Hey David, don't leave us hanging. :ROFLMAO:
Alright, alright. Not a great story but it’s what I got.
So little Lt. Dave is rolling out on yet another patrol circa summer of 2008 just outside Baghdad. At the time, we were surveying infrastructure for potential civic projects to improve the local economy. The task of the day was mapping out canals.
Canals in that part of Iraq are often raised above the field levels and the banks have dirt roads on them. We came to a dead end and I hopped out of the truck to get the GPS coordinates of the end of the canal for some map overlays that we were working on. Once I had the grid, I hopped back in the truck and we started to turn around. In hindsight, I probably should have ground guided the truck around but I didn’t want to be out and exposed on the raised bank for too long so I didn’t. The gunner in the turret had decent visibility of the back end and we tried to take it slow, doing about a ten point turn while the other truck and Bradleys in the patrol did the same.
All of a sudden, I felt the back end of the HMMWV slip and the front left end went up in the air. The bank had collapsed and we were sinking backward into the canal. We stopped moving but we were teetering on the edge so I told everyone in the truck to stay still and then radioed for another truck to back up so that they could hook up a tow strap to keep us from tipping over or sinking any further into the canal.
My RTO, the radio guy who was also our forward observer, was sitting behind the driver and got spooked. He jumped out of the truck and slammed the door while we all started to sink further into the canal. Water started poring in through my door but thankfully the truck ahead of us got hooked up and was able to stop our slip. The gunner and our interpreter were able to exit and I had to shed my body armor, ammo, and hand my weapon over to get out the drivers side.
There wasn’t much cover around but I was able to get a reasonable cordon set up while my platoon sergeant tried to figure out how to get the truck out. Once we had 360 security I walked over to see what he’d come up with and he suggested calling the tactical ops center (TOC) for the company and ask for the wrecker to be dispatched. All we had for recovery assets was the other truck and the two Bradley IFVs. I called in from the other HMMWV and got the answer I expected. They told me that all recovery options available must be tried prior to dispatching the wrecker.
I wasn’t surprised because the wrecker wasn’t up-armored and it’s a pretty vital asset, a great target. So we hooked up some additional straps to the other truck and tried to pull. All we managed to do was make the truck fall deeper into the canal and it started to turn around with the front going down. So we hooked to the back tow hooks and promptly popped them right off the truck. I called the TOC again. The conversation went something like this:
“Blackjack TOC this is Red 1.”
“Go ahead Red 1.”
“TOC this is Red 1, wheeled recovery with the other trucks was ineffective, we need the wrecker dispatched.”
“Red 1 this is TOC, good copy, wait one.”
“This is Red 1, roger that.”
...
...
“Red 1, have you tried the Bradleys?”
“TOC, Red 1, ummmmm pull out wheeled with track, over?”
“Affirmative”
“TOC, Red 1, we haven’t tried that.”
Now I’ll interject here to say that there’s an old recovery rule in the Army. Wheeled pulls wheeled, track pulls track. I knew this rule but I didn’t fully appreciate the reason the rule exists so I didn’t push back.
“Red 1, this is Blackjack TOC, gotta try it before the wrecker comes out.”
“TOC, Red 1, roger that. Will call back with results shortly.”
So my platoon sergeant was listening in on his radio and was looking at me and shaking his head the whole time. I gave him the, welp, we got to do it look and he hopped into action. We pulled Bradley up to the truck and, since we’d popped all the tow hooks, hooked up to the bumper instead.
The bumper was promptly ripped off the HMMWV and I started to doubt my career choices. We cleaned up the bumper and considered our options. One of my squad leaders suggested putting the Bradley tow ropes around the back axle and pulling it that way.
Surely you couldn’t pull off the axle, right? Nope, you can and we did. The Bradley started to pull, the rope got tight and then, with a horrifying crunch and screech, it seemed like that whole truck ripped in half. In reality though, we’d taken off the the axle and back wheels. I called TOC back.
“Blackjack TOC, Red 1, over”
“Red 1, TOC, how’d it go?”
“TOC, Red 1, the back of the HMMWV is no longer attached to the rest of the truck, over.”
“Red 1, TOC, would you like to dispatch the wrecker?”
“TOC, Red 1, please and thank you, over and out.”
To our motorpool team’s credit, my recollection is that they were onsite within an hour. They’d been pretty bored and this was their chance to roll outside the wire and they did a great job. The wrecker made short work of collecting the pieces and getting the truck back to our patrol base. All told, our planned 2-3 hour patrol ended up in the neighborhood of 8 hours but the cooks kept our dinner chow warm so it wasn’t so bad.
The truck was the talk of the company though. Word had spread that we had a truck in pretty rough shape and everybody came out to see the thing as we rolled back through the gate. That HMMWV was deadlined for about a month as getting parts out to the patrol base was slow.
My platoon learned a lot that day and my RTO was on the receiving end of plenty of jokes for jumping ship before we were secured. No one got hurt though and everyone that rolled out rolled back in so all in all not a bad day.
