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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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It is in the breaking news sidebar! |
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Posted on 04/14/2003 6:45:36 AM PDT by Incorrigible
Monday, April 14, 2003
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
KRT NEWS SERVICE
ABOARD A C-130 OVER IRAQ -- Yesterday, on her 21st day as an Iraqi prisoner of war, Army Spc. Shoshana Johnson thought that she and six other American prisoners of war would be killed because their guards were afraid of the ever-approaching American attacks.
"We were a hot potato," said Johnson, 30, an Army cook with six-inch braids. The POWs were moved through six holding places in the last six days alone, she said. "It was getting to the point where I believed they were going to kill us."
Instead, a squad of Marines stormed into the room where they were being held, rescuing the last Americans known to have been captured by Iraq.
A few hours later, the POWs were telling of their ordeal: of being overwhelmed by Iraqis in a firefight where their weapons jammed from the sand.
At one point, a U.S. bomb sent the bricks of their prison showering down, and one of the prisoners, Chief Warrant Officer Ron Young, reached through a crack that had been opened and unlatched his cell door. But guards thwarted the escape.
"I was asking them if they were gonna kill me," said Pfc. Patrick Miller, 23, of Park City, Kan. His guards assured him they would not, Miller added.
"I thought I would never see my wife again," said a sobbing Chief Warrant Officer David Williams, of Orlando, Fla.
The POWs, some still wearing striped pajamas issued by their captors, were flown by C-130 transport to Kuwait for medical checkups.
Johnson limped from bullet wounds in both ankles, Spc. Joseph Hudson had gunshot wounds to the buttocks and side, and Spc. Edgar Hernandez, 21, was wounded in the right arm, but all walked on plane and seemed in good spirits, if bedraggled and not a little shocked.
Col. Larry Brown, operations chief for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said the POWs were rescued after their guards approached Marines near the town of Samarra north of Baghdad, saying they wanted to hand over the Americans.
Nine of the POWs were members of the Army's 507th Maintenance Company's "Lost Patrol," a supply convoy that wandered into an ambush in the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah on March 23, the first Sunday of the war. Two of the POWs were aboard an Apache attack helicopter when it went down over southeastern Baghdad on that same day. Both groups recounted their captures in harrowing detail.
The ambush of the 507th lasted about 15 minutes, just as the sun was coming up over the horizon.
"It wasn't a little ambush. It was a whole city and we were shot from front, rear, left," along a one- or two-mile stretch of highway with wide aprons to the side, said Sgt. James Riley, a lanky 31-year-old from Pennsauken, N.J. "It was like being in the middle of a parking lot and everyone is shooting at you."
Johnson, from El Paso, Texas, dove under her truck but was hit in the ankles. Near her were Riley, Hernandez and Hudson. The rest of the convoy was scattered all along the highway.
"We were spread out all over hell and creation," said Riley, adding that their weapons began jamming from the sand they had kicked up on their way from Kuwait. "We couldn't even make a bayonet charge," said Riley, who ordered the soldiers around him to surrender. "We were like Custer."
At almost the same time, Williams was piloting his Apache southwest of Baghdad, when a 23 mm cannon round split the leather on the toe box of his left boot, burning his foot and forcing him to land.
"We tried to evade. Unfortunately there was a lot of infantry around," said Williams, 31. They got on their survival radio, hoping to be picked up by another chopper, but saw only another aircraft with flames shooting out of its belly.
Williams said they jumped into a canal and swam "a quarter, half a mile, real slow, you know, just the head showing." They emerged and headed for a stand of trees but were spotted by armed villagers. "They shot a couple of warning shots at us. We decided to surrender," said Williams.
The two groups of prisoners came together about two days after their capture in what they assumed to be an Iraqi police station in Baghdad, where they were given medical care. They were served two or three meals a day, usually the same fare as their guards -- rice, chicken, bread, water and sweet Arabic tea.
"The doctors said they would take good care of me to show that the Iraqi people had humanity," said Johnson, who had three surgeries for her ankle injuries.
They heard heavy U.S. bombings every night they were in Baghdad, the prisoners said, and on one terrifying night a bomb landed about 150 feet from their cells, buckling the tin roofs and blowing open the food hatch on Young's cell door. The moves from one holding area to another began after that, they said, almost always in ambulances, always blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their backs.
Their conditions grew better as they were shifted through six locations in the last six days of captivity, eventually being put into common cells by policemen who by then appeared worried about what to do with the Americans. Their guards for the last three days were the best of all, they all agreed, reaching into their own pockets to buy them food and medical supplies. And then the Marines came to their rescue.
"They broke down the door and shouted 'Down, Down, Down,'" said Johnson. Added Miller: "They shouted, 'If you're an American stand up.'"
They didn't know that Baghdad had fallen, that Lynch had been rescued, that their pictures were appearing almost every day in the media and that a secret task force of elite commandos from Delta force, the CIA, Navy SEALS and Army Special Forces had been trying to find them for weeks.
Now most said they want to get home to friends and family. Riley said he wants to go "somewhere where there's no shooting."
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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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It is in the breaking news sidebar! |
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Just more proof positive that the M-16 family is not a reliable weapons system for all battlefield conditions.
Semper Fi
Is this a math error or is there something more sinister involved?
I started to disagree and changed my mind. We didn't have problems with the M-16s during DESERT STORM, but we got in the habit of cleaning them often and not using as much oil as we were used to using in tropical climates. We had 3 months in-country to prepare and realized early that the sand was going to be a problem.
I haven't used the AK's or SKS's, but I heard that the typical Afghan and Iraqi fighters seldom if ever cleaned them and they were still reliable.
An M-16 should be able to hold up pretty much anywhere if properly taken care of... Soldiers use them for weeks at a time at the Yakima Training Center and Ft. Irwin, both of which can be pretty dusty...hell Ft. Lewis is a dang dusty place if you're there in July or August. And that's using those crappy blank roads, which foul the hell out of your weapon and make it jam even more than it normally would.
They do seek to just beg for dust though...Some simple reengineering could keep out a lot of it out...
Sounds like it to me, too. Note to Army - Don't wait until you are actually IN a firefight to ops check your weapons.
Well apparently Pfc Jessica Lynch kept her's clean because her weapon didn't jam.
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