BenThere.com in Iraq

Thursday 20 March 2003 - Kuwait near Iraqi Border

I woke this morning to the radio. In some ways, it was a bummer. I hadn't been feeling well yesterday, and was having a wonderful sleep. I think the drive up to our new assembly area kicked me in the gut a little bit. As I came back to the world from my wonderful slumber, I started to make sense of the radio. The war had started. Cruise missles and bombs had fallen on Iraq.

Our schedule was still going forward. We had been briefed on many details of the plans for the 3ID, which of course I can't write about here. Today started with a trip by our photog, Mal, up to the border line. It was a short drive for him from our new AA.

While he was out, we got world of a TBM launch (Theatre Balistic Missle - essentially a Scud). It's impact was projected to be near our area of operations. The brigade was immediately ordered to go to MOPP level 4. MOPP level is a designation for the ammount of chemical gear one wears. MOPP zero is having your mask with you. MOPP one is that, and wearing the coat and trousers of the chem suit. MOPP 4 is everything. Mask on, suit on, boots on.

As quickly as it started, it was over again. We never got definite word on if there had been a scud attack near us or not. And the brigade probably didn't need to go to MOPP 4. But it was a good exercise for everybody.

Later in the day, we get word that we will be moving out tonight. The ground war is about to commence, and we are going to have front row seats. Literally. We drive out to a group of Palladin self-propelled howitzers. We set up all of our gear, and line up our shots. Night vision attachments go on to the camera. At the appointed hour, right on the dot, the big guns open up.

The cool, calm desert nigh is ruptured by the concussions from the 109mm cannons. We are live, kicking our competition in the butt as the shells pound Iraq. This is called preparing the battlefield. Soon, men and machines will begin pouring through holes cut in the fences and berms that form the border with Kuwait and Iraq.

The artillery barrage now over, we move to the command tracks. Waiting now with the commander of 2nd brigade, Col. David Perkins. From here Perkins is monitoring the movements of his troops, deciding if his battlefied is prepared so that it is "Conducive to Iraqi defeat."

There is no more action for tonight. We pull up and do a few liveshots with our videophone. Then, it's time for sleep. It's about 2:00 in the morning. We move out for Iraq at 6:00. We decided not to waste time setting up our tents. The time is better spent sleeping. We roll out our sleeping bags on the desert floor next to the Hummer and crawl right in for a chilly evening.

Friday 21 March 2003 - At the Iraqi Border

I wake up a few hours later to the sound of an M1A1 Abrahms tank starting it's engine. In my netherworld between sleep and wake my mind tells me that somebody is taking a vaccuum cleaner to the desert ground. I come to and realize it is the massive turbine engine of the tank spooling up. This is the same kind of engine on a jet plane.

We quickly pack our things and make ready to go. Forming up into the convoy, we are slotted right behind Col. Perkins armored track. The M113 APC (Armored Personel Carrier) bristles with the antennas that keep him connected to all of his troops, and his superiors. The personal gear and extra food and water are straped to the side of the APC.

We head out towards the border. It's only a short ways away. We light up the videophone shot. Fox News will be live, crossing into Iraq, launching the ground invasion known as Operation Iraqi Freedom. Across the first berm we go. The border area is made up of a series of berms, fences, minefields, and tank traps. The main fence, topped with concertina wire, is the border. We all follow in a single, dusty line. The vechicles in front of us kick up a virtual dust storm. We cannot drive to their side to escape the flurry of dirt; the road is likely mined on both sides.

Just accross the border we see the effects of the artillary the night before. The Iraqi border outpost is a smoking ruins. The Iraqi flag, though, still flies on the flagpole. Perkins pulls his APC sharply off the road and into the burned concrete jumble. He pulls down the flag; we are live on the air.

A ways on, we see a Blackhawk helicopter coming in for a landing just off of our route. Three figures jump out and jog towards us. Perkins stops his APC and jumps down to meet them. It is Maj. General Blount, commander of 3ID, making a swing through the field and checking up on his troops and their progress. With him is an aide and Ted Koppel. Yup, the "NightLine" guy. I knew he was embedded with 3ID, but never thought that he might be traveling around with the commanding general in a helo. I guess status has it perks. Right now, on the ground is the place to be. No other network has the live footage we have of the soldiers invading Iraq.

Six hours into the desert we stop at our first fueling point. Greg, Mal, and I have been transmitting live via videophone for all of it. New York is ecstatic about our pictures - a blurry, blocky shot of the APC along side of us.

At the fuel point we top off our tanks with JP8, a military diesel blend that has a higher flash point than regular diesel. The tanker trucks swarm through the rest area. Each M1A1 tank will drink up several hundred gallons. As for any mechanized brigade, fuel logistics is the secret to their success. We pause for lunch as well. I tear into an MRE and eat like it's my last meal. I then doze off into a nap in the warm sunshine, waiting for the rest of the brigade to be ready to roll. This afternoon will be my turn in the drivers seat.

We pull away from the refueling checkpoint. Along the way, we pass random bedouins tending their herds of camels, sheep, and goats. The all wave at us. I can't tell if they are happy to see the Americans coming to "liberate" Iraq, or if they are largely indifferent. We wave back at them and keep pressing on.

Another 6 hours and time for another fuel stop. The vehicles could range much farther than this. But we are running a little ahead of schedule, and the commander doesn't want to arrive at the night stop on empty fuel. It does no good to get a tank into battle, only to have it sit idle for lack of fuel when it gets there.

We all top off our tanks. Night has fallen. We had hoped to refuel and be off again before dark, but the logistics train got hung up in some of the deep, loose sand a ways behind us. Refueled and fed, we press on into the dark. It's about 1900, and we have more than 100 kilometers to go. With luck, we will be at our next checkpoint around midnight. There, we will pause for a few hours rest, more fuel, and then press on again.

We have a fair clue of where we are going. Col. Perkins has briefed us in remarkable detail of the battle plan for 3ID and 2nd brigade. Other than a couple key cities, I've put most of it out of my mind. When I get there, it will become apparent to me. For now, I don't need to know the details. I just need to keep my eyes focused on Perkins' APC and the rough terrain in front of me.

The hours keep grinding by. The terrain keeps getting rougher and rougher. Several times I need to stop, shut down the hummer and shift into low-range 4x4 to get out and over the obstacles. And then once I'm out, I need to shut down and shift back to high range to keep up with the armor. The APCs, Bradleys, and Abrahms tanks seem to float over the terrain. Then we come to one very sharp drop. The tanks have to turn their turrets sideways before negotiating the ravine, otherwise they will impail their gun barrells on the opposite side of the hill.

I've been driving for close to 10 hours now. My eyelids are getting very heavy. Mal and Greg are both dozing away. We've told New York not to expect any shots from us. For one thing, we won't be able to see very much in the dark. We could use our night vision cameras, but it seems folloy to risk breaking them this early in the game, especially for a random videophone shot.

I put a Bob Dylan tape into the radio. All my other stay awake tricks aren't working - open window, lots of cigarettes, lots of water. Unfortunately, there isn't any caffeine to be had. I start singing along, hoping that I don't wake up Greg and Mal. We all desperately need every ounce of sleep we can get.

Soon, all the water catches up with me. With every bump and berm I feel like I going to explode. There is no good opportunity to pull over. If we do, we will fall behind in the formation. Up front with Col. Perkins is where we want to be. I hope that the next checkpoint will be coming soon. It doesn't seem to be coming soon enough. Looks like it's time for a true BenThere.com moment. Too bad we couldn't get the camera out for this one.

So I am driving, in the dark, in Iraq, off road, 90 ton tanks on all my sides. I'm wearing my chemical suit, made up of a heavy jacket and trousers. I have my helmet and flak vest on as well. And I'm trying to get into my fly and, shall we say, connect the nozzle to the bottle. Things wound up working them selves out just fine, and I left a little present for the Iraqi people somewhere in the desert.

Finally, there is city lights far on the horizon. I can't tell you right now what city it is, but it is very deep into Iraq. This is our checkpoint for tonight. We make our around the city. I think we are being led by special forces. Greg, Mal and I are right at the front. There are only a handful of tanks and Col. Perkins in his APC in front of us. I am about ready to drop dead. I've been driving off road, some of it very rough and fast, for about 13 hours now. We pull up into the bivouac area. Mal and Greg set up to give New York a videophone shot before we put our heads down for a few hours. I rest my body on the warm hood of the hummer, and promptly fall asleep. They finish the live shot and wake me up. We decided to sleep in the hummer tonight. We don't know when we will be moving out, so we don't even want to roll out our bags. I call New York quick before nodding off. We are totally kicking the competition in the balls. And our live videophone shots of 3ID on the move have been anchoring it all along.

Saturday 21 March 2003

Today was supposed to be the day the invasion started. Of course, things got moved up by a good ammount. My neck is killing me, from sleeping in the hummer's seat last night. Or rather, for napping in it for a few hours early this morning.

First order of business today is to find out the plan from Col. Perkins. It looks like we will be holding in our current position for a while longer. There is a bridge that the Cavalry team is taking, and 2nd Brigade is providing supporting fire from Palladin howitzers and Abrahms tanks. We get word that there are 6 EPWs over at the fueling point. We roll over there to find out what the story is.

An EPW is an Enemy Prisoner of War. All of the prisioners we have heard about so far were down in the south, and they were soldiers who had surrendered or capitulated. These men were captured while fighting. We get over to the fuel point, and top of our tanks quick. Then we search out the EPWs. We find them in the back of a deuce and a half. The look healthy, well fed, clean. The army has given them blankets and some MREs, but their hands are bound. We video them, carefully following the guidelines for EPWs laid out by the military. We cannot interview them, we cannot show their faces or otherwise identify them by person or unit. We set up the videophone on a wide shot, and give live pictures and commentary of the scene. They will not be the only ones we will see today.

Rolling back to Perkins, we find that he is ready to go. The bridge has been secured, and the convoy is lined up and waiting. We bounce through the desert fields for about 10 more minutes, then come to a hardtop road. It is a most pleasant change from the ride of the last few days.

The convoy is really moving along now. We are extremely deep inside Iraq. The morning rain has doused the ground, keeping the dust at a minimum. The overcast sky gives us a very cool day, almost to the point that our chemical suits are comfortable.

In late afternoon, the convoy pulls off the road and assumes defensive positions. All the men are out of their trucks and hummers, rifles at the ready. We follow Col. Perkins up the line to find out what the situation is. We pull off the main road and towards what appears to be a pipeline pumping station and administrative office. American tanks have the building surrounded. The PsyOps guys are there too, playing a message to surrender on their mobile loudspeakers. We loose track of Perkins. It turns out there is also a UAV landing strip here - perhaps this is really a place where the Iraqis have been working on their unmanned drone aircraft.

We move out farther down the road. We hook up with another psy op who is heading towards Perkins. We fall in behind them. A short ways down the road, we come across another group of EPWs. They have been very recently captured. The are arrayed on the side of the road, all of them without shoes. They have been taken off by the US troops guarding them as a security measure. There are 13 EPWs, 8 with injuries. Two of them are very serious.

We position the truck to have a live videophone shot of the action. Mal grabs the camera to shoot closer in while I help Greg with the liveshot. We stay with the pictures for about 20 minutes untill the sun goes down and we can see no more. I walk back to find Mal

He is beside the road, helping one of the medics treat the most seriously injured EPW. It is dark now, and Mal is doing his best to position his flashlight so the medic can see what is going on. I jump in to help another medic on another EPW. The man Mal is with has a gunshot wound in the back. I think it must have been sucking a little because they have the dressing for that over the wound. The EPW is laying on his stomach, and the medic is having a hard time working with his arm to get an IV in.

The medic I am with is dealing with a gunshot wound in the EPWs shoulder. My medic is also having a hard time finding a vein. His patient is so dehydrated that his veins are not popping out like they should. I hold the EPWs hand; he is trembling with fear and shock. I tell him in my very limited Arabic "salam, habibi, salam" - peace, friend, peace. He looks up and me and smiles. My medic is getting very flustered not being able to find a vein. He is much younger than I am, and this is the first time he has seen real stuff like this. It's not the same as the classroom, he keeps exclaiming. I do my best to keep myself calm and confident, knowing that it will rub off on both the frustrated medics and the injured Iraqis.

The medics 113s finally show up. We litter the injured EPWs into these armored, tracked ambulances. The situation is over. I am a bit rattled by it all. Mal reminds me that there is a time to do our job, which we did, and when that job is done you have to be human and help out. Looking into that man's eyes and holding his hand, seeing the thankfulness in his face that I was treating him like another human being, I know we were doing the right thing.

The battle continues on. As the medic 113s pull out, Col. Perkins appears. We had lost track of him back at the compound that was originally surrounded. It turns out he had pulled off to check out an ambush that had been laid for some of our tanks down the road. They were attacked with Kalashnikov rifles and a couple RPGs. Not even a contest for the American heavy metal.

The forces 2nd Brigade are now fighting are holed up in their bunkers. We have come across a training camp for the ruling Baath Party militia. They are not very well trained, but are fanatic in their support of Saddam. We all pull our vehicles back aways. The brigade is calling in Close Air Support to hammer the bunkers. In front of us, tanks are firing on them. Behind us, the 109mm Paladins are letting loose as well. Two large fireballs appear on the horizon, then a few seconds later the sound hits us. It sounds like every July 4th rolled into one big boom. The air support, an Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt has found its target. A few minutes later, another A-10 does the same. It looks like we will be here through the night.,

The fighting is too far away for us to see, even with our nightvision camera. We decided that tomorrow will be another long day. There is other action elsewhere in the region as well. It is time for us to get some rest. We get back into the hummer, and try to get as comfortable as we can. It's like being in coach class on a never ending flight. We make the best of it, and we are so tired that we don't care. Greg, Mal, and I quickly fall asleep. Asleep in deep Iraq.

26 Mar 2003

Well, it has been a very hard and frustrating few days. It began back at the last checkpoint, three days ago. We shut the truck down to save some fuel, and it wouldn't start again. Then I couldn't get the computer to play nice with the satellite phone to get a new update on to the website. Such is life, full of trials and hardships. At least back then the weather was tolerable.

The next day, the 24th, we still can't get the truck running. In some ways I am not all that surprised. I mean, this is a 10 year old hummer that has 105,000k of off road service exploring for oil in Saudi. It was put together from a hodgepodge of parts from other 10 year old hummers with countless miles of off road use on them. And in typical middle east fashion, it wasn't rebuilt all that well.

It is a minor miracle that the hummer got us as far as it did. No worries. We'll just get a tow to the next checkpoint. Mal will spend the day with Col. Perkins in the command track shooting the story. Greg and I will ride in the hummer as it's towed to the next checkpoint, where we expect to be for a while. We'll set up the dish there, and the mechanics will start working on the hummer.

Mal takes off in the morning with Perkins. Greg and I are waiting in the rear with the car, hooked up to another hummer and waiting for the convoy to move. It is a breezy day, but the morning sun is warming us up after a night sleeping in the open. I'm napping in the car when I hear an explosion crack out to my left. I'm instantly awake. Another crack and Greg and I are out of the car looking for cover. Everybody is running for their vehicles. We are under mortar attack, and the SOP is to high-tail it out of here. We quickly pull out and roll down the road a few clicks. We pull off the road and all the troops assume defensive positions. Greg and I don't know exactly what is going on, but we seem to be safe for now.

It turns out about 4 mortar rounds landed about 75m from our position, mainly by the berm where everybody was taking a crap. One man was slightly injured by some sharpnel from one of the rounds. The convoy regroups again and moves up the road to the next checkpoint.

We get there and set up the antenna. Not only do Greg and I have good tape from the attack today, but Mal has some simply fab stuff. Turns out Greg and I weren't the only ones to come under mortar fire today. But the tanks and Brads with Mal don't take lightly to mortars. Not that it really does any real damage to them, it just pisses them off and gets them shooting back.

We feed out the tape. Even though the truck is down, we have has a good TV day. Hopefully tomorrow the mechanics will be able to make some progress on the hummer. The wind seems to be dying off in the evening, so we roll out the tarp for another night of sleeping out in the open.

25 Mar 2003

Sometime in the middle of the night the wind kicked up again. And with it came another sandstorm. Laying in out bags in the open, there wasn't a lot we could do. Just pull the bag a little higher over your head and try to put it out of your mind. The day is one constant sandstorm.

Our truck is still broken. The mechanics seem to think that the fuel pump is busted. The only problem is that our truck is a 12 volt vehicle, and everything the military has is 24 volts. Again, so much for the idea of getting a hummer so the military can help us out.

We don't get any television out today. We do manage to get our tent set up during a lull in the storm. With the tent whipping around us and threatening to blow down on top of us, we drag ourselves off to sleep. Our first night in a tent in about a week.

26 Mar 2003

The sandstorm continues today. We cannot make any television. The wind is blowing at about 50 knots, way too stiff to set up the satellite antenna. Even if the wind was lower, we still wouldn't want to set it up with the sand blowing all around. This kind of environment can kill our electronic equipment in a matter of minutes. With no major news breaking out of our unit, we stay dark.

This is the most frustrating day we have had so far. It's been one of the toughest days in my career. The truck is dead, the gear can't be set up, New York is screaming for video, video, video. And there is nothing we can do but sit out the storm.

Evening comes. Only we don't know it because the sun is setting. We know the day is done because of the orange glow all around us. I wish I could take a picture of it, but I don't want to risk killing the BenThere.com camera. As night comes closer, the glow shifts to red. All around us everything is red. The desert looks like Mars. We had finally gotten another videophone set up to satiate New York. Our images look like the ones from that NASA Mars mission.

We shore up the tent a little bit. The wind is kicking up again. There isn't much we can do for the rest of the night. We don't want to do more liveshots because of the blackout light restrictions that combat dictate. That means I can't have a smoke after dark as well. We turn in for the night, hoping that tomorrow will bring us a better day.

27 Mar 2003

Today things hit the upswing, in a very big way.

For starters, we awoke to a beautifull, clear, cool morning. The sandstorm is over. We take advantage of the day to clean out all of our gear. The bags picked up quite a collection of dust and dirt after two days of sandstorms.

The mechanics are working hard on the hummer. They are basically scrounging parts from other broken hummers to change ours over to military standards. A mechanical fuel pump is replacing the broken electrical one. I don't know quite what else they are doing to it. But they have been working hard at it all day long, and without complaint.

Everybody is offered phone calls. Out here, the currency of the soldier is smokes, chew, and phone calls. For the folks that help us out, all are available courtesy of Fox. It's the least we can do. Every time we think we're having a hard trip, we remember that these folks have been deployed since September and October. The odd thing is they think we're the tough ones.

Our gear working again and the weather turning our way, we hope for good days ahead. Mal and Greg head off to An Najaf to cover some action going on there. I stay behind to keep cleaning the gear and set up the satellite gear for their return. Hopefully they wil be back before dark so we can feed out their material.

Ben in the Iraqi desert	our faithful Hummer, "Kelly's Heros"	Mal at our first refueling stop	our videophone broadcasting live from the Hummer on the move	Col. David Perkins briefs Greg on the latest details of the move
Our convoy moving north	funky mirror photo	"liberated" Iraqis	Ben on the move inside Iraq	Col. Perkins in his command track
Hummer at sunset	the "TOC" Tactical Operations Center	a Palladin M109 self-propelled howitzer	The Spartan 2 crew (Col. Perkins track) and the flag they captured at the first checkpoint inside Iraq	The EPWs that we assisted with first aid
Spec. George Mitchell, our coffee connection.	The Tactical Operations Center at sunset