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Cacique's Recomended Reading List for week of November 12, 2007
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Posted on 11/13/2007 5:50:55 AM PST by uksupport1
On a spring day in Basra in 2004, nine men from the Royal Horse Artillery found themselves surrounded by 200 Iraqis, all shooting to kill. The man who saved them is Sgt Terry Bryan, a modest 37-year-old father of three, who joined the Army at 16. Here, in our first extract from a new book in which medal-winning soldiers tell their stories, he describes how he won the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross for his astonishing bravery....
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Thanks for posting. More stories like this from Iraq need to get out.
With apologies to John Wayne, this is true grit.
Wow, like Rorke’s Drift all over again!
This action was at Rorke’s Drift, Wednesday 22- Thursday 23 January, 1879, when some 150 soldiers defended a supply station against some 4000 Zulus, aided by the Martini-Henry rifle ‘with some guts behind it’.
snip
Hell of a story. If Hollywood didn’t have the heads stuffed up their exit ramps they could make a ton of money making a movie about this.
he didn't WIN anything - he earned it!
When you contrast how wussified British society has become with how incredibly tough British soldiers are, it’s amazing a rift is not somehow torn in space-time.
I’m sure there are many more stories like this one we’ll never hear about.
Hollywood wouldn’t dare make a movie about real hero’s. (Like these)
I love reading about the bravery of these soldiers.
Despite the increasingly liberalism of British society, the basic strength of the British character has not changed. Given another challenge like World War II, you'd see the same courage again.
“We could see men leaning over the walls of a big building next door, just spraying the upper rooms. I was shooting back, but not wanting to hit them. I really didn’t want to kill anyone else, so I was aiming near to them, hoping they would get the message and p*** off.”
“Eventually, I had to accept that I was going to have to kill people.”
“Like me, they didn’t really want to kill anyone. We just wanted the Iraqis to leave us alone, and go home to their wives and kids so we could go back to our mates.”
WTF is wrong with these Brit soldiers? How far the Empire has fallen when their professional soldiers have attitudes like this while under fire. Very disturbing.
Hollywood and the immoral manaquins who reside there have no souls and are traitorous whores.
(A long story, but I’ll try to grab the best bits for those who don’t want to follow the link.)
Simultaneously, the firing started - as though someone had turned on a switch. It was literally like a hail of bullets hitting the vehicle. I’d never experienced anything like it...
We were also being hit by the grenades. But the Land Rover’s armour was holding out and, strange as it sounds, I felt quite safe inside the vehicle - even though I knew that, sooner or later, one of those grenades was going to cause real damage...
But even two kilometres on, there were still men shooting at us. Clearly, the whole thing had been well-planned: the angry crowd to lure us out, the breaks in the barrier closed off and hundreds of armed men at the ready...
So now we’re travelling on three wheels, tyres shot away, rounds rattling and pinging off us non-stop. Then I realise that Olly’s Land Rover has been hit with a rocket-propelled grenade and is on fire at the front.
My driver, a young South African gunner called Frank Haman, suddenly spotted a break to the left and recognised the former Ba’ath Party HQ, which was now full of troops from the Iraqi Defence Force.
We had this amazing sense of relief - maybe we were going to get out of this after all. Then we realised that guys in uniforms were actually shooting at us from the building. They were meant to be on our side!
...
Almost immediately, one of them killed one of the attackers. This guy was standing there, in a police uniform, reloading a rocket launcher. He was quite a distance away, but the young gunner dropped him, a nice shot. At that moment, I remember thinking that we were going to have to take a lot more lives to stand any chance of surviving this...
But there was a glimmer of hope: they didn’t like us returning fire. A few of the Iraqis were running off, and the fire from the others was getting wilder and more inaccurate. The lads saw this, and it boosted their morale.
I’d now managed to get through to the Operations Room. Normally, I’m very friendly and chatty on the phone, and when the captain saw my name on the caller display she was very relaxed. “Hello, Terry! How are you!”
I just shouted: “F***ing contact!” I couldn’t get my words out properly - my mouth had gone horribly dry and sticky, like when you’ve just woken up after a big drinking session...
Instinctively, we shot them and put them down. I didn’t feel anything at the time; to be honest, I wasn’t thinking much about what I was doing...
I was shooting back, but not wanting to hit them. I really didn’t want to kill anyone else, so I was aiming near to them, hoping they would get the message and p*** off. But they didn’t. They’d pop up, spray five or ten rounds from the hip, and pop back down again...
By now, we’d been been in the house for ten minutes, and there was more shooting than ever. I spent time with the guys upstairs, telling them little things like move away from the window, and stand two or three feet inside to make yourself less visible and a smaller target.
Like me, they didn’t really want to kill anyone. We just wanted the Iraqis to leave us alone, and go home to their wives and kids so we could go back to our mates...
As I distributed my last 200 or so rounds of 5.56mm, I could see Olly shrugging his shoulders. He’d given the base a grid reference for the house, but we both had the feeling they wouldn’t be able to find us.
Once we ran out of ammunition, or if the enemy attacked in even greater numbers - well, that didn’t bear thinking about...
In between all the fear and panic, there were some bizarre moments. One of the young lads was shouting: “I need a p***, I need a p***.” We shouted back: “Well, just p*** on the floor.” He looked around. “I can’t,” he said. “It’s someone’s bedroom, this.”
It was hysterically funny at the time; in fact, we seemed to spend half the time laughing. The rest of the time I was terrified...
Then I noticed a guy aiming a rifle at me - and, in that moment, he fired. One of the bullets came between my face and the wall, just above my ear. Three inches to the right, and it would have been game over...
But as we watched, Ryan sat up and gave a thumbs-up: he’d just been winded. Naturally we started ripping into him. “Get up and fight, you lazy bastard ... any excuse to lie on your belly and get your head down, you medics!”
Then Ryan showed me his other hand. In it was a grenade. He’d been following me out onto the balcony, having seen I was in trouble, planning to grenade the crowd.
“Pass it to us,” I said. “I can’t,” he said. “Ryan,” I said, “pass us the f******g grenade.”
He said: “I can’t ... I’ve pulled the pin.”
We all collapsed in laughter again. Thank God he’d not let go of the bloody thing in the impact or we’d all have been screaming in agony or dead...
I returned to the top floor, looking for targets, trying to make every shot count. We were down to our last grenade, and 20 or fewer rounds per man...
But although the Warriors were close, they couldn’t pinpoint our building. The only way to attract their attention was to go to them. So I climbed down from the balcony, past the burning car, through the garden and out into the street, in among the Iraqis.
They were quite surprised to see me, but they soon started firing again. It was bizarre - none of them hit me...
I ran out and saw that the Iraqis had rammed cars right down the narrow alleyway. So we all had to climb over the roofs to reach the Warrior.
We got into the back, all lying on top of each other because they’re not built to take that many people. The rebels had regrouped and were starting to attack again. But we made it out OK, and within 15 minutes we were back in camp.
Everyone was really high - as if we’d been out on the town. Some were in tears - me included - and we were hugging each other and talking at 100mph while our mates stood around watching, as if we were freaks in a circus.
That night I couldn’t sleep, and neither could Olly, so we went to the TV room where we had the slightly surreal experience of watching Al Jazeera news footage of our Land Rovers on fire.
There were Iraqis dancing all over them, firing at the fuel tank, and, in the background, you could hear our firefight going off.
(The end is pretty interesting, too. It was hard to find parts that weren’t, obviously!)
At the same time, I felt guilty about the medal. No one else in my patrol got the recognition I thought they should have. Why me, and not them? They risked their lives, the same as I did.
I know that’s the nature of medals, but you still feel bad. Between the nine of us who were there that day, there’s a bond you’ll never break.
I still think about that incident in Basra every single day. I see the faces of the guys I shot and I feel bad about having killed them. In the end, though, you have to move on. I’m a soldier, this is my job, and that’s the way it goes.
If they made war movies about stuff like this people would watch. Redford’s diatribes? Not so much. Biographical heroism with the fascists losing? I’m thinking there’s a market. Too bad Hollywood can’t read the signs.
Hollywood socialists and commies will not make a movie that shows valor and justice or heroism regarding our troops in this war. They must stick to the tired old lie from the 60s that America is the oppressor and our military is corrupt.
Those of use who think know better, but it doesn’t matter, these sicophants have no respect for those who protect their rights to act like a$$holes.
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Cacique's Recomended Reading List for week of November 12, 2007
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WTF is wrong with these Brit soldiers? How far the Empire has fallen when their professional soldiers have attitudes like this while under fire.
You're right. Glad they made it out, of course, and good job, but this attitude reminds one of those poor, pathetic sailors captured by the Iranians. Is their training badly designed, compared to our guys'?
The American military culture doesn't seem to tolerate reckless killing or cruelty, but from the videos and milblogs I've seen, our soldiers' minds are unclouded by doubt. Maybe that's why they're unclouded by doubt. And if you really p*** them off, just Wow.
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