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Thursday, June 23, 2005
Sharpshooting, diplomacy skills serve Georgia units well in desert
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Curtis Compton/AJC
Capt. Mike Cannon of Newberry, S.C., tries to build goodwill at patrol stop.
Baghdad, Iraq — It was a little after 5 on a sweltering June afternoon when the white Chevrolet Suburban approached Checkpoint 34, an isolated American outpost known as Hotel California on a key highway overpass.
About a dozen American soldiers, most from a Lawrence-ville-based unit of the 48th Brigade Combat Team, were outside their armored vehicles in the shade of the overpass.
The soldiers watched with growing concern as the SUV drove toward them. In Iraq, almost any vehicle is a potential car bomb.
The realities of life and death have been brought home quickly to these soldiers, who have been on the job patrolling areas south of Baghdad for just a few days.
In that time they have been attacked by car bombs and roadside bombs, asked to assist in the removal of a dead body and acted as both law enforcement and diplomats in this largely lawless region.
Here, even the ordinary can suddenly become ominous and deadly.
As the soldiers watched the SUV approach, it accelerated without warning.
Pfc. Justin T. Hair raised his M-16 rifle. There was no time for a warning shot. He fired twice into the windshield of the oncoming Suburban.
‘Well-aimed shots’
The Suburban, crammed with explosives and driven by someone apparently intent on killing himself and any Americans or Iraqi soldiers in the area, exploded in a ball of fire and smoke, the concussion rippling across the desert.
“They were well-aimed shots,” said Capt. Mike Cannon, commander of Alpha Company of the 121st Infantry Regiment’s 1st Battalion. “They killed or incapacitated the driver and caused him to detonate early.”
The blast ripped the SUV into twisted shreds, the largest pieces no bigger than a large cardboard box, and hurled the driver’s mangled and burned torso on top of the overpass 30 feet above.
The soldiers believed the driver was on a suicide mission to kill Americans, destroy the overpass and block the road, Route Tampa, one of the main military supply corridors in Baghdad.
Hair, slightly wounded by the blast, was treated and quickly returned to duty. He was credited with saving fellow soldiers and the overpass. But he was shaken by the incident and asked that information about his age and hometown not be released.
For his actions, Hair has been nominated for a Bronze Star medal with “V” device, signifying valor in combat.
Keep traffic moving
For the soldiers of Alpha Company, the suicide bomber was a rude welcome and a sobering object lesson on their first full day in charge of the restive, predominantly Sunni area these Gwinnett County soldiers expect to patrol for the next 11 months.
Their primary mission is to keep traffic moving on their portion of Route Tampa. At first glance, it seems a simple enough assignment.
But after a few days in the field, Cannon said it would take detective work, political skills, investments in community water and electrical projects — as well as a constant military presence — to succeed here.
And, Cannon said, the diplomacy can’t be carried out from the relative safety of a 25-ton Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
It requires face-to-face meetings with Iraqi religious and political leaders, at least some of whom are violently opposed to the American presence.
On one of his first days as the de facto sheriff in the mostly rural, crushingly poor area, Cannon sought out a shop owner he suspected of having insurgent ties.
The man runs a tiny store in a wooden shack near the highway where he sells gasoline in 5-gallon containers as well as fruit, vegetables, soft drinks and other supplies.
The nearby highway was littered with bombs aimed at military vehicles in previous days, and Cannon, 31, a married father of two who works as a civilian Army contractor, figured the store owner knew who was planting them.
Two of Alpha Company’s Bradleys lurched to a stop in front of the store, one ripping the soft asphalt with its heavy tread as it made a tight turn.
Talking tomatoes
Cannon, a calm, bespectacled officer who seldom raises his voice, approached the store owner with a stern demeanor. Through an Iraqi interpreter, he asked about the roadside bombs, known in military parlance as “improvised explosive devices,” or IEDs.
“We want to stop the IEDs so the Iraqi people don’t get hurt and my soldiers don’t get hurt,” Cannon pleaded with the store owner. “I want to be a friend. But in order to be a friend, you have to cooperate.”
The owner, a middle-aged man with a salt-and-pepper beard who gave his name as Najib Achmed Zubeyd, didn’t seem impressed.
“What can I do to stop the bombs? I want you to stop the bombs,” he said defensively. “I don’t have tanks like you. You should stop the bombs so that we can be safe here.”
Cannon did not like the answer and became more confrontational.
“Do you know most of the people who come to your store?” he asked, an edge in his voice. “You’re out here all the time. How can you not know who you see on this road?”
The store owner started to reply, but the Iraqi translator, known only as “Tom” to hide his identity and protect himself and his family, stepped in and pulled the man aside.
Tom later said he told the store owner he was making a mistake by being difficult. The man could play games with the Americans, Tom said, but he couldn’t fool a fellow Iraqi like himself.
When they spoke again a few minutes later, Cannon and the store owner seemed more conciliatory. Cannon bought soft drinks for his soldiers, three for a dollar, from several boys who worked at the store. The dark-haired boys smiled and gave thumbs-up signs.
Cannon asked where the produce came from, and the store owner answered that he grew the vegetables himself.
“I have a garden at home, too,” the captain said. “My tomatoes get about this big,” he said, making a circle by touching his thumbs and middle fingers together.
Both men smiled and laughed, a difficult moment broken by a common love of the soil.
The two men talked a bit more, and just as the meeting was about to break up, several Iraqi police officers arrived in two Chevy pickups.
The police told Cannon they had discovered the tortured and executed body of a young man on a rural road a few miles away. They wanted the Americans to secure the area while they picked up the corpse.
When Cannon and his men arrived, they found a smooth-skinned, 20-something Iraqi man with a stylish haircut, red polo shirt, tan corduroys and two bullet holes in the back of his head.
‘Like the Wild West’
The ground beneath his head was saturated with blood.
His hands were bound tightly behind his back and his fingers were broken and twisted. Cigarette burns dotted his forearms, and welts were evident on his back. It was obvious he had been tortured before being killed.
His belt was cinched tight, but his pants were flung open in front — a final affront in a society in which modesty, even among men, is the norm.
The Iraqis borrowed a body bag and two pairs of plastic gloves from the Americans. Cannon, who doesn’t smoke at home, puffed on a Marlboro Light to mask the stench of the decomposing body on the 115-degree afternoon.
Cannon asked the Iraqis to deliver the body to a hospital in nearby Mahmudiyah, thanked them for their work and handed out bottles of cold water from a cooler in back of one of the Bradleys. After shaking hands with each of the police, Cannon, the new sheriff in town, surveyed the area for which he is now responsible.
The body had been found near a ranch that once belonged to late Uday Hussein, one of Saddam’s sons. The bombed-out remains of what had been a grand home was the nearest structure, and only one wall still stood.
“This place is like the Wild West,” Cannon said.
