News Article

On Easter Night In Iraq, 278th Troops Seek Enemy


By: GRAHAM LEONARD/Special to The Greeneville Sun
Source: The Greeneville Sun
04-02-2005

Editor’s Note: Graham Leonard, Ph.D., a 79-year-old retired educator from Kingsport with extensive experience in the Middle East, is embedded with the 2nd Squadron of the Army National Guard’s 278th Regimental Combat Team near Kirkuk, Iraq. A 2004 Democratic candidate for Congress in the 1st District, he described his candidacy as “anti-Iraq War,” though he also volunteered to prepare troops from all over East Tennessee for what to expect in terms of Iraq’s culture. Many members of the 2nd Squadron are from Greeneville, from other parts of this county, or from other areas of Northeast Tennessee.

TUZ, Iraq — On Easter night, I accompanied scouts with the 2nd Squadron of the Army National Guard’s 278th Regimental Combat Team on an all-night vigil — searching for men planting roadside bombs.

The scouts are mostly men from the Greeneville area’s Troop G. The scouts search for intelligence and potential dangers to the squadron, just as they did in the Old West, but their methods are much more sophisticated.

On this night, they surveyed activities along a route between the 278th’s Forward Operating Base (FOB) Bernstein and Tuz and westward to the river on the road to Tikrit.

Some villages along that route harbor hostile elements. Recently, two roadside bombs were planted along that route in the two hours the scouts were away from the two locations. Clearly the people have ways of knowing the scouts’ movements. Whether this is through technology or human spies is usually not clear.

Our 2/278th scouts are under the immediate leadership of 2nd Lt. Jared Britz, a young regular army volunteer from Missouri.

The scouts are divided into two sections, alternating day and night duties. Both day and night, scouts constantly watch out for smugglers — mostly of arms.

Searching For Bomb-Setters

This Easter night, we watched for roadside bomb-setters because of increasing numbers of IEDs (improvised explosive devices).

Easter marks one week since three IEDs hit our convoys about simultaneously and resulted in four injured and one dead — Sgt. Paul W. Thomason III, of Sevier County — from the ranks of the 2/278th.

On Easter afternoon, with no interpreter around, this writer translated when a policeman brought information that two brothers from Baghdad, “with money” had rented a house in one of the villages we would patrol.

We were told the men were “recruiting a group” and already had two recruits. The scouts usually search for information, not for men. And there was no time for other patrols to arrest them before our night patrol. We would be going into an area requiring heightened caution.

Robot Aircraft Not Used

For this operation near our forward-operating base, a Raven, non-manned or robot aircraft, was not flown from the roof of a command bunker. We covered too much territory to make the Raven useful.

The Raven is larger than a big model airplane but much smaller than even the smallest ultralight manned aircraft. On a large screen, Raven’s commanders and its pilot, operating via remote control, could watch images the night vision video took from above the area of observation.

A disassembled Raven can be carried in a case.

The Easter sunrise service at FOB Bernstein had been held on top of the scouts’ bunker.

We sang along with recordings of all the traditional Easter music. From atop the bunker, there was a spectacular view of our low-lying base. Fields of newly green winter wheat stretched far away. From the roof of another bunker on our FOB and mounted on a Humvee, high-powered observation devices with the acronym LRASS (for Long Range Scout Surveillance System) carried out ground-level surveillance of movement of cars, people or animals picked up by motion and heat-sensitive indicators.

The LRASS works far better on the flat lands around Tuz than in our Northeast Tennessee hills and mountains.

Night Patrol Begins

As the night patrol began, Sgt. 1st Class Ronnie Houston, of Greeneville, led the night patrol of scouts in four Humvees.

Staff Sgt. Robert Jones was navigating from another Humvee, driven by Sgt. Sammie Dunaway, of Greeneville. The gunner was Sgt. Herman Freeman of Weaverville, N.C.

Another Humvee was driven by Sgt. William Rector, of Greeneville, Spc. Shawn Hart, of Alcoa, was top-gunner, with this writer as passenger.

The rear Humvee was commanded by Sgt. 1st Class David Bell, of Livingston, and driven by Sgt. Jeffrey Starnes, of Greeneville. The top-gunner was Spc. Rick Woods, also of Greeneville.

The scouts’ four-language interpreter, nicknamed “the Gipper,” was from Sulaymaniya, two hours east of Tuz.

Just after sunset, before departing our FOB, we took pictures of each unit and its occupants.

Intense Concentration Required

It is hard to imagine how our scouts, mostly younger than the 2/278th soldiers’ average age of over 40, keep up their intense concentration for 10 hours of night patrol.

They cannot lose concentration for a second. They and their buddies depend on each other for their very lives. I had the luxury of being able to doze off from time to time. But the scouts can never let down.

Never before and never again in their whole lives will they be required to be so vigilant and also to be so mutually dependent with others.

All of the scouts and I wore NVGs (night-vision goggles). The goggles work on the principle of turning ambient light patterns into images instantaneously. It’s all done by the marvels of computerized chips. However, the NVGs weren’t as necessary this night because of our full Easter moon.

It had been warm until Good Friday, when we began to have cold winds. The temperature during our long Easter night vigil dropped to 40 degrees.

Driving Without Headlights

What surprised me most was that our four drivers steered almost all the 10 hours of our night patrol without headlights — using devices that pick up blinking bursts of light on the antennae of the Humvee in front. Those bursts of light cannot be seen by the naked eye.

On what did the forward, navigating Humvee guide? I don’t know. Bright as the moonlight seemed, it was not clear enough for me to drive, especially not at speeds needed for our safety.

Usually, every gun in a convoy has to be fired near the gates before leaving base. Pistols and rifles shoot into barrels of sand, top-guns into banks of earth bulldozed up for that purpose. But to avoid detection, this night we slipped out silently.

Soon after we left our base, we turned onto a little-used dirt track through fields, crossing many irrigation ditches.

Pickup Truck Spotted

Suddenly, the navigators spotted a pick-up truck sitting in a field. As the soldiers dismounted, I could see two men at a distance walking toward the pick-up truck. It turned out they were unarmed farmers tending to their fields’ irrigation even after dark.

Our following Humvee was commanded by Staff Sgt. Tony Johnson, of Greeneville, with Sgt. Brent Kite, of Rogersville, as driver. Spc. Michael Lopez, of Milburn, Mass., manned the top-gun.

Most of the night we drove up and down the main Tuz-to-Tikrit road, often turning about to retrace ourselves. We also drove through fields and along dirt tracks parallel to that main road.

Snipers Left For 8 Hours

On our first run westward, we dropped off two snipers to lie hidden in a heavily ditched area often used by those planting IEDs. The snipers would lie in those ditches for over eight hours on their own.

It was a necessary risk taken by Sgt. Jeffrey Hernholm, of Kingsport, and Spc. Samuel Belvin, of Crossville.

The often repeated motto of the entire 278th is: “I Volunteer, Sir.” They do so knowing fully the risks.

Suspicious Car Chased

As we wandered in narrow lanes of the largest and most dangerous village, we spotted a car, lights on. As we drove up behind, the car accelerated, clearly fleeing.

We were about to “shoot across his bow,” and moving on bumpy roads those warning shots could have gone anywhere, when the driver stopped at a dead-end next to his house.

A number of people came out of the house, very worried. We sent the wife and children into the house.

The interpreter and several men searched and found the household’s only automatic rifle. Iraqis are allowed one automatic rifle per household.

The men from the house were lined up against a wall and searched, and neighbors were warned to go back into their houses. The writer was allowed out of the Humvee to interpret.

When nothing illegal was found in the house or in the car, the old man was allowed to join the women and children.

However, Sgt. 1st Class Houston spoke sternly to the man for risking the lives of his family. Houston was clearly angry because we came so close to killing that family because of the man’s heedless flight.

Then, we apologized to the other men and wished them well. By contrast, the rest of the evening seemed rather dull. That is good news for our scouts. But it also meant that there are potential enemies still at large in our area.

Stopping For A Snack

A little after midnight, we stopped on a dirt track in the middle of empty fields to stretch, rest, and eat some sandwiches.

We had been snacking on granola bars and drinking coffee and sodas to keep awake. The Army’s Humvees look wide, but they are not roomy. They are crowded with equipment.

We constantly reported to headquarters our exact location, within feet, from our satellite position locator.

I was extremely cramped. Because I did not get out each time the scouts did, I remained cramped all night and was very stiff by morning.

For me, it was a night to remember.

For the 2/278th’s scouts, mostly from Greeneville, the night was mostly routine.

Photo Special to the Sun - Shown, from left, are Sgt. Herman Freeman of Weaverville, N.C., Dr. Graham Leonard, Staff Sgt. Robert Jones, and Sgt. Sammie Dunaway, of Greeneville. Kneeling in front is the group’s Iraqi translator, nicknamed “The Gipper.” The soldiers, from the 2nd Squadron of the Army National Guard’s 278th Regimental Combat Team, and Leonard, an expert on the Middle East, went on patrol on Easter night in Iraq.

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