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Sunday, September 25, 2005
‘Buffalo Bill’ digs out bombs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mahmudiyah, Iraq — The bomb blew the Humvee and four soldiers inside it off the ground, shredding the hood and mangling the engine until it was an unrecognizable hunk of black metal.
Second Lt. Homer J. Wright III bit off a chunk of his tongue when he rocketed out of his seat and smashed his head on the roof. Blood oozed from his mouth and chin.
As black smoke and the smell of burning oil filled the vehicle, the Georgia Army National Guard soldier wondered, “Is this the end?” The Humvee was rolling off the road, toward a canal filled with deep, greenish water.
LOUIE FAVORITE / AJC One of the Humvees escorting the Buffalo was hit by an IED. MORE PHOTOS
The driver, Pfc. Jason Hall of Valdosta, was knocked out. The blast slammed him against the steering wheel. He hit the wheel so hard he bent it toward the dashboard.
Hall regained consciousness within moments and slammed his foot on the brakes. They weren’t working. But the vehicle came to a rest on its own, dangerously close to the water.
Wright, Hall and two other combat engineers with the 48th Brigade Combat Team in the Humvee were searching for improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, when one found them. It’s not uncommon for that to happen.
Some members of the 648th Engineer Battalion have survived as many as four or five explosions. Bombs have destroyed 24 of the unit’s vehicles.
One of the key missions is to find these bombs before they kill more members of the 48th. Since the brigade arrived in Iraq in early June, 14 have been killed in bomb attacks. That includes three 648th soldiers killed by a car bomb attack in August.
Rumors have spread through the battalion that insurgents put a price on the engineers’ heads as high as $100,000.
“They are out to get us,” said Wright, 38, who lives in Hazlehurst and works at a fabrics manufacturing company.
Wright’s Charlie Company alone has found more than 50 IEDs. When they got hit Saturday morning, the soldiers were riding in a convoy in mostly rural areas near Mahmudiyah and Yusufiyah, towns south of Baghdad.
Bombed-out buildings, scarecrows and piles of trash and rusting scrap metal dot the landscape. Bullet shell casings litter the roads. A pack of wild dogs loped by.
As the soldiers entered Yusufiyah, a flock of pigeons took flight. Insurgents sometimes use the birds to signal that U.S. soldiers are coming, said Spc. Jason Troupe. The insurgents bury their bombs in the sides of the streets, in storm water pipes that run under the roads, in piles of trash and in the carcasses of dead animals. Their weapons: leftover artillery shells, gas canisters, propane tanks, rocket fuel. They even set up fake bombs just to observe how the engineers try to disable them.
“It’s kind of like a chess game,” said Troupe, 31, of Douglas, a police officer in civilian life.
Troupe and two other soldiers in Wright’s convoy rode in one of the battalion’s bomb-detecting vehicles, called a Buffalo. The engineers nicknamed the heavily armored vehicle “Buffalo Bill.” Others go by “Grave Digger” and “Fat Bottom Girl.” Buffalos are equipped with a remote-controlled arm with a forklike device on the end of it. Soldiers use the powerful arm to dig through dirt and lift up trash in search of bombs.
An eye for detail
As they drove into the countryside, Troupe motioned to the side of the road, showing where his unit had found a large bomb in a refrigerator. A building nearby was riddled with bullet holes.
“Somebody has had a bad afternoon,” he said.
Farther down the road, Spc. Johnnie Perkins spotted something that didn’t look right in the shoulder. It was a mound of dirt where the engineers had previously found an IED. The soil around the site looked loose and disturbed.
Perkins and other sharp-eyed engineers have learned to look for things out of place. Sometimes they look too perfect, like a smooth layer of sand on a busy road covered with tank tracks.
Perkins drove closer and spotted two purple wires sticking out of the dirt. Troupe handed him the yellow control box for the Buffalo arm. Perkins dug into the soil until he unearthed a 155 mm cannon shell.
“Good job,” Troupe said.
Perkins flashed him the thumbs-up sign.
The soldiers continued on, sweeping the area for more bombs. Then it happened.
From inside the Buffalo, the explosion sounded muffled. But the shockwave vibrated the bottom of the vehicle. About 100 meters ahead, the blast tore through Wright’s Humvee, the second vehicle in the convoy.
A black crater measuring more than 4 feet deep and 6 feet across yawned in front of the Buffalo. Inside sat a piece of the Humvee’s hood. A radiator lay on its side by thick chunks of asphalt. Much of the Humvee’s front half was gone. The vehicle was totaled. The soldiers could have been inches from death.
They didn’t find the triggerman, but the engineers found the receiver and timer for the remote-controlled bomb beside the road. The blue and silver receiver box was labeled in English: “Super Long Range Cordless Telephone.” The bomb had been stuffed in a storm water pipe beneath the road. It probably consisted of three 155 mm artillery shells stacked together, the soldiers said.
Dazed by the blast, Wright climbed out of the Humvee and took cover in the Buffalo.
He held up the receiver and timer. “God has been with us.”
Still pumped with adrenaline, talking fast about his near-death experience, Wright suddenly calmed. Tears welled in his eyes as he cradled his head in his hands. He was thinking about his two young sons back home.
“I love my boys,” he said. “I would do anything for my boys.”
He waved his arm, as if he was trying to wave off his emotions. He insisted he was fine.
A surprise visit from the General
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Camp Striker, Iraq - The soldier just sat down to read the newspaper and watch television when a visitor surprised him at the recreation center Sunday.
Louie Favorite/AJC
Maj. Gen. David Poythress, commander of the Georgia National Guard, shakes hands with Spc. Sharon Williams, a hotel controller from Brunswick, while visiting soldiers of the 48th Brigade Combat Team. In the background are Sgt. Franklin Wright of Eatonton and Spc. Lisa Evans, a student from Griffin.
It was Maj. Gen. David B. Poythress, the head of Georgia’s National Guard.
“You guys are doing good work. I appreciate,” Poythress told Sgt. Marvin Paige. “You have had some tough hits.”
Paige is a member of the Valdosta-based 2nd Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment. He said his Alpha Company platoon has lost eight soldiers so far.
“Every one of them were good guys. I miss them,” said Paige, 39, who works at an ammunition can manufacturing plant in Homerville.
Poythress flew to Iraq to check on the soldiers’ morale and living conditions. The troops have been federalized, so they no longer fall under his command as adjutant general. But he wanted to come just to make sure they are OK.
Poythress toured the base, shook hands with soldiers at lunch and attended several briefings with officers. He plans to travel to the 48th Brigade Combat Team’s other bases in the area in the next few days.
The troops appear to have sufficient food, water and ways to communicate with their families back home, said Poythress, a former Georgia secretary of state and labor commissioner.
“They are kind of spartan and you expect them to be,” Poythress said of the facilities. “But they are certainly adequate.”
After Poythress left, Paige remarked how surprised he was to see the two-star general at his base. Insurgents have attacked soldiers in the area with mortars and rockets.
“It’s always good to see leadership come out to an area like this,” he said, “because, even here, it is dangerous.”
