Clip 042 | Invasion of Iraq | K 3/7 Assaultman

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So how it went down?

Was we so George Bush says the word, and we pushed towards the border. Right, So we're on the border. We're digging in for like approximately like twenty four hours. All the ammunition to further the nightmare of being in the track, all the ammunition for the fifty CAWND, the mark nineteen was on the floor of the troop compartment, so you couldn't even like sit all the way down.

Your legs were kind of up. We had the center bench, so there's a bench on either side and a center bench. The center bench was all dudes riding backwards facing the ramp, and then all of us were like to the side right. Well, the corman, uh was a Viamonese kid, and uh, it's just funny, but like not so funny. He was sitting with his back all the way against the engine and and and later on during the during the thing, during the ride, he's like, uh, when he's like, sergeant, I have to move, I am burning alive.

Because he's like back.

Is it good?

Because against like the engine?

You know.

God.

So we get up to the border and once again, it still doesn't feel like this is actually gonna happen, right like he I mean, I'm sure you've been in a ton of drills where you're just like acid, like somebody's gonna call this bullshit off, right, They're not actually gonna send us over the border right.

Well, that night, uh, we.

Had I should probably preface by saying, like we we had the veguest of plans told to us as to what we were gonna be doing, right, Like, we knew that there was this place called Safuan Hill right over the border, that was gonna get bombed into oblivion in the opening salvo, and then recon was gonna go up there and shoot everybody. So I figured that it was like an l P o P for the Iraqi Army.

So we figured that would go down and that would that would shut the whole thing off. But so, uh, the the evasion, like every artillery piece I've ever even heard of, started firing, and so you're looking up with your mvgs and you just see wrap rounds. You know what a rap round is like you just see you just see wrap rounds, just like streaking through the fucking night man, and like just non stop, like it never stopped.

Quick funny story is I realized that, uh, we had built Field ex Expedient Bangalores to to blow through breeches on our.

Way in if we had to.

And we realized that we didn't have any priming systems built yet, so we needed detonators right because another stupid story, but so I hop out of the track. They were in hole down positions, so it was a dug in. The track was in a was in a ditch, so the only the top was sticking out. I jumped in that ditch to to crimp some detonators and I was using a red flashlight down in the ditch. There are hundreds of artillery rounds flying overhead towards Kuwait.

Oh.

First sergeant comes over and gets the screaming at me because the company commander sees my red flashlight in in the fucking hole and and like, I'm gonna give away the entire position of third Battalion, seventh Marines.

And I'm like, bro, what do you talk? Yeah, Bro, what are you talking about? Did you look up?

So anyway, so we go screaming like uh, the engine revs, the ramp goes up on the track, and we go pushing forward. We went through the breach and we didn't hit anything. I'm trying to think if it was the first night or the second night we actually got a frago to actually do something. So the first initial part of the breach in Iraq, we didn't hit anything. We just pushed straight through and uh like just ended up in Iraq the next.

Day, so you're like, oh shit, I guess we're here.

One of the first things we did is we cleared out an old uh Iraqi artillery position that had been like bombed to shit. Who knows, you know, there's just a bunch of artillery rounds, artillery tube sticking up.

All over the place. Our track actually.

Hit a u a anti personnel mine, right, so it sounds like a sledgehammer, like a huge proportion slams into the fucking track, right, and it trickles.

Down somewhere that hey anti personnel mine whatever, and we just keep on pushing thinking, I guess thinking somebody was gonna radio that thing in well three seven's log train then pulled into that next and didn't get the word.

And so I think the first two.

Casualties of the war were our career planner in three seven and like and he was on like Oprah afterwards, and our I forgot the other guy, like the motor Ti chief or something like lost a foot to a fucking anti personnel mine.

So we're still not hereing much. We're still pushing north.

And the first actual frago sometime in the middle of the night, like the lieutenant that's right in the track like wakes up and yells gas down into the troop compartment because he I don't know, I thought he saw a gas round somewhere in a delirious so, uh, we had a momentary panic where we're all trying to put every piece of our mock ear on inside the Amtrak in the dark, and finally we're just like, we just said fuck it. So this whole period of time kind of blurs together a little bit. But so the next thing that happens that was of any of the import in that first like thirty six hours, was we got a frago to assault a building that had been given tanks trouble, I guess for the entire day. Right, it's

now the evening of the second evening, and I believe my memory's probably shot on this. But so me and the squad leader in the back of so I so, being an assault mean the assault section leader, I was able to attach myself to whoever I wanted, right, I would attach out my guys, and then I would look to see whatever infantry squad look to be the most competent, and then I would attach myself to them. I would just be like, hey, you I had a gunner and an egg gunner, but I was like, hey, you guys, do your thing. I'm just going to stay over here and support you. You know, I'm not, you know, do your gunner thing. So I'm thinking to myself, like what kind of build, Like, what exactly are we going to do if the tanks haven't been able to dig these

people out?

So this is kind of how this goes down.

So me and the squad leader in the back are like screaming at each other trying to hash out this plan. Right, So I'm like, okay, hey, check it out, man. As soon as the ramp drops, you guys get security set. I'll locate a breech point and blow it open with the rocket launcher.

He's like, okay, cool.

So you know, you can't tell anything back there. You're like in a steel box of emotion. So you know, the engines are revving, the things moving up and down. The ramp drops, and it's dark night outside. The driver of the Amtrak used to talk a gang of shit before we actually went over, and you know, about being like a tough guy kind of thing. But as soon as that ramp came down, he was screaming.

His head off, like get out so I can close the ramp. It was like, okay, guy, So we all go rushing out.

We get online drop down on this berm and I see this building ahead of us, and I told my small gunner ahead of time, like, hey, look, I'm gonna I'm gonna strobe my laser. I had a Peck two, I had a laser on my sixteen. So I'm gonna strove my laser on the on what I want you to hit. I'm gonna I'm gonna put my laser on what you what I want you to hit? Right, He's like okay, yeah, cool Roger. So we all go screaming out slam down. I see a breach point on this building.

It's just like a one story like you.

Did you go to Iraq?

I went to Iraq, but I was a fob at the time.

So like your standard Iraqi one story, like a brick building kind of thing. I see a front door. I put my laser on it. I looked out of my small gunner, whose name is Welden. I'm like, Welden, you know, hit the target or hit the laser, and he looks back at me and he's like, which which one? So I look back to the building and realize that now everybody's Peck two's are all over the building. It looks like fucking lasers everywhere, right, So I start strobing mine and uh, I'm like, hit the stroban one on the door, right, So Weldon puts the first rocket like dead center into the door and the thing like blows up inside the build holding when when when the smoke clears, I look up and the door still on its hinges because it

went straight through the door. Basically, I'm like, so I started screaming at him to fire again. And uh, this is my first experience with like the whole slowing down of time and combat and shit. Like to me, it feels like this kid is taken forever with his A gunner to reload the rocket. So I turned to him to yell, uh, because I think I told him to hit it again, you know, verbus fucking disappears like reload hit it again. So by the time I look down to him to like to like scream at him to fire again, his A gunner was Johnny on the spot already had the new rocket in and well then was hammering again. So I was staring directly at the like the back of the small when this fucking thing went off.

So it felt like the hand of God just basically like bit like bitch slapped me to the.

Side of the head.

Uh yeah, from the back blast of the small so by the time I look back to the building, the door is like flipping end over end towards us. Now, so like okay, cool, so uh uh the squad leader at him, you know, he uh, he runs his guys over the burnam into the building. And most of my stories of the first part of Iraq is a dry hole.

It's like a lot of excitement and then nothing happens. It was a completely empty fucking building.

Yeah happens, man, Hey, you know what it happens. But when you were putting those rounds into the building, you don't know that right now, and this is your first like real engagement, right, so yeah, I'm sure the adrenaline was like like, I'm sure you were. Everything was just firing, you know.

Yeah.

Well, and also as soon as the first rocket went down range. Uh you know, we were the first gun team to fire, So as soon as the first rocket went down range, everybody else opened up.

The two forties, the M sixteen's, it was.

Like they just fired like the FPF the final protective fires real quick. They're like, so maybe it was good for everybody get the nerves out of their system, you know, like on an easy one you know, like, yeah, so.

You know.

Were you were you glad that you finally got to like cause you you know, you did security forces and all that other stuff.

You weren't even expecting to go to Iraq?

Were you glad to be there in that moment and like doing your job as an assaultman?

You know, yeah, because it was.

You know, we've in my mind, I was going into this place to liberate these people from this dictator, right so, and and you know, in every in every combat dude's mind, you have in the back of your head like am I going to be able to do this? You know, because you've heard all the stories, you know, and you're like, okay, so it's game time, like it, am I gonna let my guys down? Am I gonna be able to perform in combat? You know, like it's what's gonna happen? You know, because I've seen grown ass marines freezing combat later on in life.

You know. It's so there's always that.

That fear in the back of your mind that you're not going to perform in front of your guys, right.

Yeah, you don't want to let everybody down. You don't want to let your dudes down.

No, you don't want to get them hurt. You don't want to let them down.

So uh, you know, initially I was I was just initially glad that I performed up to what I thought, what I expected of myself. You know, I didn't let myself down as far as like leading the dudes into combat that first time, and I initially believed in what we were doing, so it was like like, like, yeah, let's let's push forward and fucking liberate this country once we're once we're actually in there, Yeah, for sure.

For sure for those that have never been in a n amtrak or understand kind of how that assault would have gone. There's a documentary I don't know where it's at now. It used to be on Netflix, but I'm not sure if it's there anymore. It's called Severe Clear. I used to I've recommended it on the podcast at times.

There's an artillery officer. The first part of it's kind of goofy. He's like, you know, this is like two thousand and two, and it looks like he has like a home video camera and he's like getting ready for the muse.

So he's like packing his bags and.

Like, oh, what a deployment guess you know, but once you get into the actual like they're in Iraq and shit, it's a pretty fucking crazy like view of what these and what these guys were doing. And I mean he's doing call for fire from the track. You're watching the guns engage people from the track, and it's like for someone that was never you know, I never wrote in tracks, it's kind of a like a oh okay, I kind of see the how difficult that would be for different positions, Like you guys, as soon as something happens, door fucking opens, you guys run out. For an artillery person, you're kind of stuck on that track, you know, if that's where you're because that's where all the fire support's planning and approving.

Yeah, all that.

Shit is happening in the back of one of those So for those that are listening, that's something to check out. I need to find if anyone out there, because I know a lot of artillery guys listen to this podcast. If anybody out there knows the guy that made that documentary, have him hit me up. I'd love to have him on because I've literally talked about his pod or his documentary of multiple times on the podcast.

So Yeah.

Anyways, though, you know, do you want to talk more about like the rest of that deployment. I know it's kind of hit and missed. There was a lot of yes, you know from what I've I've talked to other people from three to seven before. Some of them downplay what they do. So I don't know if you how much you want to talk about.

Well, so for Kilo Company, we we got the easy we got.

An easy lane.

I guess you know, Lima Company had their own lane. You know, India Company had their own lane. And as far as Kilo goes, so we we we hit the.

Azu Buy Air oil fields.

Was our main objective as soon as we crossed the border was to secure the Azu Bet.

Azu Buy Air oil fields. And we were going to get relieved by the British.

And as soon as we got relieved by the British, we were just going to push north to Baghdad. So we pushed, We pushed north and like you just saw crazy shit for the first time in your life. I saw SE one thirty one thirty land on basically the freeway.

You know, it looked like they had either.

Cut or blown down the telephone poles and no ship like a sea one thirty just landed on the freeway and I'm like, oh, okay, cool. One of our we pulled over somewhere right across the border in just like this massive herring bone.

Which is you know, just on tracks.

Yeah, And that was like one of the first times I saw the Special Operations guys, because they come up in like these humdies that have machine guns sticking out of like every angle, like the doors are gone. And yeah, I didn't I didn't know what they were called at the time. And they had a couple of dudes in land rovers with them and they were like in jeans, like button up shirts and like chest rigs and M four's And I'm like, and I'm wearing a fucking mopsuit.

These dudes are not wearing mopsuits, by the way.

They look like they're on summer vacation, having a good time out here.

Yeah, I'm like, what am I doing wearing a fucking Like what do they know that I don't?

Right, So we went north.

We stopped at some concrete factory and to wait for our log train to show up. Because we were so far ahead of our log train, we were basically like out of water, gas food, everything, So we posted up there for a little while.

We crossed to a town called.

A Newmnia, which was basically on the edge of the Tiger's River. There was a little bit of friction there but nothing big. We had a pretty exciting night for one evening. Our platoon second platoon got attached with our tracks to a tank platoon and the CAT which is the Combined Anti Armour Team, which is the weapons company.

Guys with the fifty cows Mark nineteens tow missiles loaded up into humbies. So we basically made like a very small task for us for an evening and we were tasked with destroying an Iraqi military base, one of Asdam's palaces and a bath party house.

Like in the in the in the span of like you know, an evening in a day

Clip 042 | Invasion of Iraq | K 3/7 Assaultman | Cody Anderson

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