8 November(D-Day): Screen Line

H-7:
”Red 6, Phantom 5. Send a tank/brad section back to the LRP(logistical resupply point) for fuel and food. Then rotate out.”

It was noon. I sent Legion 7 and Red 8 back to get fuel. The Brads were actually fine on fuel. Those turbocharged diesel engines go forever without filling up. Turbine engines are a whole different story. 6 hours is as long as we wanted to be out there before we needed another drink. We could always transfer fuel from our front cells to the rear, but that would be tapping into our reserves and that’s only for emergencies

SSG Terry and SFC Lanpher pulled off the highway and lumbered down the backside of the berm towards the fuelers and ammo trucks. We continued to fight on the highway, shooting down into the city. Earlier, around 0830, I remember looking behind me and down at the military bypass. Below me, the main effort - Avenger and Terminator - was marching into the attack position from Camp Fallujah. I knew they were watching us and envious of our position. Imagine rolling up onto the safe side of the battlefield, the city obstructed by a huge berm, and seeing your tank buddies just hammering away into the city. But you can’t see the city, and you still have eleven hours to go until you even get to enter the city.

Well now it was lunchtime, and we were just pounding away. The main gun was going to work.

“Wa-GUZSH, Wa-GUZSH.” That was SGT P’s sound for anything that required a sound effect conveying an ass-whipping.

I remember about 8 months back we were sitting in our tanks along a highway in Baqubah and SGT P was regaling his crew with a bar fight story. “…And then SSG Mac hit that dude in the jaw…Wa-GUZSH,”

“SGT P. What the hell is ‘Wa-GUZSH?’”

“It’s from an Andrew Dice Clay routine. Something about an alarm clock going off, Wa-GUZSH, Wa-GOUZSH, Wa-GUZSH!”

SGT P is about the most animated storyteller I know. Dickey…O’Rourke…You guys know me and my storytelling. My gunner tells stories with so much flailing, it makes me look comatose.

SGT P does his impression of the 1982 Cal kick off return to Stanford where the dude slam dunks the football into the trombone player of the Stanford band in the endzone. Even that slam dunk warranted a Wa-GUZSH. For the record, SGT P is about the main reason I stayed with this tank platoon when I was offered a specialty scout platoon with the BRT back in June. It’s not easy to leave when you have great people to work with.

We just fired the contents of our ready rack and it was only noon. “Sir, we just put about 15 rounds down range. Let’s cool it a bit.”

“Yeah that sounds good,” I said. 1LT B. was calling artillery on those houses anyways.

K-K-K-R-R-R-U-U-N-N-C-H

“Good Googaly Moogaly. What the hell was that?” SGT P asked.

“Goddam, SGT P. Did you see that? They’re dropping artillery like 200 meters in front of us.” The house in the corner just disappeared in grey and black smoke. The concussion made the air in my lungs shudder. I still felt safe even though the rounds were 200 meters ahead but I remember something about 500 meters being danger close.

K-K-K-R-R-R-U-U-N-N-C-H. The sound was unreal. Imagine someone taking a huge skyscraper. Lifting it up way high in the sky. And then dropping it on its side. That’s the only thing I could imagine sounding like that. It was not a boom or a clap. It was God slapping a building into the ground in a fit of rage.

We observed indirect fires for the next few hours. At 1500, Bravo section pulled up on the highway to relieve us. SSG Terry pulled up on the berm. His tank already looked like a shark with the huge mine plow attached to the front. Its spiked teeth set back in a grin. And then to top it off, he’s climbing up this steep berm and leveling off at the top. He really did look like some beast breeching the surface.

”Legion 9, Red 6. Let’s head for the LRP.” We backed up and turned down the berm. That in and of itself was a rollercoaster ride. A tank really is amazing in the terrain it can negotiate. We hit the flat desert ground and headed for the fuel and ammo trucks.

“Oh shit! Hang ON!” I screamed in my CVC. WHAM. There was a 4 foot drop-off in the flat ground and the tank slammed down.

“Ahhhhh shit. My FACE. Oh man.” SGT P hollered from his hole.

“Shit SGT P. You ok?” We stopped at the fuelers and I got out. SGT P climbed out of my hatch from his hole. He had a cut on his eyebrow from his face slamming into the GPS but he was ok otherwise. Desert terrain is mostly flat with wadis and ditches everywhere. The only problem is, with no vegetation and no sun, there are no shadows or contours to reveal the lay of the land. I felt pretty bad since the Tank Commander is ultimately responsible for maneuvering the tank.

“It’s alright. You’re not my first lieutenant, Sir.” He shook off the cut and got out of the tank to help fuel it up.

***I remember way back in April, we were parading around in the thick palm groves in Baqubah, looking for a counter ambush position to get the tanks into. The terrain was so tight, there was a wall on one side and a canal on the other. And the path was so narrow that half of the left side of track was hanging off of the path while the dirt was crumbling below it, into the canal. The right side of the tank was just barely missing the wall as we traveled along. I walked in front of the tank, leading with my back. My eyes were fixated on that left track, praying the path would hold 68 tons, as I stared at the center periscope of my driver’s hatch. I guided him with my hands until we reached a T-junction that ran along a berm. We had to make a sharp right because on the other side of berm was another canal running parallel to the dirt path we just intersected. So here were my choices: get this huge beast to make the hard right turn, or turn too wide and fall down into this new canal we just came upon. We inched the tank back and forth making hairline adjustments. There were points where the tank was sitting on the berm like a teeter-totter. It pitched forward and backwards on its fulcrum as my heart was pounding with anxiety.

Nothing is more embarrassing than getting your tank stuck or broken due to YOUR maneuvering. There’s a reason why the Lieutenant gets the most experienced tank commander as his wingman and the most experienced E-5 sergeant as his gunner. And as far as having a stacked deck, nobody has it better than Red 6. And I mean the previous Red 6, me, or the incoming 2LT when I leave...it doesn't matter. 1st Platoon is hot shit.

SSG Terry is from the old school. He enlisted during Desert Storm and has been tanking all of his life. He always busts on himself for his Arkansas Speak and his hillbilly “edumacation” as he calls it. But nobody knows the job better than him. And he does what NCOs do best; he provides solutions to problems and manages soldiers to accomplish the mission. He spits and barks when he’s tanking but he’s got a bigger heart than most people realize. God help you if he gets riled up though. His vocabulary reduces to "Goddam" and "Fuck." Like during a maintenance hang up, for example

"Goddammit, whatthefuck-yew-doin-downthere?? Don't make me fucking come down there and show yew how to do it again."

"But SSG Terry, it won't fit," or "I can't find it," or "I can't get it to stay," one of his soldiers would say.

This was always my favorite part. SSG Terry would get out of his hatch and get down in the dirt. He would rip whatever item the soldier was working with or kick him out of the way and do it himself. "Stop finger-fucking it. Goddam, how many fucking times have we done this? Do I gotta do everything myself?" He would then jerry-rig some contraption or ram the bolt home and Presto! The problem was solved.

SGT P started out as SSG Terry's driver and trained under him as his driver and eventually his gunner. He was a lot milder than SSG Terry, but he was similar in so many ways. He was a fast learner and a problem solver.

“SSG Terry is so damn salty and crusty. With his wood teeth and no gums,” SGT P said. I laughed my ass off. The man had real teeth but they were so stained from coffee and cigarettes that they had a grain to them like plywood. And they were like long wooden posts because his gums had receded so much. Wood Tooth Terry, SGT P called him.

With SSG Terry as my wingman, I could always rely on him to negotiate terrain. It was my job to maneuver the platoon, but in hairy spots, SSG Terry was a billygoat in a tank. I always knew where I was but if I had any doubts about passing through, I could just let him find a way through the muck. He had so much experience, he’d seen just about everything. Now with an NCO like SGT P on my tank, there was always someone on my tank I could refer to when I had my doubts. The worst officers are the ones who ignore their NCOs.


SGT P expressed his relief when we pulled out of that counter-ambush hide and got back on the hardball. He just trusted me on this one.

“Oh God I was terrified in the gunner’s hole,” he laughed. “I can’t see shit except the little tunnel vision of my gun tube sight. All I feel is the tank rocking back and forth and I have no idea what’s happening. That’s when I grab the Oh Shit Bar and hang on.” SGT P relaxed again and let go of the small metal handle bar that’s mounted at the top of his station.***


Back in the LRP, we refueled and pulled up to the Ammo truck. “We need more HEAT rounds,” SGT P hollered at the support guys.

I looked at my watch. It was 1600 on Monday. I hadn’t brushed my teeth or slept since Sunday morning. We grabbed a box of Otis Spunkmeyer muffins and Powerbars to throw in the sponson box(side of the turret storage boxes) and a case of Gatorade to throw in the bustle rack. When we were finished, I rounded up the infantry guys and we sped back to the highway.

We crested the berm and leveled out. The highway was littered with brass. There were huge puddles of 7.62mm brass and .50cal brass everywhere. Mk-19 grenade shells and links were all over the place. There was no doubt there was a firefight here. We continued to pound away at the city with indirect fire. 1LT B. was lethal with his call for fires. He tried not to take credit for it, crediting the LRAS for doing all of the dirty work, but he still took the initiative and made the adjustments on the rounds. His fire missions were taking out guys on rooftops everywhere. Those two enemy mortar rounds in the morning were the only two mortar rounds we took in the LRP that day.

We had fired almost 40 main gun rounds today. And by we, I mean my tank alone. The last serious engagement we had been in was 5 months prior in the Battle of Baqubah. We had fired 3 main gun rounds into the city that day and we had a hard-on for days.

I wondered if the enemy had any clue as to what was about to hit it. I couldn’t believe we were about to roll tanks into the tight streets of Fallujah. It was awesome. I remember sitting in an auditorium in Ft. Lewis, WA the summer of 2001 after my junior year of college. I was a cadet and we were getting a brief on the future of the army. The age of Armor was over, the slide show told us. Heavy tanks had no role in today’s army. We need to be lighter and faster. Well, I chose to go Armor the first minute I laid my eyes on a tank that summer. When I was branched Armor my senior year, my peers told me I wouldn’t even be on tanks. I’d probably be more like motorized infantry, or be on armored vehicles. BUT TANKS WERE OBSOLETE, the message screamed at me. Then I remember what COL Hoge from 4th ID told all of us officers from Task Force 2-63 in Germany, one month prior to deploying here. This place was designed for tanks. Tanks rule the land here. There isn’t a mission tanks can’t do in Iraq.

Damn Straight.

I shook my head in awe. The war machine was churning. The pieces were aligning themselves from what appeared to be a chaotic array of individual vehicles into a lethal arrangement of modern day phalanx. Like the Spartans dropping their spears in unison, the Abrams and the Bradleys formed side by side from front to back, gun tubes and armor orienting south. PCs and humvees brought up the rear. M88 recovery tracks roared loudest of all. With their twin turbocharged diesel engines revving, they were ready to pull a tank out of a shit-storm if one went down.

The main assault was about to begin.