44 Censored Military History

2003-0319, War, Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) Begins, Link.
A massive bombardment of Baghdad signaled the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and the invasion of Iraq by a coalition of armed forces led by the United States.
Author’s note: I was the CSM of 4th Squadron, Air 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment (3d ACR) out of Fort Carson, Colorado at Al Asad, Air Base, Iraq for one-year with OIF-1.
COL Teeples was the Regimental Commander. CSM Caldwell the Regt. CSM, fine men.

2003-0321, Apache's Suck in Combat.
32 Apache helicopters from the 11th AVN Bde attack Iraq Army's Medina division. 31 are shot, many are destroyed. 2-pilots taken POW. The mission was such a failure the Army quickly deleted the AH-64 from any future deep-attack operations. Many senior officers question the usefulness of attack helicopters. GEN William Wallace, Commander, Iraq ground forces said, "long-range artillery with AF bombers are much better than Apaches.” The Apache proves vulnerable to concentrated small arms fire. During the initial flight into Iraq, the Iraqis would, “flash” entire city lights as a signal for Iraqis to shoot into the air @ the sound of helicopters. This tactic proved devastating to the AH-64. Pilots were literally shot in the cockpit & the helicopters were turned into Swiss cheese.
2003-0324, Apache’s Suck Article Two:
In a hail of small arms fire & rocket-propelled grenades, Iraqi forces downed one Apache helicopter today & forced 30 other helicopters in its brigade back to their base.
One two-member crew was unaccounted for. Iraqi state television broadcast images of one downed helicopter, which appeared largely intact & jubilant men dancing around it.
All 32 helicopters sustained some damage, Army officials said, in what was a significant setback for the allies. Fighting continued today in Nasiriya, meanwhile, after the death of 10 Marines there on Sunday in the deadliest battle of the war so far.
The attack on the helicopters today surprised American Army leaders & may cause them to adjust their military strategy, which was relying on the Apaches to destroy the Iraqi armored forces that ring Baghdad.
The commander of the American-led invasion of Iraq confirmed the loss of one Apache helicopter.
"The fate of the crew is uncertain right now," GEN Tommy R. Franks said @ a news briefing @ Central
Command, in Qatar. "We characterize that crew, two men, as missing in action."
General Franks denied that the helicopter had been shot down by farmers, as Iraq claimed, but did not say what had forced it out of the air.
A CNN correspondent accompanying the United States Army V Corps's 11th Attack Helicopter
Regiment said the unit had been on a nighttime combat mission targeting units of the elite Republican Guard. The correspondent cited one of the pilots as saying they had run into a "hornet's nest, a barrage of antiaircraft fire," near the city of Karbala, 70 miles southwest of Baghdad, the closest fighting to the Iraqi capital since the war began last Thursday.
The Iraqi information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, said @ a news conference: "Farmers shot down two Apaches. We showed one today & might show the second & the pilots." He added, "We are holding several other American & British prisoners & we may show some of them."
The Apaches use powerful radar, called the Longbow that directs their Hellfire missiles. However, the helicopters are suddenly coming under attack from relatively low-technology weaponry.
Saddam Hussein "is fighting an asymmetrical warfare," said BG Benjamin Freakly, assistant commander of the 101st Division. "This is not tank-on-tank fighting."
The attack took place near the village of Abu Mustafe, north of Al Hillah & capped a punishing 24 hours for the allied offensive.
General Freakly said that in an attack like the one on the helicopters, "you have 10 guys lying on top of a building firing R.P.G.'s & small arms.” He said, "You can go in & bomb that building & reduce it to rubble," but @ the potential cost of many civilian lives.
The Army now may consider new tactics, like additional close aerial bombardment, to support the Apaches as they hunt for armored divisions.
The Apaches were from the 11th Aviation Regiment, based in Germany & are attached to the V Corps.
Sandstorms are roiling the area, blowing @ 25 knots & are likely to rise to 40 knots on Tuesday & Wednesday. @ 30 knots, a meteorologist said, visibility becomes practically nil.
General Franks also said today that the tenacity of some Iraqi units, including the Fedayeen, was no surprise & that American-led force had had some "terrific firefights." The Republican Guard has been hit, he said & "they will continue to be hit, @ points & places & times that make
sense to us." He added, "The effect has been very positive for us." The general also said that coalition forces were making rapid progress across Iraq.

2003-0323, War, Convoy Attacked Weapons Jam, Soldiers Panic, 11-KIA.
This was the convoy where PVT Jessica Lynch was taken POW. Trucks broke down, convoys were lost. All problems that could have been avoided with the following techniques: Use Garmin civilian GPS loaded with World Map. Before a convoy deploys, while in the USA, take your trucks on a 300-mile round trip convoy, a shakeout cruise. Do not speed, it heats up the tires. Flat tires are the number-one problem on combat convoys. Do not be afraid to drive on flats if you must. Rims are cheap. I oversaw a 250-truck convoy from Kuwait to Al Asad, Iraq. All trucks made it. Nobody got lost. Our convoy was 100-percent NCO led and 100-percent successful.
Note, 4/3 ACR in Iraq, OIF-1, was a dysfunctional organization, nobody got along, and the job did not get done. The leadership had Troopers deploy with only one-M16 magazine each.
In Iraq, the Aviation Sqdn Cdr had a 90-minute-long command and staff meetings every day at 1300 attended by 75 squadron leaders down to PSG level.
Four out of the six-helicopter crashes in Iraq were due to pilot error, this was a one-year tour. The officers were authorized, “long hair and relaxed grooming standards,” 4/3 was not respected by the Armor community during OIF-1.

2003-0323, UCMJ, Murder, Muslim Soldier Frags Tent full of Officers in Kuwait
SGT Hassan Akbar, 101st Airborne Div, angry with the USA for killing Muslims in Iraq and about to deploy to Iraq from Kuwait throws a hand grenade into the TOC tent killing Army CPT Chris Seifert, 27, and AF MAJ Gregory Stone, 40. As solders ran to and from the tent, he opened fire with his M-16 wounding 15 others. SGT Akbar sentenced to death.

2003-0409, War, the Sad Story of SPC Michelle M. Witmer.
Assigned to the Wisconsin Army National Guard’s 32nd MP Company. On the night of April 9, 2003, Michelle’s squad was called in to help protect an Iraqi police station that was being overrun by Muslim Terrorists. Michelle, who usually drove the vehicle, instead acted as gunner that night. Minutes before she headed out, she sent an e-mail to her twin sister Charity (a medic in Baghdad), about their sister Rachel, who was also an MP stationed with the 32nd MP Company in Baghdad.
The e-mail said, “Hi, sweetie bear. I love you. We are about to head out. Things have gotten bad. I’m worried about Rachel. She is patrolling in a bad part of town. I hope you will be ok. I just want you to know I love you forever.”
Michelle and Rachel saw each other before they left that evening, in vehicle convoys headed for different parts of the city. Here are their own words about the events of April 9, taken from e-mail messages and interviews.
Michelle wrote, “We had a briefing telling us to prepare ourselves as best as possible for what lies ahead. I guess every convoy that’s gone up north so far has taken fire or been ambushed. The question of whether we will or not is not even really a question, more like a guess as to when.”
Rachel said, “I was in a gunner truck. I remember looking over and seeing my sister as a gunner. That’s odd. She’s usually the driver. I smiled at her. She smiled back at me. To this day I will kick myself, I had an urge to run over to her and hug her and tell her to be safe.”
There was something different in Michelle’s face, Rachel says. “It was more stoic than usual and she just I don’t know if people know what’s going to happen to them, but she just she had this calm, stoic look on her face.” Then Michelle waved goodbye, and it was the last time Rachel saw her.
Looking back, Michelle’s sister Charity also noticed something different about her twin sibling. “She just was so at peace with herself and with life. and in retrospect, it’s just incredible to me. It was like she knew.”
“As I understand it, the patrol that Michelle was with was three Humvees and they found themselves in the middle of a three-block-long ambush. All hell broke loose and there was fire from every direction.”
Michelle returned fire with her 50-caliber rail-mounted machine gun. Although she wore extensive protective gear, a single enemy bullet found an Achilles heel, striking below her arm and piercing her heart.
When Michelle was killed, she was supposed to serve only five more days of patrol duty before preparing to leave Iraq.

2003-0415, Media, Freedomcalls Foundation, AKA SEGOVIA.
We called it SEGOVIA; each Battalion in Iraq got a civilian satellite internet system. 10-telephones and 20-notebook computers. The computers were high quality with high-speed internet access. The system worked great. It took the Army Signal Corps a month to get the internet working at Al Asad; SEGOVIA was up in two-days. It was the number one morale booster in Iraq. Thank you.
The Company-founder John Harlow received contributions from HP, Gateway 2000, MS, Logitech, Motorola, FedEx, Broadband Wireless Exchange, Intersat, Hostway, SkyFrames Inc., SMI, Web Street Design, Miva Corp, Vonage and others. Thanks again, you guys did an awesome job. I owe you dinner and a coin.

2003-0523, Gender, First Combat Baby.
Another first for women in the Military, a USMC, SSG name withheld, gave birth onboard a Navy warship during time of war. The 33-year-old new mother from HQB, 11th Marines, from Camp Pendleton, CA gave birth aboard the amphibious assault ship Boxer in the Persian Gulf. She and her leaders were shocked when they learned she was pregnant and delivering a baby.
2012-0615, Second Combat Baby in Shindand, Afghanistan.
Three months into an Afghanistan deployment Army SPC Ashley Shelton gave birth to a baby boy in a porta-poty.
An Army doctor claimed that her five-positive pregnancy results were false, caused by mice on her family farm, he faced no disciplinary actions when it was discovered that she deployed while pregnant.
2016-0911, Third Combat Baby.
A US sailor had a baby at sea in the middle of the ISIS war. On the carrier, Dwight D. Eisenhower.
An un-named third class petty officer from Carrier Air Wing 3 checked into the carrier's medical clinic after stomach pains. Nine hours later, in the early hours of Sept. 11, she gave birth to a healthy 7-pound baby girl. Neither the mother nor her command knew she was pregnant before Saturday. Normally pregnant service members would leave an operational command at 20 weeks and would certainly not deploy.
As soon as it became apparent, they were going to have a baby on board, the Ike flew out diapers, formula, and an incubator to the ship to care for the infant.
Note: There have been six and counting babies born on US war ships NOT in a combat zone.
2016-0915, Gender, 200 Sailors on the USS Eisenhower Request Maternity Leave
One-third of the USS Eisenhower’s female crew has requested maternity leave, following the Navy’s announcement that one of its sailors gave birth to a healthy seven-pound baby girl while underway aboard the aircraft carrier.
The Eisenhower’s administration department has been flooded with a deluge of maternity leave requests. It’s an admin nightmare, but you can’t blame these girls.
The carrier has convened a panel of officers and senior enlisted to sort through the ream of maternity requests.
The Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group has changed its motto to: “Whether it’s bomb on ISIS, or babies in crisis, we deliver.”

2003-0611, Sex, COL Proposes Marriage to 30-Women on the Internet.
COL Kenneth Sabela, 39, Civil Affairs, 18th Airborne Corps, “sexy ways” became known after a story appeared on KNDU TV in Washington state and then was broadcast nationwide. The story was about how COL Sabela and a local female fell in love while he was in Iraq and planned on marriage. Many of his other 29 fiancées nationwide saw the piece on national television and complained. COL Sabela is married and the father of four.

2003-0620, SF, Health, Rangers get Malaria.
28-Rangers, from the 75th Ranger Regt, who just returned from Afghanistan diagnosed with malaria.

2003-0621, Quartermaster, Korean Dog Meat.
Koreans do not eat dogs as a main dish. There are a few restaurants that specialize in dog, but they are rare, usually near areas frequented by Korean tourists.
Dog meat, eaten as a side dish, is available at most Korean bars. You must ask for it. They will bring out a small dish of stringy meat. The meat is soaked in soy sauce. It tastes like Teriyaki beef. Dog meat is considered an aphrodisiac. The dogs used are tan in color and have short hair. They are all 30-pounds.
The Koreans do not just kill the dogs; they torture them to death. Dogs are placed in a small sack and hung from a tree. A small wooden bat is used to beat the dog to death. When the dog is dead, a blowtorch is used to burn the hair off. It is believed the longer the dog lives the stronger the magical aphrodisiac properties will be. It is true that the meat will be “infused” with adrenaline changing the taste that is why wild game has a “tang.”
Dog kennels are located outside most Korean towns. They are located far away from any homes because the dogs cry loudly while being tortured and burned to death. I was at Camp Humphries, Korea for 3-years. There was a dog ranch behind the camp. When I rode my bike on the back road I often-surprised Korean’s beating the dogs to death. The Koreans, if they saw me coming would try and hide the dog and wave as I rode by.

2003-0723, Pay, Paper Coins.
In combat the US Military uses paper coins. It saves weight. Overseas the US Military does not use pennies we round up or down to the nearest Nichol. It works well.

2003-0814, Hookers, Operation, Save a Ho.
Men often think prostitutes need saving. Men fall in love and hope to marry the hooker to get sex free. Happens all the time, PFC Brian Smith, Camp Hovey, Korea, fell in love with an attractive Filipino prostitute named Jennifer Jones she said she needed his help. She was expensive for a Philippine hooker $100 (153-2022) for 30-Minutes, $300 (458-2022) for an overnight.
In June Brian and Jennifer took a cab to Seoul so she could seek sanctuary from her momma-san (pimp) in a Catholic church. Brian plans to marry Jennifer if he can save up enough money to pay off her momma-san. This happens all over the world, Operation Save a Ho. Strippers have the same problem, ask one. The women usually milk the sap for as much money as they can before going back to their chosen occupation.
After two-days at the church, Jennifer said she had to get back to work.

2003-0815, Media, AT&T Phones at Al Asad.
This was great, 50-telephones that cost 10-cents a minute to use. They worked great and the waiting line went fast.

2003-0821, Sex, Soldier Marries Iraqi Woman.
SGT Robert Hall, 23 marries Vivian Mansour, 21. The two met in Iraq when she was hired as a cleaning woman in a Baghdad palace his unit the 402nd Civil Affairs Bn was operating out of.

2003-1102, Aviation, Chinook Shot Down.
16 KIA, 26 WIA.
A CH-47D Chinook from Detachment 1/F Company/106th Aviation Brigade shot down with an SA-7 missile; 16 soldiers killed, 26 wounded. The Acft was attached to 4th Sqdn, 3d ACR, Al Asad Airbase, Iraq. Two Chinooks were taking 80 cavalry troopers on a weekend R and R trip to Bahrain. The soldiers were excited, they could drink beer, dance, shop, eat at restaurants.
The helicopters stopped for fuel at the 4/3 Forward Arming and Refueling Point (FARP.) the FARP was near Fallujah 30-minute flight west of Baghdad. The FARP was set up at the same position since the 4/3 arrived in March. It was set up off a main highway so refueling trucks would not get stuck in sand. No thought of tactics was used in the set up. All helicopters always landed and took off from the same direction.
The helicopters were not using any of their anti-missile defense measures. In fact, not one pilot in the 4/3 ACR, knew how to use the Missile Warning Systems, every system was set at “Test.” There were four anti-missile defense warnings on the aircraft, none of them were turned on. The chaff and flare dispensers were empty so even if you knew the missile was coming, there was nothing they could do.
Tactics, combat, and safety were never mentioned at any Squadron command and staff meeting. There were only three things discussed in detail at squadron command and staff meetings: Mess Hall, Internet café, and the indoor pool.
Every aviation squadron has a CW4 tactical officer in the TOC. Our tactical officer was primarily the squadron’s carpenter responsible for making the wooden latrines.
Each helicopter had 40 soldiers on board. As the helicopters took off from the FARP a Muslim with an SA-7 Surface to Air Missile (SAM.) shot down the trail helicopter.
The lead helicopter landed next to the damaged aircraft. Soldiers helped load the injured on the flyable, Chinook CH-47D, helicopter.
The pilots requested clearance to fly to the nearest US Army hospital at Baghdad. Request denied by the 4/3 commander. He felt it was not safe, there might be more SAMs. He wanted MEDIVAC helicopters to transport the wounded as per protocol He also wanted Apache gunships to arrive and fly escort after securing the area. The pilots were also afraid.
The flyable helicopter sat on the ground for four-hours with its blades turning before takeoff clearance was granted. and then only because it was out of fuel. In fact, they had to declare a fuel emergency as it flew to Baghdad. A refueling truck had to make a special trip to the hospital landing pad.
There was a black female SPC on the good helicopter who had a panic attack. She fell to the floor crying, grabbing a seat, refusing to leave the good helicopter and help load the wounded. When the aircraft arrived at the hospital her heart rate was high, she was awarded a Purple Heart. I did not feel she should have gotten the award for cowardice.
The golden hour is an important thing in the military. All the soldiers who died that day bleed out while waiting for takeoff clearance from 4/3 squadron. When the helicopter returned to Al Asad, we had to bring a portable spray compressor to wash the blood from the blood drenched interior of the Chinook.
If the helicopter had taken off and arrived within the golden hour many the dead would have lived.
There was no investigation, this was a combat action. This crash was very hush hush, I could glean this information firsthand. It was hard for me to investigate this crash because whenever anything exciting happened in the battle-TOC, the battle captain would kick all the enlisted and NCOs out as per the Sqdn Cdr’s orders. The enlisted would sit in the hallway with the door closed until the action was over.

2003-1115, War, Secret, My Tour of the Al Asad, Iraq POW Camp.
In November of 2003 the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment (3d ACR) had a POW camp at Al Asad Airbase, Iraq. The camp was run by the Regimental S2 and the CIA.
An Iraqi MG was a prisoner. During interrogation, a CW3 Intelligence officer and a CIA agent placed him inside a sleeping bag and sat on him, he died of a heart attack. This was kept secret, the CW3 got in trouble, I do not know his sentence.
Three days later all the Squadron Commanders and CSMs were taken on a tour of the POW facility, I was on that tour.
When we arrived the POW, camp was inside a concrete Quonset-hut aircraft hangar. Just outside were six Iraqi POWS handcuffed to the grounding rings on the flight line. I asked our guide what they were doing, he replied, “After three days in the sun they all talk.”
Inside the hangar were three rows of POWs, 10 men in each row, separated by concertina wire. A beautiful civilian female was searching for each prisoner one by one in a very seductive manner. Rubbing up against the POW.
I asked our guide what they did with the POWs. He said, “after interrogation if they are cleared, we give them a bottle of water, $5 (7.64-2022), an MRE and drop them off at a bus stop. If the POW seems to be of importance, they send him to Abu Grab for further interrogation.
That was the extent of our tour.

2003-1212, UCMJ, Why Soldiers Get Das Boot.
In FY 2003, 21,521 Soldiers were involuntarily separated from the Army. 5-percent of the force. Top 10 reasons:
5,146 Misconduct.
4,929 Physical disabilities below 30-percent.
3,808 Basic Training, trainee discharge program (TDP).
1,973 Unsatisfactory performance.
1,657 Drug abuse.
1,651 Failure to have a family care plan.
991 Physical disabilities above 30-percent.
630 Weight control.
384 Gay.
352 PT Test failure.
1-percent of overweight women ever reach a normal weight.