the task force into the city, SSG Amyett was in the gunner’s seat, and the XO and I were sitting in the back of the truck. The Military Bypass is basically the road that runs on the safe side of the highway that is along Fallujah’s eastern border. About halfway up the city, there is the large cloverleaf intersection between that highway and the one that goes directly through the center of the city. My platoon’s one truck was somewhere in the middle of our large group of gun trucks when we stopped about a kilometer short of the cloverleaf and sat for a while.
The Marines had cordoned off the city several days earlier and weren’t letting anyone into or out of Fallujah at that point. To accomplish their mission, they had set up on the cloverleaf to control all traffic. Well, apparently the unit at the cloverleaf was in contact with the enemy, which is why we had stopped.
“Hell, why don’t we drive up there and help them out,” I said when I found out that the Marines were getting shot at. There wasn’t too much that I was afraid of with 15 gun trucks, even if there really wasn’t any command and control – we were more or less 15 individual trucks instead of one cohesive unit. Of course, we just sat there for a long long time. I even got out and took my first piss on Fallujah while I was waiting to see what was going to happen, but apparently we weren’t going anywhere fast.
“I’ve got three guys on a rooftop, two with AK-47’s and one with an RPG,” SSG Amyett said. While the rest of us were bullshitting inside of the truck waiting to move, he had taken the opportunity to see what he could see in the city with the LRAS. Well, apparently he could see pretty well from where we were sitting. The three insurgents were over a kilometer away inside of the city, but there were no friendly forces in the area so I thought we might be able to call for fire on them.
“Call it up, see if they’ll let us fire artillery on them. SSG Amyett, get us a grid to their location along with a distance and direction.” Although I was riding in the backseat of a humvee on a reconnaissance of the city, I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to kill some terrorists.
“Phantom6, Outlaw2, the LRAS has three armed insurgents on a rooftop inside the city. Two of them have AK-47’s and one is carrying an RPG.”
“Roger, standby, let me see if we can call for fire on them.”
We sat in the truck and continued bullshitting for a few more minutes while we waited for the CO to get permission to drop artillery on them. All of it was something of a surreal experience at the time. We rarely got to call for fire back in Baqubah where we normally conducted patrols. Any contact that we got into with the enemy usually didn’t last long enough to get all of the permission necessary to actually do it.
“Outlaw2, Phantom6, send me a grid to their location along with a distance and direction from where you are at and we’ll see if we can fire on their position.”
I couldn’t believe it was actually happening. I knew I was in Fallujah and all, but to call for indirect for real was out of this world. All of us in the humvee had gotten pretty excited and checked with SSG Amyett every couple of minutes to make sure that the insurgents hadn’t left their rooftop. The idea that those guys thought they were totally safe and didn’t know we were watching them from over a kilometer away made it even better.
We sat there and waited and waited. Finally, our CO came over the net and told us that our task force was having some problems talking to the Marines to get clearance for the fires. Apparently, they were using a different encryption for their radios than we were at the time, so no one in our patrol could talk to the Marine regimental headquarter’s radios.
“Outlaw2, Phantom6, it looks like this mission isn’t going to happen today.” It turned out that our commo problem with the Marines meant that we couldn’t get permission to fire into the center of the city.
We were all disappointed to say the least, but there were a couple of valuable lessons that we learned that day. First, we learned that we were having problems talking to the Marines on the radio. Whenever two difference services come together with their own ways of doing things problems like that arise. It was disappointing not to get to kill the bad guys that day, but at least when the battle really started, the Marines and our task force were talking to each other.
The second lesson that everyone learned was that the LRAS was more than a box that sits on top of a humvee. A lot of the higher leadership probably had no idea what an LRAS was until we did that reconnaissance mission. After that, everyone realized its capabilities and how it could be used.
“Man, that sucks.”
“Yea, but if he spotted these guys in only a couple of minutes, we’re going to have a field day once the fighting begins if they’re dumb enough to hang out on rooftops.”
The Rehearsal
It was a couple of nights before the battle, and we were conducting a rehersal. My platoon’s job was to drive up the military bypass route to the northeast corner of the city and establish a big assembly area. From there, we would guide all of our task force’s tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, humvees, and support trucks into position to wait for the battle to kick off.
It sucked. It was pitch black and we couldn’t see from one end of the area to the next. The whole thing needed to be several hundred meters long and wide, but the ground was so uneven that we couldn’t see from one end to the other. Eventually, we got it sorted out and were sitting around.
The whole time, the Marines up on the highway that were surrounding the city were shooting. From our position in the low ground, I had no idea what they were shooting at though. I could only see their tracer bullets flying out into the darkness, but couldn’t see or hear anything come back in our direction. Additionally, they kept shooting star clusters in the air, which are basically big Roman Candles that light up the ground. From where I was sitting, it only seemed to silhouette the Marine trucks up on the highway.
“Hey, Chris, take the LRAS truck up there and see what the hell is going on.” My commander instructed me.
SSG Amyett and I hopped in his truck and drove over to the highway. It was a steep drive to get to the top. From the bottom, I thought we might even flip over, until I thought that the Marines had managed to get up there and so it couldn’t be that bad.
His driver floored it from the bottom and I could feel us losing speed as we approached the top. Our front two tires crested the edge just as we lost almost all of our momentum, but with the humvee’s four wheel drive, they were enough to pull us the rest of the way.
We pulled up next to a Marine truck and SSG Amyett and I hopped out.
“Hey, can you tell me who’s in charge up here.” I said to one of the Marines.
“Roger, let me get the skipper on the hooks.” He said to me.
Only then did I realize the Marines were speaking a totally different language. “Skipper on the hooks? Sergeant Amyett, do you have any idea what he just said.”
“I was thinking the same thing. I think he’s getting his boss, and the hooks must be their radio.”
Eventually, someone walked up to me.
“What have you guys been shooting at up here?” I asked.
“Well, we’ve been taking contact from those two lights over there all night long.” The Marine responded.
“Hey, how far are those two lights over there?” I yelled up to my LRAS gunner.
“1800 meters. And I don’t see anyone there.” He came back with.
After a few more minutes of conversation, I realized for the first time that the Marines weren’t nearly as well equipped as soldiers in the Army. They had been shooting all night long with machine guns that were only effective for 600 meters at a target 1800 meters away. On top of that, they did not have any night vision equipment to speak of, and that’s why they kept shooting star clusters – to make sure no insurgents were climbing up the berm at them. When they saw how well we’d been equipped, they thought we must have been Special Forces.
“No, I’m telling you most Army soldiers have this stuff.” I promised them. There had been a huge push to get us the latest and greatest toys when we deployed. Unfortunately, the Marines hadn’t been so fortunate, and they were at a huge disadvantage. For the first time, I could see how budget fights between the different services of the military could filter down to the lowest level.
We stayed up on the berm long enough for some of our tanks and Bradley’s to cross and drive toward the north side of the city. The Marines had been conducting feints into the city for the past couple of weeks to keep the insurgents off balance, and this was just another one of them.
“Hey sir, they want me to drop white phosphorous on the northeast edge of the city.” My forward observer said to me. He had his own radio and was talking directly to the guys who controlled our artillery back at Camp Fallujah. “Where do you want me to drop the stuff?”
I had no clue. It was dark as hell up there, and I had never seen the city in daylight. White phosphorous was like a big smoke screen, but with some special properties. First, it would burn anything that it landed on, and second, our thermal sights could see through it with no problem.
“Drop it by that light over there.” I instructed even though I had no idea if that was the corner of the city or not. It looked like it to me though so I went with it.
A while later, I could hear the rounds flying overhead and explode in midair. Out of each round, smaller canisters of smoke streamed to the ground. All of it looked like a big spider from the initial puff of smoke and the trails of smoke leading to the ground. After a few rounds of that, the entire area was covered in a white haze. It was all a practice for the main body’s assault into the city in a couple of days. They would use the phosphorous to obscure themselves as they pushed through the obstacle belt the insurgents had made around the city.
“Is that where you want it sir? I’ll register it if you have no corrections.”
Shit, I have no idea.
“Yea, looks good to me from here.” I hope I didn’t mess this one up.
posted by REDSIX at 12:42 PM
12 Comments:
Just for perspective for the readers: around this time that Chris was doing all this,I was lying on my back in a pile of rocks with six other soldiers waiting for the bird to land at FOB Warhorse to take us to Camp Fallujah
You should definitely put "posted by Chris" at the top of the post...
All of 1LT Boggiano's posts are preceded with a CB.
Love this blog and a very glad to see that Lt. Prakash hasn't given up letting us read his fantastic stories. I hope that teaming with Lt. Boggiano makes the writing even easier.
Re: CB vs. "posted by Chris" - the latter is much more clear. For the new or casual reader they will have no clue what "CB" means (?citizen band?). The home page says very clearly its Neil's site (nothing about CB) - to figure out that CB means Chris Boggiano you've got to go to the June 8th post, scroll through all the text to the first comment, and then infer that the "Chris" Lt. Parkash is talking about is the author of the post and is Lt. Boggiano. Too much figuring out.
Beyond the details, Keep up the good work guys!
This is by far one of the best blogs on the net. Lt. Prakash paints a vivid picture of evey situation and adds color commentary you just dont see too much of. I am glad you guys made it back to Germany safe. Congrats on the decorations you and your men earned. I think they were well deserved.
I don't think the world realizes how well trained and educated the army is. Carry on. Job well done!
sorry for the confusion. also, i still feel like i'm talking to the original people who've been following along the whole way. the book will be organized differently. also, the author of these posts(Chris) talks about humvees. At no point was I ever in a humvee in Fallujah. I take this for granted as common knowledge since I intended for this to be read by just our family and friends.
Just family and friends? Your blog counter shows an average of almost 800 visits a day. You must have a really big family. I guess I am a friend, but you just don't know me. Looking forward to the book. I repeat the comments on the really good stories by all you guys.
Thanks for all the really great work.
You under estimate the drawing power of a good story teller. I've been following along for months now and have been recommending your site to friends from San Francisco to Washington DC. There are some state department folks who love your stuff.
I am quite ashamed of being of the same race as you. I'm Indian and I live in Canada and I do not agree with the war in Iraq or any other American war.
Everything from the IMF and WB to the American military are tools of the American capitalists and imperial forces, trying to crush the world beneath their boot.
You can bet that I don't like or agree with any of this crap. Take a look at http://www.flagrancy.net/timeline for a nearly full list of American atrocities and war crimes.
Americans, either directly or indirectly have participated in the killing of more people than the Nazis. They don't want to join the ICC? No surprise there. Only countries that harbour war criminals don't join War Crimes Courts. On the other hand, if the matter is 'free trade' (a euphemism for economic rape of the world and neo-colonialism) then they are at the forefront.
Thankfully, the America won't be a superpower for more than this century at best. Even if I may not live to see it, I can still be grateful. After two centuries of rape under the auspices of the Monroe Doctrine, the Latin American countries have told the USA to screw off. Chavez, in particular. But many other countries like Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina etc. have gotten rid of the neo-liberal scum that America forced down their throats and finally replaced it with some socialist governments.
And those moron Americans are plastic junking China to the top of the superpower charts. Morons are so greedy to save a buck or to make a quick buck that they are shooting themselves in the foot. India too, is on the rise.
American hegemony will fall sooner or later. Historically, no country that ever borrowed so much money from outside sources ever survived for long. US$ 7.7 Trillion in debt? And still rising?
America is going down, and good riddance.
If I were you, I wouldn't fight for a country that is so cruel and evil, and is the cause of so many of the world's problems.
P.S: Just for the record, I'm not Muslim, I'm Christian. Which means that I'm bound to point out evil, whatever form it may be.
Oh God, what a douche. Take that tired shit to indymedia.
Come to think of it, our anonymouns Indian-Canadian friend, given the state of the currently Liberal (party) government in Canada these days, along with the fact that Canada is a leaky ship with sizable percentages of people in multiple provinces willing to break away from Canada, it's high time the US orchestrated a coup in Canada and installed one of those US friendly governments that I read so much about on the link you provided. I mean, it's what we do, right?
Your article even linked to a conspiracy about we 'allowed' Pearl Harbor to be attacked to get the US into WW2, as if to argue that we shouldn't have joined into WW2 at all. This is exactly the kind militant pacifism & appeasement minded thinking expressed by you, and the many (pre-WW2) articles and authors cited that brought the whole world to war in the first place back then.
This only goes to show me that the same poeple have been saying the same things about the US for the last 150 years. What's changed? Nothing really.
I will now begin to lobby my local representative to the secret cabal to install a 'better' government in Canada. Sleep tight!
Canadians are lame and this is the best blog i have ever read....
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