M1117 Guardian Armored Security Vehicle (ASV) ASV-150
Posted on 05/18/2004 6:02:24 AM PDT by 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.
Sounds like my kind of soldier!
I'd have given my right hadn to have a couple guys like him in my old unit whiel I was in.
Now I'm wishing we had several thousand like him, everywhere.
Cool!
Thanks!
'Cause John Kerry said "no." That was his final answer.
By the way,in an earlier post,I misspelled populace, I stood corrected. .Other than that, I stand by my post. Good article, though the snarky anti-Bush,anti-Army swipe was easily noted,too. Well, this young warrior did a great job.
They are a light infantry unit. They only have a few light vehicles per company. The vehicles they are using in Iraq are probably surplus vehicles drawn from a maintenace depot.
Any "mosque flying the fedayeen flag" should be a bomb magnet.
You have to ask yourself...
Does the nation still deserve men such as these?
Semper Fi
When we no longer do, we won't have a country for much longer.
ping
8years of a Clown for A President and John Kerry voting for the 87 million before he voted against it and you gotta ask that question ?
Thanks for the ping!
One thing is damn clear, HE deserves a better country.
What an asinine comment! WE know we're at war, and we know what's at stake!
That's my point, The logistics should have already been done.
Our senator (J RHINO Warner) is too focused on the MIL/INDUS
incest of Contractor$ on new hardware.
The PCs would in any case be better than riding around in the back of a 5 Ton or a Humvee RPG target.
I am sure you are correct about that.
Anti-RINO Richmond ping!
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