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TROLLING FOR TERRORISTS
The day after McKinley died, Vinni and the Hell Hounds got hit. They’d
been out clearing Route Ram when they discovered an IED under some trash. Vinni
called it up and wanted to shoot it with his .50-cal, but the 2-7 TOC told him
to sit tight and wait for EOD to come out. There were civilians downrange near
another road, and the 2-7 battle captain decided the risk was too great.
Third Platoon sat on that LED for hours. Word came back to
them that the EOD team had rolled a Humvee and would be delayed. Six hours later,
they showed up with a section of 39th Brigade Engineers providing security for
them. They blew up the LED.
By now, every insurgent in the area knew Vinni’s platoon had been sitting on Route Ram all afternoon. He knew it and called his NCOs together. They had a dilemma on their hands, and Vinni wanted to be totally straight with his leaders. He told them, “Either way we come out of here, we’re
probably going to get hit.”
They remounted and drove for the MSR. En route, Vinni heard
a rumble, and his new 1114 shook violently. Ben Ring, his home-schooled, devout
Christian gunner, shouted, “IED! IED!”
Vinni turned to his driver and RTO, Kenny Leisten, and said, “Call it up, Kenny.” Then he dismounted and called to his gunner, “Hey
Ring, start shooting!”
Ring swung his machine gun out and opened up. Vinni watched him and couldn’t
stifle a grin. Ring, all of nineteen years old, never swore and never looked
at porn even when the men stuck it under his nose. But now Vinni knew the kid
had no problems pulling the trigger.
Nearby, John Rosander and Jeffrey Vondross did the same thing, unleashing the “Breathing Dragon” to drive the insurgents away. Meanwhile, Vinni looked back down the column. The IED had hit the EOD team. Their Humvees didn’t even have doors. Third Platoon had no commo with them. They were stuck on this narrow stretch of road and couldn’t
turn around. They could back up, but Vinni decided to go back for them himself.
He ran into the kill zone. Behind him, the Hell Hounds dismounted, and Bill Stout,
Jeremy Turner, and Staff Sergeant Kevin Devlaeminck covered Vinni with a barrage
from their M4s.
Vinni reached the EOD guys, who were shaken but unhurt.
To the driver he shouted, “Can you drive this thing?”
“Yeah, I think so. But we’ve got two flat tires and I won’t
be able to go very fast.”
“Good, we’re gonna get you out of here.”
The EOD Humvee limped forward, its antennae shot away, shrapnel
scars on its fenders. Vinni ran back to his rig. The column moved forward and
reached Route Senators just as some Bradleys showed up, Kiowas overhead in support.
Kenny had calmly called everything up to the 2-7 TOC. The cay had reacted with
remarkable speed once again.
Minutes later, Captain San Miguel rolled up with a section that included Brian
Ward, Matt Zedwick, and Pete Salerno. They’d been down in Baghdad checking
on Shane at the CSH. Shane would live, but he had many surgeries and a lot of
rough times ahead.
Matt Zedwick dismounted and found Vinni. When Z asked what
had happened, Vinni replied, “Holy fucking shit, Z, we just got nailed!”
In the heart of the Sunni Triangle, a lot of American patrols were getting
nailed that June, including Lieutenant Dewayne Jones’ platoon from Alpha Company, 2-162. Jones had been sent to Taji to work with Commanche 2-7 in the western sector of Jim Rainey’s
AG. They covered down on the central communication avenues between Taji and
Fallujah, the very nexus of the Sunni Triangle.
Compton and Sergeant Phil Disney had linked up with Sergeant
Jacques shortly before they started patrolling the countryside. Vinni had passed
along some
tactical advice and cautioned them. Patrols were finding IEDs every day. He
told them to expect to get hit.
First Platoon, Alpha, had been used to the streets of Baghdad. They felt comfortable
out there among the people and buildings. Now, they found them¬selves
in a totally different environment among a hostile population. It required
different tactics and it would take time to learn the rules of this new game.
In the meantime, the insurgents did their best to educate them.
Shortly before midnight on June 23, 2004, Disney led a section home after evening
patrol west of Taji. As in Baghdad, they had their headlights on. They didn’t
know that was a bad idea in the Sunni Triangle.
They turned onto Route Raiders and started to cross a small
canal where the dirt road narrowed and went over a culvert. Inside the culvert,
an insurgent
cell had placed an IED built around three 155mm artillery shells.
It detonated right under the lead Humvee, sending Staff Sergeant Travis Sigfridson’s eleven-thousand-pound 1114 spinning skyward. Max Corrigan, Staff Sergeant Bruns’ gunner
during the Serial Five ambush, had been in the turret manning a .50-cal when
the explosion catapulted him into the machine gun face
first. The impact broke his jaw, knocked out his front teeth, and fractured
his cheek and ocular cavity. Then, as the Humvee hurtled upward, the centrifugal
force flung him out of the turret. He plummeted into the crater left by the
IED.
In the trail vehicle, Phil Disney saw a white flash that
grew so intense it blotted his vision for a moment. Then his Humvee shook as
the concussion
wave passed through it. A second later, he heard a metallic crash, like somebody
had just dumped a car in a junkyard scrap heap.
He turned to his driver, “What the hell was that?”
In front of them, Sergeant Don Neilsen’s Humvee suddenly sped up. First platoon had been trained at Hood to blow through the kill zone. That’s exactly what Don’s
driver tried to do. The rig barreled into the smoke cloud and fell right into
the IED crater. It ran over Max Corrigan.
Disney called out to Sigfridson’s rig, “Commanche 32, this is 33.” No
answer.
He tried again. Still no response. He sent his combat lifesavers forward. Private
Caleb Torgerson and Specialist Ken Flick dismounted and ran forward to help.
Disney called 2-7 Cay and reported the situation just as his men opened fire
in the “Mad Minute.”
Disney thought they were taking incoming. He requested the
QRF and medevac, then threw his door open and went forward himself.
He ran through the night unsure of what lay ahead. All he knew was his Joes
needed help. And then a shape formed in the darkness. He veered toward it and
realized with a shock it was Travis Sigfridson, lying face down on the roadside.
He wasn’t moving.
“Sig! Sig!”
Disney felt like he was running in peanut butter. Time slowed.
It took forever to reach his friend. Just as he reached him, Sigfridson moved
his arm. A wave
of relief washed over Phil as he knelt down and turned Sig over.
“Dis, you gotta get me outta here.”
“I’m working on it, Sig. I’m working on it.”
“My back. It’s screwed up.”
Disney checked him over and found no wounds. For the moment, Sig would be okay,
though he remained in considerable pain. Phil went to check on Flick and Torgerson.
They were nearby, working frantically on Bill Congleton, Sig’s driver. Congleton’s
right ankle was twisted at an impossible angle. A bone stuck out above his
boot.
“Sergeant Disney, give me something for the pain,” Congleton
asked.
“Don’t
have anything, man, but we’re
going to get you out of here.”
Flick and Torgerson went back to work. Congleton was in good hands. Disney
asked, “Hey, where’s Corrigan?”
“Don’t know,” Flick answered.
Then somebody said, “He’s underneath the truck?”
Oh my God. He’s been crushed.
Disney took a deep breath, taking a moment to compose himself. Phil switched
on his Surefire light and swept the beam under the wreckage of Sig’s
vehicle. No sign of Corrigan.
“Where is Corrigan?” Disney demanded.
Somebody called back, “He’s under the truck in
the IED hole.”
Phil checked under it. No sign of the steady .50-cal gunner. Now he was starting
to get really worried. Disney yelled out again, and this time Max’s voice replied, “I’m
right here, Dis.”
Disney looked up and saw Corrigan in the turret of Neilsen’s Humvee. The vehicle was tail-up, half-in and half-out of the crater. Corrigan’s face was covered in blood. Phil couldn’t understand what he was doing in Neilsen’s
rig.
“What are you thinking? What are you doing up there?”
“Well,” Max replied through his broken jaw and ruined teeth, “It
was the only thing I could think of to do.”
Max Corrigan, a resident of tiny Canyonville Oregon, had been blown up and
run over in a matter of seconds. His face smashed, his back broken when the
Humvee struck him, he nevertheless crawled out from under it and saw Neilsen’s
turret was empty. The gunner, Sergeant Mike Blanchard, had suffered whiplash
when the 1114 fell into the crater. It knocked him out of the turret so he
dismounted and opened up with his M4.
At that point, Max climbed into the rig and laid down suppressive
fire. It was the bravest, most selfless thing Disney had ever seen a man do.
Dis coaxed
him out of the turret and brought him over to Sigfridson. The other men eased
Congleton onto a stretcher, which caused him intense pain. Moments later,
the QRF arrived just as Disney was moving Congleton to the casualty collection
point (CCP).
A lieutenant from the 39th Brigade’s QRF showed up and demanded, “Do you have accountability on your sensitive items?”
Disney gaped at the young lieutenant. “What? I’m dealing
with my wounded men right now.”
“Listen,” the lieutenant scolded, “you need
to get accountability on your sensitive items.”
Disney lost it. “I’ve got four injured soldiers and three men on
the perimeter. What I need from you is to set up a perimeter around us. Then
I’m going to get my men medevaced, and then I’ll
worry about sensitive items.”
Disney turned back for his Humvee and the one working radio left in his platoon.
He called up the 2-7 TOC and asked where the medevac chopper was. The TOC
replied it was twenty minutes out. Not acceptable. Disney grew angry and frustrated, “I need that medevac chopper right now. I’ve
got a litter surgical priority and a possible airway obstruction. They need
to be picked up now.
The TOC told Phil they’d send out an Ml13 ambulance.
“I need air, not an ambulance.”
Just then, a Blackhawk arrived. It touched down, and the men
took Congleton to the chopper first. The other two wounded men followed. In seconds,
the bird
dusted off bound for the Green Zone CSH.
Colonel Rainey later visited them at the CSH. Though little
was ever said about it, these three Oregonians owed their lives to Colonel Rainey
and his stand
to get them all 1114s. Had they been in a 998, not a man would have survived
such a blast.
Sigfridson suffered four compressed vertebrae in the attack
and was sent home. Congleton fought for more than a year to keep his lower
leg, but in
November
2005 it had to be amputated. Corrigan, face broken and back fractured,
was also evacuated home, where he faced a long and difficult recovery. Disney
put Corrigan in for a Bronze Star. It was denied.
Later that night, Disney rolled into Taji with the remains
of his patrol. The rest of his platoon greeted him at their pod. When he saw
these men he
had
grown to love, the emotions held in check broke loose. Soldiers are tactile
human beings. They touch, they embrace. They do not fear man-to-man contact
as homophobic male civilians frequently do. It is not a threat to their manliness.
For the soldiers it is a question of comradeship. Disney started to fall,
but his men caught him. Hugs, pats on the backs, a few words telling him
he did
a good job: this was the solace he needed after losing three fine young men.
As he looked around at the faces of his fellow Oregonians, he understood
what it meant to be part of the blood brotherhood of combat veterans.
Three weeks later, Disney’s section got hit again. The IED blast nearly severed Specialist Nicholas Bright’s arm. Disney and Specialist Jason Rich managed to stanch the bleeding and stabilize Bright while Lieutenant Jones called in the medevac chopper. When they returned to Taji that night, both Phil and Rich were covered in Bright’s blood. As they got out of their Humvee, Bright’s brother, Rich Lamphere, stood waiting for them. He took one look at Rich and Disney’s uniforms and began to lose control. Disney moved for him. Now it was his turn to be the support. That’s
how the brotherhood worked.
Buy this book.
Sample chapter from The Devil's Sandbox, Zenith Press, ISBN 0760323941. All rights reserved.
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