The Highway War by Maj. Seth W. B. Folsom USMC

Author:Maj. Seth W. B. Folsom, USMC
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
Published: 2006-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

Part III

Closing in: Tigris, Nahr Diyala, and Baghdad

31 March–12 April 2003

13

The Red Zone

Dreams of suffocation plagued me. When LCpl Davis woke me for the final shift of radio watch an hour before reveille, I was more than ready to get up and move around. Hearing his voice and opening my eyes, I realized I was still wearing my gas mask. Whoever had been on radio watch earlier in the evening hadn’t told me when the NBC alert ended. Most people would think it’s impossible, but when you are tired enough you can in fact sleep in a gas mask. My face throbbed, and all around it a deep, painful crease marked where the mask’s rubber seal had clung to the skin all night.

As daylight approached on that morning of 31 March, the men of 1st LAR Battalion quietly milled around, preparing themselves and their vehicles for the drive north to Ash Shumali. The long column of vehicles collectively fired up its engines and lined up in march formation, awaiting the order to move out. As Delta Company slowly pulled away from the fetid, corrupt farmland that had been our home for the better part of a week, the place where we had lost LCpl Suarez del Solar gradually receded from view. His death overshadowed the other significant episode that had occurred there: my baptism. But my baptism had been a personal event that would always be with me. It needed no physical monument. That wasn’t the case with the location of Suarez del Solar’s death. His comrades had felt compelled to mark with a small American flag the spot where he fell. On it someone had written “Suarez del Solar—Never Forgotten.”

The trip north along Highway 1 was uneventful for the battalion. We pulled off the main highway onto an exit south of Hantush Airfield, where a narrow, paved road led from the highway east to the small town of Ash Shumali. That morning, to the south, the terrain around us had been mostly dry, dirt farmland with the pervasive canal and levee networks. But as we travelled, the terrain had transformed before our eyes; everything was lush and green, and palm groves dotted the landscape forward of our location. I ordered the company into a battle position just south of the road, and as the platoons arranged themselves a familiar call came across the radio.

“Black-Six, this is White-One,” called Lt Schwartz. “We can’t push too much farther forward or we’ll sink.” His radio transmission was followed by one from Lt Parment.

“Same here, Six. We may be stuck right now as it is.” From my position along the road’s shoulder, I peered through my binoculars toward the area where 1st and 2nd Platoons had situated themselves. Schwartz and Parment were correct. Their vehicles bordered a large irrigated field with more infernal ditches and canals. The mud their tires rested in threatened to swallow them up if it started raining. But, as had been the case in our previous position, the company’s fields of fire were adequate.

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