Iraq 2004: Getting Lost

Every disaster begins with a bad idea or bad plan.

I never left anyone behind.  Once we had a mild scare when a soldier came up missing as we prepared to leave an Iraqi school compound.  

There was almost an accidental exception.

One of our last civil affairs missions, before my unit moved north to Q-west, to a school compound in a not so nice area, was to a nameless Iraqi village.  As we were getting ready to leave the school, a senior sergeant on their first civil affairs mission with me, with a fair amount of convoy time,  but very little village time, wandered away from their ‘handler’.

I assigned a ‘handler’ to inexperienced soldiers, regardless of rank.  If a soldier never went on my mission before, they needed someone to keep them from getting into trouble: lost, kidnapped, touch something that goes ‘boom’ or even eat something that will make them go ‘boom’.

In retrospect, we should not have gone to this Iraqi school.

The idea was not bad, but very close. Every disaster begins with a bad idea or bad plan.

This school visit was suggested by one of my best sergeants and I respect his judgement. The problem was he forget a few key road and school details. Granted, this was mid-October and his visit was eight months earlier, in February or March; memories can fade fast.  

First detail missed was the road was one vehicle wide; which is too narrow for any mission where leaving quickly is an important requirement.

Second, the road was a dead end. With no way out, we could have been trapped at the road’s dead end.  

Third, the road was lined with six foot tall reeds. The reeds might not have been fully grown back in February or March, but now they provided excellent concealment for insurgents preparing an ambush.

Finally, the fourth missed detail was the school gate was a few inches too narrow for our HUMMVs to pass through. When we got to the gate, it became a real cluster- with HUMMVs turning around outside the gate in reverse order.

Complicating the situation, this was not the usual Iraqi school where the school leaders are happy the US Army came by to drop off a variety of school supplies, like pencils, pens and notebooks.   We always made unannounced visits and all previous school masters were glad to see us. 

Not this school. 

The school’s leadership was very cold to our visit.  This was a Wahhabi’s school; who were on the extreme side of Islam, defenders of the faith if you will.   We were seen as ‘infidels’ and not helpers.  They were not happy to see us and were very cold when we greeted them.  We came too far to turn tail and run away scared. We could not be cowards.

We stayed and kept the visit shorter then usual.

Not to state the obvious, as we were getting ready to leave, I was pretty angry when the senior sergeant came up missing.  

We were going to our vehicles and getting ready to leave to school compound.  There were many moving pieces and this is when security was at its weakest point: we are looking inward and not looking outward.  

The senior sergeant did not get taken, totally lost or left the compound but wandered into the back of the school where none of my soldiers were.  It took about 5 stress filled minutes to find the senior sergeant, the soldier was safe and just very curious and wandered off. I was not in panic mode, just concerned that they either got lost or were kidnapped- neither situation acceptable.  Calmly I asked soldier to follow me to the front gate to find their vehicle. I knew this was a school where we did not want to linger any longer than necessary.

As we left the school, I was in the last vehicle.  Usually I am in the lead, but the area was so tight, there was no way to turn the convoy vehicles around without taking a lot more time- which I did not want to do.  

Two of my teams soldiers were in the back of the HUMMV- asking permission to fire a warning shot at the Iraqi pickup truck gaining on us; closing in. The two soldiers, SGM Sheehan and Captain Brintnall, both experienced and neither would ask to fire without good cause. When they brought their rifles up to fire, the Iraqi pickup truck backed off, then sped up when the rifles were not pointed at them; which happened several times- the Iraqis were testing us.

By far this school visit was one of the few times we were tested.

Later I was informed that the insurgents who attacked Coalition convoys along the Baji by-pass and oil refinery area used this area as a rest and rearming village.  Even if the school leaders wanted us to help them- there were too many insurgent eyes on them to do so.

Of course, hind sight is 20-20 optimal solution, if I knew the village’s danger ahead of time- I would not have approved/planned the mission. I would never risk my soldiers’ lives going to a village school in a dangerous area.