Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [190]
“The sheik is always polite and mannerly during our meetings,” the team sergeant told me. “He speaks English, but we converse through interpreters. He wants us out of Iraq, but he knows he’s not yet strong enough to resist the insurgents. Our insurgents in this area are locals, but there are many Saudis, Egyptians, and Syrians—mostly Syrians. He understands that we’re here to train his soldiers, and that as soon as we’ve trained his guys to handle the insurgents and the security issues, then we can leave. That’s what he wants; that’s what we want. The Albu Nimr we train are a part of the Iraqi army in name only. They’re in uniform, and they’re paid as Iraqi soldiers, but their loyalty is to their tribe. They allow us to train them because their sheik has told them to cooperate with us. They learn quickly, and they’re pretty damn good in the field. We like working with them.”
The Special Forces portion of the operation would have four assault groups. Each assault group would have five Albu Nimr tribesmen—they would be the tip of the spear, the assault element. Backing them up would be a security element of four to five Iraqi army scouts. “We’re there to back up both of them,” one of the SF gunners told me. “We’ll drive the lead vehicles and man the heavy machine guns in the Humvees. We’ll also supervise the handling of detainees and searching the target houses for intelligence. Otherwise, it’s their show.”
Following the team sergeant’s briefing of the Americans in the operation, each assault and security element was then briefed by the two detachment sergeants assigned to that assault group. There was a daylight rehearsal that amounted to room-clearing drills at an abandoned two-room house at the nearby firing range. The assault-group vehicles, two Humvees and an up-armored Chevy Luv pickup truck, rolled up to the practice structure and positioned themselves as they would on the real target. The Albu Nimr assaulters quickly ran to the building and set up in a stack at the main entrance. On the signal of their team leader, they kicked the door and cleared the rooms—by the numbers, just like a Phase II squad during Special Forces tactics training. The Iraqi army scouts set up security, and the Special Forces sergeants observed their team’s action on the target. After a quick critique, they moved on to an adjacent range to test-fire weapons. The same drill was repeated at the night rehearsal, but for the test firing of weapons. After the night rehearsal, the assistant detachment leader, the team warrant officer, came up to me.
“Hey, sir, I’ll be with the second assault group, and we have an empty seat in the lead vehicle. You want to go along?”
I considered this—and the assurances I’d given my wife about not going on combat operations—for about a nanosecond. “You bet I would.”
In the early morning hours, we rolled into the outskirts of the town, multiple assault groups, several vehicles to each group. Close to the center of town, my assault group broke from the main body and headed for our assigned targets. A few high-speed turns, a short sprint down some very narrow streets, and we skidded to a halt. Our Albu Nimr assault element was quick and professional. The Iraqi army scouts, Shia recruits from Baghdad, also performed well. And the Special Forces sergeants whose men were making the assault were like proud soccer parents watching their kids take the field. The SF gunners in the Humvee ring turrets and the