31. Iraqi Army training compound

Written: April 5 - 10, 2003

Saturday, April 5th
Mission: Fly an electronic exploitation team to As Samawah where the 2nd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne is. Apparently, the 82nd has an Enemy Prisoner of War in custody. He is an Iraqi General. He may be under house arrest but not 100% sure. The plan, although it has changed about 3 times prior to departure and enroute: Initially, we were going to land in a compound on the southern outskirts of the city. By the time we woke up at 0100 zulu to begin preflight, the plan had changed so that we were now going to land in the city and across from the Generals house. The city has seen small arms fire being exchanged for the past few weeks. As the plan developed, we were able to print some maps of the area and decide on our course of action for completing this mission.

Due to all the last minute changes, we took off at 0320 zulu. The sun was up and it was a beautiful morning. We had a long day of flying ahead of us. CPT Hopingardner flew with me and Somkovic and Martin. We led the flight of 2 Blackhawks and one Apache. The Apache was flying with us for two reasons: 1) to provide security and 2) to get them flying since they hadn’t flown in a while.

We departed down the route. We flew to Udairi, Kuwait and got refueled then took off for Camp Virginia. We landed there after 3 hours of flying. We landed on a gravel pad in the middle of the camp. A few minutes after landing, CPT Shore came up to my window. I handed him is Wiley-X sunglasses and he was happy to see them finally. He then told me, “Gordo, it’s a hot LZ.” He told me that there was small arms fire in and around the LZ and that LTC Franks did not want us to go in there so he gave us an alternate LZ which ended up being the compound to the south that we had planned to originally. So, back to plan A. We took on 6 passengers. They sat on the floor of the aircraft since we do not have seats installed. Instead of having seats, we have ballistic blankets on the floor. They are made of steel plates covered in canvas and they will provide protection from small arms fire. The passengers sat on the floor. We had a mix of services and countries on board. We had a Navy Lieutenant Commander, a British Captain and some other people who I could not identify. We also had some Army Specialists.

We took off and crossed the border back into Iraq. We were headed to Tallil Airfield (An Nasariyah) to get hot fuel then continue on to As Samawah. We got fuel then took back off on the route. The crew chiefs locked and loaded their machine guns and conducted a test fire to make sure they were in working order. I talked to the Navy guy and we talked about some contingencies in the event that we took fire in the LZ or that we took fire and crashed/landed somewhere. As we proceeded inbound, I looked at my maps and coordinates over and over to make sure we were going to the right LZ. I knew that the city was to the north and that would be easy to avoid.

From the maps we had, the compound looked to be a large fenced in area with only one or two buildings. As we approached to the coordinates we were given, we found ourselves over an open field. Luckily, we were able to talk to Falcon 71 (the 2nd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne) on the radio. He had us in sight and directed us to his location 300 to 500 meters away. We saw the bright landing panel that they put out and set up for an approach into this compound. The compound was surrounded by a concrete wall and was full of buildings. We were landing in a parking lot or something like it. All 3 aircraft landed and we were given permission to shut down and wait. This would make coordinating pick up much easier.

The exploitation team unloaded and got into some armored Humvees and departed approximately an hour after landing. We got out and walked around like Japanese tourists with cameras. The 2nd Brigade Air Officer escorted us around the complex and told us what he knew.

He told us that last night, there was a huge firefight at an intersection a few hundred meters away. Tracers were flying everywhere and RPG’s were exploding all around as well. He said it was chaos because you couldn’t tell where anything was coming from—friendly or enemy.

He explained that the compound was an Iraqi Army training compound. The buildings had bullet holes all over them and some holes blown through them. One building had been hit by artillery and there was a fresh hole from an explosion near the base of it.

The Iraqi soldiers had been living in concrete rooms that were nasty to say the least. Perhaps the American infantry went in there and trashed the rooms, but either way, there was human waste on the floor of many of the rooms. The doors were knocked down and the rooms were a mess.

We walked around and explored all the places we could see. The Military Police had a Prisoner of War holding cell and the building was spray painted with a large “PW” on it to alert everyone not to blow it up because there were prisoners in there.

It was an extremely hot day made even hotter by the fact that we were on concrete so the heat reflected much more than in the sand.

The main road leading into the city was right outside of the wall. There were Iraqi citizens driving all over and some suspicious vehicles would drive by quite often.
We went back to the aircraft to relax and get out of the heat. We were all sitting in the bird talking when we heard a large explosion. We all looked at each other and kept lying there. We then heard another and another until 6 or 8 blasts had been heard. These blasts were from outgoing, US artillery. They were shooting right over our head and were only 100 meters behind us. We could barely hear the thuds as they impacted their targets.

After that we walked to the arms room to see all the destroyed Iraqi weaponry. There were grenades all over the floor and there were boxes of magazines and bayonets in some of the rooms. Other rooms had stacks upon stacks of AK-47’s and other rifles. The wooden stocks were burned away. It looked like the rooms had been burned with an incendiary grenade.

We picked up some magazines and a bayonet and found an RPG (rocket propelled grenade) launcher. We stood by it to get a picture with it and I decided to pick it up to hold it for the picture. I bent down to get it and noticed that there was a grenade inside of the trumpet looking end. I put it back down carefully and we took our picture.

We walked back to the aircraft and found some Humanitarian rations. We were given a box of them to try.

On our walk back we looked into some other rooms and came across the war head for an RPG lying on the ground near an Iraqi sign. It appeared that it was in tact and had not been fired yet. We took pictures of it.

We went back to the aircraft. We told the passengers that we had to leave by 12:30 zulu if we were going to make the trip back. They arrived at 12:25 and had a lot of seized equipment to load up. They had 5 or 6 new looking computers, bags of papers, files, folders and other stuff.

We could see in the distance that the artillery rounds had caused something to burn with thick black smoke and it was rising in the air.

We got everything loaded and headed back to Camp Virginia. We dropped them and all their seized equipment off on the pad then continued to Doha for the night.

We landed in Doha right at sunset. 7 hours of flying made for a long day. We were all extremely tired and hungry. We laid around on the concrete sleeping and trying to re-hydrate from all the heat. We all had headaches and were visibly drained.

After a few hours of waiting, we were given some food from the chow hall that the Medevac had left over from dinner. We all felt much better especially after eating a few pieces of cherry pie. Amazing the differences in food between what we get in the dirt of Rams and what other people get down here in Kuwait. We waited around for a few more hours then finally got a ride to a warehouse where we slept.

Sunday, April 6th
Slept very well. Tried to leave Doha to head back to An Najaf, but had 2 aircraft broken so we stayed. Enjoyed subway and chocolate shakes!

Monday, April 7th
Stuck in Doha due to weather so we ate more subway, chocolate shakes and relaxed with email and phone calls home!

Tuesday, April 8th
Still stuck in Doha due to weather. Enjoyed more food, email, and phone calls.

Wednesday, April 9th
Stuck yet again due to weather.

Thursday, April 10th
Good weather. Finally left Doha, Kuwait and made the flight back to An Najaf, Iraq (Tactical Assembly Area Rams). If you can believe it, we were actually getting sick of stuffing our faces with shakes and fast food every day--but that didn't stop us from eating it. It was an uneventful, 3 hour flight. I am happy to be back with all my friends but it sure sucks being back in this shit hole. My stuff (bed) is covered in a layer of dirt and the conditions haven't improved. Ahh...the good life! haha