Posted on 11/15/2004 11:14:23 AM PST by cgk
Their captain died in Fallujah firefight
By Tom Lasseter
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE
November 15, 2004
FALLUJAH, Iraq – Army Capt. Sean Sims was up early Saturday, looking at maps of Fallujah and thinking of the day's battle. His fingers, dirty and cracked, traced a route that snaked down the city's southern corridor.
"We've killed a lot of bad guys," he said. "But there's always going to be some guys left. They'll hide out and snipe at us for two months. I hope we've gotten the organized resistance."
Sims, 32, from Eddy, Texas, commanded Alpha Company without raising his voice. His men liked and respected him. When faced with a broken-down vehicle or rocket-propelled grenades exploding outside, he'd shake his head a little and say, in his mellow drawl, "We'll be OK. This'll work out."
When he noticed that one of his soldiers, Arthur Wright, 22, wasn't getting any care packages from home, Sims arranged for his wife, a teacher, to have her students send cards and presents.
Sitting in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle that was pocked by shrapnel from five days of heavy fighting, Sims figured he and his men – of the 1st Infantry Division's Task Force 2-2 – had maybe three or four days left before returning to base.
They were in southwest Fallujah, where pockets of hard-core gunmen were still shooting from houses connected by labyrinths of covered trench lines and low rooftops.
A CNN crew came by, and Sims' men led them around the ruins, showing them the bombed-out buildings and bodies of insurgents that had been gnawed on by neighborhood dogs and cats.
Sims, the father of an infant son, was still trying to get over the death of his company's executive officer, Lt. Edward Iwan, a 28-year-old from Albion, Neb., who'd been shot through the torso the night before with an RPG.
"It's tough. I don't know what to think about it yet," he said slowly, searching for words. "All of this will be forever tainted because we lost him."
Shaking off the thought, he threw on his gear and went looking for houses to clear.
A group of rebels was waiting. The insurgents had been sleeping for days on dirty mats and blankets, eating green peppers and dates from plastic tubs. They spied on soldiers who occupied nearby houses without knowing the enemy was so close, watching and waiting.
When Sims and his men came through the front door, gunfire raged for a few minutes. Two soldiers hit near the shoulder were rushed out by a soldier next to them.
Crouching by a wall outside, Sgt. Randy Laird screamed into his radio, "I cannot move, we're pinned down right now! We have friendlies down! Friendlies down!" The 24-year-old from Lake Charles, La., crouched down on a knee, sweating and waiting for help.
A line of troops ran up, taking cover from the bullets. They shot their way into the house.
Sims lay on a kitchen floor, his blood pouring across dirty tile. An empty teapot sat on nearby concrete stairs.
His men gasped. There was no life in his eyes.
"He's down," Staff Sgt. Thorsten Lamm, 37, said.
The men sprinted to a rubble-strewn house to get a medic.
When the troops rushed back, they lifted Sims' body into a pile of blankets and carried it into the closest Bradley.
Six soldiers and a reporter piled in after, trying not to step on the body.
In Baghdad, Iraqi national security adviser Qassim Daoud had announced that Fallujah was under control.
In the surrounding neighborhood, troops furious at the news of their fallen leader called in revenge, in the form of a 2,000-pound bomb airstrike and a storm of 155-millimeter artillery shells. A mosque lost half a minaret, its main building smoldering in fire and smoke.
In the back of the Bradley with Sims' body, no one spoke.
The only sound was Wright sobbing in the darkness.
Prayers for the fallen.
Operation Military Pride and Soldiers' Angels
If you contact them (they have contact pages, and OMP has a forum where you can sign up and post questions), they will provide you with a name or names of soldiers/sailors you can adopt. If you have any trouble, freepmail me and I can put you in touch with an administrator to adopt soldiers. Thank you for wanting to support our heroes! :)
They are in my prayers. This is what is so hard about war, knowing that the enemy is not worth one hair on the head of a noble American soldier. I refuse to let the leftist media use their death as a tool for their agenda.
They are not fit to print these fine men's names.
I will have to check and see if I have a picture of Captain Sims MEG.
Thank you!
This sad report reminds me of a WW II piece done by Ernie Pyle, up front with the US Army in Italy, in 1943, I think. It was a poignant account about the combat death of a Captain Waskow and the devotion and deep sense of loss of his men, the depth of which is echoed for Captain Sims by his troops in Fallujah. Ernie, of course, was a real war correspondant, a true friend of the grunts on the ground,who reported from the many theatres of WW II, before he was killed by Japanes fire while on assignment with the Marines invading Ie Shima in 1945. These troops will carry on and prevail in Iraq as their ancestors did back then. Look up Ernie Pyle's work, it's American, and it's timeless.
Leading his troops.Thank you for the picture
God be with those who will miss him so.
How sad. He sounds like he was a great guy and a great leader.
It's tragic that those bastards got him.
I wish our people didn't speak at all to the media (save FNC). The CNN crews have lots of Arabs on them. It doesn't seem far fetched to me that some of them might be working with the insurgency.
I think the best bet would be to have no-go areas for the Media. The pro-insurgency media should be targets themselves. I find it just a little odd that Reuters and a couple of other media outfits are always there when the IEDs
go off. I don't trust the media.
Thank all of you for your combined efforts to get a picture of this hero to the thread. It should be on "all of them" ;)
Great sentiment, wrong branch.Ernie Pyle was killed while covering operations of the Army's 77th Division at Ie Shima. .
Thanks. I was doing that post from work and my library is at home. Thought maybe somebody might pick me up on the actual US service component at Ie Shima. While we're clarifying, it was Captain Henry T. Waskow of Belton, Texas of the 36th Didivision USA who had been in command of his company since he and his men had left the States. One of his Sergeants told Pyle, "after my father, he came next". His body had come down the mountain, with other dead soldiers, on the backs of mules. "He always looked after us" another soldier said to Pyle.
There's more, but you should read it yourselves. It's from Pyle's acclaimed book, "BRAVE MEN". Ernie Pyle was buried at Ie Shima and the inscription on his grave marker read, "At this spot the 77th Infantry Division Lost A Buddy. Ernie Pyle.18 April 1945."
Big Digger
"Brave Men" is a classic bit of literature.I have an original first printing and cherish it.
Damn. Right up the road from me, and a stone's throw from Crawford. My heart goes out to his family and to men of Alpha Co. Rest easy, centurion. You're battle is over. God bless and keep you and your family.
Many prayers for family and friends.
Mine, too. Reading what he did for his fellow soldiers in his own company, making sure they got care packages from home, I will be making a contribution in his name to go to his infant child and wife. One good turn deserves another - and I count several on his end :) Amen to your post.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.