Combat Raid
We set up shop near the southern entrance of the generator building. We hurried to set up the radios, establish the basic security plan, and figure out the general scheme for the next day. By the time we finished it was 0200 and the first patrol would start at 0600. We decided to go on a staggered two-hour nap schedule split between sleeping, radio watch, and security.
Our nap plan did not last long. As I was half-asleep on the first radio watch of the night, a couple of semifrantic jundi came running up to our position yelling in Arabic, “Jamal, Jamal, as salama aleikum. Shifit erhabeen bil binaye!” (Jamal, Jamal, peace be upon you. I saw insurgents in the building!) I was in a semicomatose state. I answered them in sloppy Arabic, “IHchiet wiya inaqib Mawfood, awwal? Huwwa qaedek, mu anii.” (Did you talk to Captain Mawfood first? He is your leader, not me.) The jundi responded, “IHchiet wiya inaqib Mawfood. Huwwa gillitna lazim niHchi wiyak.” (We did talk with Captain Mawfood. He told us we needed to talk with you.) Great, I thought, the people who are supposed to be taking leadership of the Iraqi army are deferring to me for answers.
“Who’s on your post right now?” I asked the jundi for fear they had abandoned their post. Fulfilling my fears, they responded, “Nobody.” I rushed to wake Martin so he could help me with translation. I could operate without a terp, but when my mind was fried, having a terp made things much smoother and quicker. I told Martin, “Call Mawfood and figure out what the hell is going on. Also, tell these soldiers they need to maintain their post!” Martin reluctantly moved his cream-puff body off his rack, scratched his balls a few times, and fell back on his rack to sleep. I was furious. I shook Martin by the arm. “Get your ass up man—here is the radio—call Mawfood and see what is going on!”
Mawfood made his way over to our area. As he approached our position, he greeted everyone with “As salama aleikum.” We all responded with “Wa aleikum salam” (And upon you, peace). Major Gaines, Captain Mawfood, and I walked to the southeast corner of the compound to listen to the Iraqis who had spotted the insurgents.
“You see that half-built house near Route Boardwalk?” Hussein, the jundi on post, pointed in the direction of a gloomy looking, half-constructed mud hut home 150 meters from their security post. He continued, “We think we saw seven or eight guys walk in there over the past thirty minutes. It looks as if they had shovels and weapons with them.”
It was time to conduct Operation Nimer’s first combat raid. I started to think back to Infantry Officers’ Course, frantically digging for all the knowledge I had learned on the conduct of raids. It all came back to me as if I had just graduated. I developed a plan to raid the suspected insurgent hideout. I gathered Sergeant Kelley, Corporal Espinosa (“Espi”), and Nuts around the Humvee. With a red penlight in my mouth for lighting, I began to draw a sketch of the building and our plan for the raid. Meanwhile, in the background I heard a faint “As salama aleikum.” I looked up and flipped down my night vision goggles to see who it was. I hoped my mind was playing tricks. It was Lieutenant Jaffer, the same guy who smashed a civilian the day before.
I had heard through Kelley and Espi that Jaffer was the “worst combat leader of all time and a flaming idiot.” Despite Jaffer’s poor track record, however, I stuck to my mission intent as a military adviser and said, “Jaffer, I’d like to hear how you want to go about doing this combat raid. I have a basic plan we can work from, but I’d enjoy hearing your ideas since I am here to advise and not command.”
Jaffer proceeded to give me his basic plan. It sounded more like a poorly thought-out football play than a military operation. Essentially it was “send two guys this way, two guys that way, and then we will go in the front door and search for bad guys.” I was not impressed; neither was I confident this operation would be successful.
I countered Jaffer’s incompetence and presented a professional raid plan that involved setting an outside cordon, establishing a raid force, and establishing a support force. It was apparent my ideas were sailing over Jaffer’s head. I knew I was not going to get anywhere with Jaffer; we would have to discuss raid planning later. I smiled, told Jaffer his plan sounded great, and told him to be ready by 0300.
Once Jaffer had left I grabbed Nuts, Kelley, Blanchard, and Espi. We went over our own internal plan. The operation had changed from a raid operation to a “protect-our-own-asses” operation. The biggest danger was not the insurgents in the building but the jundi under the leadership of Lieutenant Jaffer. The gist of my new plan was simple: let the Iraqis die first, watch out for jundi friendly fire, and take the lead in the operation only if it was a matter of our own survival. In my mind Iraqis should die for their country, not Marines.
Jaffer showed up with his jundi around 0330, thirty minutes late but respectable by Iraqi standards. The jundi who showed up, many of whom were from our battalion, greeted me with much fanfare. “Mulazim Jamal, as salama aleikum. Shlonek? Shlon sawtek? Shlon ahelek? Inta zien?” (Lieutenant Jamal, peace be upon you. How are you? How is your health? How is your family? Are you good?) It felt good to know we would have some familiar faces on this mission.
We pushed outside the compound gate and tactically moved in a squad-column formation to the building suspected to have insurgents. This was exciting. We slowly approached the abandoned building with our night vision goggles and watched as Jaffer put his so-called plan into action. Jaffer sent a few soldiers ahead to set up a “crap-tacular” cordon around the building. He next ordered two jundi with flashlights to search the building. I knew that if the two jundi entering the building encountered any resistance, they were toast. To make matters worse, from our position we would be unable to support them. Jaffer’s plan was flawed but workable, so as an adviser cadre we were going to allow him to execute it.
I fully expected a gunfight. The abandoned building served as perfect terrain for insurgents who wanted to attack the WTF. But the gunfight never came. The jundi sent in to search nonchalantly walked back out of the building with their rifles slung and their flashlights dangling from their waists, swaying back and forth with the rhythm of their steps. They each fired up a cigarette and yelled to Jaffer, “All clear.”
My heart rate dropped a good twenty beats a minute as my fear and excitement faded. So much for being Rambo and getting a chance to find some insurgents. I called back to the WTF, “Shadow One, there ain’t shit in this building. What do you want us to do?” After consulting Captain Mawfood, Major Gaines responded, “Roger, Shadow Two, continue on with a normal foot patrol, we were going to push a patrol out in a few hours anyway.” “Rog—,” I began. But before I could end my radio transmission, Jaffer was already moving the Iraqis across Route Boardwalk to search a large Iraqi home.