Grandpa’s War – Part 17 – “If their aim had been better. . .”

Wars are full of stories of close calls.

I recall a story from a ‘Nam vet who stepped on a landmine. If he stepped off it, it would blow up. After hours under the sun while everyone else tried to figure out what to do about it, he took matters into his own hands.

He simply stepped off it.

Nothing happened.

He’ walked maybe a hundred meters away from the mine when the thing went off.

A soldier at the Battle of the Bulge told me a story of going a little crazy. He single handedly charged a German machine gun. The German soldiers emptied several belt of ammo at him. They stopped shooting and surrendered. The worst that happened was his boot laces got shot off. For going a “Little crazy,” he received the Bronze Star.

One of our closest calls had little to do with heroism. It had everything to with the left hand not telling the right hand what was going on.

The air war had already started and things were starting to heat up for us. A constant fear was less a direct Iraqi attack, and more some kind of special forces operations. A prime target was just up the road, The division Battle Central (as we called it), TOC or Division headquarters. This is where the activities of a division would have be ran from. Taking it out of play would have made life interesting to say the least.

In exercises we’d ran, my platoon was responsible for the setting up an access control tent for the Battle Central. We did have a little security for it, but nothing more.

Now, we learned out mission had changed. Instead of an access control tent, we’d be responsible for perimeter security. And we would have several outfits we’d never played with before to help us. When it was all broken down, We would cover a quarter of the perimeter. the 1st armored division band would cover another quarter. Then the Headquarters boys and girls covering a third, and finally, a team of engineers.

We hadn’t actually linked up with the Battle Central yet, but we were ordered to provide some security. What this translated out as was a Team or two sitting outside the perimeter. Think of a listening [post out there every night and get the idea.

Sounds simple.

Sam Pennington and his team was about to find out that the simplest things can often lead to disaster.

We had a Gibbous moon that night. The sky was clear.

There was enough light to see things, but not enough to make what it was out.

Sam and his team had gone out before sunset. They’d sit, listen, then move a little. All this was done in darkness.

At first, we were all a little upset with the Engineers for what happened. But looking back, I can’t blame them.

They were manning their piece of the perimeter when they saw something move about fifty meters out. Not having night vision goggles, they did what they should have done. They challenged it.

Sam told us that they recalled seeing a red lensed flashlight flashing at them from the darkened Battle Central.

What he said illustrates a least a couple of things that went wrong that led up to what happened next.

Issue number one: No one briefed Sam or any of the teams for that matter on how they’d be challenged. Even if they’d have suspected a request to ID, they didn’t know the response.

Issue number two: No one told anyone else that MPs were out there watching.

What we had was as failure to communicate. And it might have cost three men their lives.

Later, I’d talk with the NCO that was running the engineer part of the perimeter that night.

“One of the privates saw something out there, and it appeared to be moving,” he said. “So we challenged it. I got my flashlight and challenged it with three dots and a dash like we were told.”

“And they didn’t respond?”

“No, so we tried it again. Still no response.”

We’d hear the same orders he was operating on when we joined up with them. “If you don’t know who they are, challenge them. If they don’t respond, Fire ’em up!”

So they did!

While the engineers were armed with M-16s just like us. They also had weapon we didn’t. They had 50 caliber machine guns.

“I knew we were in trouble,” Sam said, “when tracer rounds went directly in front of us. My driver slammed on the breaks. I figured out what had happened. Some trigger happy ass didn’t know who we were and was trying to remedy the problem.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“I yelled turn on the lights!”

“Nothing like making yourself a better target,” I thought.

“Then we started yelling, ‘We’re MPs,’ or ‘ Military Police, Cease Fire!'”

I remember Sam gulping as he remembered it. “Then a voice said, Drive slowly this way, towards the red light. The next thing we knew there’s all these M-16s pointed at us.”

He shook his head and then took a deep breath and let it out. “You know, if they’d have been a better shot, we wouldn’t be here.”

He’s absolutely right about that. a burst of 50 caliber machine gun fire would have ruined the HUMVEE. The light armor it had wouldn’t have even slowed one of those bullets down. They would have gone through it and out the other side.

Sam and his team would have been lucky to have escaped with their lives.