Thunder Run (31 page)

But at the same moment that the 2-7 Bradley had accidentally opened fire, Iraqi fighters had concentrated a volley of RPGs on the fuel and ammunition trucks and at the tight cluster of command vehicles beneath the overpass. The interchange was rocked by a series of rapid explosions. Shrapnel from an RPG sliced into Sergeant Major Gallagher's lower left leg. He hopped around, cursing. He grabbed his automatic rifle and leaned against his armored recovery vehicle, squeezing off several bursts. Captain Hornbuckle bent down and tried to get a bandage on Gallagher's wound. Gallagher kept shooting.

Across the highway, an RPG tore into one of Captain Polsgrove's ammunition trucks. The flatbed vehicle was loaded with several tons of ordnance—120mm tank rounds, 25mm Bradley rounds, 7.62mm coax and M-240 belts, 5.56 ammunition for M-16s and M-4s, hand grenades, antitank rockets, and claymore mines. It had been packed specifically to meet the needs of Captain Wright's tanks, Bradleys, and infantrymen at Objective Moe. The fireball at the head of the streaking grenade punched through one of the ammunition pallets, igniting a honeycombed load of tank rounds. The explosion released an enormous fireball and a cascading blast wave. Knapp felt the heat and the concussion inside the hull of his command carrier—a tremendous release of energy that reverberated beneath the overpass. Something slammed into a storage box on top of the hatch, tearing it to shreds. Knapp had been eager to be part of the fight, but now, amid the chaos and the pounding explosions, he wished he were somewhere else, anywhere but at Objective Curly.

The exploding ammunition on the supply truck sent bullets and flaming chunks of shrapnel in all directions. The truck was now a weapons platform, firing off tank and Bradley and small-arms ammunition in a fusillade even more intense than the enemy fire that had been pelting the interchange for several hours. Something shot straight through the thin metal skin of a fuel tanker, igniting another massive fireball and blast wave. The southeastern corner of the interchange was consumed now by flames and billowing smoke. The fireballs expanded up and out, engulfing the supply vehicles parked along the edge of the highway. Polsgrove and Bailey had managed to move only one of the trucks to the west side of the highway. Now two more ammunition trucks and another fuel tanker exploded, spraying the interchange with more cooked-off ammunition and more hot shards of metal.

At the aid station beneath the overpass, Dr. Schobitz was trying to get a look at Sergeant Major Gallagher's leg wound. He gave him an injection of antibiotics, and Gallagher complained bitterly that the doctor was slowing him down. He wanted to get back into the fight. The intelligence officer, Captain Felix Almaguer, limped over with a spray of shrapnel in his leg, and Schobitz's medics got him bandaged. It was deafening and confusing under the overpass, with soldiers hobbling around with shrapnel wounds, the wounded enemy prisoners moaning and yelping, and the heat from the fireballs washing over the aid station.

Schobitz saw one of the intelligence officers point to the ammunition trucks and yell, “Hey, you know there's rockets on there!” Suddenly the doctor realized that they might all be ripped apart by their own exploding ammunition or burned to death by the expanding fireballs. Then he was knocked to the roadway. He thought somebody had sucker punched him. He looked up and saw that one of the medics had gone down, too, hit by shrapnel. Schobitz realized that he had been struck in the face by something. He looked at the medic and saw that the man wasn't badly hurt. Schobitz asked him, “Hey, am I good?” The medic told Schobitz that he had been cut in the cheek by a tiny sliver of shrapnel. “You're good, sir,”he told the doctor.

Schobitz got up and went to check on the badly burned fighter he had treated earlier. It was obvious that the man had died—painlessly, Schobitz believed. The doctor and the medics wrapped the corpse in a blanket and laid him on a litter behind a highway support column.

Schobitz couldn't find the Syrian fighter he had bandaged earlier. He had apparently taken advantage of the confusion to flee, his hands still bound by plastic cuffs.

As the supply trucks exploded, Captain Polsgrove tried to gather as many of the men as possible from his support platoon and herd them to cover beneath the overpass. He was afraid, and he could tell from the looks on the faces of some of his men that they were scared, too. They were drivers and quartermaster specialists. Many of them were trying to return fire, but they hadn't expected to be caught up in a firefight—and certainly not a firefight that included an attack by their own Bradleys. Polsgrove feared that the situation would spiral out of control, and he worked to stay calm and restore order. He spoke firmly to his men, trying not to betray his own fears. He even tried to smile, though he realized he wasn't fooling anybody. He said a little prayer, asking God to get him and his men through the day alive.

Polsgrove led a group of soldiers to cover next to a cement support wall beneath the overpass, where they could take cover and return fire. They all tried to press up against the wall, but they stumbled over something on the highway. Polsgrove looked down and saw the bloodied corpses of Syrian fighters. He told his men to shove the bodies out of the way. One of the wounded men was still breathing. Polsgrove saw his chest heave and fall. His midsection was wrapped in an American field dressing that was soaked through with blood. He was dying. Polsgrove's men pushed him aside. They needed the cover.

Polsgrove noticed that several of the supply trucks were now moving. Some of the support platoon soldiers had sprinted across the highway and jumped into the truck cabs to get the vehicles away from the approaching fire. Polsgrove hadn't ordered them to do it; he couldn't have because he didn't know where everyone was. They had acted on their own. One of the men had run over and pulled out the .50-caliber gunner of the first ammunition truck that had been hit. The concussion had knocked the gunner unconscious, and his fellow soldier had dragged him to safety.

The first man to run for the trucks was Staff Sergeant Joe Todd, the gunner on Gallagher's armored vehicle. Todd was a dark-haired, stocky thirty-six-year-old NCO, a Gulf War veteran with a wife and two children. He was feeling distraught that afternoon, for he had just learned of
the death of Sergeant Stever. Todd and Stever had been close friends, and the news stunned him. Todd had poured his grief and his despair into his .50-caliber machine gun, keeping up a steady stream of fire at gunmen in the trenches and on the rooftops. He had provided cover for Sergeant Phillips's four-man clearing team and had helped destroy a cement truck that had tried to crash through the perimeter. In all, Todd had fired more than eight hundred rounds. Now, just as the supply trucks burst into flames, he had run out of ammunition. He climbed down off his vehicle, dashed across the highway, and jumped behind the wheel of a burning truck. He couldn't get the engine started, but his failed attempt had prompted other men in the support platoon to run over and move at least a dozen trucks to safety. They managed to salvage the bulk of the fuel and ammunition resupply for the combat team at all three interchanges.

Sergeant Andrew Johnson ran over to Polsgrove and asked for permission to try to rescue his fuel truck. Polsgrove could see that exploding ammunition was ripping into the tanker. “No, I'm not going to make you do that,” he said.

Johnson argued with him. He was angry. “Sir, all my stuff is on that truck. I've got to get my stuff.”

Polsgrove relented. “All right, go ahead,” he said. “But I'm not going to order you to do that.” He didn't know what else to say.

Johnson half-ran and half-crawled to his truck and climbed into the cab. He tried several times to start the engine. Bright yellow flames were shooting out of the truck next to him, just a meter away, and finally Johnson gave up and ran back to cover.

Polsgrove had regretted allowing Johnson to leave in the first place, and now he was relieved to have him back safely. Johnson was bent over, catching his breath, saying something to Polsgrove. The captain didn't understand him, but then he heard Johnson say, “Sir, I couldn't get it started, but now I think I know what it was. I think I can get it started.”

Johnson started to run back across the highway. Polsgrove grabbed him by the strap of his flak vest and yanked him back. “No way you're going back out there,” he said, and he ordered Johnson to stay put.

By now, there was pandemonium beneath the overpass. Men were bleeding from shrapnel wounds; Polsgrove saw something take off part of a soldier's hand. Officers and NCOs were screaming out orders. Soldiers were firing and scrambling for cover. Exploding ammunition was splattering
the command vehicles and the support walls. RPGs were exploding on the roadway, and small-arms fire was chipping holes in the underside of the overpass. The conflagration of burning fuel and cooking ammunition sent up plumes of black smoke that blotted out the hazy midday sun.

Officers and senior NCOs are conditioned to bring order to chaos. Soldiers look to them in moments of fear and confusion for some marker of stability, of decisiveness. If the leaders hesitate, they sow panic in the ranks. Now, beneath the overpass at Curly, the commanders quickly found one another and huddled. They gathered in the tight space between the command carriers—Major Knapp, Captain Johnson, Captain Bailey, Captain Hornbuckle, Command Sergeant Major Gallagher, and a few others. They worked to bring the situation under control, shouting and gesturing to make themselves understood amid the gunshots and explosions. It was a pivotal moment: they were under fire, and they were returning fire. An advancing unit had just opened up on friendly positions. Ammunition was cooking off. Fires were raging around the five burning trucks. The surviving fuel and ammunition trucks were still exposed to enemy fire. And in the middle of all this, the combat teams at the interchange still had to hand off their positions to the 2-7 forces, and then prepare to fight their way up Highway 8. At the same time, the supply convoy had to be reorganized in preparation to roll north under fire. Prisoners had to be transferred and the wounded had to be evacuated. Knapp, Johnson, Gallagher, Bailey, and Hornbuckle moved their soldiers off their positions and into formation as the lead company from 2-7 pulled into the southern perimeter. China's Bradleys continued to fire and hold the perimeter. Given the chaotic circumstances, it was a remarkably controlled handoff.

Major Coffey was just north of the overpass, firing from his Bradley at a building to the northwest where gunmen were firing on the interchange with RPGs and small-arms fire. Coffey was still angry, still shouting at soldiers to lay down suppressive fire. It appeared to him that not all the .50-caliber machine guns mounted on the surviving supply trucks were being manned. Then he saw a Special Forces soldier climb up on one of the trucks and open up with the .50-caliber at targets to the south and west.

As Coffey directed his gunner from the Bradley turret, three Iraqi fighters closed in on the vehicle from behind. One of the Bradley infantrymen, Specialist Cochrane, saw them and opened fire with his M-16. All
three went down. They were more than 150 meters away. Cochrane continued to lay down suppressive fire, and the Bradley kept pounding the building as Coffey spoke by radio with the commander of the lead 2-7 company on the highway to the south. He tried to guide him in as the China battalion units pulled out.

Coffey was worried that the remaining Special Forces pickup would be targeted by the advancing Bradleys, even with the bright orange panels designating it as a friendly vehicle. He yelled at one of the Special Forces soldiers to pull his pickup behind the Bradley for safety. The soldier looked relieved. “Roger that,” he said. “Got it.”

Near the overpass, Bailey and Polsgrove got the support platoon drivers and gunners back into the surviving vehicles and lined up in convoy formation. There were hectic discussions regarding security for the unwieldy formation of armored and soft-skinned vehicles. It was decided that the sixteen surviving fuel and ammunition trucks would be protected at the front and rear by Bradleys. There were plenty of Bradleys by now—Johnson had ten and Hornbuckle had five. There were also several Humvees mounted with .50-caliber machine guns and grenade launchers. It was the first time that day that the resupply convoy would travel with adequate firepower.

Along the highway, Specialist Agee and Private First Class Gregory were guarding more than two dozen naked prisoners huddled inside the pen of concertina wire when they got the order to load up and move out. The medic teams next to the prisoners' pen were loading up, too, and Agee feared that all the running around was disrupting the prisoner exchange. They were supposed to be handing the prisoners off to incoming teams from 2-7, but Special Forces soldiers were still interrogating some of the captives. Then one of the medics, followed by a captain, ran up to Agee and yelled, “They forgot Sergeant Stever! Come on!”

In the noise and confusion, the medical teams had forgotten all about Stever's bagged corpse, which had been set down next to a support wall protected by the overpass. Agee and Gregory were ordered to run up the highway to the overpass to retrieve him. Agee could see the black outlines of the burning trucks framed against the brilliant red of the flames and the billowing mushroom clouds of black smoke. He could hear the steady pop of the ammunition cooking off, and the hiss of the
spraying rounds. He could feel the heat, damp and insistent, against his cheek.

They found Stever in the gloom under the overpass, still in the green body bag. Agee and Gregory picked up either end. It suddenly struck Agee, just as he felt the stiffness of Stever's lifeless form tucked inside the body bag, that Stever was gone and wasn't coming back. Until the medic told him that Stever's body had been left behind, Agee hadn't known that Stever was one of the two soldiers who had died in the ambush. He knew Stever. He used to wrestle with him in competitions between the mechanics and the guys from the TOC. Stever was strong and agile, and Agee admired his sneaky wrestling moves. Now, as he hustled across the pavement, lugging Stever's corpse with Gregory and the captain providing cover fire, Agee thought how surreal it was, getting shot at and nearly burned alive while carrying a dead American.