Memoirs of an Outlaw: Life in the Sandbox

Chapter 37: IED Depot

As we settled into our new stomping grounds in Iskandariyah, our company began to set up patrols in and around the city and farther out into the outskirts where we believed the insurgents had been setting up firing positions to mortar the base. The schedule of patrols was set up so that there was one platoon that stayed on the outskirts for about four to five days, and the remaining platoons were either on maintenance and rest, or they were doing limited excursions into and around Iskandariyah for about eight to ten hours a day. My platoon happened to get a lucky draw and got to stick around the base for a few days, and then we began to rotate patrols with the other platoon that remained behind within the city limits.

The first patrol we went on within the city limits definitely had a much different feel from the patrols we were conducting in Fallujah. One noticeable thing was that since the base was located pretty much within the city, our patrols began within the city and made their way to the city limits and sometimes a bit farther. The patrols in Fallujah were typically conducted outside of the city, with the occasional few going inside to provide support to another battalion.

I also noticed that there was much more of an Iraqi army presence here than most of the other places we had conducted operations. However, it wasn’t as if their presence put my nerves at ease. Most of them were very poorly equipped, with some form of makeshift body armor and a lopsided helmet. The only two things that indicated some sort of order and uniformity were the standard-issue AK-47 rifles and the camouflage that each of them wore. Aside from that, they resembled more of a militia than an actual army. Fortunately, most of them were only acting as security for vehicle checkpoints, and a good number of them were accompanied by US armed forces counterparts.

We hadn’t gone more than about three or four miles from the base when we finally reached the outskirts of the city. We turned off the main highway and began patrolling down a dirt road, which was most likely another main road, but definitely not something we were accustomed to back in the States. We were only about three of four hundred yards down this road when we came upon one of the craziest things I had ever seen during my whole time out in Iraq. Smack dab on the side of the road were hundreds upon hundreds of unexploded ordinance (UXO), from mortars to 155 artillery shells, stacked in a pile, with many more littering the ground for at least one hundred feet from the pile. I was absolutely dumbfounded. This was like the Home Depot of IEDs. No wonder the Army was getting shelled on a daily basis! If they had even bothered to patrol more than a mile outside of their base, they could have found this out for themselves.

After my frustration quickly subsided, I realized Lieutenant Snipes was calling over to our vehicle to have my team and I, along with Sergeant Jones’s team, escort our engineer, Sergeant Alfonso Nava, out to the IED stash to figure out what to do with it. I grabbed my scouts, and we carefully made our way over to the UXOs, ensuring not to step on anything that could blow us sky high. As we came closer to the area, it seemed as if the sand was littered with even more UXOs than I had initially realized. However, our biggest concern wasn’t the smaller mortars; it was the much larger artillery shells, which were always being used for IEDs.

Nava surveyed the scene and decided it would be best if we handled it ourselves rather than call back to have EOD blow it all up. He had us all begin collecting the artillery shells in the area and stack them up in a pyramid. I think I counted somewhere around thirty or forty by the time we finally finished stacking them. Nava inspected the pile to make sure it was sturdy and wouldn’t easily fall over. He then began to prep the area by laying out a long string of C4 explosives all along the top of the pile. He laid out approximately eight or nine bricks of C4 in a row lengthwise across the top and readied them all with detonation (det) cord and primers. Once he was certain the pile was ready to go, he had us all go back to our vehicles, and he hastily made his way back to his with the det cord trailing behind him.

Lieutenant Snipes called over the radio for everyone to move outside of the blast radius. The roar of the LAV engines came to life, and all the vehicles moved just outside the blast radius but remained close enough for us to respond to any potential event that could occur before the blast. Snipes began a countdown over the radio, and a few seconds before the detonation, everyone was ordered to sit down inside the vehicles so we wouldn't be hit by any stray object.

Snipes counted down the final seconds, “Three…two…one…”

BOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!

Even inside the LAV, I could feel the blast of the explosion. It violently shook the vehicle for a second or two before there was calm again. I stood up and peered out of the top of my scout hatch and saw a grayish-black mushroom cloud billowing into the sky. The pile of potential IEDs was obliterated, and in its place was a big black mark on the ground where the shells had been.

Snipes reported back to our command center that the shells were destroyed. He also informed them that there were still hundreds of small UXOs (unexploded ordinance) that needed to be dealt with. A few days later, the Army would send out some EOD personnel to clean up the area.

We continued on with our patrol that day, and I felt a bit better knowing that we had destroyed a good number of potential IEDs that could have killed my brothers. However, in the back of my mind I knew that even though we wiped out a large number of artillery shells that day, there were always more lurking out there. In the ensuing days, we would continue to get hit by multiple IEDs on our patrols. It just reminded us that the threat was always out there, and we had to remain vigilant and aware at all times.