Crossings by Jon Kerstetter

Author:Jon Kerstetter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2017-09-05T04:00:00+00:00

October and November 2004 were hard months. Insurgent attacks and IED explosions mounted in all sectors of Iraq. Combat activity in the northern sectors around Mosul and Key West demanded a significant uptick in aviation missions. U.S. infantry and aviation forces engaged Iraqi insurgents in firefights in and around Mosul. Army medical assets responded by moving field units to provide quick access to emergency care.

In early November, Operation Phantom Fury (Second Battle of Fallujah) dominated combat action in southern Iraq. Insurgents had been steadily infiltrating Fallujah, and by November their estimated strength exceeded three thousand. Coalition forces initiated the attack on Fallujah on November 7. Within a week they routed the insurgents and captured nearly three-quarters of the city. Combat support hospitals and field medical units flexed to accommodate the influx of wounded Marines and soldiers.

On November 8, the second day of the Fallujah battle, I flew with one of my medics from Key West to FOB Anaconda, north of Baghdad, to transfer a patient to the Air Force Theater Hospital there. Our chopper flew off to refuel and as we waited near the ER for its return, a Marine helicopter landed. Three Navy corpsmen and a hospital crew unloaded four wounded Marines and carried them into the emergency triage area on litters. They left a trail of blood from the landing pad to the front door of the ER. My medic stepped over the fresh blood and followed it all the way to the edge of the landing zone. He said he’d never seen blood like that before. I said I had and told him to get off the trail because he was being disrespectful. He looked at me rather puzzled but did as I said. Later I told him the blood reminded me of the “Trail of Tears” where thousands of Cherokee Indians died in a forced march under the authority of the Indian Removal Act. He didn’t know anything about that bit of history. As best I could, I told him about the government’s use of the military to force tribes from their land. I explained how I viewed the hospital blood trail as a soldier’s Trail of Tears and how it was holy ground.

While the Battle of Fallujah occupied southern Iraq, insurgents mounted attacks in the north during the first week of November in the Battle of Mosul. Coalition forces, as well as Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, responded to the attacks and by mid-November had secured Mosul from insurgents. During one of the missions in support of the northern offensive, an Apache gunship took small-arms fire and an armor-piercing bullet hit the cockpit. The Apache cockpits had a thick high-tech plastic panel located right in front of the pilot’s face. The bullet pierced more than halfway through that panel before it stopped. The mechanics dug it out and gave it to the pilot as a good-luck charm. A week later the same pilot was flying a mission near Mosul; another bullet hit his helicopter on the left side.

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