23-24 March 2003

The next two days would bring the heaviest fighting in An Nasiriyah. This is also when THE sandstorm hit the area, making life difficult for everybody. In order to understand what a sandstorm feels like, I offer this analogy: imagine putting a hair dryer on max air and max heat, angling it in your face and then throwing a handful of sand and pebbles in the stream. Hopefully that gives you an idea how miserable a sandstorm is.

However, despite how miserable we were in the sandstorm, we were still several miles south of the city of Nasiriyah proper and were lucky to avoid most of the fighting that was occuring up the road. We did have a few missions to contend with however. There was a highway nearby (Route 8 I think) with civilian traffic and we used our loudspeakers to ensure that they knew not to come too close to our positions. We also talked to a few people passing on the road to get some intelligence. One concern we had was why the Shia weren't restarting an uprising like they did in 1991. The military assumed that most of the Iraqi army would defect (they did) and the Shia would help (they didn't). The latter did not occur, we are told, because of how they were let down by us in 1991. They wanted to, but they did not want to take the chance we would leave them hanging again. Pretty sad really.

Although this period had the highest number casualties, the number belie their true nature. Unfortunately, a lot of them came from friendly fire. One extremely sad case was when an A-10 fighter jet mistook one of our AAVs (Amphibious Assault Vehicle) as enemy despite there being an air panel (a large florescent orange sheet, kind of like what hunters wear) indicating friendly forces on it. Many Marines died that day. I later saw the burned out AAV on the road before it was moved. It was hard to imagine my fellow Marines dying in there from our own forces. I was later involved in the recovery of some of these Marines remains because during the aftermath and fog of war, some of the Iraqis were kind enough to recover their remains and bury them nearby (Muslim tradition dictates burial in one day). They later came to tell us where they were buried and a team was sent to recover them. Until their remains were recovered, they were considered MIA.

One of our teams was also involved in another blue-on-blue (friendly forces are blue, enemy are red) incident where one of our Marines became wounded and MEDEVACed to the rear. This time it was a LAR (Light Armored Reconassance) company that fired upon their position. It was several horrifying minutes for all involved until the mistake was realized. Luckily and amazingly, there were no KIAs in that instance, but dozens of wounded, including our own Lance Corporal Jason Smedley. Fortunately for us, he'd be the only Marine in our unit to receive the Purple Heart.
posted by Ray at 9:46 PM

22 March 2003

We woke up before sunrise and prepared to cross the border. There was a convoy meeting discussing routes, emergency actions, and rules of engagement. I climbed in the back of the humvee and we started up and began to cross the border. It was definitely a strange feeling as our convoy crossed into Iraq. I thought of everybody back home and what they were doing and if they had any idea that I might be going over then. I tried to take a lot of pictures of the border too to show everyone back home.

There is really just one word to describe what it is like driving through the desert in the back of a humvee: dusty. Thousands of vehicles driving over the same path churns the hard desert sand into tiny particles of sand dust. This in turn is churned up by the wheels and creates a huge dust cloud behind each vehicle. Much of that dust is thrown back into the back of vehicle where I was sitting. I had to wear goggles and a cloth wrap around my nose and mouth just so I could avoid suffocating from all the dust. It was not a pleasant journey.

After a few hours in, we began seeing the bedouins (gypsies) who lived out in the desert boonies of Iraq. It's amazing how they could live way out in the desolation alone. But I guess their kind had been doing it since biblical times so I'm sure they've gotten pretty good at it. Well, we saw a bunch of kids on the side and we started tossing candy to them. They would run out and grab it and run back to their parents. We got the candy from our MREs and I threw this one package out and the wind buffetted it back towards the road. A kid ran out to get it and almost got run over doing so. I was a lot more careful when I tossed out candy after that.

We stopped once to refill our tanks and I ate my first meal of the day then. There were these long ridges running east-west where we stopped that seemed like it were buried lines. I guessed that they might be for oil, but going where? Eventually, we got everyone fueled up and got back on the road.

After a few more hours, it was started to get dark again so we stopped and set up for the night. As we did, I watched more convoys pass by us going north. I would later find out that one of these convoys was the 507th Maintenance Company supporting the 3rd Infantry Division. They were fated to become ambushed in An Nasiriyah in the early morning hours. Jessica Lynch would be taken POW and later rescued by Special Forces with members of TF Tarawa and spark an international debate over what exactly transpired in the next couple of weeks.
posted by Ray at 3:32 PM

21 March 2003

I woke up still wearing my MOPP suit. Now that there was light, I could see the thousands of vehicles that were staged there. There were just lines and lines of vehicles just sitting there waiting. I guess they only breeched a few holes at the border so there was a bottleneck effect. It's kind of like having to take a number and waiting for your turn to go. While we were waiting, some Army psyops (psychological operations) started playing some songs on their swivel-mounted loudspeakers on top of their humvees. Their loudspeakers were a lot nicer than ours - we had to use zip ties and particle board to mount ours.

We were supposed to cross the border today. However, no one really knew what was going on. I tried listening to reports on the radio to see what was going on, but information was pretty sketchy. After a few hours of waiting around, we got reports that the 3rd ID had gone through An Nasiriyah already and was making their way up to Baghdad. With everything going so fast, there were rumors that we may just bypass An Nasiriyah ourselves and go straight to Al Kut which is 2/3 the way to Baghdad. Unfortunately, we would later find out that 3rd ID was the one that bypassed Nasiriyah, leaving TF Tarawa to take it instead.

Eventually, it got to our turn and we mounted up in our vehicles and restarted our journey northward. It was a short trip, however, since the convoy commander did not want to drive when it was dark and it got dark soon after. We stopped right at the entrance to the border and parked our vehicles in two columns facing outward. We were literally just a few yards from the border. We could see the outline of the huge sand berm that marked it. Weeks earlier, Marines had bulldozed the earthen barrier along with a fence and filled in some ditches.

Since we were so close to the border, we all had to take turns standing watch throughout the night. When it was my turn, I wandered back and forth around our vehicles using night-vision binoculars occassionally to check out the horizon. Again, I saw the missile launches, but this time I could see things that looked like they were burning in the north. I guessed that these might be some oil wells that Saddam had ordered to be set on fire like the first war.

Despite it being night, convoys continued to pass through the border and past us. The vehicles never stopped coming. Sometimes they were regular humvees, sometimes APCs, and sometimes tanks. You could see that there were several breeches, and each one had a line of vehicles going through them continuously. Thousands passed us that night. I prayed for their safety, knowing full well that many would not cross back alive.
posted by Ray at 12:27 PM

20 March 2003

We got in our humvees and staged them to begin the convoy into Iraq. After staging our vehicles, we sat and waited to go. I was sitting in the back of the humvee when the the air raid siren began to sound, which indicated an incoming missile detection. I immediately donned and cleared my gas mask and ran to the nearby sand bunker. It was getting pretty warm so we all started to sweat pretty heavily. After the all clear signal I drained my gas mask of sweat and put it back in the carrier that we all had hanging from our hips. I also put my MOPP (Mission Oriented Protective Posture) suit in a small backpack so I would be able to grab it and go quickly. The air raid siren and scramble to the bunkers happened again a few more times. Finally, we were given the signal to get on the road.

Things didn't start out too well for us in humvee we were driving. Just a few miles out, the vehicle overheated and we had to pull over. It turned out that the water reservoir blew and we needed a new one. The motor transport mechanics who came to help us had to remove the reservoir from their own vehicle so that we could keep running. Eventually, we caught up with the convoy again. Unfortunately, our troubles did not end there. We drove north slowly for awhile and it started to get dark. All of a sudden, it started getting hot in the vehicle and I smelled something like burning rubber or plastic. Eventually, we figured out this was because the entire underside of the humvee was on fire when we looked over the back and saw flames coming from underneath. We quickly pulled over and evacuated the vehicle trying to grab all the weapons, ammo, and the radio. The fire eventually died out and we tried to get going again. A few miles later it happened again and we had to stop to get it fixed. When Motor T got there they disconnected the parking brake. Apparently it got lodged in the on position even though the handle was down.

We got going again, but now it was very late and we rolled into the staging area near the Iraqi border. We broke out our sleeping bags to get some shuteye before another long drive in the morning. As I began to fall asleep, I heard everyone start honking their horns. Eventually someone came running by saying to don our gas masks and MOPP suits. So we did. An all-clear signal came soon after. We would have to keep our MOPP suits on though. It would be several weeks before we would take them off. The honking came again several times throughout the night. Eventually, I just kept my gas mask on and fell asleep until someone nudged me to take it off.

During the night, we could see small points of light flash in the south and slowly streak overhead to the north. These were the cruise missiles coming from the ships seeking out targets in Iraq. Distant crashes and explosions could also be heard occassionally. Sometimes we would see flashes in the sky above us, which were the Patriot missiles intercepting inbound missiles from Iraq. The weather that night was cool and calm and belied the destruction that we all knew was happening.
posted by Ray at 9:12 PM

As the anniversary of the war arrives, I'm going to relate a few of the things I was doing one year ago.

19 March 2003

Our unit was at Camp Ryan in Kuwait making last minute preparations for "crossing the breech." Some teams were sent to infantry units to provide "tactical" civil affairs support. My team was to be with the main command element of Task Force Tarawa. I had been listening to shortwave radio reports from the BBC and Voice of America about the 48-hour ultimatum. Many people assumed that the war would be a lot like the last Gulf War, but we knew that this time it would be different. The air and ground war was to begin at the same time. Task Force Tarawa was to take a southern airfield and then the city of An Nasiriyah after the Army's 3rd Infantry Division cleared it out. An Nasiriyah was supposed to fall by the first night with TF Tarawa securing the two bridges within the city and ensuring that the Main Supply Route (MSR) along Route 7 was secure so the supply logistics train could continue to the units fighting their way to Baghdad. We packed our vehicles to the brim with our gear including loudspeakers to make announcements in Arabic and ensuring that our chemical protective suits were nearby in case of NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) attack.

During the preceeding few weeks, we prepared for our mission by practicing our Arabic and playing out different scenarios that could happen. We identified different types of infrastructure as critical for the civil population and forwarded it up the chain of command so they could be avoided during offensive operations. We prepared different plans in case large amounts of refugees attempted to feel the warzone. One interesting development was the assignment of Iraqi exiles to our unit to help in translating and understanding Iraqi culture and geography. At night, many times they would tell us stories of how they escaped Iraq after the first Gulf war and how Saddam and his henchmen would torture dissidents. He would pull out their fingernails, use electric shock, throw them in jail for years or simply killed them and their relatives. Horrifying stories to say the least.
posted by Ray at 5:49 PM

I have some very sad news to report.

I just found out that a Marine I served with in Iraq last year was killed by insurgents in Iraq last week. LtCol. Bob Zangas and I actually went on a mission to Baghdad together and had lunch at a restaurant there. He believed in the cause so much he returned to Iraq to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority as a civilian. Here is a recent CNN article about him and he was also keeping a blog as well. He was a good man and he will be missed.

This is a photo taken at the restaurant in Baghdad we ate at.



Rest in peace, Colonel Zangas.

Lt. Col. Robert J. Zangas
Level Green

Lt. Col. Robert J. Zangas, USMC Reserve, 44, of Level Green, died Tuesday, March 9, 2004, south of Baghdad, Iraq, while working for the Coalition Provisional Authority under the Department of Defense. He was born Jan. 3, 1960, in Honolulu, Hawaii, the son of Lt. Col. Charles Zangas, of San Diego, Calif., and the late Nancy Zangas. Bob graduated from the University of Colorado and was commissioned as a second lieutenant, earning his naval aviation wings in 1984. Bob served in Operation Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom in the First Marine Expeditionary Force. Bob was a sales representative with several companies, most recently with Quest Software. After returning from Iraq in September 2003, he worked as a civilian public affairs officer with the CPA, helping to restore radio and television communications in Iraq. Bob was a gentle and affectionate man and father with his children and family, always trying to spend quality time with them. In addition to his father, Bob is survived by his wife, Brenda Huffman Zangas, formerly of Butler; his loving children, Shannon, age 10, Scott, age 5, and Jacob, age 3, all of Level Green; four siblings, Kathy Stovicek (Larry), of Gaithersburg, Md., Patti Black (Keith), of Woodbridge, Va., John Zangas, of Washington, D.C., and Cassandra Vallery (Colton), of Fayetteville, N.C.; and his father's wife, Anne, of San Diego. Friends and family will be received at the JOHN M. DOBRINICK FUNERAL HOME INC., 602 Seventh St. (Rt. 130), Trafford, 412-372-3111, Wednesday from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. and Thursday from 10 a.m. to noon. A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. in the Level Green Presbyterian Church, Olive Drive, Level Green, with the Rev. Dr. R. Dennis Macaleer officiating. Full military honors and a private interment will follow. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorials to the Robert Zangas Memorial Fund, C/O Navy Federal Credit Union, Willow Grove M.S.C., Building #2, NAS Willow Grove, PA 19090 or the National Parkinson's Foundation Center of Excellence, University of Pittsburgh-Department of Neurology, 3471 Fifth Ave., Suite 811, Kaufmann Building, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.

The United States Marine

You can keep your Army khaki,
You can keep your Navy blue.
I have the world's best fighting man,
Uncle Sam ever knew.

His uniform is different,
The best you've ever seen.
The German's call him "Devil dog",
His real name is "Marine".

He was born in boot camp,
The place where God forgot.
D.I.'s breathing down his neck,
The sun so blazing hot.

He gets up every morning,
Before the rising sun.
He'll run his required miles and more,
Before the day is done.

He's deadly with a rifle,
A bayonet made of steel.
He takes the challenge given,
He's mastered how to kill.

And when he gets to Heaven,
St. Peter he will tell,
"One more Marine reporting sir,
I've served my time in Hell."

"I've fought so many battles,
And won them as you've seen.
There is no better fighting man,
The United States Marine!"
posted by Ray at 1:43 AM

Going up north to SF this weekend. Woohoo party time!
posted by Ray at 6:27 PM