Wesley Gray - Embedded

We snaked the convoy down the steep edges of the wadi along a makeshift cart path. Things were proceeding smoothly. We reached the wadi floor and cautiously drove a few miles per hour, on the lookout for any command wires leading to the IED on the bridge. Suddenly Doc yelled, “Gents, you see that shit? I see it glimmering in the sunlight!” I replied, “What are you talking about Doc?” He replied, “Look twenty feet on your left.” I glanced in the direction of where Doc mentioned. Sure enough, a thin bronze wire was on the ground, leading to the IED on the bridge. I slammed the gas pedal and crossed the wire safely. We were good to go.

The entire convoy had almost made it through the wadi when Mark frantically yelled over the radio, “IED! IED!” Because they were in the rear Humvee away from our view, we assumed something bad had happened. The Marine and Iraqi radio nets sparked to life and the convoy started moving faster. Mark had triggered everyone’s survival mechanisms. Mark came over the radio again, “Uh, sorry. Actually, I just saw some command wires. Sorry about the confusion, I’m an idiot.” Doc, Gaines, Nuts, and I all looked at each other and said the same thing, “God, I want to kill that terp!”

After some more drama the entire convoy made it along the bypass route and we continued along Route Bronze. We would make it to Al Asad, but we would be more than four hours late.

I called EOD to get a report on the IED the Iraqis found on the bridge. The EOD tech on the phone answered, “Sir, we didn’t find much of anything. Granted, it was dark when we got there. All we found was a few strands of copper wire and that’s it.” I could not believe what I was hearing. I could still see the outline of the IED in the bridge when we were crossing the wadi the other day. I responded to the EOD tech, “Listen man, I know there is an IED out there. The longer it sits there, the longer it has a chance to blow up Marines. Ask your boss when you guys are free. We’re going to lead you out there and show you the IED.”

We convinced EOD to convoy with us to the IED location near checkpoint eleven. We arrived at the bridge around 0830, well ahead of the EOD team, which decided to convoy on their own because they were afraid of convoying with the jundi .

Whack! The EOD Humvee flew past my Humvee and took my left mirror with it. “What the fuck was that about?” I yelled to anyone who would listen. Major Gaines grabbed the radio to bitch at the perpetrator vehicle. “EOD, what are you doing flying by our Humvee? You took out a mirror.” The young Marine driver answered, “Uh, Sir, we didn’t want to get off the road for fear of pressure-plate IEDs.” Gaines thickened his Texan accent and gave the kid an earful. “Listen, dumbshit, if you ever do that again I will personally kick your ass and a pressure-plate IED will be the least of your worries.”

After things settled EOD sent their EOD robot to rig the IEDs for explosion. Meanwhile, we went into the wadi to collect the copper command wires so the insurgents could not use them again. We came across the wire I had spotted the day before. Doc got out of the Humvee with a pair of pliers and prepared to cut the wires. At the same time EOD called on the radio, “Shadow, get in the truck! Don’t cut the wire by hand—it may be booby-trapped. Snag it on the back of the Humvee and break it.” We all yelled at Doc, “Don’t cut the wire!” He calmly opened the Humvee door. “What’s all the fuss?” he asked. “I already cut it.” We burst into laughter. “So much for listening to EOD,” Gaines said.

After rolling up nearly a thousand meters of copper wire, we remounted the Humvee and drove up the side of the road to check on the Iraqis who were looking for wires farther into the wadi. We approached the crest of the hill leading into the wadi. An Iraqi Humvee was heading straight for us at fifty miles an hour. Chatter was streaming over the Iraqi radio net. Something was going on.

Lieutenant Abass sprinted through a cloud of dust that had billowed from his Humvee’s immediate stop a few meters from the front of our Humvee. Frantically, he addressed me, “Jamal, Jamal, we saw the insurgents. We saw them.” I replied, “Abass, calm down, man.” Gaines ordered Martin, “Get out here and translate this so everyone knows what’s going on and not just Jamal.” Abass told the story to Martin, who relayed the news. Abass explained, “When we crested the hill, our gunner saw a four-door, white, Kia pickup moving toward the bridge location. The truck had a bunch of copper wire in the back. When they saw our Humvee on top of the hill, they immediately turned around and rushed to the village before we could even react. We were going to follow them, but we wanted to get your help in case there was an ambush setup.”

We all digested the situation. Major Gaines concluded that it was time to play a little Cowboys and Indians. Gaines made the call to mount up; we were going insurgent hunting. Abass ordered his Humvee to start moving in the direction of the white Kia. We followed.

We piloted across the hilly desert terrain at fifty miles per hour; the ride was better than a roller coaster. Dust was flying, rocks were hitting the windshield, and Nuts was yelling more curse words than a sailor as he was bucked back and forth in the gunner’s turret. Up ahead the jundi stopped at an odd-looking rock formation. We all got out to investigate.

The rock formation was in the shape of a triangle. Doc stood behind the formation, looking at it from the perspective the insurgent would have had. He proclaimed, “Holy shit, this is their aiming device!” We each looked at the top of the rock formation. It was angled perfectly in line with the end of the bridge almost eight hundred meters away. Doc was right.

We mounted the Humvees immediately. We were hot on the trail. Abass led us into a local village another thousand meters east of our current location. We figured we would run into the four-door Kia at best, and at worst we could find the insurgent’s back entrance into the wadi. We cautiously moved through the town. All the civilians gave us the evil eye; we had spoiled all the fun. Unable to find the white Kia pickup, we pushed through the village until we found the route the insurgents were using to get into the wadi.

We found the mother lode. Every hundred meters a new copper command wire was strewn upon the ground, each of them going in different directions to various routes. This was the central hub of IED emplacement.

Sermen gave us double “hang loose” signs and yelled in broken English, “Fuckin’ cool man. Fuckin’ cool. We kick the erhabi [insurgent] fuckin’ asses.” He then showcased two different wires he had found. The guy was ecstatic. I laughed hysterically and threw him my wire cutters. “Start cutting, brother,” I said.

We destroyed all the wires we could find. It was a great day to be with the Iraqi army and to be a Marine. We felt like triumphant treasure hunters. Our combined efforts had destroyed hours of insurgent work, found a key node of IED operations, and had probably saved lives.

Gaines got on the radio to EOD. “Listen gents,” he said, “we have found the goldmine of IEDs down here. Request you copy the following grids.” Gaines proceeded to send the grid locations of all the IED wires we had found to the EOD representatives so they could follow up on each of them and destroy the ordnance associated with each wire.

It was nearing 1300 and we needed to get back to Camp Ali to conduct a pay run. I radioed to the EOD team at the bridge and told them the situation. They suggested they return home with our convoy and told us they would return later in the afternoon to investigate the remaining IEDs we had found. We hoped they would actually do their job this time around.