Active Unit News

Fighting Far From Over In Some Areas
By Dionne Searcey
STAFF CORRESPONDENT
April 20, 2003
Near Tikrit, Iraq - Army infantrymen heading through Iraq this week ignored the large words someone had carved into the sand along a hillside: "The war is over." Certainly signs along their route indicated as much. Toppled radio antennas outside Basra. A bombed-out airplane hangar northwest of the capital. Blackened Iraqi tanks destroyed before they could leave their trenches. And the shredded billboards of Saddam Hussein. But for these members of the 4th Infantry Division, peace is a distant concept. Despite a sentiment back home that the fighting is finished, they are facing dangerous - albeit smaller - battles as they move north through unstable areas in Iraq. "We heard shots in the distance, so I need a heightened sense of awareness," Capt. Mitch Carlisle called over the radio late last night to troops securing a large field they've turned into a staging area for future missions in and around Tikrit. As he spoke, Blackhawk helicopters thumped in the distance and officers plotted grid coordinates of a building said to house Hussein loyalists just miles away. For troops from the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, tensions have increased the farther north they travel from Kuwait. The waving civilians are mostly gone, replaced by stares and sometimes scowls. The posters of Hussein here are intact. Along a suburban Tikrit road, the dozens of lightposts all were decorated with pristine portraits of Hussein. "Anybody who thinks this war is over is misinformed," said Lt. Douglas Franklin, who leads a mortar platoon. "These guys are going to pull back and regroup and figure out how to plan an attack again. This could be a long ordeal." To prove his point, he said that in the first 36 hours he'd spent in Iraq, he'd seen mortar flares and freshly fired AK-47 shells. Last night, Franklin briefed his soldiers on the numerous threats the unit had come across in the first hour of arriving at the staging field. A red sedan had driven into the perimeter and flipped a quick U-turn, coughing up dust and spreading fear of guerrillas scouting the area for future attacks. The car should have been stopped and its occupants questioned, Franklin told his platoon. Earlier that evening, two Iraqis, one of them toting an AK-47, approached U.S. soldiers fixing a broken-down Bradley fighting vehicle. The soldiers took their weapon, but because they were out of radio contact with their unit and unsure of what to do, they let the men go. "I was concerned for the safety of my guys, so I sent them walking," said Lt. Osbaldo Orozco, leader of a Charlie Company platoon. That incident earned Orozco kudos for bravery but a quick scolding from his commander, Lt. Col. Mark Woempner. "Next time, zip-tie them and put them in the back of your Bradley," Woempner said. Also last night, three Iraqi civilians with bloodied heads approached a team of scouts at the entrance to the staging area. They'd been beaten by Hussein loyalists nearby, they said, and they wanted revenge. As the infantry unit figured out what to do, they sent medics to help the men. And then, no more than two hours after the vehicles engines' had shut down for the night, soldiers captured what they thought to be an enemy soldier. The barefoot man had come too close to troops guarding a road so they handcuffed him and brought him to the field. He sat in a nylon camping chair hugging himself and shivering as Woempner and the others tried in vain to communicate with him. He pointed to his badly swollen left foot. "This guy is looking for some help, he's hurt," Woempner said. "It's all right. We'll take care of you." The man pulled out a cigarette and Woempner gave him a light and a ride back to the road. Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.