Leaders Recon

Sgt. Sam White "posing" to yell

After arriving in Fallujah, we set up camp at an old Army base called now camp Manhattan.   They gave us a building to sleep in  with no electricity and buried behind weeds that needed to first be removed.  We found ourselves sitting outside not only because it was dark without lights but because we all wanted to be together....and there were some bats inside.

As the U.S. was beginning to mobilize around the city, planes overhead were dropping fliers warning the civilian citizens to get out.  They knew that we were about to invade and in just a few days the largest offensive to date in the war in Iraq was about to be underway.  There was an uneasy tension in the air at camp.  A kind of giddy, slap happy immaturity, nobody was ready to die and we were trying to do everything we could to keep ourselves from thinking about that.      

The leaders recon is a standard practice and is just what it says.  The leaders of the unit go out ahead of the main element and take a look at where they will be operating.  We also used this time as an opportunity to meet with Iraqi locals that sometimes were helpful and other times were not.  We would go from a village to the one next to it and the local attitudes towards Americans would be completely opposite.  They want pictures with you in one, and then down the road the kids are throwing rocks at you.

The next day was not as long. I sat in the turret with Johnstone while Capt. Conway and again with Lt. Pittson went on a leaders recon. Listening on the radio to a tow vehicle call in an anti-air gun spotted across the Euphrates. I was entertained by the radio traffic. Picturing me as the TOW gunner begging to get authorization, permission to shoot and then you could hear the mortars starting to land.

The TOW was the weapon system that I had been trained to operate during my first enlistment, after volunteering to go to Iraq I was made to be a scout team leader.  TOW stands for Tube launched, Optically tracked, Wire command linked guided missile system.

The next couple of days we began to set up vehicle checkpoints. Everyday we would be in the same place for hours and then we would get mortared. After the mortar attack we would find an IED the hard way. Our first casualty in the company was a Marine named Risides. The mortars landed as close to 30m from me. We displaced and headed north on Boston looking for the mortar position. When we came back south on Boston we pulled off to see the mortar craters. We were passed by 2nd Plt. and then fell in behind them. I heard over the intercom "Holy Fuck" as the Capt. and Johnstone saw the blast.
A second later I heard it. Then over the radio, LT. Edo saying they have been hit by the IED and have a casualty.

We stopped right in front of a wire going across the road into a pile of dirt. I had cleared possible IED's before but never seconds after one had gone off less than 100 m away. But when the Capt. told me to check it out, there was no hesitation. As soon as I made it to the front of our vehicle I saw the wire and knew it was not a threat. I reached down yanked the wire out of the ground and ran back to my vehicle catching a little of the medevac going on in front of us.
It was a taxicab with its hood up on the side of the road that was detonated as we rolled by.