March 26, 2003
I used my GPS and walked tank to tank through the dust storm to Johnson’s tank to see how he was doing after his night out. I climbed up on the tank’s big deck and lowered myself down through the hatch into the turret. It was significantly more cramped than our luxurious Bradley digs, and smelled of rank sweat and grease down there. I guess it’s like houses. You don’t notice the smell of your own, but other people’s smell different.
“I thought last night was the last night,” said Johnson, 26, a gunner from Panama City, Fla. ”I ain’t leaving this tank again unless I have to go to the bathroom, and then I’m tying cord around me.”
Around sunset the night before, when the storm was at its worst and the air all around us had turned blood red, Johnson had climbed out to walk over to the next tank in the line, 200 meters away. He wanted to tell Sgt. John Miller, newly shifted from Johnson’s tank to the next one as tank commander, that he couldn’t find Miller’s big missing bag of M&M’s. Johnson figured he’d stay and socialize with the other crew for a while.
“At first I could see the tank,” he said. “Then the sand kicked up and I lost it. I turned around to go back to my own tank, but I couldn’t see it anymore, either. I lost my direction.”
He started walking toward what he thought was the Alpha Alpha, the assembly area where the medics, fire-support, maintenance and command tracks were, figuring he couldn’t miss the cluster of vehicles.
And he kept walking. He didn’t know it at first, at least until he hit a berm, but he had turned himself around a circle and was headed due north. He was completely blind in the storm and lost. As far north as we were, with Iraqi raiders in the area, Johnson recognized that this was a bad situation.
“All I could think about is I’m going to be a POW. I’m scared. My life is over. We’re in enemy territory, in Iraq. I was thinking, ‘Lord, I don’t want my mom to see me beat up on TV.’ ”
When it got so dark he could no longer see the hands in front of his face, he sat down.
“I was crying. I was praying. It calmed me down. I’m from a praying home. I prayed for God to calm the storm.”
When his crewmates realized he was missing, the tanks were ordered to turn on their thermal imaging devices to see if they could spot him. Humvees equipped with GPS navigating devices were sent out and spent hours scouring the area. Nothing.
It rained mud on him. Then he heard gunfire. Small arms fire and artillery somewhere in the swirling dust.
“I held my head and cried. I chambered a round in my 9 mil. I told myself, if they get me, I’m going to go down fighting.”
He huddled and shivered as the chill set in, the wind howling around him. During a lull in the storm at dawn, he saw a vehicle through the haze and began approaching it. Then he decided the profile was wrong and he ran, convinced it was an Iraqi truck. Shortly afterward, he saw two tanks out looking for him, but they didn’t see him. Then he saw First Sgt. Ortiz’s Humvee and ran toward it waving his arms.
“I told the first sergeant I wanted to kiss him,” Johnson said. Thanks to the heavy chemical warfare protective suit he was wearing, his flame-retardant tanker coveralls and his body armor, he avoided hypothermia. He was just cold, hungry, thirsty and caked with dust, his eyelashes clumped with dirt despite his goggles.
“It was calm just long enough for me to be found, so I know my prayers worked,” Johnson said. “I still don’t believe I’m back.”
He had narrowly avoided becoming the company’s latest casualty. Sgt. Randall Smith had collapsed of dehydration the day before and had to be evacuated. Blue Platoon Sgt. Gonzales, with a chronic back problem exacerbated by the long road march, had to be medevacked when he developed excruciating pain and one of his legs began swelling.
I followed my GPS back to the Alpha Alpha. When I tried to transmit the story of Johnson’s ordeal that afternoon, it was impossible to pick up a sufficiently strong satellite signal. Duststorms had never stopped me before, but this time the column of dust must have been too high in the sky, and the size of the bits of dirt flying around too big, and it was too much for my older-generation Iridium, propped up on the medic 113’s roof with its cables coming down the hatch. Dirt poured in through the hatch, coating the keyboard and the laptop’s screen. There was nothing new about that, only this time, immediately after blowing it clear, I’d feel a new gritty layer under my fingers.
Topics: Iraq
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:01 am on Monday, March 26, 2007
4 Responses to “March 26, 2003”
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March 26th, 2007 at 2:13 am
March 26, 2003
March 26, 2003Critter Crittenden I used my GPS and walked tank to tank through the dust storm to Johnson’s tank to see how he was doing after his night out. I climbed up on the tank’s big deck and lowered
March 26th, 2007 at 2:15 am
Bill’s Nibbles // Open Post — 2007.03.26
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March 26th, 2007 at 2:27 am
Damn. It sounds as bad as whiteout conditions in a blizzard! The vision part, anyway.
I wait eagerly every night to read the next installment, Jules. Terrific.
March 26th, 2007 at 6:27 am
I was in monster fog near Solana beach CA back in the early 80’s on I5 where you literally could just see about 10′ max. The only way to move was 5mph with your head out the window looking down at the painted lines on the road. Its very weird when you lose all points of reference. Had to suck real bad for that guy.