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Cacique's Recomended Reading List for week of November 12, 2007
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Posted on 11/13/2007 5:50:55 AM PST by uksupport1
On a spring day in Basra in 2004, nine men from the Royal Horse Artillery found themselves surrounded by 200 Iraqis, all shooting to kill. The man who saved them is Sgt Terry Bryan, a modest 37-year-old father of three, who joined the Army at 16. Here, in our first extract from a new book in which medal-winning soldiers tell their stories, he describes how he won the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross for his astonishing bravery....
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Thanks for posting. More stories like this from Iraq need to get out.
With apologies to John Wayne, this is true grit.
Wow, like Rorke’s Drift all over again!
This action was at Rorke’s Drift, Wednesday 22- Thursday 23 January, 1879, when some 150 soldiers defended a supply station against some 4000 Zulus, aided by the Martini-Henry rifle ‘with some guts behind it’.
snip
Hell of a story. If Hollywood didn’t have the heads stuffed up their exit ramps they could make a ton of money making a movie about this.
he didn't WIN anything - he earned it!
When you contrast how wussified British society has become with how incredibly tough British soldiers are, it’s amazing a rift is not somehow torn in space-time.
I’m sure there are many more stories like this one we’ll never hear about.
Hollywood wouldn’t dare make a movie about real hero’s. (Like these)
I love reading about the bravery of these soldiers.
Despite the increasingly liberalism of British society, the basic strength of the British character has not changed. Given another challenge like World War II, you'd see the same courage again.
“We could see men leaning over the walls of a big building next door, just spraying the upper rooms. I was shooting back, but not wanting to hit them. I really didn’t want to kill anyone else, so I was aiming near to them, hoping they would get the message and p*** off.”
“Eventually, I had to accept that I was going to have to kill people.”
“Like me, they didn’t really want to kill anyone. We just wanted the Iraqis to leave us alone, and go home to their wives and kids so we could go back to our mates.”
WTF is wrong with these Brit soldiers? How far the Empire has fallen when their professional soldiers have attitudes like this while under fire. Very disturbing.
Hollywood and the immoral manaquins who reside there have no souls and are traitorous whores.
(A long story, but I’ll try to grab the best bits for those who don’t want to follow the link.)
Simultaneously, the firing started - as though someone had turned on a switch. It was literally like a hail of bullets hitting the vehicle. I’d never experienced anything like it...
We were also being hit by the grenades. But the Land Rover’s armour was holding out and, strange as it sounds, I felt quite safe inside the vehicle - even though I knew that, sooner or later, one of those grenades was going to cause real damage...
But even two kilometres on, there were still men shooting at us. Clearly, the whole thing had been well-planned: the angry crowd to lure us out, the breaks in the barrier closed off and hundreds of armed men at the ready...
So now we’re travelling on three wheels, tyres shot away, rounds rattling and pinging off us non-stop. Then I realise that Olly’s Land Rover has been hit with a rocket-propelled grenade and is on fire at the front.
My driver, a young South African gunner called Frank Haman, suddenly spotted a break to the left and recognised the former Ba’ath Party HQ, which was now full of troops from the Iraqi Defence Force.
We had this amazing sense of relief - maybe we were going to get out of this after all. Then we realised that guys in uniforms were actually shooting at us from the building. They were meant to be on our side!
...
Almost immediately, one of them killed one of the attackers. This guy was standing there, in a police uniform, reloading a rocket launcher. He was quite a distance away, but the young gunner dropped him, a nice shot. At that moment, I remember thinking that we were going to have to take a lot more lives to stand any chance of surviving this...
But there was a glimmer of hope: they didn’t like us returning fire. A few of the Iraqis were running off, and the fire from the others was getting wilder and more inaccurate. The lads saw this, and it boosted their morale.
I’d now managed to get through to the Operations Room. Normally, I’m very friendly and chatty on the phone, and when the captain saw my name on the caller display she was very relaxed. “Hello, Terry! How are you!”
I just shouted: “F***ing contact!” I couldn’t get my words out properly - my mouth had gone horribly dry and sticky, like when you’ve just woken up after a big drinking session...
Instinctively, we shot them and put them down. I didn’t feel anything at the time; to be honest, I wasn’t thinking much about what I was doing...
I was shooting back, but not wanting to hit them. I really didn’t want to kill anyone else, so I was aiming near to them, hoping they would get the message and p*** off. But they didn’t. They’d pop up, spray five or ten rounds from the hip, and pop back down again...
By now, we’d been been in the house for ten minutes, and there was more shooting than ever. I spent time with the guys upstairs, telling them little things like move away from the window, and stand two or three feet inside to make yourself less visible and a smaller target.
Like me, they didn’t really want to kill anyone. We just wanted the Iraqis to leave us alone, and go home to their wives and kids so we could go back to our mates...
As I distributed my last 200 or so rounds of 5.56mm, I could see Olly shrugging his shoulders. He’d given the base a grid reference for the house, but we both had the feeling they wouldn’t be able to find us.
Once we ran out of ammunition, or if the enemy attacked in even greater numbers - well, that didn’t bear thinking about...
In between all the fear and panic, there were some bizarre moments. One of the young lads was shouting: “I need a p***, I need a p***.” We shouted back: “Well, just p*** on the floor.” He looked around. “I can’t,” he said. “It’s someone’s bedroom, this.”
It was hysterically funny at the time; in fact, we seemed to spend half the time laughing. The rest of the time I was terrified...
Then I noticed a guy aiming a rifle at me - and, in that moment, he fired. One of the bullets came between my face and the wall, just above my ear. Three inches to the right, and it would have been game over...
But as we watched, Ryan sat up and gave a thumbs-up: he’d just been winded. Naturally we started ripping into him. “Get up and fight, you lazy bastard ... any excuse to lie on your belly and get your head down, you medics!”
Then Ryan showed me his other hand. In it was a grenade. He’d been following me out onto the balcony, having seen I was in trouble, planning to grenade the crowd.
“Pass it to us,” I said. “I can’t,” he said. “Ryan,” I said, “pass us the f******g grenade.”
He said: “I can’t ... I’ve pulled the pin.”
We all collapsed in laughter again. Thank God he’d not let go of the bloody thing in the impact or we’d all have been screaming in agony or dead...
I returned to the top floor, looking for targets, trying to make every shot count. We were down to our last grenade, and 20 or fewer rounds per man...
But although the Warriors were close, they couldn’t pinpoint our building. The only way to attract their attention was to go to them. So I climbed down from the balcony, past the burning car, through the garden and out into the street, in among the Iraqis.
They were quite surprised to see me, but they soon started firing again. It was bizarre - none of them hit me...
I ran out and saw that the Iraqis had rammed cars right down the narrow alleyway. So we all had to climb over the roofs to reach the Warrior.
We got into the back, all lying on top of each other because they’re not built to take that many people. The rebels had regrouped and were starting to attack again. But we made it out OK, and within 15 minutes we were back in camp.
Everyone was really high - as if we’d been out on the town. Some were in tears - me included - and we were hugging each other and talking at 100mph while our mates stood around watching, as if we were freaks in a circus.
That night I couldn’t sleep, and neither could Olly, so we went to the TV room where we had the slightly surreal experience of watching Al Jazeera news footage of our Land Rovers on fire.
There were Iraqis dancing all over them, firing at the fuel tank, and, in the background, you could hear our firefight going off.
(The end is pretty interesting, too. It was hard to find parts that weren’t, obviously!)
At the same time, I felt guilty about the medal. No one else in my patrol got the recognition I thought they should have. Why me, and not them? They risked their lives, the same as I did.
I know that’s the nature of medals, but you still feel bad. Between the nine of us who were there that day, there’s a bond you’ll never break.
I still think about that incident in Basra every single day. I see the faces of the guys I shot and I feel bad about having killed them. In the end, though, you have to move on. I’m a soldier, this is my job, and that’s the way it goes.
If they made war movies about stuff like this people would watch. Redford’s diatribes? Not so much. Biographical heroism with the fascists losing? I’m thinking there’s a market. Too bad Hollywood can’t read the signs.
Hollywood socialists and commies will not make a movie that shows valor and justice or heroism regarding our troops in this war. They must stick to the tired old lie from the 60s that America is the oppressor and our military is corrupt.
Those of use who think know better, but it doesn’t matter, these sicophants have no respect for those who protect their rights to act like a$$holes.
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Cacique's Recomended Reading List for week of November 12, 2007
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WTF is wrong with these Brit soldiers? How far the Empire has fallen when their professional soldiers have attitudes like this while under fire.
You're right. Glad they made it out, of course, and good job, but this attitude reminds one of those poor, pathetic sailors captured by the Iranians. Is their training badly designed, compared to our guys'?
The American military culture doesn't seem to tolerate reckless killing or cruelty, but from the videos and milblogs I've seen, our soldiers' minds are unclouded by doubt. Maybe that's why they're unclouded by doubt. And if you really p*** them off, just Wow.
Good story, very well written. This should be a movie but Hollywood doesn’t make movies like that any more.
Actually this attitde is very common among Americans in all wars until they get “blooded” in battle.
That right there is one of the main differences betweens Conservatives and Libs.
sheesh
I heard someone on the radio mention this book the other day. I didn't realize until the end of the story that it was an extract from this book. Well worth getting.
Well, statistically, a survey on WW2 showed that very few soldiers in that conflict fired with the specific will to kill the enemy (under 10% I believe). This soldier was writing an honest account of his feelings. These feelings did not stop him from defending a house with 9 soldiers against 200 Iraqis, killing many enemy.
However, as you have obviously also won a gallantry medal for holding off 200 Iraqis with nine men (artillerymen, not infantry) I’ll defer to your superior knowledge.
I remember before or after Somalia hearing about a military study of why soldiers fire.
If the enemy was only shooting at them, the soldier normally didn’t fire. If the enemy was shooting at their friends, the soldier would fire. There was no rhyme or reason to it but that was the way it was.
A good blogger to read on this front is Michael Yon. He’s ex-US Green Beret and was embedded with UK troops when a raid took out about 30 Militia. He finished his piece by stating that ‘these soldiers are so good, I’ve requested from British commanders to be allowed to stay longer’. He has described UK combat forces as ‘excellent’ and has said that US and UK forces could cross integrate no problem (as I imagine they do).
As for the sailors incident: that is no more indicative of the fighting prowess of UK forces than the mutiny of US troops refusing convoy duty in Iraq a few years ago. Even our greatest generations in WW2 suffered embarrassments.
As for the attitude towards killing: historically, this is not unique among soldiers. In WW2 statistics showed that less than 10% of troops shot to kill. Most fired in the hope of suppressing or discouraging the enemy. This article was written by an artilleryman (not infantry), who killed when he had to, regardless of his very honest feelings. The British army don’t give out medals for nothing.
Thanks for taking the time to post the key points from the article. I’m surprised its taken 3 years for this story to come out!
“Well, statistically, a survey on WW2 showed that very few soldiers in that conflict fired with the specific will to kill the enemy (under 10% I believe).”
I saw that figure reported only once and have my doubts about it. It certainly seems counter-intuitive and suicidal to me and I have NEVER heard anyone say that they behaved that way. I have heard some say they didn’t hit anyone because of poor shooting, nerves, too busy keeping their heads down, etc, but not that they didn’t try. To me the idea seems ridiculous, but everyone knows Americans are less civilized than Brits. The actions of the British troops was certainly admirable and I am glad they emerged unscathed. It’s the absence of hostile attitude toward those that are doing their best to kill you that is alien to me.
That is what I remember. Also studies that showed that only 10% fired at the enemy in WWI, a few more in WWII and Korea. The military supposedly trained against that model and got a better ratio in VN. I’ve heard that there is considerable improvement in Iraq with beginners still holding back a bit like in this piece.
This last week I seem to get a feeling that the Brits are feeling a little slighted as the news coming out has been harping on their strengths and the weaknesses of the US.
I haven’t seen any British articles criticising the Americans this last week?! I haven’t seen any articles harping about UK strengths either. Most positive threads on here about the UK military appear once every few weeks and generate about 2 replies. Any more than that and the anti-British people on the site jump into action :-)
I certainly didn’t mean anything by posting this article!
Americans aren’t less civilised than Brits mate. I’ve been to your great country many times and found it to be more civilised than my own in many ways (including the absence of a binge-drinking/fighting culture!).
The soldiers in this article found themselves in an awful and what sounds at times, surreal, situation. The soldier writing the piece wrote very honestly about his perception of the incident. He stood his ground with the others.I’m sure the militiamen facing him and his men didn’t think he lacked hostile intentions towards them! (Which I’m sure he held in bucketloads as Iraqis were pouring through doorways towards him)
As for the 10% figure, I believe that a large part of it may have been unconscious (If i recall correctly)
There are countless videos on Youtube etc with British soldiers firing mortars with ‘F*** you Taliban’ etc written on them. Doesn’t mean that these troops fight any differently to their brothers in this incident (who seem to have done a heroic job)
I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear that. I remember fondly the Highlanders' bayonet charge early in the WOT that scattered the AQs in terror. Thanks for the update.
Also, I wonder if the touchy-feely talk in the officer's account was pumped up by the Daily Mail itself, for more soap-opera appeal.
Nonsense. You have got to be a wierd macho, gun psycho to look forward to killing people.
This man, and others like him, know the value of all human life. There job requires them to sometimes do just this, but it isn’t undertaken with relish. Only murderers and nutters look forward to killing people.
How behind the times are you an’all???? You realise our Empire folded about 60 years back right? Its the ‘Commonwealth’ now ok mate?
Nice one. Small stories like this help us piece together the big picture.
“You have got to be a wierd macho, gun psycho to look forward to killing people.”
True, but I never said they should look forward to it. I was lamenting the lack of the proper combat mindset while under hostile fire. That mindset does not include concern about the welfare of those who have ambushed you and are doing their best to kill you and your team. Sadness at having to take human life are common after combat, not during. Having such thoughts during combat will get you and others killed.
“You realise our Empire folded about 60 years back right? Its the ‘Commonwealth’ now ok mate?”
Thanks so much for that newsflash. The empire comment was to contrast the fighting spirit of those who built the empire, with that of the present. I don’t think the soldiers at Roarke’s Drift would be amused.
There’s a slight difference though that I may be out of line for pointing out...people expect that kind of fight from a Welshman!
Apparently there were more English soldiers at Rorke’s Drift than Welsh: See the Wikipedia entry on the film ‘Zulu’:
“The 24th Regiment of Foot is described as a Welsh regiment: in fact, although based in Brecon in south Wales, its designation was the 24th (The 2nd Warwickshire) Regiment of Foot. It did not become the South Wales Borderers until 1881. Of the soldiers present, 49 were English, 32 Welsh (18 of whom were from the county of Monmouthshire - not then classed as a “Welsh” county), 16 Irish and 22 others of indeterminate nationality.
I suspect that the Rorke’s Drift soldiers would be more than happy to exchange beers with these nine men. The facts of the story remain that they held off sustained attacks from 200 Iraqis without air support, inflicting a bloody nose on the militia. I’m no expert, but an acton like that suggests to me that these soldiers had more than a ‘proper’ combat mindset. Facing waves of attackers like this must have been terrifying nad its a credit to these troops that they kept cool and calm and maintained a sense of humour throughout. Remember alo, that this is an account written 3 years after the event. It seems plausible to me that this soldier’s understandable regret (with hindsight) at having to end the lives of others may have influenced his written account of events.
“I’m no expert, but an acton like that suggests to me that these soldiers had more than a ‘proper’ combat mindset.”
We may disagree on the word “proper”, but the proof is in the pudding and they did a damn fine job. There is no argument about that.
“Having such thoughts during combat will get you and others killed.”
Apparently not the case, given that all our guys came out of that encounter.
“Thanks so much for that newsflash. The empire comment was to contrast the fighting spirit of those who built the empire, with that of the present. I don’t think the soldiers at Roarke’s Drift would be amused.”
I dont think you really care, or know about, the mindset of my people during and after the Empire. My suggestion is that this is simply a good chance to keep the Brits on the back foot with talk of ‘you aint as good as you used to be’. Given my heritage, I feel better placed than you to slight my people and give a better judgement as to whether or not the soldiers at Rourkes Drift are amused or otherwise.
You have got to be a wierd and macho bloke in order not to think of these Iraqis as human beings, that is to say, equal human beings. The Sergeant says as much in his afterthoughts, and counters his devils advocate role with the facts that he and his men were soldiers, and it is their job from time to time to end life. It isn’t done with relish, but it isn’t shirked either.
The easiest way for an army to care less about the people they are killing is to bestialise their enemy, to make them less human than themselves and then the moral considerations are greatly reduced. Don’t call me wrong on this last point, ‘cos it isn’t.
“You have got to be a wierd and macho bloke in order not to think of these Iraqis as human beings, that is to say, equal human beings.”
No doubt by today’s standards I am a weird and macho “bloke”. A throwback to a time when Americans (and Brits) won their wars by not being concerned with the enemy’s feelings and political correctness. A time when we knew that you either have decisive victory or none at all.
“My suggestion is that this is simply a good chance to keep the Brits on the back foot with talk of ‘you aint as good as you used to be’.”
You misunderstand me, I love you Brits. My intention is not to insult you, but to warn that humanizing the enemy is the path to defeat and getting your own people killed. The fact that it did not occur in this particular instance is irrelevant.
“The easiest way for an army to care less about the people they are killing is to bestialise their enemy, to make them less human than themselves and then the moral considerations are greatly reduced. Don’t call me wrong on this last point, ‘cos it isn’t.”
I agree completely. Dehumanizing the enemy is a critical part of winning a war, it always has been. The thought of killing a human is repugnant to civilized people (and even to me). If you see your enemy as just another guy with a different point of view, you will not do what is necessary to win (while minimizing the death of civilians wherever possible). Winning involves inflicting so much damage on the enemy that he knows he is defeated, has no chance of victory, and begs you to stop. That’s just the way it is.
I can only sympathise pal. I cant agree.
If we haven’t moved on in the last 50 years in terms of personal/character/human development, then what were the wars fought for? To keep the status quo? If we have moved on, then surely we cant decry our soldiers for showing a little humanity. (Although in this case, many enemy were killed). Rampant nationalism leads way to some very scary areas of politics mate.
As for our soldiers and the potential for them to see the enemy as the same machine as themselves, but with a vastly differing culture and life, I dont think its a problem for our armed forces at least. You will note that our guys and girls in Afghanistan have respect for the fighting prowess of the Taliban, and recognising the reasons why they are fighting UK-led NATO forces in the South. This ‘enlightenment’, if one can call it that, doesn’t however get in the way of the duty that our soldiers know they must carry out. We have the most professional soldiers in the world, precisely because we can understand/empathise with potential enemies, and yet ignore compassion and humanity to do the dirty work when its needed.
You want troops in Iraq and Afghanistan who will shoot first and ask questions later, then ask some third world ‘republic’ for troops. I guarantee our troops, our government, our people, will be more than happy to have them back home.
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