Publication:Chattanooga Times Free Press
Date:Sunday, January 16, 2005
Section:Front Page; Page:1

DISPATCH Iraq

By Edward Lee Pitts Military Affairs

CAMP CALDWELL, Iraq — Under the shadows of snowcapped Iranian mountains, the 278 th Regimen tal Combat Team’s Deacon Company digs for hidden weapons caches with the help of the Iraqi army and U.S. Special Forces.

Iraqi soldiers shovel at the bottom of a man-made 15-foot crater in farmland as U.S. troops peer anxiously down at what once may have been a well but now holds weapons instead of water. Iraqi police and National Guard soldiers in the 278 th’s sector long have gone out on patrols with U.S. forces.

"I feel like Indiana Jones," said one of the Special Forces soldiers. Special Forces soldiers do not wear name patches or ranks to keep their identities hidden.

The men are looking for explosives because a local informant said insurgents are hiding weapons in sinkholes. Soon an Iraqi soldier uncovers a mudcaked anti-personnel mine and slowly brings it up, balancing it on the end of his shovel.

"Careful, it’s about to fall off of your shovel," said Lt. Joseph Minarick, forgetting the soldier doesn’t understand English.

The U.S. soldiers gather around to identify and photograph the mine and call in its map coordinates so members of the Explosives Ordnance Disposal unit can destroy it before it becomes the key ingredient in a roadside bomb.

In its largely rural sector near the Iranian border, Deacon Company has been busy putting a dent in the materials insurgents use to kill U.S. forces and proelection Iraqis.

In less than a month in Iraq, Deacon Company already has found more hidden weapons caches than its predecessors did in almost a year of searching.

The company has uncovered two mortars, one heavy machine gun, 115 mortar shells, 28 grenades, 25 rocket-propelled grenades, 45 boxes of ammunition and nine artillery rounds.

"We want to find the stuff and get it out before somebody else grabs it," said Spc. Matthew Shipp, 25, of Knoxville. "We would rather dig it up and explode it than have it sitting on the road someday."

The Deacon Company soldiers said they are in a treasure hunt race against the insurgents who craft the improvised explosive devices, often called IEDs, responsible for most U.S. deaths on Iraqi roads.

"A nything they can find that has explosives in it, they can use," said Sgt. Walter King, 25, of Jefferson City, Tenn.

Sgt. King said the company has succeeded by checking areas other U.S. forces have not explored in a while.

The company’s vast sector is littered with dated unexploded munitions from the Iran-Iraq war. But the company is finding newer explosives mixed in with the war leftovers — a sign the insurgents are using the area as a collection point for their tools of destruction.

The rural landscape offers unlimited hiding places for insurgents who don’t want to get caught with the bombs inside their homes.

"This is the harvest ground for a bomb maker," said Maj. Tim Cleveland, the First Squadron’s operations officer, as he looked out over Deacon Company’s sector of mountains, date palm groves and fields. "The enemy is getting really good at hiding stuff."

The proximity to the border means the company’s area is a breeding ground for black market weapons activity. Struggling farmers often risk jail by selling weapons to put food on the table. Weapons brought over the border can be shipped all over Iraq.

"These guys make $300 a year in average annual income," said Spc. Shipp. "You can get way more than that smuggling weapons."

The biggest bounty for Deacon Company occurred two weeks ago when a convoy pulled over to investigate a possible roadside bomb.

The more the soldiers spread out over the area, the more explosives they found, including leftover mortar rounds, boxes of ammunition and grenades.

To r each these hiding places, Deacon Company must navigate unmapped goat trails and abandoned fighting positions where decade-old armies left everything behind when they fled during the border war.

"Walking around in a minefield is not something I like to do every day," said Sgt. John McHugh, 35, of Knoxville.

Unsatisfied with the single uncovered anti-personnel mine found in the old well, Deacon Company and Special Forces continue searching. As they peer into sand dune crevices and ditches built both by erosion and by fighting soldiers, nearby sheepherders tend their flocks and children play.

In another crater several hundred yards away, the Iraqi diggers soon uncover a second mine, this one so old its paint has peeled away.

The Iraqis take pictures of themselves holding the mine, and a few toss the small white disc around, forcing most of the U.S. soldiers to take several steps back.

"It is kind of like mine Frisbee," Lt. Minarick said.

The Iraqis are more used to explosives in their midst and show less fear.

But the unpredictable nature of these mines has Sgt. 1 st Class Clay Rader glad they will be removed for the protection of the local population as well as U.S. troops.

"You could just touch it and it will go off, or you could drive a semi-truck across it and nothing would happen," Sgt. Rader said.

Before the end of the day, the U.S. soldiers drive closer to the Iranian border and uncover 10 mortar rounds and some machine gun ammunition among long-abandoned bunkers.

The hardest part of the weapons hunt for Deacon Company is having to leave the newly discovered caches behind.

So many bombs are uncovered here it takes several days for the overworked Explosives Ordnance Disposal to show up at a new site.

The soldiers have a joke that EOD stands for Every Other Day. They fear leaving the bombs unguarded will give insurgents more time to pick them up before they are destroyed.

"It is pretty frustrating when you have to leave a bunch of stuff that could wind up killing you," Lt. Minarick said.

The payoff for Deacon Company’s work is when its soldiers get to accompany EOD to detonate the explosives.

Soldiers in the company proudly display on their laptops before-and-after photos of a pile of explosives wired for destruction.

"It rattles your teeth, but in a good way," said Lt. Minarick, adding that the best spot for watching the fireworks is at least 300 meters away from behind a sand dune.

E-mail Lee Pitts at lpitts@timesfreepress.com

Staff Photo by Lee Pitts - Soldiers with the 278 th Regimental Combat Team, U.S. Special Forces and the Iraqi army look for hidden weapons caches in the sand dunes along the Iraq-Iran border.

Story Copyright to Chattanooga Times Free press