In July of 2004 we started getting orders to go to a town south of our battalion's sector called Samara. This was a city about the same size as Tikrit that our sister battalion was in charge of keeping in order. They weren't doing such a good job. I don't think it was their fault. Samara has been a breeding ground for anti-American terrorist since the beginning, and it still is to this day. Most of our missions were just overnight missions, head up there on a Friday afternoon to hit some raids that night, and then come back to Tikrit the next day. But towards the end of July we started getting warned that a possible battalion size mission was coming. We were told at some point, we would head down to Samara with everyone for a huge take over. Month after month, after month, they kept telling us: "Stay ready, we're going to Samara." But it never happened. Finally in October, we were chillin out in front of one of the big satellite t.v.'s watching CNN and there it was, the reporter was talking about Samara. She said soldiers were getting ready for one of the biggest missions since the beginning of the war (this was before they went in and took Fallujah again). We looked at the T.V. with amazement thinking, that was supposed to be us, why haven't we heard of this? Right after thinking that, my Platoon Sgt walked in and said, "Guess what boys?" We just looked at him and said all at the same time, "yeah, yeah, we're going to Samara." He looked at us with a puzzled look and said, "How did you guys know?" We just pointed at CNN and said, "Everybody knows."
We rolled up to the main base outside of the city where thousands of troops were staging for one of the biggest battles since President Bush had declared an end to combat operations. The city had gotten so bad, that our sister battalion had lost total control of the place and hadn't even done a patrol in the city in weeks. We were nervous, but excited. We had been waiting for this moment since July. We were prepared and ready to go. For about a week, the loud speakers at the mosques declared to the people of Samara that the Americans were coming and if they didn't want to be apart of the fight to get out. So, we knew that anyone left on the streets were going to be there for us. Many families left the city, abandoning their homes in hopes of surviving somewhere else while the fight was taken to their home city.
The order came down, 2nd Platoon, Bushmasters (that was my platoon) would lead the way on the north side of the city around midnight that night. The scene was set, the fight was on. We rolled into Samara from the north side. Us dismounts could hear over the loud speaker what was going on as our platoon's Bradleys led the invasion. Our Platoon Leader's brad was up front and all we heard was the gunner, picking out targets on rooftops and running through the streets with guns and RPG's. He got over 10 confirmed kills just in the first 15 minutes of battle. We made it to our checkpoint where we were to establish a foothold and our Bradley's found themselves in a firefight with the bad guys right away. We dismounted and took over a house as our own little patrol base. My machine gun team consisted of myself, as the gunner, and my team leader as my ammo bearer and spotter, we took the roof as fast as we could and joined in on the fight. The bad guys found the Bradley's and our machine gun team's fire to be overwhelming, so they took over a house across the street as their own little patrol base. The fight lasted all the way into the morning. Sometimes, it was dead quiet, other times it was total choas. Our brads took turns firing, we even called in the tank platoon to help us out with the house. But the fire kept coming and the RPG's increased.....
As the fight increased it seemed like no matter what we threw at them, no matter how big of a hole we put in the side of the house they were in, they just wouldn't die. So, we called in the air force.
And then there were none.....total body count: 15 dead terrorist in the building. One gun shot wound to one of our ammo bearers.
When it all comes down to it, I don't hate the AF. They've saved my life more times then i can remember....i just wish the higher up's making the decisions wouldn't put guys who aren't trained to be on the ground out there where they don't belong....I mean, they wouldn't put an infantryman in a fighter plane, would they? Anywho, as Ziggy said in one of the comments, we do make a good team, us infantryman and the AF fighter planes. Happy 4th of July everyone.
