By Edward Lee Pitts
Military Affairs
Thursday, March 10, 2005
BALAD RUZ, Iraq -- A possible roadside bomb Wednesday halted a 278th Regimental Combat Team convoy headed here so unit doctors could conduct their weekly free medical clinic.
The bomb turned out to be a fake, but it prevented the treatment of dozens of area civilians and the convoy of Tennessee-based National Guard soldiers.
"You end up finding something like this every fourth or fifth day," said Sgt. Malcolm Rios, 35, of Cookeville, Tenn.
Regimental commander Col. Dennis Adams said that, through Tuesday, the regiment had encountered 99 authentic improvised explosive devices, or roadside bombs, in 3,303 combat patrols. Soldiers also have found about 100 fake or false-alarm homemade bombs, he said.
Before the soldiers left their base at Camp Caldwell, about 14 miles from Balad Ruz, news of an explosion south of the city came over the radio. Diverting their collection of Humvees and an armored personnel carrier, the members of 1st Squadron's Apache Troop headed toward the suspected detonation site as Iraqis along the street pointed the way.
While the soldiers found no signs of a recent detonation, Spc. Mike McDorman, 25, of Smithville, Tenn., spotted a sandbag beside the road, partially covered by dirt and with wires sticking out. Nearby sat a white poster, about the size of a real estate sale sign, with Arabic writing. Soldiers alerted the Explosive Ordinance Disposal team about the roadside device.
Lt. Powell said the particular road is a favorite of insurgents for hiding homemade bombs, one of the deadliest weapons in their arsenal.
Some explosive devices are set on the road as fakes so insurgents can watch how U.S. forces respond to them.
"It could just be a pile of rocks with a wire sticking out," Sgt. Rios said about the unknown device.
But Sgt. Roger Springman, 45, of Cleveland, Tenn., said soldiers "have to treat every IED as the real deal."
Capt. Dale Bradley, Apache's commander, radioed ahead to the convoy's intended destination in the heart of the city, where more Apache soldiers and a line of civilians waited for the medics.
"I want the translators to get out there and tell the people that the reason there is no medical clinic is because the anti-Iraqi forces put out an IED on the road," Capt. Bradley told his men over the radio. "If they start pointing these worthless individuals out, we can spend more time helping each other."
The discovery of the possible explosive device set the Apache convoy into motion performing a routine repeated with regularity throughout the regiment whenever possible roadside bombs are discovered.
As Humvee gunners such as Spc. Michael Light, 50, of Knoxville, scanned the horizon for possible trigger men hiding with remote devices to detonate any hidden explosives, other Apache soldiers, such as Sgt. Springman, hopped out of vehicles and slowly walked the roadway.
Spc. Kevin Zuhn, 26, of Enville, Tenn., used hand signals to pantomime a large explosion as he instructed civilian drivers to turn around and take alternative routes.
Soldiers not blocking the roadway fanned out in their Humvees to search nearby homes. Sgt. Rios and his squad approached a house where the women greeting them pressed their clasped hands against their faces as a way of saying they had been sleeping and knew nothing about a bomb.
As the clock ticked, the Apache units remained spread out to block access to the potential explosives, but the unit confronted a new challenge as the end of school saw about 100 older children released into the streets.
Seeing the military vehicles, the children crept closer toward Sgt. Rios' Humvee.
Some children traded scarves, sunglasses and old Iraqi money marked in the thousands for one-dollar bills.
Working without a translator, Sgt. Rios asked the children if they had seen any "Ali Babas," the common term used here for thief or bad man. Sgt. Rios said the children often shake their heads to indicate yes regardless of what they really know in hopes of getting some candy.
About 90 minutes after being called, the Explosive Ordnance Disposal team arrived and soon navigated a remote-controlled device toward the suspected bomb along a road lined with date palm trees. The robot on wheels inched toward the site and provided pictures to the bomb squad soldiers parked about 600 meters away.
The soldiers sent the robot out again, this time carrying explosive material in its mechanical arm to destroy the sand bag with the suspicious wires.
As the soldiers prepared to detonate the device nearly two hours after they arrived, Apache soldiers used hand signals, body movements and sounds like they were playing a game of charades to warn the children an explosion was minutes away. Little girls crouched with their knees reaching their faces, fingers stuck in their ears and their eyes closed.
The sudden mild eruption left the Apache soldiers convinced the bomb was a fake.
The Humvees finally pulled away, with soldiers waving goodbye to the children, and headed back to Camp Caldwell more than five hours after beginning a mission they couldn't complete.
Before arriving at the camp, Lt. Powell's voice crackled over the radio with the news that the sign found beside the hoax bomb had been translated. It read: "Kill all ING (Iraqi National Guard) and all Americans and everybody who works with them."
The Balad Ruz medical clinic will resume again next week.
E-mail Lee Pitts at lpitts@timesfreepress.com
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