Tank Patrol
near Habbaniyah Iraq 45 miles west of Baghdad October 31, 2005 110th Infantry Task Force Panther, PA National Guard
An M1 tank rolls down the road in central Iraq. It is midway between Habbaniyah and the town of Ramadi off to the west. The 15 miles separating these towns are literally the worst stretch of road in Iraq. Coalition forces say they have discovered over 150 improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, in the past 5 months on this stretch of road. Small arms fire is too common to really pay much attention. Suddenly a burst of four shots from an AK-47 assault rifle rings out and the soldiers in the tank hunker down and look out of their gun sights. It�s tough to see anything. Tanks are notorious for their poor ability to see out, and this is no exception. No one saw the gunman. He probably dropped below the parapet of some balcony within 2 seconds of firing; so even as the soldiers instinctively ducked he was already dropping out of sight. The soldiers keep a sharp eye out all the time, but it�s difficult to see people before they fire. It�s even more difficult to see them after they fire, unless the stand and fight. That is rare. The gunmen can easily escape into the maze of houses and, along this particular half-mile section which lies inside a village, alleyways, flanking the main road. To make matters worse, there are reeds and plenty of vegetation near the road because this is river country, with the Euphrates flowing close by. These days the small arms fire problem has taken on more than its normal nuisance value. Generally the Iraqi attitude is to spray and pray - literally that if Allah wills the bullets to strike home, then they will. Thus most often this small arms fire is merely nuisance fire. Except not anywmore. In this sector a real marksman has been operating lately. He has hit several soldiers over the past few months. He is a Muslim sniper, and soldiers here speculate he might be Chechen. He is worse than a nuisance, he is for real, and the soldiers keep their heads down, and try to extract information from the local populace as to his whereabouts to nab him. But there are more pressing issues today. Down the road an ied is found and the team from EOD (explosive ordnance disposal, the bomb squad) is called in to dispose of it. It is a busy day for EOD. Another suspected ied site nearby ends up being a false alarm. The crew of this tank is wary in this area. The local village of Mudiq has a mosque which sometimes hosts imams who preach against the Americans. This is the heart of the Sunni triangle, here 11 kilometers west of Habbaniyah. There is no love lost for Americans here, and little regular information comes out of this village. Opinion differs in the crew whether this is primarily because the populace is scared of appearing pro-American when insurgents hold so much sway here, or whether they truly hate Americans. Either way, no one is keen on the idea of getting out of the tank to test the sympathies of the locals. THey prefer to have a thick shroud of armor between them and any stray bullets. The patrol ends as the sun is getting low. The tanks leaves the village behind and rumbles past the blown up mosque outside town, where a few months ago insurgents who were building roadside bombs under the mosque's dome blew themselves up along with the entire mosque. The dome lies drunkenly to one side on the shattered building, with a blast hole in the round roof. As the rumbles back onto its base artillery is firing a few rounds to support operations farther north. It�s another day gone by in the worst part of Iraq, and tomorrow promises to be much the same.
An M1 tank rolls down the road in central Iraq. It is midway between Habbaniyah and the town of Ramadi off to the west. The 15 miles separating these towns are literally the worst stretch of road in Iraq. Coalition forces say they have discovered over 150 improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, in the past 5 months on this stretch of road. Small arms fire is too common to really pay much attention. Suddenly a burst of four shots from an AK-47 assault rifle rings out and the soldiers in the tank hunker down and look out of their gun sights. It�s tough to see anything. Tanks are notorious for their poor ability to see out, and this is no exception. No one saw the gunman. He probably dropped below the parapet of some balcony within 2 seconds of firing; so even as the soldiers instinctively ducked he was already dropping out of sight. The soldiers keep a sharp eye out all the time, but it�s difficult to see people before they fire. It�s even more difficult to see them after they fire, unless the stand and fight. That is rare. The gunmen can easily escape into the maze of houses and, along this particular half-mile section which lies inside a village, alleyways, flanking the main road. To make matters worse, there are reeds and plenty of vegetation near the road because this is river country, with the Euphrates flowing close by. These days the small arms fire problem has taken on more than its normal nuisance value. Generally the Iraqi attitude is to spray and pray - literally that if Allah wills the bullets to strike home, then they will. Thus most often this small arms fire is merely nuisance fire. Except not anywmore. In this sector a real marksman has been operating lately. He has hit several soldiers over the past few months. He is a Muslim sniper, and soldiers here speculate he might be Chechen. He is worse than a nuisance, he is for real, and the soldiers keep their heads down, and try to extract information from the local populace as to his whereabouts to nab him. But there are more pressing issues today. Down the road an ied is found and the team from EOD (explosive ordnance disposal, the bomb squad) is called in to dispose of it. It is a busy day for EOD. Another suspected ied site nearby ends up being a false alarm. The crew of this tank is wary in this area. The local village of Mudiq has a mosque which sometimes hosts imams who preach against the Americans. This is the heart of the Sunni triangle, here 11 kilometers west of Habbaniyah. There is no love lost for Americans here, and little regular information comes out of this village. Opinion differs in the crew whether this is primarily because the populace is scared of appearing pro-American when insurgents hold so much sway here, or whether they truly hate Americans. Either way, no one is keen on the idea of getting out of the tank to test the sympathies of the locals. THey prefer to have a thick shroud of armor between them and any stray bullets. The patrol ends as the sun is getting low. The tanks leaves the village behind and rumbles past the blown up mosque outside town, where a few months ago insurgents who were building roadside bombs under the mosque's dome blew themselves up along with the entire mosque. The dome lies drunkenly to one side on the shattered building, with a blast hole in the round roof. As the rumbles back onto its base artillery is firing a few rounds to support operations farther north. It�s another day gone by in the worst part of Iraq, and tomorrow promises to be much the same.
posted by Doug at 8:08 AM
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