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Ralph Peters is a regular columnist with the New
York Post.
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 Riding
The Buffalo
Hunting for IEDs in Bahgdad…
[Ralph
Peters] 3/7/06
Forward Operating Base Loyalty, Baghdad
"Buffalo interrogating," Staff Sgt. Morehouse called into his headset
mike. Under a vehicle-mounted spotlight, an armored claw extended toward a sack
lying by the roadside.
We were hunting
for "improvised explosive devices," or IEDs, the
crude-to-sophisticated bombs planted to kill or maim our troops.
Riding in an aptly named "buffalo" - a big, ugly,
tough vehicle produced in South Africa - we were the mother
ship of a four-vehicle patrol prowling through the night in
Indian country: East Baghdad.
And I may
have been the safest man in the city. Not only because of the
buffalo's armor and the steel slats welded to the hull to defeat
rocket-propelled grenades. The real reason I felt as safe as
hizzoner in his private washroom was the quality of the soldiers
around me. All were experienced NCOs of the sapper company
- the mine clearers and trailblazers - of the 506th Infantry
Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division.
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The 506th
is the "Currahee!" outfit of "Band of Brothers" fame;
its soldiers today are every bit as combat-ready and dedicated
as the paratroopers who fought their way from Normandy to the
Eagle's Nest.
The buffalo's
claw poked the bag, testing it. Waiting for a blast to shake
the vehicle.
Nothing.
Manipulating
a hook attachment, Morehouse lifted the bag and, in a heavy-metal
ballet, opened and emptied it. Only garbage -this time. But
just to the south, a sack tied off the same way had been crammed
with explosives.
Morehouse
nursed the boom back into its traveling position, with 1st
Sgt. Dan Bates guiding. The sapper company's "old soldier," Bates
takes a bit of teasing about his "Mesopotamian" background:
He's from Mesopotamia, Ohio.
"Mongoose
hot!" comes over the headset.
"Iron
Claw go!"
Our patrol
resumed its crawl through nighttime Baghdad.
The Post
doesn't give away our military's secrets, so we'll just say
that the scout vehicle leading us was a great example of how
your tax dollars keep soldiers alive. Another South African
vehicle followed, an RG-31, an armored truck that looks like
a collaboration between Mad Max and Bill Gates.
The buffalo
was the alpha dog, though, the destroyer of terrorist hopes.
Since the Currahee! boys (and gals) arrived in Baghdad on Jan.
5, the sappers have detected and neutralized IEDs as large
as 64 pounds of explosives - a shaped charge powerful enough
to take out any standard vehicle. They've saved unnumbered
American - and Iraqi - lives.
Sometimes
the process gets a little loud, though. Early on, two IEDs
blew up while being "interrogated."
"Not
the best way to find them," Bates noted.
We worked
our way down Route Pluto, until recently a notorious "bomb
alley." The 506th cleaned it up -literally. Removing the
welcome-to-Baghdad piles of garbage that pass for local color,
the Currahees made it harder for the terrorists to hide IEDs.
First Lt. Jim Ashton's Assault and Obstacle Platoon frequently
re-inspects the route at unpredictable intervals, keeping the
bad guys off balance.
As we worked
slowly between rows of ragged homes and ponds of stagnant water,
the other members of the buffalo's crew, Staff Sgts. Henry
Knell and Eric Johnson, help scan the grubby landscape. Each
man has an amazing eye for detail and can spot an out-of-place
chunk of concrete immediately. The ability's crucial: The more
skillful insurgents disguise bombs as plain-vanilla rocks.
Long stretches
of intense scrutiny are eased by Nascar-America banter on the
intercom and attempts to get a rise out of the first sergeant.
Top Bates doesn't bite; he's heard it all before. But there's
general agreement that the most-shameful fate for any man is
to drive a minivan. This is a real-man, big-engine brotherhood.
The convoy
has marvelous surveillance gear. But old-fashioned spotlights
still have their place: The beams flow over lone date palms
and pitted walls. An abandoned bus looks like a perfect hide
for an IED to me, but the buffalo's NCOs have an uncanny sense
of things. They give the hulk a pass - and their judgment proves
correct.
As hours
pass, the inside-the-turtle-shell feel of body armor works
on your back and you share the feeling of a century of soldiers
as the band inside your helmet sweats through and grips tight.
Again and again, the convoy halts, then deploys to inspect
a suspicious object.
But it turns
out to be "a quiet night on Pluto." Stray dogs watch
us, bemused at the odd things humans do.
Thanks to
the sappers, the terrorists have backed off from trying to
disrupt the route. "No IEDs" is a crucial measure
of success down in the 'hood. The only explosion reported over
the radio net is somewhere else.
For all the
rabid headlines about "civil war in Iraq," it's a
relatively quiet night in Baghdad. The terrorists - counting
on media support - are far from giving up. But they no longer
have the initiative on the 506th's turf.
And that
area includes over 4 million people in a huge swath of bad-ass
Baghdad: notorious districts such as Sadr City and Salman Pak,
and a potentially volatile mix of Sunni and Shia Arabs, as
well as Kurds and Christians.
This is the
heartland of the civil war that doesn't exist. In fact, it
looked like quite a success story over the last week - but
you didn't hear about that, of course.
The 506th's
commander is Col. Tom Vail, "Currahee 6," an Airborne
fireball whose favorite word is "nuance" when he
speaks about Iraq. He prepared his subordinates for their Baghdad
mission by making them study Islam, Middle Eastern culture
and urban infrastructure. The effort pays off every day.
After the
terrorists blew up that shrine in Samarra last week, you heard
plenty about the violent confrontations between Sunni and Shia.
But you didn't hear about the performance of the Iraqi army's
6th Division, the 506th's partner unit in eastern Baghdad.
Largely composed of Shias, the 6th Division deployed its combat
vehicles to protect Sunni mosques. Even in Sadr City, the violence
never spun out of control. Casualties, yes, Armageddon, no.
Iraq does
have a national army. It's getting better every day. Even as
I write, they're taking casualties for their country.
Col. Vail
and the soldiers of the 506th still face plenty of challenges,
from civil-affairs operations and neighborhood diplomacy to
tracking down terrorists and the looming need to disarm sectarian
militias. The problems can seem almost overwhelming. But spend
a little time around the 506th's troops, from Pfc. Chris Flippen
of the sappers up to the senior staff, and you'll come away
convinced that this mission will not fail.
Around midnight,
I walked back into the compound through the familiar dust and
exhaust of convoys coming home or preparing to roll out on
yet another patrol. The snap of soldiers clearing their weapons
punctuated the low growl of engines as war machines followed
their ground guides. I heard the mundane sounds of an Army
at war. And an anthem of freedom. -one-
Ralph
Peters is currently a guest of the 506th Infantry Regiment,
101st Airborne Division.
Ralph Peters'
latest book is New
Glory: Expanding America's Global Supremacy
This
piece first appeared in the New York Post
copyright 2006 - NY Post
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