Easy Ride Turns Into Firefight

HIGHWAY ONE, NEAR BAGHDAD —  When the fighting was over, Cyclone Company had made its mark in the war, and the war had left its mark on Cyclone Company.

There were holes in the tanks the size of squash balls, burn spatters, leaking fuel tanks, skid marks on the pavement, hundreds of empty shells, and the pungent smell of burning Iraqi armored personnel carriers.

For nearly 2 1/2 hours, two platoons of Cyclone Company fought off an ambush on a major highway south of Baghdad, on what had started as a surprisingly easy ride to within eyesight of the capital.

At 11:15 a.m. Thursday, the implacable desert gave way to cultivated fields of wheat and onions. Fourteen tanks, a few armored personnel carriers and a collection of support vehicles rattled across a nondescript bridge over the Euphrates River. The two youngest members of Cyclone 3-0, a Bradley fighting vehicle holding the company’s fire support team, wanted to pose for pictures.

“There’ll be plenty of time for souvenirs,” said Staff Sgt. Jason Engler, 23, a six-year veteran of the Army from Columbus, Ohio. Three hours later, the column turned onto the Iraqi version of an interstate highway, headed for Baghdad.

“Hot damn, this looks like Atlanta,” said Spc. Jamie Gandy, 19, who considers Valdosta, Ga., the big city compared with his home of Adel, Ga. “I never done this. Can you imagine, rolling down Interstate 95?”

The young soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division’s 4th Battalion, 64th Armored Regiment, tank companies laughed as they read out signs: “Baghdad Airport, 8 kilometers,” and “South, Basra.”

The column moved into formation along the road. Four Abrams tanks in the Red platoon took the lead, followed by others, including Cyclone 3-0.

Two miles along, as they rounded a corner, the radios screamed to life, and the sounds of shots crackled through the armored plating of Cyclone 3-0. A dozen Iraqi armored personnel carriers opened fire from behind the earthen ramps to an overpass, firing AK-47 and 30-millimeter rounds, as well as rocket-propelled grenades. Soon, dozens of Iraqi soldiers dismounted from their vehicles, firing and dodging behind bridge pylons.

“Watch out for the dismounts! They have RPGs!” a nearby tank commander yelled.

“We’re taking fire!” Engler screamed into the radio.

“Do you see where they’re at?” asked Lt. Edward Williams, his soft Virginia twang in calming contrast to the growing chaos of the airwaves.

“Red 4, my two tank is under fire. I got to go help him!”

Capt. Steven Barry, the commander of Cyclone Company, tried to calm his platoons, directing them into defensive positions. “Red [platoon], you have the best guys out there,” he assured. “Try to set up further up the road.”

Engler drew a bead on civilian trucks and houses, hesitating, searching for gunshots. The radio squawked that there were pickups with soldiers in them.

“Do they want me to engage these guys?” Engler shouted to Williams. “Is this the guys they’re talking about? These are white trucks. They’re all white trucks.”

A rocket-propelled grenade crossed the bow of Cyclone 3-0. And a fireball erupted nearby as another tank fired on and hit an Iraqi personnel carrier. Radio transmissions mingled into an incomprehensible tangle.

“I ain’t gonna lie to you,” Gandy called out. “I’m as scared as I’ve ever been in my life.”

Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Lujan was on the radio sounding an urgent warning to a tank: “You have enemy troops to your immediate left, you have enemy troops!” Moments later, there was a desperate strain to his voice. “I’m out of commission. I have a stuck round. I can’t move the breach or nothing. I can only use small-arms fire.”

“If you keep 500 meters away and just button up, you’ll be all right,” said Maj. Mark Jewell, a Marine Air Naval Gunfire Liaison officer attached to the brigade. The battalion called in F-16s to provide close air support, and they dropped 500- and 1,000-pound laser-guided bombs. Because of the force of the U.S. attack, the armored carriers and pickups began to flee. Several were aflame. An F-16 passed low and laid down a warning strafe near a pickup, which turned and sped away.

And then there was a lull in the fighting.

An Iraqi soldier walked toward a tank, arms up. He was ordered to strip, and soon he was on the pavement, hands splayed above his head. The soldier was in his 30s, flabby, with a fading tattoo on his right arm. Tied at the wrists, he gestured desperately to be let into the Bradley, away from the potential fire of his comrades.

Instead, Gandy walked him 100 yards to another Bradley and handed him off, then ran back, his helmet jiggling sideways with each pounding step.

Pfc. David Balicki, with less than a year in the Army, covered him, nervously crouching, looking around, moving with a stagey awkwardness, as if recalling gestures from basic training.

The gunfire subsided. “We got a lot of holes on our tank,” Lujan said. “They got some shots on us.”

Barry listened to a summary of the damage. Several tanks had holes in their fenders, dents in their shielding. A few field rucksacks had been tattered by bullets. But all of the tanks are good to go.

Along the shoulders of the highway, more than a dozen Iraqi personnel carriers were burning. The highway was eerily empty and quiet but for the tattered line of U.S. armor.

A slim crescent moon emerged in the dusk, and on the horizon, bombs thumped Baghdad. But on Highway One, they were nearly drowned by a sound not heard in months: the constant rattle of crickets.

“I guess we said, ‘Hi,’ ” Gandy said, staring out at the glow of the city. He sat on the pavement and ate. “I bet you never sat on the middle of an interstate and ate dinner before,” he said.