April 9, 2003
The morning of April 9 was bright and quiet, and we sat around the lowered ramp of the 133 in our liberated Baathist office chairs, waiting. Pasto and I had a debate with the LT over whether Pearl Jam or Nirvana was the definitive grunge band of the 1990s. Pasto and I favored Nirvana, opining that Pearl Jam’s songs were contrived and Eddie Vedder was an annoying twerp. The LT countered that while Nirvana had some intensity going for it, Kurt Cobain was an overrated suicidal drug addict and Pearl Jam was clearly the musical superior. It’s one of those fundamental Coke-Pepsi world divide issues no one is going to agree on.
The morning dragged on, sunny and peaceful, and the first of several bleak morning post-action depressions began to set in. Nothing was happening. Across the Tigris, the Marines had crossed their last bridge into Baghdad and were advancing on Firdas Square, where they would topple Saddam’s statue later in the day. We were unaware of this. I also did not know that Herald photog Kuni Takahashi was with them, as we had both found ourselves on the leading edges of the invasion’s twin pincer movements. I hadn’t seen Kuni since Kuwait, where we had shared a furnished apartment with a couple of guys from CBS Miami. Speaking of those guys, I was surprised I hadn’t heard they were dead yet, because Mike is crazy, but that’s another story.
Sitting on top of the track, Pasto and I quietly discussed whether it might be over. We weren’t ready for that yet. The prior 10 days had involved a lot of combat, and most of the previous three weeks had been a constant forward movement. It was unimaginable that it should end suddenly and quietly like this, after only a small measure of the intensity of combat we had expected to find here in Baghdad. Where, just a few days earlier, I had expected I would be killed. That had not happened, and I was in a funk.
I unlaced my boots and aired my stinking feet, picking off bits of dead skin. There were odds and ends of Iraqi uniforms and military gear lying around, empty ammo cans and MRE cases, spent shell casings everywhere and a coating of black dust over everything in addition to the usual dust blown in from the desert. A pile of rubble where one building used to be, and a lot of holes in the others. That sad statue of the women at the well, no more peaceful image than that, shot to pieces but still with its resident doves who had simply flown off when the fire picked up. With all my gear elsewhere, I didn’t even have any slightly less dirty socks to change into, and I had been wearing the same underwear for at least three or four days now, my khaki pants and shirt even longer. Everything was getting gritty and nasty, and my clothes were heavily stained with sweat, grease and dirt. The desert had been dry and clean but this place was humid. Flies came hovering around and settled on our food where we ate, not 100 feet from the Iraqi soldiers killed the day before, now beginning putting off the sweet smell of early stage putrefaction. Though we lived in a considerable state of filth, the flies were a bit much and we brushed them away in disgust, knowing where they had been. These things were tolerable, provided we were compensated with the urgency and adrenaline rush of action and movement. In its absence, this became sordid, depressing, and boring.
In the afternoon our desire was satisfied, somewhat. The infantry Bradleys of Attack Company and Assassin’s Blue Platoon tanks were engaged several intersections to the north, exchanging fire with some jihadis in a mosque across the Tigris. The GIs were having a problem with Iraqi civilians who wouldn’t stop looting and get off the streets as they fought. They wanted the Psyops track to come up so Pasto could blast some of his messages to warn off the civilians. We drove up Haifa Street.
In Shuhada Square, an RPG team in an adjacent slum had just been killed and their limp and mangled bodies were being carried off a blasted-up balcony by the slumdwellers when we arrived.
Associated Press reporter Chris Tomlinson and photographer John Moore were in the square and Tomlinson gave me a quick rundown on what was going on. The action was primarily over by the river, a long unsecured block away. Most of the fire into the square consisted of stray RPGs that would occasionally come screaming up the street to explode overhead or AK or machine gun fire, all from the mosque across the river.
Pasto began doing his job, which was to fire up his speakers to blare “INTEBAH, INTEBAH” at an earsplitting level, with messages to the Iraqis to get off the streets because there was a firefight going on. The Iraqis, who already knew that, didn’t give a damn because they were busy emptying out an appliance store somewhere. Up the street, I could see looters trundling refrigerators and washing machines and air conditioners and other big box items out of an alley. They would stop and look both ways as though watching for a break in fire, then trundle their stuff across the street.
In addition to the stray fire coming the street, which was barely worth taking cover from, there was a gunman in one of the nearby buildings. A middle-aged Iraqi man had been hit in the arm, though I’m not sure if it was by the gunman or a stray round coming up the street. Periodically we’d hear the pop of the gunman’s pistol shots. Everyone took cover from that, searching the windows and balconies for him. But after a while there didn’t seem much point. We didn’t know where he was, and anyway, with that pistol he’d have to be incredibly lucky to actually hit any of us. So most of us began to disregard him as we walked around the square.
I changed my mind about that when I heard a shot zing close overhead and splat against a wall behind me. I decided to observe the proceedings from behind a Bradley for a while until I forgot about it and began walking around to conduct business again.That included getting a charge for my dying sat phone from Tomlinson’s portable Honda generator, and talking to a couple of officers and an Iraqi translator about what had been going on. The whole situation was a little ridiculous, but it beat hanging around by the Jumhuriyah bridge, where nothing was happening at all.
Down by the river, Blue Platoon leader Lt. Laughlin reported that the militants using the mosque as cover were dressed for martyrdom, with Islamic headbands. Capt. Chris Carter said the locals had reported that these were jihadi fanatics who had crossed into Iraq from Syria. Other units had encountered them. Large numbers reportedly entered Iraq in recent weeks to fight the American invasion.
“We captured one the other day who told us 5,000 Syrians had crossed the border to commit acts of suicide,” Carter said. “The Iraqis don’t like it because they are occupying their homes and drawing our fire on them.”
I wanted to go down by the river to watch this operation, but didn’t consider the walk down that long block past several alleys advisable without protection, particularly with that guy with the pistol on the loose, trying to get himself an American. A couple of Bradleys later headed down to join the tanks, and Moore went with them, but was almost dark, and I didn’t know if I could get a ride back, so I opted not to go.
By the entrance to the slum, about 200 Iraqis had crowded around the barbed-wire barrier.
“Good, good, mister! Good, good, mister!” adults and children chanted. “Love USA!”
Some of them were also complaining.
“No water in city. No food. My baby is very hungry, no milk for baby,” said a man holding a toddler. But he said, “America friends.”
That didn’t last.
Late in the afternoon, I called up the Boston Herald to dictate the day’s story. Deputy Managing Editor James MacLaughlin told me there was big news on CNN. The Marines had just liberated Baghdad. They were in front of the Palestine Hotel, where they pulled down a statue of Saddam. Did I know anything about that?
“No, but can you tell them to come liberate this part?”
Nothing against the Marines, but the Army had been here for two days before they showed up, fighting a series of pitched battles that precluded statue toppling, and we were two miles north of Firdas Square dealing with some troublesome, heavily armed Syrians in a mosque and an idiot gunman who kept taking potshots at us. Who does history record as liberating Baghdad? The guys who pulled up in front of the international media’s digs at the Palestine (which, I should note, our unit had shot up the day before). Some jarheads in an M88 tank hauler with a length of chain and a press gaggle.
Another RPG came screaming up obligingly up the street as I dictated my story and exploded over the square, to make the point.
“Hear that?” I said.
We took our usual positions to sleep on the 113 parked in the middle of the intersection. I was on the exposed ramp again, not happy about it because of the slums were close here, perfect for RPG teams to sneak around in. The fighting down by the river had quieted early in the evening, but my ramp was entirely exposed to any further fire that might come up the street from the mosque. I opted to take the body armor with its heavy rifle plates off in order to sleep and breathe at the same time, so I propped it up by my chest on the side facing the mosque. If anything happened, once again, I’d just deal with it, roll off or climb in or whatever, when it happened.
Topics: Iraq
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:04 am on Monday, April 9, 2007
4 Responses to “April 9, 2003”
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April 9th, 2007 at 1:12 am
April 9, 2003
April 9, 2003 Critter Crittenden … Late in the afternoon, I called up the Boston Herald to dictate the day’s story. Deputy Managing Editor James MacLaughlin told me there was big news on CNN. The Marines had just liberated Baghdad.
April 9th, 2007 at 1:15 am
Bill’s Nibbles // Open Post — 2007.04.09
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April 9th, 2007 at 10:05 am
Some jarheads in an M88 tank hauler with a length of chain and a press gaggle.
What’s the old joke-what stops a Marine unit from advancing? The cameraman runs out of film.
April 9th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Jules,
Your comments about personal hygiene in a combat zone are in keeping with historical accounts. Everything gets prioritized, but at some point, you begin to become aware of a certain eau d’homme.
General Regis DeTrobriand commanded a brigade in the 1st Division, 2nd Corp of the Army of the Potomac. He wrote often to his wife about his personal experiences, the battles he participated in, etc. After Gettysburg, he wrote that he had spent the previous weeks with only a spare pair of socks to change out. He slept on the ground with his men, using a saddle blanket and his saddle for a bed, and a rubber blanket for his cover. He anguishes towards the end “Oh Great God of Battles! When will I be allowed to bathe!”. You can imagine how the rank and file looked & smelled. Summer. Dirt roads. Sweat. Wool uniforms.
Respects,