Monday, December 08, 2003

Photos: Rasta Warriors in the Danger Zone  

Click thumbnail for full-size image. Scroll down to next post for accompanying essay.


"Shoot the bomb."


The IED


Starburst burn


The explosion


Lt. Col. Steve Russell


Humvee in RPG Alley


Spc. Michael Bressette

Discuss

Kevin 4:36 AM

Rasta Warriors in the Danger Zone  

The soldiers of the 1-22 wear strips of burlap on their Kevlar helmets. It is a way, they say, to break up the outline of the head and shoulders; a dead giveaway for a sniper shot. But here in Tikrit, ancestral homeland of Saddam Hussein, they are fighting an urban war; a place impossible for them, with their Humvees, M4 rifles and body armor, to blend into the surroundings.

It is instead, they know, another way for them to separate themselves from the thousands other desert camouflage-clad troops of the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division; to foster a unit esprit de corps, perhaps even to instill fear among the locals. But they look, I think, like the Bob Marley Brigade; dreadlock swinging Rasta Warriors singing in their minds “no woman, no cry,” as they ride out to battle.

Specialist Michael Bressette is one of these Rasta Warriors, a talkative 26-year old that will be one of the squad leaders in a three-vehicle convoy tonight. He is part Mohawk and Shawnee Indian, he tells me. His great grandparents married in an unusual union of tribes echoing the intent of European monarchies marrying their offspring in cross-national germinations in an attempt to keep the peace.

But Bressette shows little sign of that royal heritage. He is down to earth, intensely good-natured and. mechanically gifted. He has spent more time fixing generators and water supply systems here—then going out on patrol. But in less than an hour—he will save us from what could be an early and inglorious death.

The 1-22 lives and works in Tikrit’s danger zone—conducting raids and patrolling streets with nicknames like RPG Alley and Saddam Highway. They are on the lookout for a veritable Army “alphabet soup” of targets like
hvt #1 for high value target Saddam Hussein as well as frl’s or former regime loyalists, but what they seem to run into more often than anything is contraceptive-sound-alike, the IED--improvised explosive device; it seems a more fitting term than homemade bomb for this $87-billion occupation.

Army officials in Tikrit say they discover and average of seven a day, but sometimes as many as 20. They can be deviously simple, even primitive; explosives emptied from mortar or artillery shells into a wooden box filled with nails, C4 plastic explosives stuffed in pipes and remotely detonated with a garage door opener when a convoy passes. They’ve been hidden in everything from dead animals and cardboard boxes to building blocks and tin cans--often with deadly results.

* * *

It is the eve of Eid or the end of the Ramadan and the end of the month long dawn to dusk fasting for many Muslims. It is a time of celebration on par with Christmas for Christians.

But the night has begun with a bang. Literally. An IED has exploded just outside the north gate of the 4th Infantry Division’s headquarters. I hop in the back of Bressette’s Humvee as the patrol heads out to investigate. Bressette gets on his two-way and in the guise of a flight attendant giving the pre-flight briefing, tells the squad the plan.

“And please remember,” he says, signing off, “to always lock and load.”

Fifty feet outside the gate the Humvees pull to the shoulder. The soldiers check out the damage from the earlier IED. Shop windows on the south side of the street are shattered and a portion of the curb has been turned to rubble. But the bomb was detonated late, after a convoy has driven by. No one was injured.

I videotape Bressette as he walks back to his Humvee with the 1-22’s commanding officer Lt. Col.Steve Russell. They walk to the curb to discuss what’s next, when Bressette looks down. He sees something strange; wires sticking out of a concrete block. Suddenly this inert object is filled with potential energy.

“Sir, we better back up,” Bressette says, already doing the moonwalk away from the block. “We’re standing next to an IED!”

The Humvee shoots forward away from the bomb, while the rest of back away. The concrete block has been hollowed out and is packed with enough plastic explosives to kill us all.

Bressette just shakes his head, still in disbelief that all of us, the Colonel, Bressette and his squad, myself and a reporter named Betsy Heil from the Pittsburgh Tribune, were standing next to a device that could’ve taken our lives within a fraction of a second.

“Good call, man,” I tell him, “we probably still have our legs because of you.”

Russell wants to destroy the bomb, but without releasing all of its explosive power and endangering the neighborhood. The 1-22 has come across enough of these to learn that by shooting it, it may just burn rather than explode. The soldiers begin to back up even further from the IED—all except Sergeant Gilbert Nail.

Armed with an M-16 modified with a laser deer scope his wife sent him, he moves to a firing position about 150 feet from the block and takes aim. I crouch behind him, shooting him with my PC-120 while he places a red dot on the target.

“Go for it,” Russell shouts from behind.

The next sound is the crack of Nail’s M-16. Nail hits the block dead on.

“It’s burning sir,” he says.

“Yeah it is,” Russell confirms.

Plastic explosives require both heat and pressure to explode. But since there’s no pressure on the IED it seems set for a long, safe burn. It’s already a bright white ball of fire. After a few minutes, there’s small explosion.

“That’s just the firing cap,” Nail explains to me over his shoulder, “the small charge that’s used to detonate the plastic.”

We all think it’s over and I’m about ready to click off my camera when The 40 seconds later—there’s a huge second explosion that sends a shower of concrete raining down on us 200 feet away. Later when I watch the video in slow motion it reminds be of Hans Solo and Wookie making the jump to light speed in the Millenium Falcon in the first “Star Wars” film.

Relieved, the soldiers whoop it up,

“God Damn,” someone yells!

“Take that you bastards,” Russell shouts from the darkness.”

Commanders here say they get 80-percent of IED’s—before they blow, but even so—their deadly simplicity creates a climate of danger where almost no stone can be left unturned.

So the Soldiers spend the rest of the night turning over stones… and shooting them. But also taking aim at symbols they believe fuel the violence; pulling down photographs of Saddam Hussein and banners celebrating those who have died attacking coalition forces.

“They talk about so and so the martyr for killing Americans, like he’s some kind of hero or something,” Russell tells me, cutting down one banner tied to a fence, “Well now’s he’s dead!”

He stuffs the banner in a nylon sack he calls the martyr bag.

But because of Specialist Michael Bressette, no one has died tonight. For his quick reactions, Russell gives Bressette a coin, a medallion stamped with unit’s insignia. Sign of a job well done. Bressette says it’s the first one he’s ever been given in his six years in the Army.

“It was a pretty good explosion,” he says, a little circumspect, finally having time to think about what could’ve happened if he hadn’t noticed the IED.
“It would’ve taken us all out,” he says, looking at the ground where it once sat, looking harmless as a rock.

Discuss

Kevin 3:24 AM