An odd warning

November 11, 2004

He knew what was coming.

Maybe he knew the shooter. Maybe he didn’t know the man aiming the rocket-propelled grenade launcher, but he saw him. However, if he saw him, he didn’t run.

Either way, the little Iraqi National Guard soldier sitting on top of a truck and smiling at soldiers knew we were about to get shot at.

And he seemed to joke about it.

The man sat on the roof of the Iraqi National Guard truck, laughing with soldiers and munching on fruit. We were all lingering and laughing after a sweep of Rashidyah by 3rd Battalion, waiting for the other half of the force to rejoin us.

Then the Iraqi guardsman said something.

I don’t know exactly what he said, I speak limited Arabic and he spoke no English, except for the last word — RPG.

RPG is rocket-propelled grenade, one of the favorite weapons used by insurgents.

The man said something about an RPG and then laughed.

I said, “RPG? Did he say RPG?” as I looked at the soldiers around me.

The Iraqi guardsman heard me say the letters and started laughing. Then he repeated his sentence — including the word RPG — and laughed some more.

Almost immediately I heard the tell-tale “Shhhhhhhwwoo” of an RPG flying overhead, followed by: ”Boom!”

Gunfire blasted from the nearby palm grove and the soldiers of Charlie Company and E Troop opened fire.

Me?

I ran at the grenade’s boom, taking cover behind the Iraqi National Guard troop carrier. It was a classic mistake, a side effect of the fight or flight instinct.

Instead of turning around and running to a Charlie Company humvee, I ran the direction I was facing.

Nope, there wasn’t a U.S. soldier near me, just Iraqi National Guardsmen. The Iraqis were tugging at me, trying to get me to move, but I didn’t want to lose sight of Charlie Company.

I was on one side of the street and a handful of Charlie Company guys were on the other.

The American soldiers took cover behind their humvees and shot back while taking turns yelling at me to cross the street and join them.

No way, buddy.

The RPG that sailed over us was shot from down the street. I was convinced the bullets landing around us were being shot from the same position, meaning they were zipping down the street, too.

Run out in the middle of that? No thanks, I’ll just eat dirt over here, I thought.

“Amy! Get over here! Run!” yelled Sgt. Nathan Baker of Little Rock.

I crouched there, holding my ears because machine guns are very loud, and shook my head.

The guys later laughed at the way I had curled up into my body armor and covered my ears.

Finally, Spc. Jason Hay of Paragould waved at me to cross and pointed toward the palm grove that I was looking at straight ahead of me. Insurgents were shooting from the palm grove, not from up the street.

Yikes!

That meant I was in full view of the shooters.

Hay moved out into the street a foot or two, firing his weapon at the palm grove as I ran behind him. Baker held the door open and I hopped into the humvee.

I can’t thank them enough.

Once again, I have to say that 30 pounds of body armor is light as a feather when people shoot at you.

I had stayed there for only a minute or three when Lt. Marcel Robicheaux of Hot Springs yelled at me to follow him. We ran from the humvee amid the gunfire to his truck, where I remained until everything fell silent.

I hadn’t slept for about 28 hours at that point and we were in hour seven of what would become a 13-hour operation, but the sleepiness that plagued me before the fire fight was long gone.

I ran up the street to the E Troop vehicle I was assigned to, stopping briefly at the Charlie Company humvee to thank them.

I wanted to thank them for helping get me to safety. I’m not sure that big of a thank you is possible. But I tried.

I only wish I could figure out which of the Iraqi soldiers knew about the attack and failed to warn us.

Who would joke about rocket-propelled death?

Posted by Amy at November 11, 2004 03:49 PM