Gates of Fire

The top leaders of the Deuce Four: CSM Robert Prosser and LTC Erik Kurilla making the call to Daniel's Mom outside the hospital

Mosul, Iraq

Combat comes unexpectedly, even in war.

On Monday, while conducting operations in west Mosul, a voice came over the radio saying troops from our brother unit, the 3-21, were fighting with the enemy in east Mosul on the opposite side of the Tigris River. Moments later, SSG Will Shockley relayed word to us that an American soldier was dead. We began searching for the shooters near one of the bridges on our side of the Tigris, but they got away. Jose L. Ruiz was killed in action.

Although the situation in Mosul is better, our troops still fight here every day. This may not be the war some folks had in mind a few years ago. But once the shooting starts, a plan is just a guess in a party dress.

The only mission I've seen unfold close to what was planned was a B Company raid a few months back. It actually went so close to perfect that we could hardly believe it. The sole glitch occurred when a Stryker hit an IED, but since nobody was hurt, we just continued the mission. In retrospect, it's hard to imagine why I didn't write about it. But times are busy, and, apart from it going nearly perfectly according to plan, it just seemed like any other old raid.

I had been talking with Captain Matt McGrew about the "The Battle for Mosul IV" dispatch, intending to spend the night with him and some Iraqi troops at one of their combat outposts, to glean additional insight, but the on-going battles in Mosul kept getting in the way. On the night before the planned ride-along, the obstacle was a big and sudden push of operations and tasks bundled in a "surge operation." Operation Lancer Fury was launched without notice even to the unit commanders here.

When I'd sat in on the "warning order" (notice of impending operations) for Lancer Fury last week, the plan was so cleverly contrived that the leadership at Deuce Four had to grudgingly acknowledge its excellence, even though the idea had originated from higher-up. In every military unit I have seen, there is a prevailing perception that good ideas trickle down from the top about as often as water flows uphill, so Lancer Fury apparently was a wunder-plan.

As a "surge" operation, Lancer Fury is sort of a crocodile hunt, where our people do things to make the crocodiles come out, trying to flush them into predictable directions, or make them take certain actions. And when they do, we nail them. The combat portion of the Surge amounted to a sophisticated "area ambush" that would unfold over the period of about one week.

This Surge is a complicated piece of work, with multidimensional variables and multifarious moving parts. Those parts range literally from boots on our feet to satellites zipping overhead. So, of course, glitches and snags started occurring the first day. Among other things, key gear failed; but overall, the Surge was going well. A few terrorists had already been caught in the first 24 hours.

Thursday night, a revised plan had me following some Deuce Four soldiers on a midnight raid. They had night vision gear, so they moved quickly. I had only moonlight, so I nearly broke my leg keeping up. Sleeking around Mosul under moonlight, we prowled through the pale glow until we came upon a pond near a farmhouse. Recon platoon had already raided one house and snagged some suspects, then crept away in the darkness to another target close by.

Five soldiers from Recon—Holt, Ferguson, Yates, Welch and Ross—were moving through moon-cast shadows when an Iraqi man came out from a farmhouse, his AK-47 rifle hanging by his side. Suddenly encircled by the rifles, lights and lasers of four soldiers, the man was quickly disarmed. A fifth soldier radioed for the interpreter and together they sorted out that he was a farmer who thought the soldiers were thieves skulking around his property. Recon returned the man his rifle, and started making their way back, umbral and silent across the ploughed fields.

During a halt in some trees at the edge of the field, I overheard the voice of LTC Kurilla, the commander of the Deuce Four battalion, quietly praising one of the soldiers for showing discipline in not shooting the farmer. After loading the other suspects onto Strykers, we returned to base, where I fell, exhausted, at about 3 AM Friday morning.

The Surge continued while I slept.

Alpha Company had deployed during the early hours and was conducting operations around Yarmook Traffic Circle. SGT Daniel Lama, who is as much respected as he is liked, was pulling security in an air guard position of his Stryker, when a bullet flew straight at his neck, striking him. As he collapsed into the Stryker, his body clenched in seizure, fingers frozen, arms and legs rigid.

I seldom get letters in Iraq, but waiting for me in the mailroom while I slept was a card. The return address sticker, an American flag on it, was from Jefferson, Pennsylvania. The postage stamp had an American flag waving. The card inside had a picture of an American flag for its cover. The sweet and heartfelt message inside ended with-

Please tell our soldiers we care so much for them. -Dan and Connie Lama.

I was still asleep when medics brought their son Daniel to the Combat Support Hospital, or "Cash." It's a familiar place for Deuce Four soldiers, who've seen some of the most sustained and intense urban combat of this war, receiving over 150 Purple Hearts in the process.

Bap bap bap! on my door. I jumped up and there was CSM Robert Prosser, the top enlisted soldier at Deuce Four. Prosser is always professional, always direct: "Sergeant Lama's been shot. We're rolling in ten minutes," he said.

"I'll be there in ten," I answered, instantly awake.

Within minutes, I was running out my room, still pulling zips and fastening buttons, when I came sweating into the TOC. LTC Kurilla was there asking a soldier for the latest report on Sergeant Lama, now in surgery.

When a soldier is killed or wounded, the Department of Army calls the loved ones, and despite their attempts to be sympathetic, the nature of the calls has a way of shocking the families. There is just no easy way to say, "Your son got shot today." And so, according to men here, the calls sound something like this: "We are sorry to inform you that your son has been shot in Mosul. He's stable, but that's all we know at this time."

LTC Kurilla likes to call before the Army gets a chance, to tell parents and loved ones the true circumstances. Kurilla is direct, but at least people know they are getting an accurate account.

We loaded the Strykers and drove down to the Cash, and there was Chaplain Wilson, who might be the most popular man on base. Everybody loves him. Often when Chaplain Wilson sees me, he will say, "Good morning Michael. How are you today?" But sometimes he asks me, "Are you okay?" and I think, Do I look stressed?

"Of course I feel okay Chaplain Wilson! Don't I look okay?"

He just laughs, "Yes, Michael, you look fine. Just checking." But secretly, every time he asks, I feel a notch better.

Chaplain Wilson came out from the hospital smiling and explained that Daniel (Sergeant Lama) was fine. The seizure was just a natural reaction to getting shot in the neck. It was just a flesh wound. As if offering proof, Chaplain Wilson said: "When they rolled Daniel over, the doctor stuck his finger in Daniel's butt to check his prostate, and Daniel said, 'Hey! What are you doing?!'" Everybody laughed.

I changed the subject by snapping a photo of CSM Prosser while LTC Kurilla got Mrs. Lama on the Iridium satellite phone. I heard the commander telling this soldier's mother that her son was fine. Daniel just had some soft tissue damage, nothing major. Kurilla told her that he and some other soldiers were at the hospital now with Daniel, who was still too groggy to talk. "Really, Daniel's okay, and don't worry about it when the Army calls you."

We loaded the Strykers and headed downtown.

Some Strykers were scouting for the shooters, while others were working details at Yarmook Traffic Circle. Major Craig Triscari from the 1-17th Infantry from Alaska was with Major Mike Lawrence, "Q," and other soldiers, when he noticed a car with its hood up. The 1-17th will relieve the 1-24th soon, so Triscari has been conducting operations with Deuce Four. The vehicle struck Triscari as odd: it hadn't been there a few minutes earlier.

Automatic weapons fire started coming from at least two places. Bullets were kicking up the dust, and we got a radio call that troops were in contact at Yarmook Traffic Circle. Sitting inside the Stryker with LTC Kurilla and me were two new faces. A young 2nd lieutenant who had only been in Iraq three weeks, and hadn't seen any real combat; and a young specialist, who, per chance, is one of the few Deuce Four soldiers who is not a seasoned veteran, though he has seen some combat. Also in the Stryker was "AH," the interpreter, whose courage under fire I had seen before. But the more battle weathered fighters were not there.

Chris Espindola, the Commander's radio operator, a respected and experienced fighter, was down in Baghdad at the Iraqi Criminal Court testifying against two terrorists caught by Deuce Four months earlier. Like the card in the mailroom, the circumstances behind their capture were more germane to the events about to unfold than anyone might have guessed at the time.

Kurilla's reluctance to allow anyone outside Deuce Four ride with his soldiers - including writers - is well known. Partly because of writers, people hearing about Deuce Four in the news might think of Mosul as some kind of thrill ride where everything will end okay after a few hairpin turns. This is not true.

Newcomers, even soldiers, unaccustomed to this level of hostility, can only burden the men with added danger. So Kurilla makes sure they can be trusted by mentoring new officers and having them spend three weeks with him before they are allowed to lead men in this unit.

Some months back, a new lieutenant named Brian Flynn was riding with the Kurilla for his first three weeks, when Kurilla spotted three men walking adjacent to where Major Mark Bieger and his Stryker had been hit with a car bomb a week prior. The three men looked suspicious to Kurilla, whose legendary sense about people is so keen that his soldiers call it the "Deuce Sixth-Sense." His read on people and situations is so uncanny it borders the bizarre.

That day, Kurilla sensed "wrong" and told his soldiers to check the three men. As the Stryker dropped its ramp, one of the terrorists pulled a pistol from under his shirt. Mark Bieger was overwatching from another Stryker and shot the man with the first two bullets, dropping him to his knees.

LT Flynn was first out of the Stryker, and both he and the airguard CPT Westphal, saw the pistol at the same time and also shot the man. The other suspects started running. But all Kurilla saw was LT Flynn stepping off the ramp, and then there was a lot of shooting. Kurilla yelled FLYNNNNNNNNNNN!!!! and was nearly diving to stop Flynn from shooting, thinking the new lieutenant had lost his mind and was shooting a man just for running from Coalition forces. Soldiers can't just shoot anyone who runs.

Chris Espindola also shot the man. Amazingly, despite being hit by four M4's from multiple directions, the man still lived a few minutes. Soldiers outran and tackled his two associates when they made a run.

During their interrogation on base, both admitted to being Jihadists. One was training to be a sniper, while the other was training for different combat missions. They also admitted that the terrorist who was shot down was their cell leader, who had been training them for three months. They were on a recon of American forces when Kurilla sensed their intent.

The cell leader had a blood-stained "death note" in his pocket stating he was a true Mujahadeen and wanted to die fighting the Americans. He got his wish; and now, Chris Espindola, Kurilla's radio man, was down in Baghdad testifying against the two surviving co-conspirators. Despite their sworn confessions, Kurilla was left with a young radio operator with little trigger-time.

Flynn had now been a platoon leader for six months, but today Kurilla had another 2nd lieutenant who was being mentored before he became a platoon leader. Our Stryker did not contain the normal fighters that I saw with LTC Kurilla, but we also had a section (two squads) of infantrymen in Strykers from Alpha Company. This section was led by SSG Konkol.

We were searching the area for the source of that automatic weapons fire when Kurilla spotted three men in a black Opel and his sixth sense kicked. When Kurilla keyed in on them, he pointed his rifle at the car and signaled them to get out. The driver tucked his head and gunned the gas. The chase was on.

Strykers are fast, but Opels are faster. We were roaring through little streets and along roads, horn blaring, cars zipping off the sides, the steady chatter of multiple radio channels colliding inside the Stryker. A Kiowa helicopter pilot radioed that he spotted the car. As the chase continued, the Kiowa pilot said, "It's going about 105 mph."

How can the pilot know it's going 105 mph? I thought.

This Kiowa shot the Opel

As if in reply, the pilot radioed that the Opel was outrunning his helicopter. Captain Jeff VanAntwerp came on the radio net saying he was moving his section into position to intercept the Opel.

"Watch out for that kid!" yelled Kurilla over the intercom to our driver as we made a hard turn, managing to avoid hitting the child.

Opels may be faster than Kiowas on straight-a-ways, but when the car made turns, the helicopter quickly caught up. Kurilla ordered the Kiowa to fire a warning shot, then quickly authorized the Kiowa to disable the vehicle.

Kiowas are small, carrying just two people; they fly so low the two flying soldiers are practically infantrymen. The pilot swooped low and the "co-pilot" aimed his rifle at the Opel, firing three shots and blowing out the back window. The Kiowa swooped and banked hard in front of the car, firing three more shots through the front hood, the universal sign for "stop."

The car chase ended, but the men fled on foot up an alley. We approached in the Strykers and I heard Kurilla say on the radio, "Shots fired!" as he ducked for a moment then popped back up in the hatch. Kurilla continued, "Trail section clear the car and clear south to north! I'm going to block the back door on the north side!"

About fifteen seconds later our ramp dropped. We ran into combat.

Folks who haven't done much urban fighting might take issue with the wild chases, and they might say that people should always "stack up" and do things this or that way, but men in Delta Force, SEALs and the like, all know that when chasing wild men into the labyrinth, soldiers enter the land of confusion. If soldiers don't go fast, the bad guys simply get away. Just a few minutes ago, these three guys were going "105 miles per hour," and outrunning a helicopter.

There were shops, alleys, doorways, windows.

The soldiers with LTC Kurilla were searching fast, weapons at the ready, and they quickly flex-cuffed two men. But these were not the right guys. Meanwhile, SSG Konkol's men were clearing toward us, leaving the three bad guys boxed, but free.

Shots were fired behind us but around a corner to the left.

Both the young 2nd lieutenant and the young specialist were inside a shop when a close-quarters firefight broke out, and they ran outside. Not knowing how many men they were fighting, they wanted backup. LTC Kurilla began running in the direction of the shooting. He passed by me and I chased, Kurilla leading the way.

There was a quick and heavy volume of fire. And then LTC Kurilla was shot.

Last steps

LTC Erik Kurilla (front right), the moment the bullets strike.(2nd LT front-left; radioman near-left; "AH" the interpreter is near-right.)

Three bullets reach flesh: One snaps his thigh bone in half.

Both legs and an arm are shot.

The Commander rolls into a firing position, just as a bullet strikes the wall beside 2nd lieutenant's head (left).

Kurilla was running when he was shot, but he didn't seem to miss a stride; he did a crazy judo roll and came up shooting.

BamBamBamBam! Bullets were hitting all around Kurilla. The young 2nd lieutenant and specialist were the only two soldiers near. Neither had real combat experience. AH had no weapon. I had a camera.

Seconds count.

Kurilla, though down and unable to move, was fighting and firing, yelling at the two young soldiers to get in there; but they hesitated. BamBamBamBam!

Kurilla was in the open, but his judo roll had left him slightly to the side of the shop. I screamed to the young soldiers, "Throw a grenade in there!" but they were not attacking.

"Throw a grenade in there!" They did not attack.

"Give me a grenade!" They didn't have grenades.

"Erik! Do you need me to come get you!" I shouted. But he said "No." (Thank God; running in front of the shop might have proved fatal.)

"What's wrong with you!?" I yelled above the shooting.

"I'm hit three times! I'm shot three times!"

Amazingly, he was right. One bullet smashed through his femur, snapping his leg. His other leg was hit and so was an arm.

With his leg mangled, Kurilla pointed and fired his rifle into the doorway, yelling instructions to the soldiers about how to get in there. But they were not attacking. This was not the Deuce Four I know. The other Deuce Four soldiers would have killed every man in that room in about five seconds. But these two soldiers didn't have the combat experience to grasp the power of momentum.

This was happening in seconds. Several times I nearly ran over to Kurilla, but hesitated every time. Kurilla was, after all, still fighting. And I was afraid to run in front of the shop, especially so unarmed.

The Commander fights...

...and fights, as more bullets kick up dust.

And then help arrived in the form of one man: CSM Prosser.

Prosser ran around the corner, passed the two young soldiers who were crouched low, then by me and right to the shop, where he started firing at men inside.

A man came forward, trying to shoot Kurilla with a pistol, apparently realizing his only escape was by fighting his way out, or dying in the process. Kurilla was aiming at the doorway waiting for him to come out. Had Prosser not come at that precise moment, who knows what the outcome might have been.

Prosser shot the man at least four times with his M4 rifle. But the American M4 rifles are weak - after Prosser landed three nearly point blank shots in the man's abdomen, splattering a testicle with a fourth, the man just staggered back, regrouped and tried to shoot Prosser.

CSM Robert Prosser goes "black."

Then Prosser's M4 went "black" (no more bullets). A shooter inside was also having problems with his pistol, but there was no time to reload. Prosser threw down his empty M4, ran into the shop and tackled the man.

Though I have the photo, I do not remember the moment that Prosser went "black" and ran into the shop. Apparently I turned my head, but kept my finger on the shutter button. When I looked back again, I saw the very bloody leg of CSM Prosser inside the shop. It was not moving. He appeared to be shot down and dead.

I looked back at the two soldiers who were with me outside, and screamed what amounted to "Attack Attack Attack!" I stood up and was yelling at them. Actually, what I shouted was an unprintable string of curses, while Kurilla was also yelling at them to get in there, his M4 trained on the entrance. But the guys were not attacking.

I saw Prosser's M4 on the ground, Where did that come from?

I picked up Prosser's M4. It was empty. I saw only Prosser's bloody leg lying still, just inside the darkened doorway, because most of his body was hidden behind a stack of sheet metal.

"Give me some ammo! Give me a magazine!" I yelled, and the young 2nd lieutenant handed over a full 30-round magazine. I jacked it in, released the bolt and hit the forward assist. I had only one magazine, so checked that the selector was on semi-automatic.

I ran back to the corner of the shop and looked at LTC Kurilla who was bleeding, and saw CSM Prosser's extremely bloody leg inside the shop, the rest of him was still obscured from view. I was going to run into the shop and shoot every man with a gun. And I was scared to death.

What I didn't realize was at that same moment four soldiers from Alpha Company 2nd Platoon were arriving on scene, just in time to see me about to go into the store. SSG Gregory Konkol, SGT Jim Lewis, and specialists Nicholas Devereaux and Christopher Muse where right there, behind me, but I didn't see them.

Reaching around the corner, I fired three shots into the shop. The third bullet pierced a propane canister, which jumped up in the air and began spinning violently. It came straight at my head but somehow missed, flying out of the shop as a high-pressure jet of propane hit me in the face. The goggles saved my eyes. I gulped in deeply.

In the tiniest fraction of a second, somehow my mind actually registered Propane . . . FIREBALL! as it bounced on the ground where it spun furiously, creating an explosive cloud of gas and dust, just waiting for someone to fire a weapon.

I scrambled back, got up and ran a few yards, afraid that Kurilla was going to burn up if there was a fire. The soldiers from Alpha Company were heading toward him when LTC Kurilla yelled out that he was okay, but that CSM Prosser was still in the shop. The Alpha Company soldiers ran through the propane and dust cloud and swarmed the shop.

When the bullet hit that canister, Prosser—who I thought might be dead because of all the blood on his leg—was actually fighting hand-to-hand on the ground. Wrapped in a ground fight, Prosser could not pull out his service pistol strapped on his right leg, or get to his knife on his left, because the terrorist—who turned out to be a serious terrorist—had grabbed Prosser's helmet and pulled it over his eyes and twisted it.

Prosser had beaten the terrorist in the head three times with his fist and was gripping his throat, choking him. But Prosser's gloves were slippery with blood so he couldn't hold on well. At the same time, the terrorist was trying to bite Prosser's wrist, but instead he bit onto the face of Prosser's watch. (Prosser wears his watch with the face turned inward.) The terrorist had a mouthful of watch but he somehow also managed to punch Prosser in the face. When I shot the propane canister, Prosser had nearly strangled the guy, but my shots made Prosser think bad guys were coming, so he released the terrorist's throat and snatched out the pistol from his holster, just as SSG Konkol, Lewis, Devereaux and Muse swarmed the shop. But the shots and the propane fiasco also had brought the terrorist back to life, so Prosser quickly reholstered his pistol and subdued him by smashing his face into the concrete.

The combat drama was ended, so I started snapping photos again.

CSM Prosser, his leg drenched in the terrorist's blood, as 2nd Platoon Alpha Company arrives

CSM Prosser drags the terrorist into the alley ...

...into the light.

The propane canister at rest (left), the terrorist in view of the Commander

CSM Prosser flex cuffs Khalid Jasim Nohe

Prosser stands above the crocodile who bit his watch.

SFC Bowman shields the eyes of his Commander.

When Recon platoon showed up about a minute later, SFC Bowman asked LTC Kurilla to lie down. But Kurilla was ordering people to put out security, and directing action this way and that. When the very experienced medic, Specialist Munoz, put morphine into Kurilla, the commander still kept giving orders, even telling Munoz how to do his job. So SFC Bowman told Munoz to give Kurilla another morphine, and finally Kurilla settled down, and stopped giving orders long enough for them to haul him and the terrorist away to the Combat Support Hospital. The same facility where Daniel Lama was recovering from the earlier gunshot wound to the neck.

Combat Support Hospital
The Surge operation continued as we returned to base. The Commander and the terrorist were both being prepped for surgery, when LTC Kurilla said, "Tell Major Bieger to call my wife so she doesn't get a call from the Army first." But someone gave the Commander a cell phone, and I heard Kurilla talking to his wife, Mary Paige, saying something like, "Honey, there has been a little shooting here. I got hit and there was some minor soft tissue damage." The X-ray on the board nearby showed his femur snapped in half. "I'll be fine. Just some minor stuff." That poor woman.

The doctors rolled LTC Kurilla and the terrorist into OR and our surgeons operated on both at the same time. The terrorist turned out to be one Khalid Jasim Nohe, who had first been captured by US forces (2-8 FA) on 21 December, the same day a large bomb exploded in the dining facility on this base and killed 22 people.

That December day, Khalid Jasim Nohe and two compatriots tried to evade US soldiers from 2-8 FA, but the soldiers managed to stop the fleeing car. Then one of the suspects tried to wrestle a weapon from a soldier before all three were detained. They were armed with a sniper rifle, an AK, pistols, a silencer, explosives and other weapons, and had in their possession photographs of US bases, including a map of this base.

That was in December.

About two weeks ago, word came that Nohe's case had been dismissed by a judge on 7 August. The Coalition was livid. According to American officers, solid cases are continually dismissed without apparent cause. Whatever the reason, the result was that less than two weeks after his release from Abu Ghraib, Nohe was back in Mosul shooting at American soldiers.

LTC Kurilla repeatedly told me of - and I repeatedly wrote about - terrorists who get released only to cause more trouble. Kurilla talked about it almost daily. Apparently, the vigor of his protests had made him an opponent of some in the Army's Detention Facilities chain of command, but had otherwise not changed the policy. And now Kurilla lay shot and in surgery in the same operating room with one of the catch-and-release-terrorists he and other soldiers had been warning everyone about.

When Kurilla woke in recovery a few hours after surgery, he called CSM Prosser and asked for a Bible and the book: Gates of Fire. Kurilla gives a copy of Gates of Fire to every new officer and orders them to read it. He had given me a copy and told me to read it. In my book, there is a marked passage, which I thought rather flowery. But I have it beside me on the table by the map of Iraq.

"I would be the one. The one to go back and speak. A pain beyond all previous now seized me. Sweet life itself, even the desperately sought chance to tell the tale, suddenly seemed unendurable alongside the pain of having to take leave of these whom I had come so to love."

A short time after Kurilla gave me the book, following the death of one of his soldiers, he said to me, "I want you to write about my men. You are the only one who might understand," the passage registered in my mind.

I asked CSM Prosser if I could go with him to see the Commander. Carrying both books, we drove to the Cash. Major Mark Bieger arrived alongside Kurilla's hospital bed, paying respect. After spending some time with the Commander, CSM Prosser and I drove back to the unit.


The Deuce Four

The truest test of leadership happens when the Commander is no longer there. Kurilla's men were taking down and boxing up his photos of his wife and children, and his Minnesota Vikings flag, when they decided to keep the flag so everyone could autograph it. It wasn't long before there was no room left to sign, but I found a place to scratch. I wanted my name on that flag.

The place suddenly felt hollowed-out.

When I came back into the TOC, Major Michael Lawrence - who I often challenge to pull-up contests, and who so far has beat me (barely) every time - looked me square and professionally, in the direct way of a military leader and asked, "Mike, did you pick up a weapon today?"
"I did."
"Did you fire that weapon?"
"I did."
"If you pick up another weapon, you are out of here the next day. Understood?"
"Understand."
"We still have to discuss what happened today."

Writers are not permitted to fight. I asked SFC Bowman to look at the photos and hear what happened. Erik Kurilla and CSM Prosser were witness, but I did not want the men of Deuce Four who were not there to think I had picked up a weapon without just cause. I approached SFC Bowman specifically, because he is fair, and is respected by the officers and men. Bowman would listen with an open mind. While looking at the photos, Bowman said, "Mike, it's simple. Were you in fear for your life or the lives of others?"

"Thank you Sergeant Bowman," I said.

I walked back to the TOC and on the way, Chaplain Wilson said, "Hello Michael. Are you feeling all right?"

"Yes Chaplain Wilson!" Why does he always ask that? Do I look stressed? But suddenly, I felt much better. Chaplain Wilson might be the only man in the universe with a chance of getting me into the chapel of my own free will, but I have resisted so far.

Only a few hours had passed since Daniel Lama and the Commander were shot. It was around 9 PM when I heard Captain Matt McGrew was going to see Kurilla. I asked to come along. We entered the hospital, and saw that Erik Kurilla's bed was beside Daniel Lama's. Kurilla went from asleep to wide awake in about a quarter-second, said "hello" and asked us to sit down. After some conversation, the Commander looked over at the next bed and asked, "How are you doing SGT Lama?"

"Great, sir."

"Good," the Commander said, "You are my new PSD." [Personal Security Detachment: Bodyguard.]

Daniel Lama smiled, got out of bed and I shot a photo of him reporting for his "new duty."

Sgt Daniel Lama: less than one hour from flying out of Mosul

It was near 10 PM when the airplane that would start their journey back to America landed outside, its engines rumbling the hospital floor. The terrorist who shot Kurilla, and who was now a eunuch in a nearby bed, might well have been the same terrorist who, after being released, shot Lama and Thompson and others. Kurilla could see Khalid Jasim Nohe, but made no comment.

As Captain McGrew and I drove through the dusty darkness back to the Deuce Four, the Commander and SGT Lama, along with other wounded and dead soldiers from around Iraq, began their journey home.

The next day, Iraqi Army and Police commanders were in a fury that LTC Kurilla had been shot. Some blamed his men, while others blamed the terrorists, although blame alone could not compete with disbelief. Kurilla had gone on missions every single day for almost a year. Talking with people downtown. Interfacing with shop owners. Conferencing with doctors. Drinking tea with Iraqi citizens in their homes. Meeting proud mothers with new babies. It's important to interact and take the pulse of a city in a war where there is no "behind the lines," no safe areas. It's even dangerous on the bases here.

In order for leaders of Kurilla's rank to know the pulse of the Iraqi people, they must make direct contact. There's a risk in that. But it's men like Kurilla who can make this work. Even and especially in places like Mosul, where it takes a special penchant for fighting. A passion for the cause of freedom. A true and abiding understanding of both its value and its costs. An unwavering conviction that, in the end, we will win.

Make no mistake about Kurilla - he's a warrior, always at the front of the charge. But it's that battle-hardened bravery that makes him the kind of leader that Americans admire and Iraqis respect. Like the soldiers of Deuce Four, Iraqis have seen too much war to believe in fairy tales. They know true warriors bleed.

Iraqi Army and Police officers see many Americans as too soft, especially when it comes to dealing with terrorists. The Iraqis who seethe over the shooting of Kurilla know that the cunning fury of Jihadists is congenite. Three months of air-conditioned reflection will not transform terrorists into citizens.

Over lunch with Chaplain Wilson and our two battalion surgeons, Major Brown and Captain Warr, there was much discussion about the "ethics" of war, and contention about why we afford top-notch medical treatment to terrorists. The treatment terrorists get here is better and more expensive than what many Americans or Europeans can get.

"That's the difference between the terrorists and us," Chaplain Wilson kept saying. "Don't you understand? That's the difference."

Jose L. Ruiz

Air Force SSG Will Shockley relays news that an American soldier was just killed nearby in Mosul. (15 August 05) One week later, memorial services were held at a Fort Lewis chapel to say goodbye to Jose L. Ruiz, 28.
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Please stand by for the "Gates of Fire" dispatch explaining the circumstances of the firefight wherein LTC Erik Kurilla was shot. "Gates of Fire" should be available no later than Thursday, 25 August. Accuracy demands time.

Proximity Delays

Mosul, Iraq
During radio interviews, listeners sometimes call in with questions for me. People who follow the war closely and read my dispatches might ask about events covered by mainstream news but about which I've posted few details, if any. Thousands of emails pour in.

"Did you know about the letter to Zarqawi?" (Yes, I was in the Deuce Four daily briefing when it was first displayed and read, about a week before the media learned about it. The letter was captured minutes down the road from here.)

"Did you know about the Chemical Weapons Plant?" (Yes, and probably more than most readers care to know. Turned out to be nothing of consequence. The "Plant" was minutes down the road from here.)

"Did you know about the 'super secret spy plane' that crashed in Mosul?" (Yes, I was on a mission in Mosul at the time. It was flying over Mosul in support of operations.)

"There was a report that three terrorists were shot down in Mosul the other day. Did you know about that?" (Yes, I was in the TOC when the blood first started pumping through their skulls. Credit was given to the Iraqi police, but American forces actually conducted the ambush minutes down the road from here.)

Then comes the question: "Why didn't you write about that?"

The answer is simple. Often I am asked to withhold information due to the immediate sensitivity. And so, I never release the slightest hint. But then somebody in Baghdad - three steps removed from the action here in Mosul - releases it to CNN and the rest of the world. What is seen on television and in the papers is practically always inaccurate, or is at least poorly framed. But I rarely waste a breath trying to correct the information. It's too late. Life is busy here.

The greatest paradox I have seen in this war results from "proximity delay." The proximity delay for me is caused by being embedded so closely with Deuce Four soldiers that I often see things unfolding before they happen, and then I am in the thick of events as they occur. But then I am asked not to write about events.

Much of the censorship is self-imposed because I will not write anything that jeopardizes US, Iraqi or Coalition forces or civilians. This is not a game of who gets the scoop; I am not per se a journalist. On some missions I've been the first to spot the enemy. On others, I've been so close to the action, my face gets smacked by flying shell casings. I come away with information and details no other writer could possibly have.

I've refused to write about incidents countless times, even when soldiers have asked me to publish the details. My time traveling the world, following scent trails and navigating on snippets of information has taught me that a person with a seasoned imagination can coax a great deal of information from seemingly innocuous tidbits. This enemy is smart and also reads the news.

Just why the military considers some information "classified" while other information gets the "go ahead, write it" shrug, is not based on logic, science, or even one of those absurd but ironclad rules that codify so much of the military. Many explanations for the military's requests not to publish certain information, do not hold up well to scrutiny.

For example, our soldiers capture or kill top terror figures in Mosul routinely. Sometimes in stunning operations that display split-second timing. The "higher ups" often say, almost reflexively, that they don't want the enemy to know about these kills or captures.

Sounds reasonable. But whether soldiers sleek through dark allies with silenced weapons, slipping over walls with padded ladders, snatching sleeping terrorists from their beds before they can fully waken; or, whether they engage in a gunfight at a busy intersection and drag terrorists from behind the wheels of their cars - these are not anonymous men. Families notice when daddy's gone missing.

If we aren't keeping it secret from the enemy - and we can't keep it secret from them - who do we protect by keeping quiet? These are not illegal operations. These are examples of the effectiveness of our forces. In Mosul alone there are daily events where the Coalition gets things right, that I never write about.

The "proximity delay" seems to be bi-directional. The higher-ups also seem to have a disconnect with what the media eventually does with Coalition successes. I kept silent for days on the Zarqawi-letter dispatch, ready to post what was probably the single most important piece of insider information to drop into our hands in quite some time. I requested clearance several times per day, each time being asked to hold back. I complied.

But then, without even giving the leaders at Deuce Four a heads-up, a typically enthralling military press release went out to major, mainstream, media outlets. We all learned of it on CNN. The Zarqawi-letter story was almost unrecognizable. Because, in the hands of a network that hasn't had a body in the field in Mosul long enough to get their bearings, the best the media could do is paraphrase the military press release. So what should have been a front page banner headline story ended up buried on page 6.

Even CNN couldn't grasp the importance of the letter. They ended up giving more coverage to the impending E-Bay auction of Jennifer Aniston's old love letters than to the missive in which the top Al-Qaeda leader in Mosul writes to the second most wanted man in the world, and describes in amazing detail the weaknesses and impending collapse of the terrorist network in Mosul and surrounds. Only then did the military ask if I wanted to write about the letter.

Everyone, even a "higher up" deserves the benefit of the doubt, and should be entitled to one mistake. But how many times, and how many major stories have to be mangled into meaninglessness before someone connects the cables and lets the information flow in a direction other than down the mainstream media drain?

Meanwhile, by the time you read this, the US Army and the ISF will have launched offensive operations in Mosul and I will be in the middle of it. Maybe this time I will be able to write about matters while they still matter.

---------------
Post Script: The operation has begun. The Commander of Deuce Four, LTC Erik Kurilla, was shot three times in combat yesterday in front of my eyes. Despite being seriously wounded, LTC Kurilla immediately rejoined the intense and close-quarter fight that ended in hand-to-hand combat. LTC Kurilla continued to direct his men until a medic gave him morphine and the men took him away. I was right there. When I returned to base, I was actually "ordered" not to write about the fighting until given clearance, and was told that my phones could be confiscated. I will ignore such "orders" at my own discretion. I am preparing a dispatch now.

The Battle for Mosul: Reality Check

[Click here for video of small IED attack. Probably a "two-banger."]

Mosul, Iraq
For more than a week, I've been trying to finish the Battle for Mosul Part IV. Meanwhile, the battle for Mosul is still on. Writing about this war takes a back seat to living it. Yesterday, for instance, there was fighting and one of our brother units lost a young soldier in battle.

Part IV will focus on the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) who live and work in Mosul. The ISF also were fighting yesterday, and while I was downtown the enemy sprung a "complex ambush" on ISF. Deuce Four soldiers responded and joined the firefight. Such realities often clog my dispatches in the pipeline.

The outcome of our efforts rests on the Iraqi Security Forces and their ability to establish and maintain civil order while new democratic systems take root.

As a serial, there is benefit in reading the segments in sequence. Last week, I republished Battle for Mosul Part I. Part II is republished below for your convenience, and Part III will be available in the next few days.

Many readers have asked for combat video. I have made a few videos of fighting, but mostly photos. Nevertheless, to see a real IED strike on our troops while I was in Baquba (near Baghdad), please click the link above. The video was shot by 1st Infantry Division soldiers that I often accompanied in Baquba.

And now:

Battle For Mosul II
The Players
There is the perception that fanatical insurgents bubble like oil from the Iraqi sands. Yet, having traveled in Iraq for nearly half a year, I have seen little real desert, and true fanatics are rare.

In an effort to be culturally sensitive and almost compulsively polite, we've mangled the meanings of words like "martyr" and "suicide" to such a degree that we're using them to label mass murderers. While American and foreign media collectively increase the suffering of babes through their current fashion of cynicism, others seem to have a case of "parents' guilt." Unable to give the Iraqi suffering the undivided and ameliorative attention it requires, reporters instead rush at any sign of distress and hyper-focus on the negative. In the process, they create more problems than originally existed, shoveling out body counts and masquerading them as reports.

A major US magazine recently published an unsubstantiated piece about the desecration of the Islamic Holy Book by US Forces. This story led to riots and many deaths. The magazine has apologized, but too late for the people who are dead.

I have participated in so many raids, I lost count long ago. In practically every Iraqi home, I have seen the Quran. American soldiers are trained to recognize it and rarely will even touch the green tome; leaving it where it sits, in special places in many homes.

The combined pressures of an increasingly engaged Iraqi populace, coupled with an increasingly effective Coalition military response, are working to cordon and curtail the insurgency in some areas, while it flares in others. The insurgents' tactics are backfiring in many areas; their ranks are thinning in Mosul.


The Business of Insurgency

Insurgents are in the disruption business. Bombs and bullets are their main currency. Like every enterprise, they must control costs. Distant viewers who acquire perceptions of bombs from movies or the nightly news might have a false idea that explosives are high-end items, requiring specialized technical skills and scarce raw materials. Actually, making explosive devices—such as car bombs—is simple.

In most cases, the enemy in Iraq collects munitions such as unexploded artillery shells—available by the truckload, and cheap—then rigs the shells to explode by one of several easy methods. Once loaded into a car, a switch that a clever junior high-schooler could make is added. That’s it. The bomb is ready. The size of the device is limited primarily by the capacity of the vehicle.

The Chinese first began using gunpowder a thousand years ago, and quickly realized that making a bomb and using it effectively are two different problems. They made rockets from bamboo, and invented grenades. The real challenge is making the explosions connect with a target at the right time, in the right way; meaning, there is an optimal point and moment for initiation. Achieving both of these simultaneously can be extremely difficult.

What's true for simple IEDs also holds for large car bombs against armored targets—if the timing is off, by as little as a quarter-second as the vehicle drives by… BLAM! …everyone inside the vehicle might be fine. (Note: That’s exactly what the video clip linked to the title of this re-post shows.) When the timing is spot on, everyone can be killed. For armored targets, if the bomb doesn't make direct contact, or nearly direct contact, the effect is usually minor. (Unless the bomber is highly sophisticated; there are few of these in Iraq.) The enemy in Iraq is mostly relatively crude. What they lack in engineering finesse, they try to overcome with more explosives, often resulting in shattered neighborhoods.

The enemy's operating practices for overcoming delivery and timing problems speak volumes about their predatory nature. They use human bomb delivery devices—the mislabeled "suicide bombers"—who become organic elements of primitive weapon systems. They call these temp workers "martyrs," in a shameless exploitation of the naïveté and narcissism of certain young men. The "martyrs" allow themselves to be used as targeting and acquisition systems. More than just "allowing" they actually see the act of mass murder as the fulfillment of a glorious plan.

Particularly among fanatics, there seems to be an intentional misappropriation of meaning in the liberal misapplication of labeling words. Let's start with the BIG ones: suicide bombers and martyrs. Suicide is a term that should evoke empathy, if not sympathy, for a lonely and despairing act. A distressed soul, harboring a crushing, agonizing lebensmude, weary of the strain of a terrestrial existence, perhaps seeking mere relief, or just an end to psychic pain, may be contemplating suicide. If this person straps a bomb to his or her chest and walks out into the solitude of the desert and detonates, they would then be properly called a "suicide bomber." But when the media reports every day on "suicide bombers," they are talking about different people.

A fanatic who straps a bomb to his chest and walks into a market crowded with women and children, then detonates a bomb that is sometimes laced with rat poison to hamper blood coagulation, is properly called a "mass murderer." There is nothing good to say about mass murderers, nor is there anything good to say about a person who encourages these murders. Calling these human bomb delivery devices "suicide bombers" is simply incorrect. They are murderers. A person or media source defending or explaining away the actions of the murderers supports them. There is no wiggle room.

Calling homicide bombers martyrs is a language offense; words are every bit as powerful as bombs, often more so. Calling murderers "martyrs" is like calling a man "customer" because he stood in line before gunning down a store clerk. There's no need to whisper. I hear the bombs every single day. Not some days, but every day. We're talking about criminals who actually volunteer and plan to deliberately murder and maim innocent people. What reservoir of feelings or sensibilities do we fear to assault by simply calling it so? When murderers describe themselves as "martyrs" it should sound to sensible ears like a rapist saying, "she was asking for it." In other words, like the empty rationalizations of a depraved criminal.

The word martyr is derived from the word "to witness." It is used to describe a person who is killed because of a belief or principle. Given the choice to recant, martyrs chose instead to face their murderers and stand in witness to their beliefs. True martyrs do not kill themselves, but stand their ground and fight in the face of death to demonstrate the power of their convictions, sometimes dying as a result, but preferably surviving.

The only martyrs I know about in Iraq are the fathers and brothers who see a better future coming, and so they act on their beliefs and assemble outside police stations whenever recruitment notices are posted. They line up in ever increasing numbers, knowing that insurgents can also read these notices. The men stand in longer and longer lines, making ever bigger targets of themselves. Some volunteer to to earn a living. This, too, is honorable. But others take these risks because they believe that a better future is possible only if Iraqi men of principle stand up for their own values, for their country, for their families. These are the true martyrs, the true heroes of Iraq and of Islam. I meet these martyrs frequently. They are brave men, worthy of respect.


Enemy Forces

In Mosul, the enemy has two main faces: The Former Regime Elements (FRE), and the extremists. The extremists here in Mosul can be divided into five groups—more or less—one of which would be the local chapter claiming affiliation with the so-called Al-Qaeda gang.

The goals of the FRE and the extremist gangs are at stunning variance. In fact, they mostly hate each other, often kill one another, and work together only as needed. If the Coalition and new Iraqi government were not here, conveniently located as a central target, the FRE and other terrorists would almost certainly be at war with each other.

The main goal of the FRE is simple: under the former regime, they were in charge. They want to be in charge again. In Saddam Hussein's regime, the Cynic's Golden Rule—"He who has the gold, makes the rules"—worked both ways: "He who makes the rules gets all the gold." The FRE bandits made the rules and controlled the gold. They have an understandable nostalgia for the good old days. They liked being in charge. They despise the prospect of people they once persecuted, such as the Kurds, suddenly acquiring any voice whatsoever. It’s not as if the FRE are totally disenfranchised, but more that they are no longer in complete control.

Whether or not someone might agree with the FRE, there is little dispute that these people have rational goals. Yet rational does not imply tenable in a newly democratic Iraq. This situation is not burdened with nagging grey areas where battle-scarred former combatants can work to some diplomatic compromise. This is an either/or situation. If the new democratic system takes hold, mathematics dictates that the FRE are not going to be in charge; they are outnumbered two to one. The FRE are Sunni Ba'athists while the majority of Iraq is Shia. The FRE is trying to destabilize the new government while simultaneously leveraging their position. Their primary strategy for both is to use violence against government officials and the civilians who elect them.

The FRE—being essentially rational but also essentially brutal—are simple to understand. They are serious, often deadly, but are not fanatical in the degree of their personal commitment to the cause. If they die, they will not regain control. It's a fact here on the Iraqi battleground—though seldom mentioned—that the majority of FRE insurgents are climate-sensitive. They almost never attack when it's cold, raining or even muddy. As a rule, if conditions are such that the Little League baseball game back home would be canceled due to inclement weather, these FRE insurgents will stay home and wait for the skies to clear.

Of the two groups, the more intractable and irrational enemy wraps their rebellion in a flag of fundamentalist fervor. Although the press routinely lumps all of these similar groups under the banner "Al-Qaeda" (whatever that really is) there are actually five main extremist groups operating in Mosul. They have common ground. Some members seek fulfillment in apocalyptic visions of a world at war, wherein everybody except them—or even including them—dies. In other cases they see the war shaping a new world, one that is entirely Islamic. The word "extremist" is not an overstatement for them.

These extremists are irrational, dangerous, often highly emotional, and cannot be trusted with large weapons. Every day, they kill innocent people in Iraq. The FRE and most of the Iraqis tend to hate the extremists, realizing that if the Coalition were to leave, they would face the full wrath of these fanatics alone.

Friendly Forces

The friendly forces in Iraq are also an amalgamation. In Iraq as a whole, the Coalition is comprised of soldiers from many countries. But here in Mosul, the "Coalition" is almost entirely US, charged with building the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), while simultaneously keeping the insurgents at bay until the ISF can take over. Building the ISF is part of a larger plan that will allow our people to come home, without leaving a wounded Iraq victim to septic fundamentalism from within, or invasion from opportunistic neighbors.

Some definitions: The ISF includes the Iraqi Police (IP), Iraqi Army (IA), Iraqi National Guard (ING), Border Patrol (BP), and sundry other groups, each with their own initials. Every month, the ISF becomes a greater and more proximate threat to FRE and extremist groups throughout Iraq. This is borne out in a most ironic fashion; evidence of the growing competence and capability of ISF shouts from the headlines as the Iraqi government itself becomes the primary focus of insurgent attacks.

Gone are the days when the FREs and extremists in Mosul chased police from their stations and ravaged entire neighborhoods at will. Today, the ISF kills and captures enemy every day in Mosul, something that seldom makes news.

In my own dispatches I rarely mention these successes, yet I see or hear about small operations every day, collecting in ever larger pools of confidence and stability. There's no time to write about each event; this would be like trying to describe every raindrop that hits the windshield while keeping up with a fast moving storm. Eventually, a competent witness must stop taking notes, and step back to see the storm for what it is.

The next dispatch will explain how Deuce Four has captured nearly one hundred insurgents in the past three weeks, and how three drugged-up foreign homicide bombers were caught last night.

Audio of Boston Radio Interview

I conducted a radio interview on Sunday, 14 August with WRKO in Boston. For an audio recording of the discussion, please click here.

Respectfully,

Michael Yon
Mosul, Iraq

Jungle Law

Combat Physics
Mosul, Iraq
The first person to use a shield might have been a hairy man who, days earlier, barely survived a barrage from the stone-throwing man in the cave next door. As the use of weaponized sticks and stones spread, improved shields probably were not far behind. Throughout recorded history, bigger and better shields always play catch-up to their bigger and better ballistic brethren. Common wisdom posits that defense systems are preventative measures, but in fact, they are reactive. Every castle wall can be defeated. Somewhere along the line people realized, "the best defense is a good offense." Adherence to this maxim provided at least one of the philosophical rubicons to our landing in Iraq.

The best modern armors, which can include everything from sandbags to special alloys and "reactive armors," are simple to use and can work well for short periods. Sandbags are good and cheap, but are cumbersome and blow apart easily. As for the reactive armors, modern explosives are more powerful than modern alloys and their associated engineering can withstand. Pound for pound--and volume for volume--explosives are miles ahead of metallurgy and engineering. No matter how sophisticated the science behind the shield, someone can make a bomb to beat it.

During the first phase of this war, many of our troops were riding in unarmored Humvees and other vehicles. Soon they were being torn to pieces. Once the vehicles were up-armored, the enemy was unable to defeat much of that defense. For a time. But today--although armored Humvees are great and can defeat many threats--the latest generations of IEDs can effortlessly swat them away, spreading their parts over city blocks. The enemy has destroyed our most powerful armored tanks with underground bombs that leave craters in the roads large enough to make swimming pools.

Troops in Mosul face a spectrum of explosive threats. At the low end are IEDs like the "double-bangers," fashioned from a couple of artillery rounds. Double-bangers easily kill soldiers on foot, or even in Humvees, and sometimes even kill exposed persons in Stryker vehicles. Five-bangers start the next stage of lethality, and can obliterate Humvees if the timing is right.

Timing is critical, and the enemy is getting better at it.

Giant charges are next; car-bombs in Mosul usually contain 20-25 artillery rounds, weighting the car so that it practically drags the ground and is hard to steer. More recently, the enemy has learned to make special shaped charges specifically designed to defeat alloy armors.

The attack last week that killed 15 people, including 14 Marines, catapulted this topic to the front pages. A massive explosion completely destroyed their 28-ton armored personnel carrier. Traveling almost as fast as that news was speculation that our armor is insufficient. But the news that never flashed is that no amount of armor can completely protect us. Armor is extremely important, but given time, the enemy will defeat it.


Jungle Law

Every day, the Deuce Four launches dozens of combat missions in Mosul. Recently, a patrol was heading downtown, and its tasks included meeting with Iraqi police. I asked to go along. The Battalion Commander led the patrol, which also included two Strykers led by LT Sean Keneally from Charlie Company.

As the ramp on our Stryker began to close, I inserted earplugs, pulled a fire-retardant hood over my head, put on my helmet and buckled the chin strap, then pulled the ballistic goggles over my eyes.

Flash burns from bombs are deadly. I've seen it many times: anything exposed is fried in an instant. Skin and flesh just peel off. The super-hot flashes also melt contact lenses to eyeballs before people can blink. Years ago, when I was a jumpmaster, I remember sticking my face outside the aircraft to check surroundings, and my eyelids slapped and flopped in the torrent. That was only about hurricane force winds. The blast in an explosion opens the eyelids, fusing the melted contacts to the eyeballs. Smart soldiers don't wear contacts in combat, but others often do.

I'm wearing fire-retardant pants and a long-sleeved shirt, over which I wear a fire-retardant jumpsuit. I take a long drink of cold water, and pull the hood back up over my mouth and nose, then pull the black, fire-retardant gloves over my hands. The outside temperature is roughly 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

Sitting to my left is Major David Brown, MD, the Battalion surgeon. I hope Major Brown doesn't get severely injured or killed; we'll definitely need him again. Plus, I like him; he's probably the only soldier who hasn't laughed at all the fire-gear I wear. We both know that the law of averages catches people at the worst times, and survival favors the protected.

A couple minutes later, we leave the base and begin the drive downtown, passing spots where so many car bombs and IEDs have exploded. Within a few blocks, we are 15 seconds from rolling over a large bomb buried under the road.

15 Seconds...

At least two terrorists are watching our approach, pretending to talk to a taxi driver. One holds a Motorola radio transmitter in his pants pocket.

14 Seconds...

13 Seconds...

The bombs are buried under the road ahead of us, on a route to the police station.

12 Seconds...

11 Seconds...

We are in a big Stryker. Usually the IEDs just make the ears ring--I wear earplugs--or maybe knock an air-guard or two unconscious, filling the cabin with so much fine dust that it looks like smoke. I've often wondered if this fine dust sometimes ignites when the armor ruptures, adding to the flashover that burns so many soldiers inside.

10 Seconds...

9 Seconds...

Sometimes IEDs blow through the Stryker, launching it into the air, and critically or fatally injuring the people inside. Odd body parts will often be left unscathed, such as a severed hand in a black glove on the road. About 43 Americans have died here during the past ten days.

8 Seconds...

7 Seconds...

The men are cautiously watching us, still talking among themselves. The transmitter is armed. A push of the button might make the final dispatch.

6 Seconds...

A terrorist is preparing to push the button, but the timing's got to be just right . . . not yet . . . not yet . . . we are almost there. . . .

5 Seconds...

One of the terrorists does a double take at the lead Stryker, blowing his cover. The call instantly goes out to "Block left! Lock 'em down! Two pax!"


Deuce Four Strykers: movement to contact

When we turn toward them, one man spooks and bolts. I'm watching on the screen [RWS] inside, as SSG Munch, our machine gunner, tracks this man who runs like an antelope. I follow along on the RWS, and think, Why is he running? How is he running that fast?

He's running so fast that it's freaky to watch. The only other person I've seen run that fast was a track star during practice at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Now, watching the machine gun track him was like a video game. Except this video had real men, real bullets, and when your team hits a bomb, you really die. If Munch fires his real .50 caliber machine gun, the guy who is running like the Bionic Man will atomize into a bloody mist, and the wall behind him will be knocked down. Munch doesn't shoot.

The Bionic Terrorist runs into a neighborhood. We take a couple of sharp turns chasing him, driving over a few curbs. Of course, I am thinking, this guy is leading us into a massive ambush.

LT Keneally and his two Strykers are just behind us. The Commander radios Keneally to grab the stripe-shirted guy that was left standing in the traffic circle when the Bionic Terrorist bolted. I looked behind me and said over my shoulder to Dr. Brown: "I bet this is an ambush."

As we follow him into the neighborhood, he turns around mid-stride to see our Stryker with weapons pointing at him, and he caves to the ground. The ramp drops and we all run out. The man is just a cowering heap on the sidewalk. Chris Espindola flex-cuffs him. Meanwhile, I'm wondering what this is really all about, and waiting for the ambush to start. SSG Contrares is scanning rooftops, ready for action.

The Bionic Terrorist seems mentally disturbed. He's poxied with panic, his face contorted by abject terror. Clearly, he is deranged, possibly explaining his prodigious running ability. The enemy is known to use and discard mentally-challenged persons. The poor guy probably doesn't even know what language we speak.

LT Keneally's voice calls over the radio that when they caught the stripe-shirted man they found an IED radio transmitter in his pocket. Before the message is completed, we've started running, leaving our Stryker behind with a few soldiers to watch over the not-so-bionic terrorist. We cover the few hundred yards to the Yarmuk traffic circle, reaching the spot where the two men were standing when the commotion started.

One of the Charlie Company soldiers looked at me and asked, "Isn’t all that shit hot?" "Not really," I said. They all laugh at me for dressing like a fireman. But each layer squeezes ten more seconds between searing heat and my skin.


Running to Yarmuk Traffic Circle

The Yarmuk traffic circle is fantastically dangerous. On the first mission I ran in Mosul, we lost two soldiers and an interpreter, all killed by a car bomb. Others were horribly burned, scarred for life. Many of our wounded and killed soldiers got it right here, or in the immediate vicinity. The ISF takes serious losses in this part of town. But it's not entirely one-sided--the Deuce Four has killed well over 150 terrorists in this neighborhood in the past 10 months. But almost none of those made the news, and those that did had a few key details missing.

Like the time when some ISF were driving and got blasted by an IED, causing numerous casualties and preventing them from recovering the vehicle. The terrorists came out and did their rifle-pumping-in-the-air thing, shooting AKs, dancing around like monkeys. Videos went 'round the world, making it appear the terrorists were running Mosul, which was pretty much what was being reported at the time.

But that wasn't the whole story. In the Yarmuk neighborhood, only terrorists openly carry AK-47s. The lawyers call this Hostile Intent. The soldiers call this Dead Man Walking.

Deuce Four is an overwhelmingly aggressive and effective unit, and they believe the best defense is a dead enemy. They are constantly thinking up innovative, unique, and effective ways to kill or capture the enemy; proactive not reactive. They planned an operation with snipers, making it appear that an ISF vehicle had been attacked, complete with explosives and flash-bang grenades to simulate the IED. The simulated casualty evacuation of sand dummies completed the ruse.

The Deuce Four soldiers left quickly with the "casualties," "abandoning" the burning truck in the traffic circle. The enemy took the bait. Terrorists came out and started with the AK-rifle-monkey-pump, shooting into the truck, their own video crews capturing the moment of glory. That's when the American snipers opened fire and killed everybody with a weapon. Until now, only insiders knew about the AK-monkey-pumpers smack-down.

And there we were, in the Yarmuk traffic circle, where so many people die so violently. LT Keneally and SSG Eric Richardson had cuffed the guy with the striped shirt and the transmitter. LTC Kurilla started interrogating the terrorist, asking where the bombs are, stopping only for the interpreter.

Meanwhile, Strykers took up blocking positions, and began scanning the area for enemy. Everyone knew that other terrorists were out there, somewhere, watching us. After all, we were standing in what might be the most dangerous traffic circle in the universe.

I was thinking, of course: IEDs. Snipers. RPGs. Car bombs. Mortars. And then, after scanning the area and reflecting, I rethought and came up with: IEDs. Snipers. RPGs. Car bombs. Mortars. But we hadn't been shot at by snipers in days, and Kurilla managed to make the terrorist point to where the IEDs were buried. That's when automatic weapons started firing at us.

Bullets flying by, and enemy weapons firing: PaPaPaPaPaPaPaPaPaPow . . . zinnggg . . . GawGawGawGawPaPaGawGaw. . . . different types of weapons were shooting.
One of our big machine guns started boomboomboom . . . boomboomboom . . . boomboom boom, and then our guys with those little rifles they carry, poppop . . . poppoppoppop. . . . to my left . . . poppoppoppoppoppoppopp to my right, and then, boomboomboom PaPaPaPaPaPpoppoppoppopp GawGawGaw BOOM PaPaPpoppopGawGaw GawGawGawPaPaPpop popboom boom boom.

This was an appropriate time to run for cover. Enemy bullets snapping by. I saw at least two soldiers smiling--authors are not allowed to carry weapons PaPaPGawGaw
BOOM PaPaPpop zinnggg--dust clouding the air--sure would be nice to have a gun instead of a camera right now boompop Gawsnapsnap boom boompoppboomGawGawGaw.

I looked back to where we had been because the prisoner [the American soldiers always remind me that I should call prisoners "detainees"] was still there, handcuffed, and on his knees, with the radio transmitter lying beside him on the ground.

We had left the prisoner in the open. Bullets are snapping, and I'm crouched on a knee behind a Stryker. When I look back again, I see Kurilla standing out there, alone, next to the terrorist on the sidewalk. Bullets are kicking up dirt and Kurilla gives us a look: What the hell! You left the prisoner!

For a moment, I nearly ran back out to drag the terrorist behind the Stryker, but then I thought, Nope, he's a terrorist! If Kurilla gets shot, I'm definitely going to get him. But the terrorist can get shot to pieces and I don't care.

Instead of doing something useful--and I feel marginally guilty about this, but not too much--I start snapping photos as the Commander drags the guy by the collar to get him to the cover of the Stryker. I can't believe Kurilla is still alive after nearly a year of doing this.


BoomboomboomPaPaPaPaPaP pop pop



Soon we cleared the area south of the circle where we were taking fire. It was over within about 20 minutes; the enemy broke contact for a short time. Maybe we killed some. Before it could start up again, more American platoons arrived, as well as our Warmonger air support. Soldiers love those helicopter pilots. With back-up on site, we made security positions, and waited for the Army Explosives Ordinance Disposal [EOD] team to arrive.

All the while we were parked at the traffic circle, I expected mortars or car bombs at any moment. The longer we sat there, still and waiting, the greater the risk. We had recently uncovered a giant cache of IEDs, and some were pre-fabbed into concrete to look like road curbs. Sections of the road underneath us might very well be bombs. One EOD soldier didn't seem happy to be there. "Nice Fun Meter!" I said and snapped a photo.



The EOD soldiers loaded their little Talon robot with a claw full of C-4 plastic explosives. The robot rolled down the road and put the explosives where we thought the IEDs were. The robot scampered back a short distance:

Fire in the hole, fire in the hole, fire in the hole!
BOOM!
Nothing. Just the C-4 exploded.

One soldier said, "You're not going to write about this are you? That wasn't anything. Don't make it sound like a big deal, okay? My mom reads your stuff, and every time you write about something dangerous she freaks out."

"No problem," I said, "I'll water it down from here out." There was some minor shooting going on around us, and an EOD lieutenant came up and said, "I loved that dispatch called the Devil's Foyer."

"Thank you," I replied, then asked, "What was that green sub-munition I photographed for that dispatch? A thousand people wrote me asking about it."

The Lieutenant answered, "Could have been different things. Like chemical, but probably was just high explosives. When those sub-munitions deploy, they spin and arm. Probably that one was not armed," he answered.

The sounds of shooting between Deuce Four platoons and terrorists kept wafting in, but it wasn't very close. I still expected mortars, a car bomb, maybe a sniper.

The robot scampered out and laid down another claw-full of plastic explosives. BOOM!
Nothing.

The robot scampered back.

"Isn't all that shit pretty hot?" asked an EOD soldier.
"Not really," I said.

Should be some mortars landing on us any moment now.

The EOD guys stuck more explosives in the robot's claw. It was like a dog trained to fetch, but the only treat this robot needs is a charged battery-pack. It scampered back out. BOOM!
Nothing.

That's three strikes. Time for the EOD guys to pull out and leave. This irritates and angers the soldiers immensely, but I've run with EOD guys before, and their work is exceptionally dangerous. The enemy specifically tries to kill them, making it important that EOD be used only when absolutely needed. This EOD team said that if we find the bomb, please call. They drove home.

And so we sat there, with the two damn terrorists. Couldn't get the bombs to explode. There might be other bombs close by, and there might be other terrorists with other radio transmitters. Just because we had the one transmitter and the two bad guys did not mean we could just walk around the center ring of the bull's eye and poke around looking for trouble. Trouble would definitely find us in Yarmuk circle. Time was working against us.



LTC Kurilla didn't want to leave the bombs buried in the road, so he pulled the Strykers further back, and tried to use the terrorist's radio control to detonate them. He dropped down inside the hatch and asked the terrorist how to use the transmitter. In the most shocking admission of guilt imaginable, the terrorist walked the Commander through the steps: 1) Re-install the AA batteries in the back, 2) Connect the 9-volt battery on the side. 3) Flip the black switch on the side. 4) Press #1 on the weird keypad. 5) Press #7.

When you press 7, the bomb explodes.

Despite trying all kinds of permutations, even standing up in the hatch for better transmission, nothing happened. Kurilla came back down and asked for more instructions, but the thing would not work. The receiver might have been damaged by the three EOD blasts.

After ordering that the street be made "black," meaning closed to traffic, Kurilla then asked the terrorist where he lived. Without hesitation, he told us. Some soldiers stayed to watch the IED area while we drove to and raided the man's house.



He lived with his mother. She was the only one home when we arrived. It was as if she knew we were coming. Many people saw us capture him; someone must have called on a cell phone to warn her that trouble was brewing. We searched everywhere.



She smiled the whole time, as if to say, That's my boy! The translator heard her say to her son, "Don't worry. You will be released soon." She smiled at me.

The most serious terrorists do not fear prison here. Captain Jeff VanAntwerp, who commands Alpha Company, recently told me that Iraqis joke among themselves that they would pay 5,000 dinar per night to stay at Abu Ghraib prison. It's air-conditioned, the showers are good, the food is good, and the water is good. The mother seemed to know this and it curled in contempt behind her smile.



Our guys back at the Yarmuk traffic circle called saying they were in a little firefight and were taking mortar fire. But on the block where the terrorist lived, with his proud smiling mother, soldiers knocked on the neighbors' doors. The children clearly recognized the man, but everyone disavowed knowledge of him, despite that his mother encouraged him in front of us.



When the soldiers talked with other neighbors, they showed the transmitter and the terrorist. But clearly this was not diminishing his stature: We were making a local hero. And his neighbors were coalescing to shield him. This wasn't getting us anywhere useful, so we changed course and headed for our meeting with the police.



We finally arrived at the police station where they had prepared lunch for us, though we were running late due to the inconveniences. The smell quickened my growing hunger; Iraqi Police food in Mosul is much better than the American Army chow on base. But before we could eat, the soldiers walked the blindfolded prisoner in to see if police could identify him.

The Chief wanted the prisoner. "Please leave him with me."

During lunch, the Chief persisted in his entreaties to LTC Kurilla, saying his police would find all the bombs, break the cell, and give the prisoner back tomorrow at the latest. And they could. The Iraqi Police could break the cell because they can break the man.

Terrorists often target Iraqi police--especially this station--so the Chief was becoming frustrated, and he continued to angle for the opportunity to interrogate the prisoner, suggesting creative ways to circumvent the inconvenient rules, like, "Let him go and we will catch him again." But LTC Kurilla kept reiterating, “You know I can't give him to you. I might not agree with all the rules, but I must enforce them."

"Give him to me, just for the night," the Chief said. "You can have him back tomorrow."

"That I cannot do," Kurilla replied firmly. "If your police had been with us when we captured him, you could have him. But these are the rules."

Driving back to base with both prisoners, we knew that the unexploded bomb (or bombs) were still under a main road. But later that night the 73rd Engineers found two bombs buried in the exact spot described by the terrorist. Even with these devices eliminated, we thought more bombs were hidden there. Something was not right. But a hunch, even one so collective, can't justify digging up a main road in Mosul.

And the missions can't be put on hold. Timing is everything. An enemy fighting a guerilla war has limited resources; whoever controls the pace owns the day.

Next day, we drove back to the same police station using a different route, and met with the Chief to discuss security for the upcoming elections. Minutes after we left the meeting, a terrorist sniper shot and killed PFC Nils Thompson.

There was no time to stop and grieve. The missions continued. They had to. Hitting the enemy. More than I can ever write. Too much happens here too fast. Despite the brisk pace, as the distance of days unfurled, conversations went back to that IED. Then, finally, I woke up early one morning, waiting by my cell phone for a scheduled radio interview, when a gigantic explosion rocked the morning darkness. That was more than a five-banger.

I walked to the TOC and asked what exploded. Blasts that large can defeat Strkyer armor, but no patrols called in to say they had been hit. I asked "Q," who was manning the counter-battery radar, if he saw anything; maybe flying parts were tracked by radar, but Q showed me the blank screen. No radar acquisitions. Just another giant explosion in the night without explanation; there have been many.

I walked back through the dark and did the radio interview by cell phone. During such interviews, I get the impression that people at home are losing faith in the effort, though we are winning. But at home they cannot see it, and when I said goodbye that time, I sat in the dark.

The birds began singing and twilight broke to sunrise; another day was born. I watched Strykers coming in, and Strykers going out: the missions rolled on and I wanted to go. But I was falling behind on the writing.

It happens that the explosion was an accidental detonation of the large bomb we suspected had been left under the road by Yarmuk Traffic Circle. Apparently the terrorists had gone back to hook it up, but it had detonated, scattering some car parts, but no human parts were found. Our hunch left a crater eight feet in diameter, and took out an entire lane. Three artillery rounds also had been blown from the hole and lay unexploded nearby. Had Kurilla not spotted that nervous double-take seconds before the stripe-shirted terrorist could hit the #7 key, that bomb might have hit us.

Now Kurilla was rolling out again, planning to check election security, and the area by the hole that might have been our grave. Soldiers were suiting up and as they passed me, several asked if I was going. I kept saying, "I want to, but I promised to finish a dispatch." They rolled without me. Again, a powerful IED lay in their path, several miles from the previous bomb. BOOM! A soldier was lightly wounded in the face, the Stryker was damaged, but the timing was a tad off, so everyone survived.

That night, there was an important memorial for Nils Thompson, the soldier who had been killed by a sniper. Soldiers had labored for days, and into the nights, to make a fitting ceremony for young Nils Thompson. Top officers, a General among them, came to the ceremony. Though he'd just turned 19, Thompson already had earned respect from officers and men in the unit. Many quiet tears marked the true pain of the loss. A few soldiers wondered, Do people at home even care?

After the memorial, I finally came back, ready to finish a dispatch that was now days late. But when I walked into the TOC, the Shadow unmanned "spy plane" was beaming down live feed of a target house. Captain VanAntwerp, Alpha Company Commander, was there, talking with LTC Kurilla and others. They were hastily planning a mission after hot intelligence arrived about two car bombs that were being assembled. Captain V was loaded for battle.

Captain V is one of the most respected officers here. When things go wrong, soldiers love to hear his voice on other end of the radio. They know that things are getting better fast when Captian V is on the way. A couple months ago, I rolled out with his section, and soon we were sleeking on foot down the darkened streets and warrens of Mosul, far away from the Strykers. We got into contact and there was some minor shooting drama, and I ended up separated with only two soldiers. We were alone in Mosul. Guns were hot. There was a sergeant and a young soldier, and the sergeant's radio could not reach out. "Let's stay here and Captain V will find us," I suggested. But the sergeant was having none of that sit-tight stuff. He wanted to keep moving, and so we did.

Before long, a Stryker came creeping down a dark road and stopped in front of our latest position in a dark alcove. The ramp dropped and Captain V walked out. "Hey, guys," he said. "How's it going?" Much better, I thought. We re-grouped and continued the mission.

And now tonight, the enemy was up to something, but our guys were on to them.

"Is this a real raid," I asked a soldier quietly, "or are they just going out to roll up some little cell leader?"

"Sounds like they're going in hard," answered a soldier.

"Can I go?" I asked LTC Kurilla. The answer has never been "No."

"Get your gear. They're leaving."

"I'm on it." The dispatch would have to wait.

After midnight, the ramps dropped and we slipped silently into the dark spaces of Mosul. Creeping through stinking alleys, we took cover in darkness, sometimes illuminating briefly under shop lights, then disappearing back into the shadows.


No sound, no sight, just soldiers prowling through the murk of war, bringing worry to men who should be worried. The soldiers found the right house, and silently slipped inside.

God's Will

Mosul, Iraq
On Thursday August 6, we headed out the gates to meet with police officials in downtown Mosul. As we rolled in, a handful of Iraqi police ran across the road, back towards the barracks. Terrorists had just shot the mother of a police officer, and the police said she was dead. But Captain Scott Cheney, the Charlie Company Commander, rolled there and found she wasn’t dead, just shot in the shoulder and “screaming like crazy.”

Inside the police station, LTC Kurilla, Commander of Deuce Four, met with the brother of a taxi driver killed on Monday. Deuce Four believed they wrongly shot the man, so they chose to pay condolence compensation to a member of his family. The brother nodded and said ensha’allah, an expression meaning that it's God’s will that he died. I have seen the parents of children killed by car bombs say ensha’allah as if it makes it all comprehensible. Kids blown up, ensha’allah; airplanes fly into buildings, ensha’allah; the electricty goes out ensha’allah. Yet then many ask--without a twitch of irony--why the Americans cannot make the electricity stay on in Iraq: terrorists blow up the generators, ensha’allah.

LTC Kurilla and the surviving brother talked for about ten minutes, the brother said ensha’allah one last time, they shook hands and the man departed.

There were two primary police commanders in the room; only one, Major Ali, was wearing a uniform. He seemed serious. LTC Kurilla described him as a “true warrior,” saying, “if we had more like him, we could win fast.”

The un-uniformed chief, Major Khalid, was asking about air conditioners, water, lights, computers; everything but dancing girls. LTC Kurilla asked, “Why aren’t you wearing a uniform?”

As we drank Pepsis with the police commanders, Major Khalid kept asking LTC Kurilla to call the Mosul water directorate to get a bigger water pipe, and to call the Mosul electric company to get national power lines installed, (this,despite having a $50,000 generator provided by the US Army.) It was as frustrating for me to listen as it must have been for LTC Kurilla to answer.

“I will help you with security, combat patrols, military equipment and intelligence. I will point you in the right direction for the rest," said LTC Kurilla. "There’s only so much we are going to do for you, and then you are on your own. Stop humping my leg. Pick up the phone and call the water department.”

As we stood to leave, much shooting began. The sounds of various types of small arms and machine guns firing echoed about the buildings, so we ran outside to the Strykers. A car had driven by and shot at our guys. SSG Munch was certain he hit the car with his rifle, but didn't think he killed anyone. So we were looking for an Opel—seems we are always looking for Opels—with new bullet holes. After some searching, we didn’t find the Opel, and headed over to the 4-West Police Station.

The neighborhood is a mess of bombed-out, shot-up buildings, and there is a mosque next to the police station. In fact, terrorist mortar crews have admitted to using the tall minaret as an aiming reference point when bombing the police; and the police use the same minaret as a sniper position.

The 4-West police station is attacked numerous times every week and has the walls to prove it. Only some months back, the station was briefly famous in the world news when the police ran away and terrorists seized the station. But the terrorists didn't seem to have a plan after siezing it, so the Americans took it, then gave the station back to the police. Now, occasionally, when we arrive, there is fresh blood on the floor, but the police are quick to clean this up.

Colonel Eid is the commander of 4-West, and his men kill a lot of terrorists, so the terrorists seem to hate him as much as they hate us. They are definitely trying to get him: Colonel Eid has been shot twice, and just a few weeks ago, was wounded by an IED that killed his driver. Whenever we meet with Colonel Eid, some of us expect a terrorist to walk in wearing one of those exploding vests.

Walking into the meeting with Colonel Eid, I smiled at Air Force SSG Will Shockley and SGT Thomas, who were standing outside guarding the door. Nobody will ever believe Shockley if he tells them what he’s seen in Mosul, but these Air Force guys are right here in it. As I walked by, I punched SGT Thomas in the shoulder, trying to leave a bruise as payback for some bad camera advice he had given me. I liked Thomas, but hoped his arm hurt.

There were nine Iraqi police commanders, and an Iraqi Army officer, plus four American officers in the room. The meeting seemed to go on and on and on. Finally we departed, and there was Thomas at his post. As we passed, I said, “Let’s go boy!” and I walked out with all the soldiers, and the lone Air Force man, SSG Shockley.

We often get attacked by snipers, so I've come to expect it. When we walked out, there were a few moments of gaggle, so I took a knee to present a smaller profile. Soon enough, everyone loaded onto the Strykers, the ramps closed and we headed out. About four minutes later, Chris Espindola, who had his ear to the radio, told me that one of our guys just got hit by a sniper.

“Who got hit,” I asked?
“Thompson,” Chris said.
“Thompson or Thomas?” I asked.
“Thomas.”
“Is he okay?” I asked.
“KIA.” Chris said.
“KIA?”
“Yes, KIA,” said Chris.
What I said next is not fit to print. I really liked Thomas. I felt sick.


SGT Thomas shortly before the sniper attack

The mission veered in a new direction, and we started searching for the sniper. Thomas was in Charlie Company, and Charlie Company soldiers were out there searching, and some Special Forces guys showed up to help, but we all knew the score. Short of a very lucky break, we were not going to find that sniper, but knowing the odds didn’t stop the soldiers. They searched for hours, checking here and there, trying to find someone who had heard the shot, asking neighbors and shop-owners if they had heard or seen anything.

There were soldiers on one roof. I went up there with other soldiers and saw Thomas peering over the wall with this rifle. Thomas? I know Thomas, and I know his face well, and that soldier, peering over the wall with his rifle was Thomas. I said, “Thomas!”

“Thomas!” I said again. “I thought you got shot!”
“That was my roommate, Thompson,” he said.
“Holy shit! I thought you were dead. I’m sorry ...I’m sorry to hear about Thompson.”

But we were moving out and heading back down the stairs before I could say much more.

PFC Nils Thompson(Thompson family photo)

PFC Nils Thompson had just celebrated his 19th birthday the day before. Nils was deeply religious, and would go to Catholic and Protestant services. He was a great kid and everybody liked him; but we were in downtown Mosul searching for the sniper that killed him, and had to stay focused.

There weren't many clues. The best we could piece together was that a sniper came in a car, used an SVD rifle, and hit Thompson in the head while he stood in air-guard on the Stryker.

We headed back to base, and over to the Combat Support Hospital. Going to the CSH is much different when we lose a soldier outright like Nils Thompson. When soldiers die on the battlefield, they are still brought to the CSH, but their buddies don’t wait around in the waiting room. Usually the commander comes in and pays his respects, then the men come in, pay respects and leave.

I walked in behind LTC Kurilla. The room was silent, chilly, and bright. There was only Nils, the Commander, and me. Nils' hands and face were pale, and there was a stained gauze bandage wrapped around his head, and a green wool blanket covering the rest of him. The Commander put his hand on Nils’ shoulder and closed his eyes. I could see he was praying. I closed my eyes and said a prayer. And then we left without a word.

Chaplain Wilson was there in the hallway with some Deuce Four officers. He’s a great Chaplain, sometimes going out on the battlefield. The men respect Chaplain Wilson, and he somehow made things feel a little better.

The other men had not arrived yet, so I went out to sit alone in the waiting room. SGT Peckham came and sat on the floor beside me but I didn’t have much to say. I hope he didn’t think I was being rude, but I was thinking about Thompson and all the fighting he’d seen in the five months since he first arrived here. I was thinking how he just turned 19 yesterday. He’s gone.

Thompson’s platoon walked in and some of them nodded to me as they walked by, heading back to the room where their friend lay. They spent a few minutes, but I didn’t go because that’s a time when soldiers should be with soldiers.

A few minutes later, in a heavy silence, we all walked out, loaded the Strykers, and went back to work, battling for Mosul.