Danger Close at Al Rasheed
On 09 April 2003, the 1st Marine Division was driving hard into Baghdad, and 3/7 was leading the way. As usual, Company L took the big lead for the Battalion (mainly because of the reputation our Fire Support Team, or FST, had in previous engagements during the “March Up”). These engagements included covering the breach for the Division at Lane Orange 3A on the Iraq — Kuwait Border, as well as destroying enemy air defense assets in the city of An Numenyah utilizing laser-guided Hellfire missiles fired from the AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter. We fired (22) Hellfire missiles using our GLID via “snakes” up to this point, and today would be another excellent example of our skill with that unique technology and that deadly aircraft.
We had been up all night raiding a Military Prison — we had just missed securing captured American Prisoners of War (to include Jessica Lynch). The Navy Seals shit the bed as usual, and we got there late because of it. At any rate, Lima FST was passed out in the pitch black of the Prison Commanding General’s palatial office upstairs as Company L ran through the place with flashlights, gathering intelligence that had been left there a short time earlier by fleeing commanders. Minutes earlier, Lima’s Command Element (to include the FST) was almost all wasted outside the Prison while our Marines secured it. The Skipper wanted illumination on the objective because it was pitch-black. In the distance around us were explosions, gunfire, occasionally ZPU-23 tracer going up into the air, and so forth — scary stuff, ladies and gentlemen.
So I give the order to Jules, and he “dials it in to the FDC”… minutes later, this screaming 155mm illumination round comes crashing down about 20 meters from us and tumbles down the long street on fire, with white-hot flames flaring everywhere. It was pretty terrifying, actually. The thing finally fizzled out after crashing into some building down the street that had a giant puddle of human excrement leaking out of the side of it. Obviously, someone at the gun line forgot to set the height of burst and so forth. So then the Skipper says calmly, “Ok, Tom, let’s cool it with the illum rounds…”
“Aye aye Sir…”
We finally get word we are moving out; the Wagonburner is literally slapping me in the face to try and wake me up, as I am completely passed out from exhaustion on this big ass leather sofa in the Commandant’s Office. I have the radio and battleboard at my feet. Finally, I stir, followed by the frustrated Cobra pilot’s “Christ…” I scrape off the pus leaking from what seemed like one hundred strange bug bites all over my body. The heat was unbearable, and my head pounded from dehydration (although I was thrilled to be out of the fucking MOPP suit finally).
I grab my shit, and my crew stumbles downstairs and outside the walled compound to the familiar sight of pissed-off, hungry, and exhausted Marines lined up preparing to move into the AAVs in pitch black. Platoon Sergeants and Squad Leaders shouting obscenities at Marines to motivate them to move more quickly. We were going to head to another location and wait before moving to secure the Ministry of Oil in downtown Baghdad. This was it; the big one, finally, and we were hours away from it. The exhaustion could wait until we got safely onto one of those fucking rooftops, and I could pass out like I usually do. Until then, it was to load up in the tracks, get to that grid point, and wait for Battalion to tell us to move in.
As soon as I get in the track (we were in the command track co-located with the Company Commander always — we also had the Company First Sergeant with us), I pass right out…as does most of the FST. The sun was starting to rise as Lima moved out of the Military Prison. In our possession were 10 MOPP suits of American prisoners of war that we would have secured if the prima donna SEALs didn’t shit the bed. First Sergeant Marty J. Berns stood up and out of the top of the track, keeping a vigilant eye on our AAV’s perimeter as the FST crashed hard inside the belly of the mechanized troop carrier.
On our way to that grid, the Skipper directs most of the Company to the grid and takes 1st Platoon with the command track to do a little “forward recon”. We were the northernmost Marine force at that point (Lima Company), and we had no flank support whatsoever. That grid point was there to keep us assembled as the rest of the Battalion moved up. George wanted to go deeper into enemy territory, so we (and 1st Platoon) got back on the Ad Dawrah Expressway and cruised down the major motorway into downtown Baghdad. The sky was filled with smoke, and there were A-10s raking positions in front of us. There wasn’t supposed to be any friendly ground forces in that area yet, so we needed to be really fucking careful.
As the 3 AAVs cruised down the highway toward one of the overpasses, we literally stumbled upon a Fedayeen Al Saddam (FAS) squad-sized element loaded with RPGs. We think they were all asleep when we all came charging down the road, as they didn’t start shooting at us until we cleared the overpass. They fired two RPGs right at our track. I woke up from a deep sleep to Marty screaming, “Wake the fuck up!!!” as he went cyclic with his M16, hot brass flying everywhere, and I fluttered my eyelids. It was so hard waking up, even then — I was that exhausted.
Just as I get to my feet, I look up out of the top of the track, and this orange fireball goes right over, and I can feel the heat on my face from the propellant. It was an RPG round that went right over the top of the track. Marty apparently got another one as well, that was sighting in on our track — he hit him in the chest, and the suicidal jihadist stumbled back and fired the RPG round up into the air. We shot our way out of that area until we were clearly up the road and away from those assholes. George knew at that point that we needed to get back closer to our people. We bisected our current route and made a few right turns back to our Company position. Marty Berns saved our lives that morning, no doubt.
That position was an access road that ran parallel to the Ad Dawrah Expressway. This was a key “Phase Line” for the Division and even the Corps, as General Mattis was trying to align all 3 of his Regiments along it to execute the “right hook” to plunge downtown and along the Tigris. The US Army 3d ID was occupying all of the areas south of the Tigris (this included Saddam Hussein’s main palace — the eventual US Embassy). Our small force pulled back into the Company lines all shook up, and I anxiously briefed Ike Moore about it when he and the other Platoon Commanders and Company Staff came over to the Command Track to get informed by the CO. Ike laughed it off as “fucking crazy man…”
Get Thomas O’Neil’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
The plan was for Lima to sit tight and wait for the rest of the battalionto catch up. From there, the Battalion would consolidate before attacking the Special Republican Guard Headquarters at Al Rasheed. So the AAVS were all lined up along this long, ten-foot-high concrete wall that ran along the access road. The turrets and also the top of the AAVs were just sticking over the wall — providing a great platform to shoot from, but you were exposed to enemy fire completely. Our FST was up there, and rifle squads were on top of each one, with an AAVto our left and right. Those Marines, plus the .5 and marks on the AAVs, were a tremendous amount of firepower.
Our FST was sitting up there, waiting to go “fuckin fangs out”… we had the battleboard out and updated with the most recent tactical control measures and the fresh locations of friendly/adjacent units (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT). Our beautiful 1:10,000 maps of Baghdad were all marked on the battleboard lamination to reflect these updates. We had the radios out, the SOFLAM (portable laser designation device) was out as well, and the Wagonburner (Major William R. Dunn — Forward Air Controller) had assumed a comfortable little position where he could lie back and use both the laser and theradio with ease. Jules (2LT Julio “Jules” Maessen — Forward Observer, 3d Battalion 11th Marines) was at the back of the track, and Corporal Ronny Spruell (3/7 81mm Forward Observer) was up towards the front. It was slow initially, and we took the boots off and aired them out, thankfully for 30 minutes, before dousing them with foot powder and putting the old socks back on again. I remember how tender my feet would feel after that process, as I laced up the boots. I digress…
It all started as one asshole in a beat-up station wagon…
I remember seeing this shit box slowly creep down the highway in front of us. The Ad Dawrah Expressway was 400 meters from our front, and there was no traffic on it. We did see cars occasionally drive down, but they were not shooting at us, so we were not shooting at them. Except for this shitty late-70s Oldsmobile Cutlass station wagon slowly moving down the motorway. The shit box stops, and out steps one Arab gentleman with a kufiyah on his head. He wore a sports coat, as I did, along with several others who observed him through our binoculars. I did not see a weapon, but I saw him raise his hand over his eyes, as if he were observing us. The Hajji then calmly walks back around to his passenger side, opens the door, pulls an RPG-7 out, and fires it over the heads of one of the tracks to my immediate flank. I grabbed my “condition one” M16 that was next to me, along with what I thought was probably 30 other Marines, and I “wore it out”, emptying one magazine of (28) 5.56 rounds in frustration at the FAS agent that was creeping down behind the wall that ran along the highway. No one hit him as he kept popping us head up and down. After 30 minutes of that nonsense, we shot our 60 mm over there, and things stopped for a while.
That was essentially the start of a 5-hour gunfight between them and us. We were in a hot FAS area…and these maniacs (who were hopped up on cheap speed called Capotigon) were waiting there for us, or some other unlucky chaps, and would fight and die in place defending this area. This guy somehow managed to contact his other associates in the general area, and everyone startedcoming over in “onesies and twosies”. After several hours, they got into a tall seven-story building that was on the other side of the highway, 400m away from us. They were on the top floors and the roof and started firing RPGs down onto the Company position. Wagonburner already got on the radio with Cobras shortly after we occupied that “blocking position”, and we initially had them doing reconnaissance of the battlespace around us. Once we took RPG fire, it was time for the old “Hey diddle diddle, Wagonbuner up the middle”. I would later coin this as “Just fucking hand off the ball to the Wagonburner and let him run for pay dirt”. He made some really nice, sexy laser shots with that GLID. He was literally putting hellfire missiles into windows of that building, and I watched as each whole floor would explode with a cloud of dust with a brief flash of the explosive from the 75K Raytheon warhead going off in someone’s living room. I am confident he shot (7) Hellfire missiles that day, making our total (29) since day one of the invasion…all from us squirting targets with the GLID.
So after we turn that building into a smoldering mess, the snakes come back behind us, and we tell them to push up past that building and let us know what’s beyond the highway. We were high-fiving after that episode…I was sitting behind Wagonburner while he was lying back in this position, squirting the target, and clearing the snakes hot on the radio. We were all sitting behind him, watching in awe as he did his deadly craft with the laser beam and the radio. I remember telling myself quietly, “This motherfucker is sick…” responding to his incredible skill as an Infantry Officer Course (IOC) trained Forward Air Controller in combat against the enemy. He was a “Grunt Pilot” because of this unique designation, and he had the entire respect of Lima Company and, by extension, the Battalion, as a real killer with the Cobras (especially while employing the GLID). We all watched timidly as the two snakes cautiously moved up to the highway, looking at Wagonburner for his response as he held the handset up to his ear.
Not long after, the two snakes make a violent, hard right turn — BREAKING CONTACT. Wagonburner turns his head towards us, looking like he’s just seen a ghost, and yells, “Holy Fuck, there’s 200 fucking guys over there, and they are shooting at the snakes!” The Pilots had frantically called back after taking heavy small arms fire from a crowd of those FAS assholes that were at the base of the building we were shooting hellfires at before. Remember, all we could see was the 5th floor and above, as that motorway was elevated. Everything below it was obscured by the compartmentalized urban terrain between them and us.
I saw the look he gave us, and I was speechless. That was the first time I ever saw the Wagonburner nervous. Up until that point, he had been our “rock” as he was older and more mature. Now, even he was uncertain because there were an estimated 200 suicidal irregulars over there. It made perfect sense as this battle had been going on for several hours, and they were making a plan to envelop and try to get around and behind us. This enemy “Assembly Area” is where units gather to socialize, rehearse battle plans, and handle logistics, such as ammunition distribution, before going into the attack. After the look, he immediately says, “Run fuckin arty on it, Tom…”
I immediately look down at my battleboard and mutter, “That is really fucking close, Sir…” I could see exactly where we were on those highly detailed maps, and had the 3/11 artillery gun target line plotted (with maneuver “slam lines” marked as well). This thing had “Danger Close” written all over it, and my sphincter constricted even more than after the Wagonburner told me about the 200 Hajjis by the building. Jules was shaking his head, almost telling me, “You’re nuts. Wagonburner says, “Hold on, I’ll get the 10 digit,” as he directs the snakes back over there, where they would use their laser to get it. Danger Close is defined as “If the Observer, or friendly units, is 600 meters or less away from the target, to keep themselves safe, or ‘get small’, meaning find cover immediately and wait for further instructions. This will automatically require the Forward Observer to go back and “re-check” all data submitted to the Artillery Fire Direction Center (FDC) before they execute that requested mission. We were 200 meters inside of Danger Close…very fucking risky.
While this was happening, I poked my head down and briefed the Skipper about the “tricky” dynamics of our potential Artillery mission. I quickly explained how close they were and that there was a significant “fratricide risk” because we were shooting an assload of artillery only 400 meters away from the Company position.
“Sir, please make sure you tell India Company to stay the fuck away until this shit is finished.
“Roger Tom, proceed with Fire Mission.”
When I came back up, Wagonburner was scribbling down the grid and repeating it back to the Cobra pilot after they had successfully “squirted” that area with the Cobra’s onboard laser system. I took that grid, plotted it with my black map pen, and looked at the “Battlespace Geometry. For that one second, I thought about the period of instruction at IOC, when I was selected by management to lead the FST exercise during the “final war” before we graduated. I can remember talking specifically about fratricide risk… career-ending moves, etc., and this was one of those moments where I felt I was risking a lot, possibly…the most significant being the lives of Lima’s Marines that were in position on our flanks. Fuck, maybe I would wipe out the FST and the CO with this shit…who knows?
Jules called it in. He was white in the face, and I could barely see his lips move under his big, unkempt bandito mustache as he called that deadly order in (he was half Spanish). As expected, they came right back and said it was Danger Close, so we had to wait a second to repeat the same information we just sent them. They came back about 1 minute later and told us we were confirmed for Battalion One of HE/VT, with a TOT (time on target) of less than 5 minutes. I can remember almost climbing up and stuffing my whole body into my Kevlar as I was expecting us or some other unlucky Marines near us to be eaten by hot shrapnel due to our proximity to the target. It seemed like an eternity waiting for that “shot over” from the FDC over the radio. And then it happened: Jules looked over at us and said, “Shot out.” We all ducked and looked downrange at the target area.
Seconds later, the most ominous sound one could ever hear filled our ears as we all hunkered down on the roof of our steel, mechanized mobile home covered with dirt, scum, tobacco juice, and human excreta. Eighteen air bursts filled the sky in front of us, dropping hot pieces of shrapnel down onto the ravenous enemy that was preparing to attack our position. We raked that area with steel rain, and we killed those enemies. We sent a squad out from 1st Platoon, and they went out and saw a bunch of blood and guts all over the deck (we only released them about 200 meters away from our perimeter, as we were going to move on to the next objective soon). The snakes were out of gas so that we couldn’t get a confirmed number of enemy KIAs (Battle Damage Assessment). Lima had to push north, and we moved away…but that Artillery shot was crucial in allowing the Battalion and Division unimpeded movement north for our final objective. That was their turf, and they would have gotten around us eventually, no doubt. We reacted very well to a situation that escalated quickly, and we captured the Ministry of Oil two days later. Semper Fidelis.
