"Operation Too Late"

In early January I was ordered to pull in my patrols and prepare to conduct a mission that would require all of my forces.  The mission was to guard a large Ammunition Dump to the northwest of the Forward Operating Base or FOB. I was given no amplifying information so I conducted a reconnaissance.. This revealed the ammunition dump was empty, not surprisingly, the enemy had cleaned it out!! When I returned, I showed the operations officer and battalion commander my reconnaissance pictures and recommended we don't waste our precious resources guarding an empty facility.

Me in early January 04 on a reconnaissance of the ammunition Dump. Visible in the background are the piles of packaging discarded by the enemy as they freely collected ordinance. I was unaware  that it was not guarded. It was initially not in my area of operations.

I was shocked when I was ordered to do the mission anyway. I strongly advised against this pointing out the folly of dedicating precious assets to guard an empty facility with an active enemy presence in our area.  In Army speak, I was ordered to "Shut up and color".

We arrived on January 4th and linked into a perimeter established by a sister unit. We executed a 24/7 guard of part of the facility that would continue for almost two weeks. It was uneventful since there was nothing left of value! We completed what became known to us as, "Operation Too Late" on January 16th. We resumed our patrols on January 17.

On that cool January morning the First Sergeant and I passed our morning patrol on the road as we headed to Tikrit to attend a staff meeting. When we arrived we were told to go to the "commanders hooch" - where the commander and command sergeant major lived. We were confused. The battalion commander pulled me aside and informed me that one of my Bradleys had just been destroyed by a massive IED and there were casualties. I looked at First Sergeant and said, "we need to get down there now". We sped back to Al Taji.

We could see the black smoke and helicopters circling over the site. The traffic was backed up for several miles.

The blast site was enormous. Big enough to hide a medium size pickup truck. I would find out from the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team that the bomb was comprised of at least 2, 155mm South African artillery rounds and 200lbs of PE 4 (Warsaw Pact military grade explosives). It was dug into a culvert around a water pipe connecting two irrigation ditches. The EOD assessed that a bomb of this size took at least a week to build. The IED was hard wired across a field (300 meters) and up to the side of an abandoned farm house. The enemy had used a succession of trash bags tied to the tops of overgrown weeds as aiming posts.

The blast was so large that it shot the turret of the Bradley into an adjacent field and flipped the hull upside down 30ft from the blast site. The combustible metals were ignited and the hull burned down to nothing. The vapor was toxic and much heroism was demonstrated that day but especially by the crew of the trail Bradley as a soldier crawled past the exploding ammunition to rescue the gunner and commander who were in the turret during the explosion. One of the soldiers M16 rifles was later found blasted into hull so deep it couldn't be recovered. Three American soldiers were killed, two were seriously wounded, and two of our Iraqi allies were also killed.

SGT Edmond Randle, SPC Larry Polly Jr, and PFC Cody Orr (the Team Bulldog soldier) of Kerrville, Texas were killed. They are missed and not forgotten.

To our disgust, after the attack there was no operational change. Our leadership continued to send us on the same worthless missions as if nothing happened. It is an understatement to say that we were outraged. I demanded change and after a tense showdown, I was authorized to move in a different direction as long as I did the planning. The Bulldog leadership collectively built a viable plan that stopped the attacks for the remainder of the time we were in Al Taji. I will discuss the methodoloy in a future post. But I remain angry over the incompetence and lack of care demonstrated by elements of our leadership.

Military leaders are taught to lead under stress and follow orders.. but what do you do when the trust that glues this all together breaks down?  We are not taught how to handle situations in which the problem is our leadership - this needs to be discussed!

At some level I feel responsible for the death of the men who died on January 17, 2004. I wish I would have fought harder at higher levels to keep this mission from happening. I knew it was a bad move to place 100% of our assets in one location. It pains me that those men lost their lives. I think of them all the time, wondering what they would have done with the rest of their lives, what their childern would have become? I ended up staving off other senseless missions and brought night operations online that successfully targeted IED emplacement. In the almost three months that remained of our deployment we didn't have another Bradley attacked or have another Soldier killed. I attribute this success to the innovative nature and bravery of our men. God Bless the USA, and the citizenry who trust our Officer Corps with their most precious blessings - their children.

Iraq - The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly!!

The Good:  I believe military leadership is based on a trust between leaders and subordinates. Subordinates rely on competent engaged leaders to do their best in building military missions. There exists a kind of implied trust between them. The leader trusts that the subordinate will do the assigned task to the best of his/her ability and the subordinate trusts that the leader has done his homework in creating a plan that will get the job done while managing risk. The good news is, it works! The vast majority of the soldiers under my command were fantastic.  They were mission focused professionals who were engaged 24/7.  They were flexible and did their best to accomplish the mission and take care of each other.  I am proud to have been their commander.  I worked hard to earn and keep their trust.  I felt they had my back and I had theirs.  I still keep in contact with most today and would do anything I can to help them.

 

The Bad: As a new commander I found myself in a hostile environment with higher command as well as the enemy.  I felt comfortable leading my men against the enemy.  But the fight against higher command was daunting and cost us big.  It was an uphill fight that I didn't want.  I was outnumbered and out ranked by a group that didn't have our best interests at heart - we were their cannon fodder!  My unit was known as "Team Bulldog".  At the high water mark, we had about 155 personnel.  We enjoyed a overwhelming advantage in capabilities since the beginning of the war in March 2003.  However in the fall of 2003 the enemy began to counter aggressively.  The weapon of choice was initially the AK-47, then the Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG), then the Improvised Explosive Device (IED).  Thereafter, the tactics morphed but the IED was always the centerpiece.

The Ugly: As an incoming commander in the fall of 2003, I arrived on the heels of the death of our battalion Command Sergeant Major - James Blankenbecler.  He was an inspirational leader that was ambushed with 6 Rocket Propelled Grenades as he slowed down around Samarra driving towards Al Taji.  He is missed by his family and military brothers.. he is not forgotten.

As I prepared to assume command the enemy shifted aggressively towards IED attacks.  The rapid proliferation of these attacks caught everyone off guard.  In the two months that I was preparing to assume command everyone witnessed an explosion in the numbers of IED attacks.  This tactic became active in Bulldog area quickly destroying two of our Bradley Linebackers.  Among the casualties was SPC Genaro Acosta, a well liked young soldier whose death shocked and saddened the men.

The second IED rendered a Bradley useless and caused some injuries but thankfully no one was killed.

   

The enemy get a vote...  They were successful in changing the game.  It made all of our jobs more difficult.  That didn't change our approach.  We reacted to this ugly development.  How we did so is another post.

 

I never met SPC Acosta, he as killed before I assumed command but he has become a small part of my life as I wonder how much better our country would be if he would have survived.  I guess I am kind of moved by that fact that this good man is not here.  This is what screams out to me.

 

I only briefly met CSM Blankenbecler, but as they say first impressions are everything and he made a great one on me.  I volunteered to be the escort officer (escort his coffin back to the USA) but one of his brothers in arms stepped up.  I still get teary eyed when I remember his daughter reading the last letter she would write to him at the funeral.

 

God Bless the USA and our fighting men and women!