Posted on 07/06/2003 7:26:17 PM PDT by BenLurkin
ALTERNATE SUPPLY ROUTE IRON HORSE, Kuwait - This sergeant could cuss a blue streak. You'd think he had Tourette's but everyone knew he was too wily a gambler and too tough an old campaigner to be so disabled. Sgt. William "Bill" Anderson elevated cussing to an art.
On this particular evening, the subject of the sergeant's fury was a young lieutenant. I called the lieutenant Captain Ahab with freckles because a number of times in previous days it felt as if same lieutenant was determined to lure us to our doom out in the wilds of the Saudi desert.
There were no white whales, but we'd lived through a couple of days of sandstorms that would be classed as "whiteouts" if they were snow storms. Meanwhile, we found the lieutenant's lost combat bridges and brought them back from the Iraqi wasteland.
Somewhere along the last 50 miles of our convoy, the lieutenant led our column of trucks off the beautiful blacktop of the Kuwaiti super highway leading to home base at Camp Victory. Lt. Mike O'Hare of 54th Combat Engineers took our ill-numbered convoy of 13 vehicles onto a dog of a road called "Alternate Supply Route Iron Horse" on somebody's map.
Soldiers from the Antelope Valley unit of the National Guard and all their Guard buddies believed they were nearly home free once they got out of the soft sand of the Saudi Arabian border and hit the beautiful blacktop leading the last few dozen miles to home base.
But a few miles on the chewed-up back road that had been sold to the lieutenant as a "shortcut" finally tore off the wheels of a 45-ton truck that had been threatening breakdown since we passed the T-55 tanks that 3rd Infantry Division destroyed on their way in.
The convoy halted to help Sgt. Richard Mosley and his team driver, Spc. Tracey Ford, get their vehicle back under way. Spc. Peter Mavropoulos, Spc. Anthony Collins, Sgt. Doug Duhaime, Sgt. Jose Coby and Staff Sgt. Dave Hillyer, were the heroes of the night.
The troops, exhausted from 1,400 miles of bad and scary road in wartorn Iraq were in a foul mood. They were something like the crew of the Pequod when they understood Ahab was not interested in the same things they were - like getting home in one piece.
So Sgt. Anderson (no relation) swore a blue streak. You could say he swore like a sailor, but sailors would have been shocked. He made up variations of acts that would probably turn the Supreme Court around on dumping the sodomy laws. He was awesome. Epic.
"What I want to know, Mr. Anderson, is how you're gonna gloss this over, the way the media always does.... x#*&!!!####&! "
Sgt. Anderson was talking to me - the other Anderson - the ##!!!%* reporter. On the road, on the seventh night of mission, where we were tired and worn as can be, Sgt. Anderson and I shared a strange bond. Since he served with the Lancaster unit of the Guard, 756th Transport, we were Antelope Valley "homies." Due to our towering stature and our Greek statuary physique, we were sometimes confused, which I'm sure flattered Sgt. Anderson as much as it did me.
How was "the media," meaning me, going to gloss over our agony, protracted because the lieutenant fell into that most dangerous of categories along with land mines and snipers - a green lieutenant with a map? Would the "media" find a way to gloss it over?
The next morning, I asked the lieutenant about that last 50 miles of bad road. He shook his head.
"Yeah, I made a bad call," Lt. Michael O'Hare said. "I shouldn't have listened to those guys on the border. I didn't realize how chewed up that road was."
That's about all anyone can do. Own your mistakes. He didn't say he was sorry, because officers - including a recently baptized combat vet - can't go around apologizing for what they believed was their best move at the time.
The lieutenant promised the Guard soldiers some ceremonial "match" coins to honor their outstanding mission performance. I hope they got their coins. They sure earned them out on "Alternate Supply Route Iron Horse."
Keep it comin, Pal!
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