War Stories: Operation Iraqi Freedom by North Oliver

Author:North, Oliver [North, Oliver]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, War, Biography, Politics
ISBN: 9781596986961
Goodreads: 40538416
Publisher: Regnery History
Published: 2003-11-01T08:00:00+00:00

By the time we return from the An Numaniyah FARP, the 2nd Tank Battalion has broken through the Iraqi defenses at Al Aziziyah and Mundy’s 3rd Battalion is in the process of aggressively clearing Iraqi defenders from the streets and alleys of the little town alongside the river. Mundy’s last task, accomplished just before nightfall, was to push a rifle company across the small bridge over the Tigris. After a sharp pitched battle at the bridge, RCT-5 captured three crossing points over the waterway.

After dark, Dunford decides to move his CP forward, beyond the town Mundy had just secured. Having had enough helicopter adventures for one day, I rode up Route 6 in a Humvee with one of the RCT-5 communications detachments. As we roll through the town and up the highway, the “roadkill” is extraordinary. Through my night-vision goggles I can see dozens of ravaged Iraqi T-55s, BMPs, and BTR-60s littering the edges of the highway. It is clear that the Iraqis had meant to hold Al Aziziyah—but have failed. Most notable is the fact that a good number of the Iraqi tanks have been destroyed, not while facing the oncoming Marines but while heading northwest in retreat toward Baghdad.

Dunford has set up his “jump CP” inside a compound formerly occupied by the local Republican Guard commander. The walls of the buildings are pockmarked by M-1 tank .50-caliber tank fire, and several structures have holes clear through them from main gun rounds. By the time all four of the HMM-268 helicopters land at the new RCT-5 CP, it’s after midnight and everyone is totally exhausted. Driscoll, his pilots, and his crew crawl into litters in the back of the 46s to sleep until summoned for another cas-evac.

As Griff and I drag our broadcast gear over to a Humvee to plug into some power so that we can report, the M-1s of 2nd Tank Battalion are being refueled and rearmed on the Route 6 hardball highway, about fifty meters to our southwest. These Abrams tanks are magnificent killing machines. But because they consume a gallon of fuel every two and a half miles or so, they are even thirstier than the Marines who fight from them.

When we come up on the air, Greg Kelly, embedded with 3rd Infantry Division, is reporting on the furious daylong battle to capture Saddam International Airport. The videotape he’s fed over his satellite dish back to FOX News Channel in New York is some of the most dramatic combat footage I’ve ever seen—and I see a lot of it when prepping for each episode of War Stories. When we go live for Hannity & Colmes at 0330, the starlit sky is once again full of RAP rounds as the 11th Marines’ artillery softens up tomorrow’s objective, the Tigris River town of Tuwayhah, less than thirty-five kilometers from Baghdad.

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