A gutsy G.I. rescues sitting-duck platoon

The New York Daily News ^ | 5/16/04 | Michael Daly

[Gothmog]

From the same New York Army National Guard unit that picked up escaped hostage Thomas Hamill comes word of a young soldier who killed 20 or more Iraqi insurgents when his patrol was ambushed on Easter Sunday. Spec. Timmy Haag of South Glens Falls, N.Y., made his remarkable display of courage and cool under fire as C Company, 2nd Battalion of the 108th Light Infantry was conducting a sweep of southern Samarra in open 5-ton trucks. The vehicles are so slow and high-riding that it borders on the criminal to transport soldiers on them into a known hot spot bristling with rocket-propelled grenades.

Troops nicknamed the trucks "RPG magnets," Staff Sgt. Troy Mechanick said on Friday.

The nickname proved tragically apt when the truck carrying Haag and 13 other members of his platoon was roughly 100 yards past a mosque flying the fedayeen flag. An RPG slammed into the left side, killing 21-year-old Pfc. Nathan Brown of South Glens Falls.

Many more might have died had Brown not taken the brunt of the blast. Two others were seriously wounded, including Mechanick, who was lifted to his feet by the concussion.

"It turned everything yellow and green, then everything goes slow," Mechanick recalled.

The grenade was followed by automatic weapons fire, and Mechanick tried to reach for his M-4 rifle. His left hand did not go where he commanded it and he realized his arm was hanging limp at his side, broken in four places. He reached with his right hand and saw the middle finger was dangling, all but severed.

"I said to myself, 'I don't need that to shoot,'" Mechanick recalled.

He managed to undo the safety and raise his rifle, but the weapon failed to fire.

"It was full of shrapnel," Mechanick said.

Mechanick turned to a wounded soldier and asked to use his weapon.

"His response was I'm crazy," Mechanick recalled. "My response was, 'No, I want to live.' ... Somebody called out, 'Nate's dead.' I called out, 'We've got to keep security up, or we'll all be dead.'"

Haag had begun returning fire with his SAW machine gun from the first moments after the blast.

"First thing he did was stand up on the driver's side," Mechanick recalled. "He saw a couple of enemy soldiers. He suppressed them, killing two or three immediately."

Haag turned to the passenger side and suppressed the fire coming from that direction. He and fellow soldier James MacDonald then clambered down and fought their way down the line of vehicles to notify their commander their truck had been hit.

"Small arms fire, AK-47 and RPG," Mechanick recalled "Haag's just running though it and as he's running he's shooting, killing people."

Haag and MacDonald passed four alleys, each of which had between six and 15 enemies armed with automatic weapons and RPGs. Haag is said to have shot them all.

"Timmy Haag was phenomenal," Mechanick said. "When the firefight happened, Timmy Haag was the man."

Haag and MacDonald dashed back to their truck. Haag emptied the last 200-round drum of his squad automatic weapon and clambered into a truck so high-riding the unit had welded on a ladder in the back. An RPG skipped off the road where he had been standing.

Haag grabbed another weapon as the line of a half-dozen vehicles began lumbering toward the nearest American outpost. Haag called out that he would cover the right side while another soldier covered the left.

Mechanick had numerous other wounds and he was pale and short of breath from the loss of blood. Haag kept calling to him and nudging him with his boot as he fired.

"He knew I was going to sleep, and if you go to sleep you don't ever wake up," Mechanick said. "He's shooting at the enemy, kicking me, shooting at the enemy, kicking me: 'Sgt. Mechanick, don't you go to sleep.' Shoot a couple of rounds. Kick me. 'Sgt. Mechanick, don't you go to sleep.'"

Two roadside bombs went off close enough to lift the truck off the ground. Haag spotted an Iraqi fleeing a courtyard, detonator still in hand. Haag cut the bomber in half and kept firing, by one estimate 1,500 rounds in all.

Mechanick clung to consciousness as the patrol reached the outpost, and he was flown out by helicopter. He was later told that Haag stayed on the truck with Brown, covering the body with a poncho and keeping a kind of honor guard.

Haag saw that Brown's American flag shoulder patch had been blown off. Haag retrieved it, cleaned it as best he could and handed it to Staff Sgt. Patrick Abrams.

Finally, Haag and Abrams gently lowered the fallen soldier from a vehicle that never should have been used to send them into harm's way. Mechanick later described Brown as "the perfect kid" and recalled that the Army promised when they headed for Iraq in February that they would be given armored vehicles.

"They lied to us," Mechanick said.

No armor guarantees protection, but even unarmored Humvees would have at least been low to the ground and fast. One detail did not escape Mechanick's attention as he lay at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, watching news reports of his company's May 2 encounter with Thomas Hamill.

"What was in the background? Five-tons," Mechanick said.

Mechanick is now back home, trying to adjust to a country that imagines itself not at war and hoping we will learn something from Brown's death. Haag is still in that place called The Sandbox, riding RPG magnets, known to be extraordinarily bright and a talented artist as well as a soldier whose courage would be called uncommon had he not so many brave comrades.

[Conspiracy Guy]

It is being done. Armoured Humvees are rolling of the lines in increasing numbers. It takes time and money and a fight for both. We shouldn't have found ourselves in a catch up mode but that is what we were left by the Globalists.

[Rebelbase]

So, light infantry is being asked to perform a job they were not trained to perform using vehicles that where not designed for the task?

[steplock]

"Why do our guys not have the proper vehicles?"

Either you forgot the < sarcasm > tag or you have now been officially brainwashed like so many others on here.

[LoneConservative]

HOO-RAH! Haag deserves a medal- Maybe a Silver Star? J F'in Kerry could donate his. Oh Wait, he threw it away...

I read an article about the Marine LT who did almost the same thing- Ambushed, he charged forward. These two men have
B!@#lls the size of church bells- We should be proud of them!

LC

[bray]

Timmy Haag is a STUD!!!

Pray for W and Our Brave Troops

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Thanks for the ping Gothmog. It is great to read this. Ping to Ragtime Cowgirl for positive coverage of our heroes.

[antiRepublicrat]

So, light infantry is being asked to perform a job they were not trained to perform using vehicles that where not designed for the task?

Yet somehow these great soldiers still manage to kick ass.

Convoy getting waxed, truck hit by RPG, charged the enemy in the face of AKs and RPGs, killed 20, kept a fellow soldier alive while still fighting, saved who knows how many more American lives with his actions -- is a Silver Star enough? Is this up the the level of a Medal of Honor? He has the prerequisite witnesses.

[oyez]

Why do our guys not have the proper vehicles?

You can bet it has something to do with the Clinton defense cuts.

[dead]

Great job Timmy Haag! A great hero.

The reporter is a dumbass though. What in God’s name is this dopey quote supposed to mean?

Mechanick is now back home, trying to adjust to a country that imagines itself not at war

Gee, we’re all too stupid. Hopefully, super-smart reporters like Michael Daly will someday be able to pound the fact that we are at war into our collectively dense skulls.

Go eff yourself, Michael.

[drq]

Good work soldiers!

[Phosgood]

"Bradleys don't grow on trees and you just can't run down to the Bradley sales store"

I was at the DLA depot west of Texarkanna recently and there were 300-500 Armored Personnel Carriers sitting in a field since the Gulf war.
There are many under employed employees in the area that could have been working on readying these units for the types of combat we have been experiencing for the last decade.

[Ancesthntr]

I agree, if anyone deserves the CMH it is Timmy Haag. He's the Sgt. York of this war (at least the only reported one - there may well be many more), single-handedly saving his unit and inflicting huge casualties on the enemy.

Compare and contrast with the horse-faced Ketchup Boy.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Thanks, Diva.

  

Thursday May 13, 12:13 AM

The family of Army Pfc. Nathan Brown, from left, brother Christopher L. Brown, mother Kathy Brown, and father Ricky L. Brown walk into St. Alphonsus Roman Catholic Church in Glens Falls, N.Y., for the soldier's funeral service on Tuesday, April 20, 2004. Brown was killed April 11, 2004, in Samarra, Iraq., when a rocket-propelled grenade, or RPG, struck their diesel truck. Fellow serviceman Troy Mechanick, wounded in the same attack, said that traveling in a slow-moving five-ton diesel truck on April 11 was ``a bad tactical decision'' in light of prior intelligence reports in the Samarra area. (AP Photo/Jim McKnight)

---

 Pfc.Nathan Brown

Nathan Brown wanted to become a lawyer and was preparing to enroll in Adirondack Community College in January when his Army National Guard unit was deployed to Iraq.

The 21-year-old had joined the guard shortly after graduating from high school in South Glens Falls, about 45 miles north of Albany, N.Y.    -

 

.......a soldier who killed 20 or more Iraqi insurgents when his patrol was ambushed on Easter Sunday. Spec. Timmy Haag of South Glens Falls, N.Y., made his remarkable display of courage and cool under fire as C Company, 2nd Battalion of the 108th Light Infantry was conducting a sweep of southern Samarra in open 5-ton trucks. The vehicles are so slow and high-riding that it borders on the criminal to transport soldiers on them into a known hot spot bristling with rocket-propelled grenades.

 

---------------------------------------

 

   Spec. Timmy Haag, courage under fire....hero.

 

 

 

God protect him from enemies - both foreign and domestic.

 

[RightOnline]

"He suppressed them, killing two or three immediately."

Now that is my kind of "suppression".

[RightOnline]

Ping.

[blackie]

We are winning ~ the bad guys are losing ~ trolls, terrorists, democrats and the mainstream media are sad ~ very sad!

~~ Bush/Cheney 2004 ~~

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Godspeed Pfc. Nathan Brown,and may God comfort your family.

[Alamo-Girl]

Bump!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Great story of hero's under fire, thanks for the ping!

[AxelPaulsenJr]

Great and Inspiring story. Reading this ought to make john fairy feel like taking his own life. If he is man enough.