11 November: The Grundle of Boggiano
Just to warn everyone, I am not Neil and I don’t write as well as him. My name is Chris Boggiano, and there is a reason why you are about to read one of my stories instead of his. Basically, Neil and I talked over one particular fight that happened while we were in Fallujah and agreed that this story was best told from my perspective, since my ass was the one being saved and he was the one saving it, so I offered to tell all of his fans what happened when Red 6 saved the day.
By the third or fourth day of the battle, TF 2-2 had killed just about all of the insurgents in the northern sector of the Fallujah. We had been holding our positions near Route Julie for the past few days waiting for the marines to catch up on their side of the city. Other than a couple of clearing operations in the area immediately south of Julie, no one had touched the southern half of the Fallujah.
On this particular day, my platoon was tasked with driving into the desert outside the southeast corner of the city to try to spot insurgents on rooftops with our LRAS sight and then call for artillery on them. In the morning, we tried a few different positions, but didn’t have much luck because the land was completely flat. The LRAS can see very far, but unless we had some high ground to look into the city, we could not see past the first couple of rows of houses on its edge. We still managed to call one fire mission and kill two insurgents standing on a rooftop with AK-47’s but other than that we were blind.
Naturally, once my platoon realized that we weren’t being very useful, they started goofing off. Joking around had been a consistent theme the entire time we were there, regardless of whether we were getting shot at or not we were always laughing about something. While we were at one spot just outside the city, we found a giant hole in the ground that everyone deemed a good spot to go and take a crap. As most of my platoon rotated through their turn in the pit, the guys who weren’t down in the hole had to throw stuff at the ones who were. It all started with some rocks and sticks, which brought howls of laughter. A few minutes later, after the usual escalation of pranks, a High-Concentrate smoke grenade landed three feet away from me just after I had dropped my pants and started my business. My ever so clever platoon had waited for the right moment, so they got to watch their platoon leader hop around for a couple of minutes with his pants around his ankles trying to get upwind of a big cloud of smoke.
While all of this hard work was going on, the rest of the troop was clearing along the very eastern edge of the city south of Route Julie. So, the other scout platoon along with the tanks and Bradley’s were basically driving down different streets trying to get shot at and looking for suspicious buildings or weapons caches. Other than some random gunfire though, they had not seen much contact the entire day and were steadily pushing south toward the part of the city that my platoon was watching.
Earlier in the morning, we had stopped and talked with some marines that were part of the unit that was surrounding the city to make sure that no one entered or left. They had a platoon of LAV-25’s, which are like Bradley’s on wheels since they have the same 25mm cannon. After passing them, we moved into our first position and started scanning the city. Shortly after getting there, a sniper started shooting at us from one of the few houses in the open desert to our north. I called the marines on the radio and had them fire some TOW missiles and 25mm rounds into one house in particular that we thought our sniper might be hiding. After they went to work, the sniper stopped taking shots at us so we figured that we had killed him or at least he would think twice before sticking his head up again to shoot at us.
A few hours later, I repositioned my four trucks farther north thinking that the ground there might be just high enough so that my LRAS gunner could see deep into the city. We moved closer to the city, still two kilometers south of the rest of our troop so we could safely call in artillery on enemy targets without having to worry about the rounds hurting any friendlies. The position that I wanted to go to happened to be 100 or so meters away from the house we thought we had taken sniper fire from that morning. I decided that we would drive up there, shoot into the house some more just to be sure that no one was there, and then send some dismounts in to clear it. The house was all by itself and about 300 meters outside of the actual city so we didn’t feel too threatened when we rolled up to it.
Normally, I go on every dismount mission since that is where my platoon’s main effort is and I leave one of my senior NCOs back to take charge of all of the trucks. Well, both of my senior NCOs were arguing over who would get to clear the house so I decided that I would let both of them go and I would stay with the trucks for once. After all, I didn’t think there would be anything too exciting there after shooting it up that morning and again just before clearing it.
Just about everyone in my platoon dismounted from their Humvees and linked up at my truck. The only people staying back would be myself and the gunner on each truck to overwatch the dismounts and communicate with the rest of the troop. Shortly after linking up, everyone took off running toward the front door of the house. It was about 100 meters to the door, so my wingman, SSG Danielsen, ran directly from his truck just as the rest of the dismounts took off running from my truck.
In what turned out to be one of the funniest and scariest moments of the entire battle, shooting erupted from several houses on the edge of the city after they got about halfway to the house. I say it was funny because I watched all of my rough and tough scouts tuck their tails between their legs and turn right around and run away from the house they were supposed to go clear. I couldn’t really blame them though since the house became a whole lot less interesting once the shooting started.
SSG Danielsen never got to link up with everyone else at the door and was stranded by himself out in the open. Once the shooting started, bullets were kicking up the sand at his feet so he ran and dove behind a berm. Another one of my NCOs, SGT Bremer, saw him pinned down, took off running after him across 100 meters of open desert, did the same bullet-dodging dance, and finally dove next to his battle buddy.
SSG Danielsen is a 6’5” tough guy/goofball who’s only been in the Army 5 years but rose through the ranks fast enough to act as my platoon sergeant during the battle. SGT Bremer is a man we affectionately call “Meat,” mostly because he’s the 230 lb. corn fed Iowa type. He’s a lot like a German Shepherd – big, mean looking, and the most loyal guy I’ve ever met in my life. Anyway, both of them were now stuck behind a berm, separated from the rest of their platoon, and listening to bullets hit the sand all around them. Realizing their situation, Meat looked at SGT Danielsen and said the famous line from the Snickers commercials, “Not going anywhere for a while.” After that, they spent the next two minutes giggling like school girls about their predicament while they waited for help to arrive.
For the first 30 seconds after all of this shooting started, I really had no control of anything in my platoon. The first thing that I did was yell for my driver to get back into my truck and drive us straight toward the shooting so that we could go help out the two guys I had pinned down. While that was going on, I called up to my troop commander and told him that the whole side of the city had just started shooting at us out of nowhere. Luckily, the marines and my artillery forward observer were both on my platoon net, so within seconds I had the marines with their LAV-25’s shooting at different fighting positions and an artillery mission in the works. The different fighting positions must have been fortified because they just kept on shooting at us despite our returning fire with Mark-19, .50 Cal, 7.62mm and the 25mm HE rounds.
The next transmission over the troop net was “Outlaw 1, this is Red 6, I have eyes on where your rounds are impacting. Round on the way.”
As luck would have it, 1LT Prakash was monitoring the net and happened to be in the right position at the right time. He was still over 1500 meters away, but since he was clearing the edge of the city with the rest of the troop, all that he had to do was drive a couple hundred meters and he had a clear shot all of the way down to the houses that were firing at us. In what had to be one of the most awesome and beautiful sights I have ever seen, I watched the red streak of a HEAT round – one that I didn’t even ask for – fly from across the horizon and explode in a giant ball of fire in one of the houses that was shooting at us.
“Outlaw 1, was that the house that was shooting at you?”
“That was fucking awesome! Can you do that to the rest of them?”
“Roger, where are they, south or west of that house?”
“Just keep working your way west of the house you just shot at”
“Roger, they’re all lined up like ducks in a row. Round on the way.”
After that, I watched as LT Prakash lobbed HEAT round after HEAT round, systematically destroying every house that had been shooting at us. Within a minute, he had silenced every single enemy gun. We still dropped 15 or 20 artillery rounds on the area after he finished, just to be sure that any bad guys who were still thinking about living didn’t make it out of there, but it was more of an afterthought than anything.
And that is how Red 6 saved the day.
By the third or fourth day of the battle, TF 2-2 had killed just about all of the insurgents in the northern sector of the Fallujah. We had been holding our positions near Route Julie for the past few days waiting for the marines to catch up on their side of the city. Other than a couple of clearing operations in the area immediately south of Julie, no one had touched the southern half of the Fallujah.
On this particular day, my platoon was tasked with driving into the desert outside the southeast corner of the city to try to spot insurgents on rooftops with our LRAS sight and then call for artillery on them. In the morning, we tried a few different positions, but didn’t have much luck because the land was completely flat. The LRAS can see very far, but unless we had some high ground to look into the city, we could not see past the first couple of rows of houses on its edge. We still managed to call one fire mission and kill two insurgents standing on a rooftop with AK-47’s but other than that we were blind.
Naturally, once my platoon realized that we weren’t being very useful, they started goofing off. Joking around had been a consistent theme the entire time we were there, regardless of whether we were getting shot at or not we were always laughing about something. While we were at one spot just outside the city, we found a giant hole in the ground that everyone deemed a good spot to go and take a crap. As most of my platoon rotated through their turn in the pit, the guys who weren’t down in the hole had to throw stuff at the ones who were. It all started with some rocks and sticks, which brought howls of laughter. A few minutes later, after the usual escalation of pranks, a High-Concentrate smoke grenade landed three feet away from me just after I had dropped my pants and started my business. My ever so clever platoon had waited for the right moment, so they got to watch their platoon leader hop around for a couple of minutes with his pants around his ankles trying to get upwind of a big cloud of smoke.
While all of this hard work was going on, the rest of the troop was clearing along the very eastern edge of the city south of Route Julie. So, the other scout platoon along with the tanks and Bradley’s were basically driving down different streets trying to get shot at and looking for suspicious buildings or weapons caches. Other than some random gunfire though, they had not seen much contact the entire day and were steadily pushing south toward the part of the city that my platoon was watching.
Earlier in the morning, we had stopped and talked with some marines that were part of the unit that was surrounding the city to make sure that no one entered or left. They had a platoon of LAV-25’s, which are like Bradley’s on wheels since they have the same 25mm cannon. After passing them, we moved into our first position and started scanning the city. Shortly after getting there, a sniper started shooting at us from one of the few houses in the open desert to our north. I called the marines on the radio and had them fire some TOW missiles and 25mm rounds into one house in particular that we thought our sniper might be hiding. After they went to work, the sniper stopped taking shots at us so we figured that we had killed him or at least he would think twice before sticking his head up again to shoot at us.
A few hours later, I repositioned my four trucks farther north thinking that the ground there might be just high enough so that my LRAS gunner could see deep into the city. We moved closer to the city, still two kilometers south of the rest of our troop so we could safely call in artillery on enemy targets without having to worry about the rounds hurting any friendlies. The position that I wanted to go to happened to be 100 or so meters away from the house we thought we had taken sniper fire from that morning. I decided that we would drive up there, shoot into the house some more just to be sure that no one was there, and then send some dismounts in to clear it. The house was all by itself and about 300 meters outside of the actual city so we didn’t feel too threatened when we rolled up to it.
Normally, I go on every dismount mission since that is where my platoon’s main effort is and I leave one of my senior NCOs back to take charge of all of the trucks. Well, both of my senior NCOs were arguing over who would get to clear the house so I decided that I would let both of them go and I would stay with the trucks for once. After all, I didn’t think there would be anything too exciting there after shooting it up that morning and again just before clearing it.
Just about everyone in my platoon dismounted from their Humvees and linked up at my truck. The only people staying back would be myself and the gunner on each truck to overwatch the dismounts and communicate with the rest of the troop. Shortly after linking up, everyone took off running toward the front door of the house. It was about 100 meters to the door, so my wingman, SSG Danielsen, ran directly from his truck just as the rest of the dismounts took off running from my truck.
In what turned out to be one of the funniest and scariest moments of the entire battle, shooting erupted from several houses on the edge of the city after they got about halfway to the house. I say it was funny because I watched all of my rough and tough scouts tuck their tails between their legs and turn right around and run away from the house they were supposed to go clear. I couldn’t really blame them though since the house became a whole lot less interesting once the shooting started.
SSG Danielsen never got to link up with everyone else at the door and was stranded by himself out in the open. Once the shooting started, bullets were kicking up the sand at his feet so he ran and dove behind a berm. Another one of my NCOs, SGT Bremer, saw him pinned down, took off running after him across 100 meters of open desert, did the same bullet-dodging dance, and finally dove next to his battle buddy.
SSG Danielsen is a 6’5” tough guy/goofball who’s only been in the Army 5 years but rose through the ranks fast enough to act as my platoon sergeant during the battle. SGT Bremer is a man we affectionately call “Meat,” mostly because he’s the 230 lb. corn fed Iowa type. He’s a lot like a German Shepherd – big, mean looking, and the most loyal guy I’ve ever met in my life. Anyway, both of them were now stuck behind a berm, separated from the rest of their platoon, and listening to bullets hit the sand all around them. Realizing their situation, Meat looked at SGT Danielsen and said the famous line from the Snickers commercials, “Not going anywhere for a while.” After that, they spent the next two minutes giggling like school girls about their predicament while they waited for help to arrive.
For the first 30 seconds after all of this shooting started, I really had no control of anything in my platoon. The first thing that I did was yell for my driver to get back into my truck and drive us straight toward the shooting so that we could go help out the two guys I had pinned down. While that was going on, I called up to my troop commander and told him that the whole side of the city had just started shooting at us out of nowhere. Luckily, the marines and my artillery forward observer were both on my platoon net, so within seconds I had the marines with their LAV-25’s shooting at different fighting positions and an artillery mission in the works. The different fighting positions must have been fortified because they just kept on shooting at us despite our returning fire with Mark-19, .50 Cal, 7.62mm and the 25mm HE rounds.
The next transmission over the troop net was “Outlaw 1, this is Red 6, I have eyes on where your rounds are impacting. Round on the way.”
As luck would have it, 1LT Prakash was monitoring the net and happened to be in the right position at the right time. He was still over 1500 meters away, but since he was clearing the edge of the city with the rest of the troop, all that he had to do was drive a couple hundred meters and he had a clear shot all of the way down to the houses that were firing at us. In what had to be one of the most awesome and beautiful sights I have ever seen, I watched the red streak of a HEAT round – one that I didn’t even ask for – fly from across the horizon and explode in a giant ball of fire in one of the houses that was shooting at us.
“Outlaw 1, was that the house that was shooting at you?”
“That was fucking awesome! Can you do that to the rest of them?”
“Roger, where are they, south or west of that house?”
“Just keep working your way west of the house you just shot at”
“Roger, they’re all lined up like ducks in a row. Round on the way.”
After that, I watched as LT Prakash lobbed HEAT round after HEAT round, systematically destroying every house that had been shooting at us. Within a minute, he had silenced every single enemy gun. We still dropped 15 or 20 artillery rounds on the area after he finished, just to be sure that any bad guys who were still thinking about living didn’t make it out of there, but it was more of an afterthought than anything.
And that is how Red 6 saved the day.
posted by REDSIX at 12:38 AM
27 Comments:
First of all, SGT P did all of the HEAT chucking. And PFC Langford busted his butt loading round after round. I worked as a loader on SSG Terry's tank on 13 November when my tank went down and I had to jump track. Being a loader is no joke. SPC Mewborn is hands-down, the best damn driver in the army. He still has yet to hit anything with the tank that he hasn't intended to. Also, in black-out drive with no illumination, driving a tank is harder than hell. But this is an all-star crew. And this story is a tribute to tankers.
It's a tribute to all of you and the way you work together and look out for one another. Thanks for your work over there.
Silk
You have no idea how much we appreciate you and what you are doing.
You write just fine, Sir. I can just imagine Neil in the white hat, riding a tank to the rescue. The hole visual wasn't a pretty one, but it was funny.
Keep up all the great work guys. Ya'll are going a wonderful job and we're behind you all the way. You make us proud!
Please organize these stories and write a book before some lame ass reporter does.
BigG
That absolutely kicks ass!! -Marc
Marines with a capital "M", gentlemen! Now carry on with the terrorist sss kicking! Oooh Rah!
Outstanding!! Thank goodness you are on our side. Keep your heads down and stay safe.
Y'all need to let up on us Legs, but other than that, this is the Best damn Milblog I've read. Keep on smokin em when you find em.
Great writing, Chris! Thanks for sharing the other side of Neil's story with us. You should start up a blog yourself.
I love reading the stuff you guys post because it puts a human face on our efforts over there. And it lets us know that it's not just about an assault here or an IED there, but it's also about real people grab-assing and chucking smoke-grenades at each other.
kman
Chris- you did a great job! The crapper hole was hilarious! Brings a whole new meaning to the terms "stink bomb" for me! LOL!
I'm not suprised 6 wouldn't write about this, especially after reading his comments to your post. I love the way you guys see this as a family affair, and simply taking care of your own by doing your job. There's no bravado, no self-gratification. Just "I did what I did, and now I'm going to write about it". Cool.
Stay safe and come home together as a team!
Hey, when is the Army going to get a Cherry Picker version of the LRAS truck, that would solve your hill problem.
Hey, glad to hear that you guys got out of that hole okay.
Thinking and praying about you guys.
Chris this is good stuff. Let me second the suggestion that you start your own blog. You and Neil both need to write your own books about your Iraq experience. The MSM won't report this kind of thing, if we don't hear it from you, we don't hear it.
Phil
Chris this is good stuff. Let me second the suggestion that you start your own blog. You and Neil both need to write your own books about your Iraq experience. The MSM won't report this kind of thing, if we don't hear it from you, we don't hear it.
Phil
Great story Chris!
Thanks,
Agnieszka
Go get em' guys!!! We love you and pray for you here in the U.S.!!!!!!
It sounds to me like you guys are just having a damn giggling good time out there playing jihadis and indians and giggling your heads off. Just don't get careless! Love you all and thanks for telling the story of 'Red 6'. Now...BEHAVE YOURSELVES! I don't want to have to come over there and straighten you out! :^)
foreign devil on lgf
this blog was referred by little green footballs. what a wonderful site. great stories. i was riveted. it's so nice to hear what is REALLY going on over there. the media coverage over here is terrible. i get different stories when talking to the wives of servicemen about what is going on. it's like there are 2 worlds or something. keep up the good work. and yeah, publish a book on all of this.
leslie
All of this would be a great material for a movie. There aren't that many, and none that describe the Iraqi war experience that don't have a strong political bent.
Awesome story.
Keep up the good work and watch your butts.
God bless you guys!
I'm going to take a little different tact here Chris. First, I'm glad your little adventure turned out ok. Obviously, it was no ones day to die.
But, from a command point of view, I suggest you get your shit together. The laughs will stop as you zip up the body bag next time. You let your guys wander off 100 meters, towards a house that had not been properly cleared? You end up with a bunch of your troops doing the sand lot shuffle because you are so far out of position and then find humor in your screw up?
Honestly son, I would give you a "Come to Jesus" chat during your after action report. Kudos to Red 6 pulling your ass outta the fire, but you might want to consider a bit more attention to detail before you have to write a letter home telling a wife/mother how her son got his ass shot.
It's not safe until you are outta missle range on the bird home. You might want to remember that.
The Colonel
To the COLONEL:
The scouts are big boys and the platoon sergeant can take care of himself. Also, you had to be there to understand the situation.
To everybody else:
Thank you for all of the email and congratulations. My soldiers are just now getting their BSM Vs, and ARCOM Vs for Baqubah. I'm looking for photos to post from the ceremonies. I was on mission when some of them were awarded. We still stay busy with combat patrols but we leave back a guy who is getting his award. Yeah that's right, it a too bad when the platoon can't be there to watch one of its soldiers get an award. But the men understand...MISSION FIRST.
This is pretty much the best milblog I've seen yet for sheer entertainment value. 2Slick might do some good reporting on the politics of the situation, but since I've started digging through your archives, I've gotten more than a few puzzled looks from coworkers -- I've been hopping around in my chair, unable to peel the shit-eating grin off my face. I read your blog and wonder why the bad guys even try.
Keep the good news coming, and God bless.
Well I just had to look up what a Grundle was on Google. Unfortunately I did it at work, heh heh. Does it mean something different to you guys?
Thanks for everything you guys and gals are doing over there...It's interesting to see that the fruit of that labor and sacrifice is starting to pay off in so many ways. Iraq is the keystone to the entire war on terror and we may shortly see a demonstration of the wisdom of that policy in Lebanon, Syria and Iran.
As an old Cavalry platoon leader and Armor company commander, I read your blog with great appreciation. I, too am familiar with the environs of Scheinfurt, with Ledward and Conn barracks a happy memory. At that time, though, wee were focused on the enemy that was understandable-the USSR. Not wanting to put my family in second place by going SF when the Wall came down, I decided to chuck it all and got out.
Biggest mistake of my life.
Everything you are doing is presented with a great sense of humor and style. What most of your readers cannot come to grips with is the sense of omnipotence a tanker enjoyswhen he hears that "On the WAAAY!" BOOM! yet you come closer than most, including Clancy, Coyle and Hans Von Luck.
Congratulations to you and your men. Thank you for your continuing service to your nation. Where/when do I buy the book?
MAJ R.
"living vicariously through milblogs"
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