Baghdad:
The Crossroads
By Dennis Steele
Staff Writer
Right, soldiers rush to stop an enemy
attack. Below, enemy fire, probably a
rocket-propelled grenade, hits an
ammunition truck that had been called
forward to Objective Curly. Sgt. Andrew
Johnson, of the Support Platoon, is
shown trying to start an adjacent fuel
truck to move it away from the burning
truck and exploding ammunition. The
fueler would not start, but other vehicles
were driven out of danger.
Exclusive
Photographs
for ARMY
By Dennis Steele
A
bout three
hours before
dawn on
April 7, the
Bradley fighting vehicles, Abrams tanks and
other armored vehicles of Task
Force 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry
(TF 3-15), which was part of the
2nd Brigade Combat Team (BCT),
3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized), lined up on a scarred
stretch of a four-lane highway a
few miles south of Baghdad.
Top, SSgt. Joe Todd, a maintenance section NCO, laid down
heavy fire from a .50-caliber machine gun atop his M88 recovery
vehicle throughout the fight. Left, Sgt. Mario Manzano, a medic in
Company B, 3-15 Infantry, shows the strain of the battle.
June 2003 ■ ARMY
31
Right, soldiers fighting in makeshift, rubble
trenches. Below left, a Special Forces soldier. Below right, Capt. (Dr.) Erik Schobitz,
battalion surgeon for the 3-15 Infantry,
washes blood off the hand of a patient.
Right, SSgt. Duncan MacPhail,
Company B, 3-15 Infantry, gives a
thumbs-up after hitting a target
from his Bradley fighting vehicle.
An up-armored Humvee belonging
to 3-15 Infantry’s Scout Platoon
headed the column. As the rest of the
vehicles left the attack position that
the task force had occupied the previous afternoon, it eased onto the shoulder to wait, parking beside a twisted
ribbon of guardrail that had been
ripped by an explosion in the recent
fighting. Capt. Trey Lawrence, the platoon leader, SSgt. Jason Giles, the
Scout Platoon Green Section sergeant,
and PFC Tucker Sanna, the driver, sat
inside the Humvee. PFC Cody Ruiz
stood in the hatch manning the .50caliber machine gun.
32
ARMY ■ June 2003
Left, Spc. Travis Gilman, a medic with the Scout Platoon, kneels
at the ready. Below, an Iraqi tank retriever burns after being hit
during the attack on Highway 8. Bottom, a Special Forces
soldier takes aim during the fighting at Objective Curly.
June 2003 ■ ARMY
33
Below, Capt. Harry Hornbuckle, assistant
operations officer, TF 3-15 Infantry. Right, medics
care for a wounded soldier. Right below, soldiers
fight in the rubble under the overpass.
Suddenly, PFC Ruiz ducked his
head inside the Humvee and said,
“Sergeant, no kidding, if I get hit today, will you put my wedding ring
back on my finger?” (At the outset of
the invasion into Iraq, Capt. Lawrence
ordered his soldiers to remove all
rings, including wedding bands, to
prevent injuries.)
“Yes, I will,” SSgt. Giles replied
without hesitation. Talk tapered off inside the Humvee after that. The mood
grew somber. PFC Ruiz’s simple request underlined the fact that had remained unstated until that point: that
everyone in the column would be
putting his life on the line within the
next few minutes. The battle for Baghdad was at hand.
TF 3-15 was composed of its headquarters elements,
Companies A and B of the 3-15 Infantry, Company B, 4th
Battalion, 64th Armor, and Company A, 10th Engineer Battalion, and it was headed into the heart of Baghdad to seize
and defend three key objectives: Moe, Larry and Curly—
yes, named for the Three Stooges—which ultimately
34
ARMY ■ June 2003
would make it possible for the 2nd BCT to take the southwestern slice of the capital and be the first U.S. force to
hold ground in Baghdad.
The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st BCT and a task force
from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force had made “thunder runs” into Baghdad during the previous 72 hours to
Top, soldiers fire from atop their vehicle. Left, CSM Robert
Gallagher, lightly wounded in the leg by a shell fragment,
continued to fight and coordinate the fighting throughout
the battle. Above, a scout fires at an enemy position.
destroy as many enemy forces as possible, stir up the hornet’s nest inside the city and then withdraw, proving that
U.S. forces surrounding Baghdad could attack anywhere
inside the city with impunity.
Saddam’s propagandists, however, alleged that Iraqi
forces had caused the American attackers to flee on the two
36
ARMY ■ June 2003
Above left, soldiers fight from behind their
M577 command post vehicles. Above, Spc.
Joe Carson, Company B, 3-15 Infantry, receives care on the battlefield after being
wounded. Left, enemy prisoners are led
across Highway 8 at Objective Curly. They
were predominately Syrians who were recruited and paid by Saddam Hussein’s
regime to fight against American forces in
Baghdad. It was standard practice for U.S.
forces to have prisoners remove their clothing to protect from concealed suicide
bombs, which had killed several soldiers
early in the Iraqi campaign.
Below left, a St. Christopher medal hangs
from the .50-caliber machine gun of PFC
Cody Ruiz. Below, SSgt. Harry Dickerson
issues instructions during the fight.
June 2003 ■ ARMY
37
Right, Company B,
3-15 Infantry soldiers take cover on
the side of an onramp. Below, Sgt.
Anthony Jossainy,
a medic, cares for
a wounded soldier.
Below right, a soldier approaches a
dead Iraqi fighter.
previous occasions—assertions that were as true as the
Iraqi Information Minister’s spin a few days earlier that
U.S. forces had been defeated a hundred miles outside
Baghdad. Nevertheless, the lies just plain ticked off every
soldier, from private to general. Higher levels of command
decided that the third thunder run would stay if the main
line of communication could be held open.
On April 7, the mission of the 2nd BCT’s other two task
forces (TF 4-64 Armor and TF 1-64 Armor) was to attack
the sprawling government section of the city on the west
bank of the Tigris River, also the location of several major
presidential palaces and most of the high-ranking Baath
Party member’s official mansions—essentially, Baghdad’s
version of the Forbidden City.
TF 3-15’s job was to secure the avenue of attack and
main line of communication from the south along High38
ARMY ■ June 2003
Right, infantrymen fight amid the rubble
under an overpass section. Below,
a fellow soldier returns gear to and
congratulates Pvt. 2 Christopher Nauman
who was wounded during the fighting.
Pvt. Nauman, insisted on taking his shotgun with him as he was evacuated, and
shot an enemy soldier who popped up
from the rubble while he was on the litter
being carried to the aid station.
way 8, by holding three key intersections—Objectives
Moe, Larry and Curly. The most southern, Curly, was considered the least defended and dangerous of the three, so it
was given to TF 3-15 headquarters elements augmented by
one mechanized platoon from Company B, 3-15 Infantry.
Company B, 4-64 Armor was given Objective Larry, and
Company A, 3-15 Infantry was given Objective Moe. (The
remainder of Company B, 3-15 Infantry, had the initial mission to secure the 2nd BCT’s rear that day, but another of
its platoons would reinforce Objective Curly when the outcome teetered in the balance.)
Lt. Col. Stephen Twitty, the TF 3-15 commander, in a radio call to all elements as they lined up on the highway
said, “They know we’re coming. We’ve been probing,
clearing mines, and we just shot MLRS (multiple-launch
rocket system) rockets. They definitely know we’re coming.” They did. Throughout that day, TF 3-15 would be engaged in some of the most intense close-combat fighting of
Operation Iraqi Freedom.
40
ARMY ■ June 2003
The scouts riding in Green Section
1’s Humvee were headed for Curly
and a seven-hour firefight, joining
around 80 other soldiers to fight a surreal battle under and around a large
cloverleaf highway exchange. The
Mortar Platoon was also on Curly,
and launched 260 120-mm mortar
rounds during the battle, often firing
its mortar tubes in one direction and
engaging in direct fire in the other
with its 50-caliber machine guns.
They were completely surrounded by
an enemy force that numbered 200
to 300 that had to be rooted out of
trench systems carved into rubble and
blasted from surrounding buildings
while the small American force was
pounded by rocket-propelled grenades
(RPGs) and artillery. A similar number
of enemy troops surrounded each of the other objectives.
They all turned out to be Syrians that Saddam Hussein had
convinced, and paid, to come to fight the Americans.
The section of Highway 8 leading to Moe, Larry and
Curly came to be known as “RPG alley” as small convoys
carrying back the wounded and larger convoys bringing
supplies of fuel and ammunition were pummeled by RPG
fire. Two soldiers from TF 3-15 (SFC John Marshall, the
Scout Platoon sergeant, and SSgt. Robert Stevers, a maintenance team chief) died on that road, hit by RPGs as they
manned crew-served weapons in the open hatches of vehicles. Thirty other soldiers were wounded at the three TF 315 objectives. Recommendations for 28 Bronze Star Medals
with “V” Devices and five Silver Star Medals went forward from the TF 3-15 commander for action that day.
The photographs printed here show the firefight at
Curly, one of three isolated battles that were key to the fall
of Baghdad and Saddam Hussein’s regime, where American soldiers were put to the test and prevailed.
B