“Sarge?”
“Get on the comms and tell Falcon-2 to make sure that M-19 is up and ready to rumble.”
“Will do,” said Murph. The M-19 was the 40mm auto grenade launcher that could churn out M430 grenades at a brisk clip and lay down terrible suppressive fire against infantry and light vehicles. With a practical range of 1500 meters, it could hit the Iraqi positions now, and so could the 50-Cal MG’s mounted on the Humvees.
“Falcon-1, this is Harrier. Hold positions. Falcon-3 is on the wing. Over.”
There were three company sized units, or Squadrons, in the battalion. Falcon-1 had the light troops in Humvees. Falcon-2 were the Strykers, and Falcon 3- had the heavy troops, with Bradley AFV’s.
“Hey Sarge, we got orders to stand pat on this one,” said Murphy. “The Bradleys are coming.”
“Hell, we don’t need no goddamned Bradleys . We could roll right through those Hajis in a heartbeat.”
“Right, but we got orders to hold positions.”
The King shook his head, giving the reporter a sideways glance. “They send us out here, but do they want us to fight the Hajis, or merely observe them in their natural habitat?”
“Durnford!” said the Weasel.
“What?”
“That was Durnford’s line in the movie Zulu Dawn. Great flick. I always loved those days of the red jerseys and white helmets, and the good old Martini & Henry.”
“What’s he talking about, Nash?”
“Beat’s me, Sarge.”[3]
The Sergeant frowned. “This is just a stare down contest for us, and Charlie Company gets to bring the whoop ass. There ain’t no justice in this man’s war. That’s a fact.”
The King strode off, ignoring another incoming mortar round and small arms fire scudding off the ground near the Humvee. He walked along the line of his dozen odd vehicles, making sure all the men were at the ready. Impatient, he waited for a sitrep or new orders, and in time the men all heard the sound of the 25mm Bushmaster chain guns firing. Charlie Company had arrived from the north, finding the enemy ATGM positions, mortar teams, and it was chopping them up. Hearing that, the Sergeant ran back to his team and shouted an order.
“Light those bastards up!” The MG’s started firing, and the 40mm auto grenade launcher joined the chorus of fire. When the rest of the line saw that team lit off, they started opening up too, and the entire line was pouring it on.
“Hey Sarge, trouble on your six.”
King looked over his shoulder and saw the squadron commander, Captain Nedelman, tromping up from the rear. The “Needle Head” as the men called him, was on the move, and he had the troop commander with him, Lt. John Ranes,
“Sergeant King,” said Nedelman, “nobody gave orders to engage the enemy.”
“With all respect, sir, that is not correct. Charlie Company has engaged the enemy’s rear with the Bradleys, and I gave orders to put out supporting fire with my squadron. Take a look, sir. Hajis don’t like it one damn bit.”
They could see the dark uniformed soldiers down the road withdrawing under that fire, several men hit and falling as they ran to the rear. Nedelman pursed his lips, looking at Ranes to let him do the honors.
“Sergeant, before engaging the enemy you are to wait for orders from this headquarters. Is that clear?”
“Sir, yes sir!” King nodded. “Shall I stand the men down?”
“Yes, cease fire.”
King put two fingers to his mouth and whistled hard, and the whole team stopped firing. The vehicles on the far ends shouted out the cease fire to the rest, and soon the line settled down again.
“Fine afternoon, sir,” said King. “We’ve got the Hajis on the run.”
Needle Head nodded and went stomping back to the end of the column on the road to phone home. He would deliver a sitrep on the situation so Battalion knew that road block had been removed.
Highway One was now wide open to the east.
Down south of the Euphrates in Ramadi, there was heavy fighting underway all morning. The Thunder Horse Battalion had taken the Al Jazeera Bridge, also called the Island Bridge, and they had subsequently fought their way through the Medical College and Hospital, deep into the Al Warar District. Two companies moved east along the southern bank of the Euphrates, towards the Abu Faraj Bridge where elements of the Lancer Battalion were on the north bank, attacking that crossing point. The enemy had a company that had taken up defensive positions in and around a Mosque, which complicated matters as the US infantry came up that road. Word went back to Brigade, and the Raven’s call was quick. If the enemy was using a mosque as a defensive position, then it was fair game.
Further south, the Stallions pushed down from the Med College, and the Black Knights of 2 BCT had crossed the canal at the Qassam Bridge to pushed into the Al Huz and Al Andalus districts towards the heart of the city. There, in the heavy concrete government buildings, the enemy resistance stiffened, but it was slowly being squeezed from two sides.
This was the main battle for control of the city, and nearly all the remaining infantry of the Ramadi Brigade was involved. That Brigade was slowly being ground up by the superior tactics and fire power of the US ground assault teams. Their companies shattered in the fighting, the remnants of the Ramadi Brigade filtered back through the cover of the dense urban setting, trying to reorganize a new line of defense near the soccer stadium and a factory site to the north. They had been reinforced by the last battalion west of Fallujah, the Habbaniyah Mech Battalion which had rumbled into the city around noon.
Unable to hold their exposed blocking position on Highway-1, the 3rd Al Anbar Special Forces Battalion retreated around a sharp bend in the Euphrates, falling back on the Ajaas Salim Bridge. They would take up positions there, where they could cross to enter the city fight to the south if need be. Those battalions were the only cohesive fighting forces remaining in the Ramadi area, the territorial brigade units being largely shattered. As the sun lowered, the Light Company of 1/7th Cav got orders from the Raven to press on up Highway-1.
“Zip it up and mount the ponies,” said King. “We got orders to hump it.”
They were going to move up the highway to link up with the Bradleys. The men had been resting the last three hours, much to the unsettlement of Sergeant King. In his mind, they should have aggressively pursued the enemy special forces when they withdrew, but the Needle Head was darning other plans.
“Needle Head is just sitting on his pin cushion,” King complained. “We could have put enough pressure on that Haji Battalion to bust it up. Now they’ll be digging in somewhere down the road tonight, and we’ll just have to kick some more ass like we did this afternoon.”
“Needle Head gets his orders from the Raven,” said Corporal Neal, a cooler head when the Sergeant got steamed. “Who knows what’s up, Sarge. We don’t see the big picture.”
As the sun began to set, Lieutenant Nedelman had been summoned to the Raven’s Nest for a briefing, and the tall dark haired BCT Commander was pointing to the map.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “Today’s operations were just outstanding. As of this moment we’re sitting on all our objectives, and the enemy in Ramadi is badly disorganized. The Recon Squadron has cleared Highway-1, and now we’re going to move out—tonight.” His finger landed heavily on the next large urban center.
“Fallujah,” he said. “3rd I.D. is coming in to relieve us in Ramadi, and we are heading east on that long lovely highway. We move tonight, with your Squadron in the vanguard, Lieutenant Nedelman. Your next objective is the bridge over the Tharthar Canal, about 20 klicks from your Light Troop’s current position. I want you to get out there by midnight tonight, and take and hold that bridge. That canal runs south to the Euphrates near Maalahma and Habbaniyah, and just south of that city is the big Al Taqaddum Air Field, the old British RAF Habbaniyah when they had the duty out here. 101st Air Mobile wants that field for its major forward staging base in the operations against Baghdad.” He folded his arms, and looked over the assembled officers, smiling.
3
Those of you who know what the Weasel is talking about will get a treat with the release of