Thunder Run (24 page)

Glaser stumbled across his first sergeant, Rodric Dalton, and told him, “We need to set up an ambulance exchange point.” Dalton gave him a quizzical look. “Sir,” he said, “it's already being done.” Glaser looked over the sergeant's shoulder and saw a sergeant guiding a medical vehicle into one of the concrete bays.
Damn,
Glaser thought,
these soldiers and NCOs must
have this stuff hardwired into their brains.
They were taking care of every last detail.

Near the front wall, several soldiers were using water bottles to try to extinguish small vehicle fires triggered by the burning red plastic. Glaser ordered them to drive the vehicles away from the flames inside the compound, and then put out the fires. He jumped into the driver's seat of one of the Humvees and flipped the starter switch halfway to warm the engine. The glow plug light flashed WAIT while Glaser felt a burning sensation on his arms and neck. Melting plastic was dripping down on him, searing his skin. He stared at the yellow light, cursing in pain, and finally the light went out. He gunned the engine, peeling the hot plastic off his skin as he drove the Humvee to safety.

Glaser had not seen any of the wounded from the casualty collection point inside the compound at the ambulance exchange point. He grabbed a private and two stretchers and navigated his way through the smoky compound back to the vehicle bays. He saw that the combat lifesavers had done everything they could and were now talking softly to the wounded men. In a low sound, almost like cooing, they were whispering, “Hey, it's gonna be okay. You'll be fine. We're gonna take care of you.”

It was time to move. The rounds were cooking off at increasing intervals. Glaser climbed up on a pile of pallets and yelled, “All eyes on me!” He issued a quick set of orders, assigning tasks to everyone. The casualties were evacuated through a maze of smashed walls and burning vehicles to medical vehicles outside.

In the dusty field outside the compound, a soldier ran up to Glaser and told him that someone was on the radio net, delivering alarming reports of the carnage inside the compound. He thought they were making it sound worse than it really was. Men in combat can be paralyzed by bad news, particularly bad news involving the brutal, violent deaths of their comrades. Glaser wanted desperately to find a working radio so that he could get on the net and clarify the situation, to assure the combat teams in the city that the TOC would be back up and functioning soon.

He ran to find his Humvee, which was outfitted with a radio. He saw a Humvee speed past him and thought he recognized the vehicle. It was clean and polished. It looked like Specialist Mitchell's Humvee. Mitchell was always cleaning his vehicle, even when all the other Humvees were caked with dust and grit. His radio was always spotless and in perfect working order.

“Mitchell!” Glaser hollered, trying to flag him down. “Mitchell! Mitchell!”

The Humvee sped past him. Glaser cursed. “Dammit, Mitchell! Stop! I need your radio!”

Glaser finally found his own Humvee. As he grabbed the hand mike to send out an accurate situation report, he heard Wesley gain control of the radio net and put out a calm and restrained assessment. Glaser went back to accounting for his soldiers. It was crucial to take a head count, to make sure the NCOs had a good handle on where everybody was. Sergeant First Class Stanley Griffin was taking charge of accountability, and he mentioned to Glaser that Specialist Mitchell was among the KIAs. No, Glaser said, Mitchell was fine. He had just seen him.

Griffin shook his head. “Sir,” he said quietly, “I don't think you saw Mitchell.” He walked Glaser over to Mitchell's burning Humvee. And there Glaser saw Mitchell's charred remains. He was shocked. He was certain he had seen Mitchell alive and well—and now this. Poor Mitchell, he thought—he was such a fine soldier.

Glaser tried now to focus on the big picture, to make sure soldiers weren't working at cross purposes. In any calamity, especially one involving trained soldiers, people have a tendency to want to help right away. They focus on the first task they encounter, not necessarily the most important. Often people get in one another's way, with everyone trying to do the same thing while other needs are overlooked. Now Glaser saw a sea of tan uniforms flowing toward him—a whole fresh crop of volunteers who had rushed to the flaming TOC compound to offer their help.

Captain Robert Steinhoff and First Sergeant Joseph Rasmussen ran over to Glaser and said, “We have assets. How can we help?” They were from the battalion maintenance section. Glaser knew there were serviceable vehicles trapped inside the compound not yet consumed by the flames. He told them to figure out a way to get the serviceable vehicles out before they caught fire.

Within minutes, the maintenance soldiers had rammed one of its huge M-88 recovery vehicles through the compound wall, using its plow blade to create a pathway big enough to drive vehicles through. By now, explosions were erupting from the vehicles that had caught fire. They were packed with small-arms ammunition and antitank weapons, and now the heat was cooking off the rounds, which ripped through the smoky air, hissing and crackling, the antitank projectiles exploding on impact. Soldiers ran through the flames, staying low to avoid the cooked-off rounds. They climbed into the vehicles and drove them through the hole to the safety of the field beyond the compound. Sergeant First Class Griffin sprinted past the fire to recover people and equipment, vomited from smoke inhalation, then ran back into the compound.

By this time, Wesley had supervised the hasty construction of an emerging new TOC. The vehicles that had formed the core of the TOC were all armored with steel plating, and they had survived the concussion and flames. The communications equipment inside was still in good working order, but all the external wiring and cables and antennae had been destroyed. Wesley had to find a way to cannibalize equipment from damaged vehicles and take backup equipment from others.

One of the singular attributes of the U.S. military is redundancy. The army goes to war with a healthy supply of spare parts and equipment. The mantra among soldiers assigned to Operation Iraqi Freedom was, “God will curse those who only bring one.” Resupply convoys were notoriously slow and unreliable; they had lagged far behind the tanks and Bradleys on the long march up from Kuwait. There was no Home Depot in the combat zone. Everybody crammed their vehicles with extra supplies—from antennae and generators and radios to toilet paper and motor oil. Soldiers hauled out extra communications equipment from their vehicles and delivered it to the new TOC site.

Wesley and his team from the old TOC cobbled together a new secure tactical satellite communications network and a new FM radio net. As Wesley came up on the net, the first thing he did was request close air support for Perkins in the palace complex. He heard General Austin's soothing voice: “Spartan Five. Hey, first I want you to know, it's good to hear your voice.”

Now, barely an hour after the rocket attack, the brigade had a functioning TOC. It wasn't a green TOC—the fully equipped operations center that had been working so efficiently earlier that morning—but it was at least an amber TOC, a serviceable alternative. Wesley assembled the battle captains and the rest of the TOC staff. It was 11:30 a.m. They were back in the fight.

At Fort Stewart that morning, Wesley's wife, Cindy, was getting her two oldest children ready for school when the phone rang just before 8 a.m. It was a friend whose husband was in the air force. She had just received a call about an attack on the Second Brigade TOC outside Baghdad. Cindy had been worried about her husband's safety the entire war, and now her fears intensified. She tried to stay composed as she got her sons Tyler, eleven, and Austin, seven, ready for school. She knew that Tyler, as the oldest, understood the dangers his father faced; he realized when the war began that his dad might never come home again.

With her two boys off to school, Cindy switched on the television. She had recently arranged to have cable installed so that she could monitor war coverage. The news crawl across the bottom of the Fox News program described a missile attack on the TOC, with an estimated seven or eight dead. Cindy felt nauseous. She was afraid that at any moment someone in uniform would be knocking on her front door with bad news. She had memorized the casualty notification hours and knew that the only “safe” periods were after 11 p.m. and before 6 a.m. She was in the danger zone. She struggled to hold back her tears. She feared the worst—Eric was always at the TOC, at the center of things. She got down on her knees and began to pray.

Also at Fort Stewart, Ginger Perkins woke up that morning with the usual assortment of accessories at her bedside—her cell phone, her cordless phone, a notebook, and a pen. She sometimes got calls in the middle of the night, occasionally from her husband, David, and more often from the garrison commander of the brigade's rear detachment at Fort Stewart. She got up and woke her son and daughter for school, then turned on the television in the breakfast nook. She kept a videotape in overnight to record news reports while she slept. As the children got ready for school, she read the day's
Our Daily Bread
devotional aloud. Cassandra, seventeen, and Chad, thirteen, huddled with their mother in the hallway between the bedrooms. They locked hands and repeated prayers for David, for everyone in the brigade, and for all American soldiers deployed in the Middle East. Then the children left for school and Ginger Perkins sat down at the computer.

She checked first for “Velvet Rock” messages—an alert to the spouses of the division's brigade commanders of any casualty notification within the division. As she read her e-mails, she heard a Fox News announcer mention that correspondent Greg Kelly was broadcasting from Baghdad. She swung around in her chair and saw David standing next to Kelly in front of a palace. She felt elated. The brigade was in downtown Baghdad and her husband was fine, if a bit haggard and dirty.

When the segment ended, Ginger turned back to her e-mail and saw a message about a missile attack on the brigade TOC. It mentioned casualties: two soldiers and two reporters. She began to doubt what she had just seen on TV. She thought the segment showing her husband's interview had been live, but now she wasn't sure. She wasn't even certain now that David was even in Baghdad. And she didn't know exactly where the TOC was located. She called Captain Mike Enos, the brigade's rear detachment commander, who said he was on his way over. Then she called Cindy Wesley, who also decided to head over to the Perkins home.

Ginger Perkins, Enos, and Cindy Wesley decided that Ginger's home would be open to anyone throughout the day. They knew it would be hours, and almost certainly the next day, before casualties were confirmed and families were notified. They arranged for a chaplain to conduct an evening prayer meeting. Later, Captain Enos went to his headquarters to seek an update from the post casualty notification office.

Cindy Wesley still had no news about Eric. She had tried to prepare herself for the war, and for the worst, but there was really no way to prepare for something like this. She knew she had to stay home, by the phone. She had arranged for a friend to come over and watch her youngest child, Meredith, four, while she went to a doctor's appointment. She canceled it, but asked the friend to stay, not knowing what the day would hold.

The phone kept ringing. Friends and family members of brigade members were calling from around the country and around the world, seeking information and offering support. Around 11 a.m., Cindy's father, a retired army colonel and a Vietnam veteran, called her on her cell phone. His voice was cracking. He told his daughter that he had just seen on TV that Lieutenant Colonel Eric Wesley had described a missile attack on the Second Brigade TOC. He had survived. Cindy cried, and her father broke down, too. Then she got off the line so that she could call Eric's parents to let them know their son was alive.

As everyone continued to watch TV, awaiting updated news reports, Ginger Perkins's phone rang. It was her husband, calling on a satellite phone. Ginger cried at the sound of his voice. It was a brief conversation. David wasn't at the TOC—he was in downtown Baghdad. He told his wife that things were bad at the TOC, with multiple casualties. Through her tears, Ginger told him how sorry she was about his soldiers. She assured him that she would do everything she could on the home front.

The phones continued to ring throughout the afternoon and into the evening. Ginger Perkins spoke with Anita Blount, the wife of Major General Buford Blount, the division commander. More wives of Second Brigade soldiers dropped by. Everyone knew that most of them would be going out the next day to comfort the families of the soldiers who had died, so they baked bread to take along. By the end of the day, Ginger Perkins was feeling weak and unsteady. She had not eaten all day. A neighbor brought over a chicken dinner, and she felt better after eating. She said a prayer for the strength and courage to face the families of the dead men the next day.

That evening, about fifty spouses attended a prayer meeting, where the chaplain spoke and Captain Enos shared the latest updates from the rear detachment. Many of the women hugged one another, then sat and wrung their hands in silence. Some of them asked Ginger Perkins if she knew whether their husbands had been killed or injured. There was not much she could tell them; it was a painful evening.

Late that night, Ginger spoke on the phone with Charlene Austin, the wife of General Lloyd Austin, the assistant division commander, and gave her an update on the spouses. Then Ginger fell into bed with her cell phone, cordless phone, notebook, and pen beside her. She knew there would be Velvet Rock messages overnight, and she knew, too, that the next day would be even more difficult than the one that was ending.

On the military parade grounds downtown, Colonel Perkins had set up his command post roughly halfway between the towering pairs of crossed sabers. The curving blades gave off a dull silver glow in the murky haze, dwarfing the tanks and Bradleys arrayed across from the VIP reviewing stand. The air reeked of cordite and burning fuel. Perkins stood, map in hand, flanked by Schwartz and deCamp. He had just received an updated casualty report from the attack on the TOC: two dead enlisted men; two dead reporters; eighteen wounded soldiers, some with hideous burns; and twenty-two destroyed vehicles.