AJC.com > Iraq coverage > Blog > Archives > 2005 > August > 01
Monday, August 1, 2005
8 gone from one platoon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bita Honarvar/AJC
Comrades reflect on the loss. From left are Sgt. Bill Jones of Anderson, S.C., Spc. Derek Mack of Valdosta, Spc. William “Shane” Parham of Social Circle and Spc. James Cribb of Nashville, Ga.
Camp Striker, Iraq � All week long, the soldiers of Alpha Company had gone out on patrols with great trepidation.
A July 24 bomb attack on a Baghdad road killed four of their buddies. One moment they were in their Humvee. The next, they were gone.
Emotions were still raw. They had just bidden their fallen friends goodbye in a Thursday service.
Then, on Saturday, it happened again.
Four more soldiers who belonged to the same unit died after their Humvee, minutes from returning safely to Camp Striker, drove over a bomb big enough to cripple a tank.
They were on a road the military calls Route Red Sox. It could have been a country road in Georgia � fields on each side, irrigation canals, power lines and a small food stall.
“I’ve lost eight buddies in a week,” said Spc. William “Shane” Parham, a Walton County sheriff’s deputy from Social Circle. “Nobody trained us to get blown up like this.
“We all thought we’d come here to cheat death,” he continued, “but we never thought we’d be eyeball deep like this.”
In the two months that the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team has been in Iraq, Valdosta-based Alpha Company has lost nine of about 120 soldiers. The eight who died in the two bomb blasts were all in the same platoon, according to the soldiers in the unit. The platoon of 35 to 40 soldiers has been reduced by 20 percent in less than a week.
A ninth Alpha Company soldier, Sgt. Chad Mercer of Waycross, was killed in early July after his Bradley Fighting Vehicle rolled over into a canal.
Monday, Guard officials confirmed the latest deaths, but the military has not yet identified the dead.
One was identified by family and friends as Spc. Ronnie Shelley of Valdosta. And in Americus, officials at Sumter Regional Hospital confirmed that Sgt. 1st Class Victor Anderson was among the soldiers killed. Anderson’s wife, Ellen, works at the hospital.
“This is hard stuff. It’s heartbreaking,” said Brig. Gen. Stewart Rodeheaver, commander of the 48th. “I wish I could look at what we’re doing and say this is what we’re doing wrong. But I can’t. The problem is this is not a standard war.”
He said the casualties all coming from one unit was “absolutely unusual” and a case of “bad luck.”
“This unit hasn’t been tasked more than anyone else,” Rodeheaver said in an interview. “And nobody is intentionally putting them at risk.”
The general said the soldiers of Alpha Company are frustrated and angry because their enemy is elusive. He said the brigade would not necessarily change strategy based on these two attacks but that the soldiers routinely alter their maneuvers because “the enemy changes tactics every day.”
The improvised explosive devices, for instance, once hidden along guardrails and in dirt along the side of the road, now pack more punch and are stuffed in pipes and canals that run under the middle of the road.
Rodeheaver said Alpha Company soldiers are being given down time and combat stress counseling. Those who go out on patrol, he said, need to stay calm and “maintain their American values.”
“They want to get out there and find the people who did this,” he said. “And we’re going to find them, but we’re not going to go out and shoot innocent people.”
Rodeheaver said the brigade flew in 22 replacement soldiers Sunday night and that with the new troops and possible reshuffling of existing units, Alpha Company would be brought back up to full strength.
Rodeheaver said he goes out routinely with his combat troops � the 2nd Battalion 121st Infantry Regiment and the 1st Battalion, 108th Armor Regiment � and his Humvee had been hit three times by improvised explosive devices, two mortar shells and four rifle shots in the ballistic window.
“I know what’s going on out there,” he said. “Everyone here is in jeopardy. Everybody here is in a combat zone 24 hours a day.”
But it was in the tents of Alpha Company that eight cots were emptied within six days.
The mood on Alpha’s side of the camp was decidedly somber as hardened infantry soldiers hugged one other and cried openly. On a moonless Sunday night, Rodeheaver sat outside the tents with Alpha Company soldiers, hearing their fears, frustrations and anger.
Less than 24 hours later, on Monday afternoon, four caskets bearing the remains of Alpha Company’s fallen troops left Iraq for the journey home.
“Our friends who died are true heroes in every sense of the word,” Rodeheaver said. “It is absolutely tough on the families. We know it tears their hearts out just like it does ours. It’s tougher on them because they don’t know what’s going on here.”
A memorial service is planned for Thursday evening at 7:30, exactly one week after the 48th said its goodbyes to the soldiers killed July 24.
On that day, another large bomb buried on nearby Route Aeros killed the first Georgia National Guard soldiers to die in combat since World War II â€â€? Staff Sgt. Carl Fuller, 44, of Covington, Sgt. James Kinlow, 35, of Thomson, Sgt. John Thomas, 33, of Valdosta, and Spc. Jacques “Gus” Brunson, 30, of Sylvester.
“After the first one, it got real quiet in the tents,” said Spc. Derek Mack, 31, a security guard from Valdosta who knew several of the soldiers killed in both attacks.
Saturday night, Mack was watching “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” on his DVD player when the platoon leader came in and took away the soldiers’ cellphones, he said.
“I knew something bad had happened,” said Mack, a former Marine who gave up a desk job in the Guard to join the infantry unit. “I’m going back out tomorrow night to drive around, waiting to get blown up. I’m scared to death.”
But the soldiers all said they were ready to go back out onto the menacing streets of Baghdad. They are infantrymen who watch their brothers’ backs.
“Infantry people are a different breed,” Mack said. “They’re like police officers, firefighters or EMS people. When everyone else is running away from something bad, they are running to it.”
Spc. James Cribb, 25, who works at the Tift County Sheriff’s Department, said he didn’t understand the senseless killings by insurgents in Iraq.
“If you ain’t scared, there’s something wrong with you,” said Cribb, who lives in Nashville, Ga. “You just ride around and thank God you didn’t get blown up. You just want to make it so you can go home.”
With those words, Cribb was off to the shower to get ready for another night of patrolling. He would be in another three-Humvee convoy, riding around in the darkness looking for an enemy he couldn’t see.
