By Major Stephen Richey
141st Military History Detachment
TIKRIT, Iraq— Every Soldier's job in Task Force Lightning is important, but many people would agree that the job of 2nd Platoon, 41st Mobility Augmentation Company, 1st Engineer Battalion, Fort Riley, Kansas, is one of the most important and most dangerous. They go out on the roads of Iraq every day, not hoping they avoid improvised explosive devices, but hoping they find them. It is their job to seek out and neutralize IED's before they harm fellow soldiers. They are "route clearance" Soldiers. Thanks to their efforts, Soldiers in this area of operations are able to travel on the roads of Iraq with a more tolerable level of risk than would be the case otherwise.
A day in the life of a route clearance Soldier actually begins in the middle of the night. Getting ready for a patrol that starts at dawn requires getting up and getting ready in the hours of darkness. The soldiers of 2nd Squad, 2nd Platoon live in a dilapidated masonry building that presumably was once family housing for officers of Saddam Hussein's air force. The lights work, the plumbing works somewhat, but the overall state of shabbiness that the soldiers live in without complaint is apparent. The Soldiers compensate by fixing up their three-man rooms with classic elements of G.I. décor that their grandfathers would recognize from World War II – most obviously, covering entire sections of wall with pin-up photos of attractive women (in good taste of course).
The hours that these Soldiers keep prevent them from eating breakfast in the dining facility. They fix breakfast in their little building, lining up to use their communal microwave oven after they climb out of bed about two hours before dawn. History has shown that Soldiers relieve pre-mission stress with light-hearted banter and teasing among themselves. These Soldiers are no different. The act of cooking breakfast sparks mock-impassioned arguments about whether it is better to eat microwaved noodles with a fork or a spoon. A favorite topic of conversation in these moments is the personality quirks of each soldier's roommates, loudly analyzed and debated by everyone present. Again, as history has proven, these conversations should not be repeated in the presence of overly sensitive people. But once in a while, a touching piece of sentiment does emerge from all the mockery. One Soldier announces that on today's mission, he will mount a picture of his girlfriend on the inside of his vehicle for the first time. These Soldiers are as superstitious as World War II bomber pilots about the good luck/bad luck implications of changing any detail of their routine. The Soldier with the girlfriend picture goes on to worry out loud that bringing the picture along on mission for the first time may result in the squad suffering a damaging ambush—if that happens, he will never again bring the picture with him.
Within a very short time, the Soldiers finish breakfast and move outside for
pre-combat checks and inspections. They line up under the improvised lights on the patio behind their building, all their weapons and gear arrayed on the pavement at their feet. The three section sergeants in the squad, each of whom is responsible for the crew of one vehicle, are in charge of this process. In 2nd Squad, these three sergeants are as follows: Sgt. Dustin Strain of Seattle, Washington, Sgt. Barrett McNabb of Boulder, Colorado and Sgt. Anthony D. Simms Sr. of Minneapolis, Minnesota. They call out each item of gear that each Soldier or crew is supposed to have – protective mask, protective eyewear, gloves, vehicle dispatch, and on and on. The Soldiers respond by holding up each item in turn. Overseeing all this is the squad leader, Staff Sgt. Kevin Padilla of Merced, California. He walks up and down behind his section sergeants, verifying with his own eyes that all is in order.
The checks and inspections are done within a few minutes. The Soldiers load their gear onto their vehicles. Then everyone moves back into the hallway of the building for a quick mission briefing from Staff Sgt. Padilla. Pointing as needed to the wall map, Staff Sgt. Padilla explains that day's route and areas of special interest, prefaced with an update on what has transpired since the squad last went "outside the wire." Next to the map, where Staff Sgt. Padilla is giving his briefing, is a hand-written message, "Don't take this war easy, or this war will take you easy."
The briefing completed, the Soldiers quickly exit the building, climb into their vehicles and put on their armor, helmets and radio headphones. The vehicles employed by these route reconnaissance Soldiers are the newest and strangest looking vehicles in the Army. They don't even have "M" designators like every other sort of Army vehicle. They are a weird mechanical menagerie with names like "Buffalo," "Cougar," "Husky," and the more technical sounding "RG-31." They are immediately conspicuous for their height, their high ground clearance, their slat-armored sides and their V-shaped bottoms, all features intended to make them less vulnerable to IEDs. Also evident are their assorted cameras, snout-like air blowers, and crane-mounted rakes with which they neutralize IEDs from a distance.
Staff Sgt. Padilla receives word via radio that the other vehicles are ready to go, and they move out. The vehicles, and the Soldiers in them, make their way through the streets of Contingency Operating Base Speicher to the main gate. They pass out through the maze of obstacles and out into the dangerous terrain of a land at war. The eastern sky turns pink as the patrol moves out on its assigned route with the streetlights of distant towns twinkling as the residents wake up. As the patrol rolls down the road, the desert sun makes its usual spectacular appearance, huge in size, hauling itself up from the horizon as a glaring, blinding red orb.
As the daylight hours advance, the by-now familiar scenes of wartime Iraq line the road – vast flat expanses of empty sand, thin scraggly vegetation, electrical power transmission lines and towers stretching to the horizon, squalid villages with dirt and garbage where lawns should be, shabby roadside markets crowded with robe-wearing people, linear garbage dumps along the sides of the road and mosques of varying sizes and architectural impressiveness. A truly remarkable architectural attraction on today's route is the mosque built about sixty feet above the ground atop enormous twin arches that span the highway. An impressive, though in bad repair, spiral staircase leads from the highway median up to the front door of the mosque. The Soldiers call this structure "stairway to heaven."
Continuing down the road, the effects of this war on the everyday lives of the Iraqi people become apparent. Iraqis pull off to the side of the road and stop at the American patrol's approach. Their faces seem to bear a sense of resignation to making the allowances they are required to make. At roadside gas stations, cars and trucks by the dozens are lined up for hundreds of yards, waiting their turn at the pumps. The Iraqi motorists stand about or sit on the ground in groups, discussing what they will as they wait.
The purpose of this patrol is not to sightsee and not to commiserate with the Iraqi people; it is to find and to neutralize IEDs before they harm American soldiers. The soldiers of 2nd Squad have been up and down this same stretch of road more dozens of times than they probably care to count. That's a good thing though, because they are able to discern every newly broken off piece of curb stone, each recently disturbed patch of asphalt, every trash heap that doesn't look quite right; they are able to discern anything that indicates the possible presence of an IED while they are still yards away.
This is the time that all the new technology on the squad's bizarre looking vehicles comes into play. Something up ahead on the shoulder of the road looks potentially menacing. The Soldiers examine whatever it is from a distance with their cameras. If it is light in weight, the trucks snout air blower scatters it, revealing what may or may not be concealed beneath. If the menacing object is heavy, like a broken-off curbstone or an out-of-place slab of asphalt, the enormous boom-mounted fork on a different truck will lift it up and lay it aside.
The Soldiers give no sign of tension or anxiety during these procedures. To the contrary, they put on a convincing outward display of business as usual, almost to the point of being blasé. The only semi-nervous moment happens when a sailor of the attached Navy explosive ordnance disposal team has to briefly exit the rear of his vehicle to place a toy-like remote control robot on the road surface. The sailor quickly reenters his vehicle and the EOD team remotely directs the robot to an abandoned car, examining it up close with its robotic camera and robotic arms. Nothing seeming out of place, the robot is directed back to the vehicle where the sailor again quickly hops down onto the pavement to retrieve it.
These procedures are repeated time after time, mile after mile, hour after hour, as the long day wears away. It was pleasantly cool at dawn, but by mid-afternoon, the sealed, heavily armored vehicles become ovens. The Soldiers become drenched with sweat sitting inside their vehicles as they drive down the road, stopping every few hundred yards to examine a new threat. The weight and chafing of body armor, gear, and sweat-saturated uniforms become burdensome, even while sitting inside a roomy truck. The soldiers guzzle caffeine-based energy drinks stored in an ice cooler to keep themselves alert and then gulp bottled water to keep hydrated. Junk food seems to be their dietary staple when on the road. This routine continues for more miles, more hours and more frequent halts to examine anything that could conceal an IED.
When everyone is ready to head home, Staff Sgt. Padilla gives the command over the radio to return to Speicher. The Soldiers maintain discipline, vigilance, and aggressive curiosity about anything suggesting the presence of an IED up to and including the absolutely last meter before entering the gate. As they pass through the gate, the Soldiers portray a sense of relief, but not so much relief from danger, as relief from being hot and uncomfortable while doing a tedious job. Upon passing through the gate, the Soldiers halt and dismount to clear their weapons. They remount and move on to the refuel point. At last they return to the section of street opposite their lodgings, park their vehicles, and begin their final bustling about to dismount and care for their weapons and gear. Light-hearted banter amongst the soldiers returns to the same level as early that morning. Another day in the life of a route clearance Soldier has come to a safe, if tiring, conclusion.
Ask these Soldiers why they joined the Army, and you will get as many different answers as there are Soldiers. For one it's the college money, and for others, discipline and direction, setting a positive example for younger siblings, simple patriotism in the aftermath of 9-11 and "I like to blow stuff up." If asked what they dislike most about their job, the answers will vary from complaints about air conditioning not working to a sense of frustration that no matter how many IEDs they find, there will always be more. But ask them what they like most and you will hear a unanimous answer that resounds like thunder, "Saving the lives of fellow Soldiers." Saving other Soldiers from IEDs is their spiritual mantra, their article of faith that sustains them when nothing else will. For Sgt. Strain, saving other Soldiers from IEDs also has stunning personal immediacy; his wife is also a Soldier serving on COB Speicher and is frequently out on convoys.
Ask these Soldiers what they want the folks back home to know, what they want future generations to remember, and the answer is again unanimous – "Freedom isn't free."
| Date Taken: | 10.22.2007 |
| Date Posted: | 10.22.2007 10:57 |
| Story ID: | 13170 |
| Location: | TIKRIT, IQ |
| Web Views: | 911 |
| Downloads: | 594 |
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