US Sentry Saves Troops By Killing Suicide Bomber

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 12-10-2003 | Jack Fairweather

[blam]

US sentry saves troops by killing suicide bomber

By Jack Fairweather
(Filed: 10/12/2003)

Sixty soldiers were hurt in Iraq attacks yesterday. One man halted a bloodbath, reports Jack Fairweather in Talaafar

Hundreds of American soldiers owe their lives to the prompt action of a 23-year-old sentry.

In the faint pre-dawn light Specialist James Ross saw a car, its headlights on, accelerate towards his guard tower at the entrance of the Talaafar military base, near Mosul.

The vehicle had already cleared the first line of defence, barrelling over a coil of barbed wire 80 yards away and was heading straight down a corridor of crash barriers.

"I knew it wasn't one of our guys - it was either me or him," said Spc Ross, who began firing his machine-gun in a last-ditch attempt to stop the car entering the compound, where 300 soldiers were just waking.

Spc Ross, from Kentucky, fired almost 100 rounds before the car, pitted with bullet-holes, came to a stop. A second later, the vehicle blew up.

"I saw a blinding white light before I was thrown back inside the guard tower," he said. "After that everything was obscured by dust."

The force of the 1,000lb bomb threw a 10-ton concrete block against a school opposite the base and flattened 40 yards of protective wall.

Parts of the ceiling in the military base caved in and windows were blown out in a mile radius from the blast side. A nine-ft crater left by the suicide bomber was only 15 yards away from Spc Ross's guard tower and the base entrance.

The attack should have been devastating. But thanks to Spc Ross's timely shooting, and the compound's recently strengthened defensive wall, only five of the 54 soldiers wounded had serious injuries.

"I've had a lot of people come up to me today to thank me for saving their lives," said Spc Ross. "But I tell them I was doing my job. It's a miracle no one was killed."

Work had already begun yesterday evening on rebuilding damaged sections of the defensive wall and the crater had been filled in preparation for another possible attack.

Lt-Col Christopher Pease, battalion commander, said: "We've taken the worst the terrorists can throw at us but we don't know what they could do next."

Commanders at the base believe they were carefully selected for the suicide attack - the first of its kind on a US base - while defences at the base were being rebuilt over the past week.

"Thank God we finished in time," said Lt-Col Pease.

The attack ended an apparent trend in recent weeks by terrorists to attack "soft targets".

A tightening of security at US army and government facilities in Iraq was thought to have left insurgents searching more widely afield in their efforts to disrupt the reconstruction process.

Ten days ago, 12 foreign contractors and diplomats were ambushed in separate roadside incidents. Last month 27 Italian military police were killed when a suicide bomber struck their poorly defended headquarters in the southern city of Nasiriyah.

But yesterday's full-frontal assault on an American base will leave commanders in little doubt that the US military presence remains the insurgents' top target.

The attack will also raise questions as to why the security situation in northern Iraq has deteriorated so dramatically in recent months. The area was once seen as a model of reconstruction compared with Baghdad and the troubled Sunni triangle.

Gen David Patreas, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, famously posted a list in the centre of the district capital, Mosul, of the things the US military had done to help the Iraqis.

In the Talaafar district alone, more than $3 million (£1.7 million) has been spent in the past eight months, on schools, clinics and police stations. But since October, attacks on coalition troops in the area have increased from a few a month to almost daily.

"We've done a whole lot of projects to help the people but we haven't eliminated the Ba'ath Party," said Lt-Col Pease. "They're the guys who are attacking us now."

As one officer said yesterday outside a shrapnel-scarred office: "We just painted the building four days ago. Now we're going to have to start all over again."

Leaders of Saddam's regime are to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity after Iraq's interim government voted last night to establish a tribunal. It will be established today when Paul Bremer, the US administrator, will temporarily cede legislative authority to the Iraqi governing council. Former leaders from among the "deck of cards" who are in US custody may be the first to face trial. - AP

[Lurker]

I wish we'd had you in 83 Spc. Ross.

Semper Fi....

L

[Frank_2001]

A stripe and a medal. What a hero!!!

[Smokin' Joe]

With a SAW or M-60, he should have plugged the guy with one short burst.

He might have, but he kept shooting until the car stopped. I'd say that under the circumstances, this was the correct response.

[Brimack34]

"But I tell them I was doing my job!!!! ""How refreshing""
These kind of deeds are what true hero's are made of.

[Criminal Number 18F]

A bunch of comments here:

1. Hat's off to Ross, I reckon he's good for a BSM/V anyway.
2. All you guys bagging on his shooting, 100 rounds goes through an M240 or M249 (7.62 and 5.56mm MGs) in under twelve seconds. That's after he "made" the vehicle as a threat and brought his weapon to bear. I say well done.
3. The M60 was probably not in play. There are still some around (i.e. flexible guns in choppers, 3rd string support units, etc.), but the weapon has been replaced by the M240 which is the FN-MAG slightly Americanized and built here. That is, as anyone who had experience with both weapons knows, a wonderful thing.
4. Gotta be a drag to be that Iraqi right about now. You find out that:
   1. you didn't kill anybody
   2. you've got no virgins coming
   3. look around: this ain't heaven, it's altogether too warm entirely; and, shock of shocks:
   4. Allah ain't God. Oh yeah, and...
   5. You're still dead.
   Yep. Sucks to be him.
5. Best thing: the American officer, whose reaction was (I paraphrase): "Oh brother. We gotta paint this all over again."

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[Only1choice____Freedom]

Let's hope he is not charged with use of excessive force that is barred by the Geneva Convention, uh, the UN, uh, the EU.

He won't be charged, the bomber destroyed the evidence!

[nutmeg]

God bless American Hero Specialist James Ross.

[nutmeg]

ping!

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.

[Holly_P]

I've nothing to add to what's been said but I gotta say it too - He's a hero.

[MEG33]

You said it so well,I'll just say Amen!A lot of families still have their loved one because of his doing his job.

[cyborg]

score one for our boys!!!!

[archy]

I haven't heard that there are ANY '60s that are still issued.

There've been a few turn up in news photos, in the hands of Reserve or NG troops called up for deployments to Iraq. Whether they'd be better served by a new M240 rather than the old pig with which they've got considerable familiarity is a toss-up, but I bet that if they really needed M240s to replace crapped-out M60s, they could come up with them. And prior to an overseas deployment, they should get first pick of what's available to them stateside.

Off a vehicle mount with a truck or track carrying my ammo for me, I like the M240/MAG better. But if afoot or off the bipod with no tripod, the M60 is a couple of pounds lighter, and runs a little slower. I wouldn't feel badly equipped with an M60 at all, so long as it's a good one.

[Criminal Number 18F]

If the French had resisted the Nazi occupation as much as Iraq resists American liberation, half Adolph's army would have been tied down in France.

A good line (bon mot?) but in 1944 the Resistance drove the 2nd SS Pz Div absolutely ape. Finally the Nazis overcame resistance, but with methods we'd not use.

Remember, Iraq isn't resisting. Some people are -- people who had it a lot better in the status quo ante, and they're furious. But they're weak. Suicide bombing is not only a technique of fanatics, it's a technique of those who are so weak as to be militarily irrelevant -- it's the 2-year-old's tantrum of warfare. Incidents like this especially... the "great martyr" accomplished nothing but making himself a dead laughingstock. If we publicize that, the next "martyr" may decide to open a video shop instead.

This story by Tara Copp of Scripps-Howard has probably been put on FR somewhere, but it's a side of the Iraq war the Times and the Post don't see. With people like the ones in this article (one of whom worked with me in another theater, earlier in the war) who make it better for good Iraqis, and people like Ross, who make things unsat for bad Iraqis, things are looking up.

By the way, I didn't get invited to the White House iftar dinner that closed Ramadan, and damned if I don't recall the big al-Qaeda attack in the USA that was supposed to happen during that month, either.

The best the Iraqi (and Islamist, because he might not have been Iraqi) enemy can put forward is the guy who's now a DNA sample playing hard-to-get somewhere in that crater. The best we can put forward is just plain better. There it is.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[HardStarboard]

>>>It seems to me a court-martial is in order. After all, he failed to read the suicide bomber his rights before inconveniencing him. <<<

Thats what they are doing to Lt Col West who merely fired a 9mm pistol near a captives head to get him to tell of a planned ambush of his troops.

Spc Ross and Lt Col West are both American heroes!

[Liberal Classic]

I don't know about one short burst. Poor light, a moving target, and the threat of a car bomb? The cyclic rate of fire of the M60 is 500 rounds per minute, and I recall the M240 to be higher than that. A 100 rounds could have been downrange in what, 15 seconds?

[archy]

I'm not sure there would have been enough time to fire 100 rounds from an M2 and a SAW would be a little weak for perimeter defense...maybe a 7.62x51 M240...archy will know for sure...

That's between 10-15 seconds for a solid, continuous full-belt, rock and roll, machineguns a-go-go hold the triger down and hose 'em spray. If he chewed the vehicle up enough to stop or slow it, then finished it off with neat 5 or 6 shot bursts, then I'm really impressed. But either way, he got the job done, and he done good.

As a tank gunner, I was taught that 8 rounds of .50 will disable a softskinned vehicle more than 90% of the time, while it takes 12 rounds or so of 7,62 NATO. This presumes the rounds will get the driver, multiple tires, the ignition system or carburation/fuel injection lines- a hit on a radiator isn't quite good enough.

Indeed, the sharp move would have been to give the driver or steering tires a short *anchor* or *parking brake* burst to ensure the vehicle would remain a target for a few seconds, then hose it down good. Or it may well be that he had the opportunity for a single, continuous 100-round burst, which would get a rookie infantry gunner in trouble with the instructors on an MG range, but might have been just the medicine called for in this particular instance.

In any event, Specialist Ross was just the right guy at the right time. Now if they'd give him an afternoon's time of a range familiarization firing with the M67 90mm or 84mm Carl Gustav recoilless rifles, we'd be right in business. And one shot kills are SO much more sporting.

I really hope Spec4 Ross stopped the vehicle with his first dozen or two shots, as I suspect, and then used the rest of his belt to make certain with nice well-controlled bursts. Belted 7,62 MG ammo routinely comes in cans of three hundred, with three 100-round belts to the can, loaded with 1-in-5 tracer.

Appears to have done just fine. Somebody give that troop a beer on archy.

-archy-/-

[archy]

I've nothing to add to what's been said but I gotta say it too - He's a hero.

Nope. There's a considerable difference in doing your job in a particularly effective or meritorious fashion, as opposed to performing an act of valourous conduct, often when the situation has deteriorated beyond the standards to which a professional soldier would ever care to see them sink.

He did his job, but I hope at as minimal a risk to himself and his pals as was possible, especially when truck and driver parts started flying. And that also sets a professional standard much better for others to follow, far better than self-sacrificing acts, which while noble, are often ineffectual, though no less inspiring.

Another stripe for that young troop would be a fine touch, though it'd be a shame to lose his skills and talents as a gunner. But I've known more than one E-5 sergeant who hauled an M60 around, and very much knew what to do with it. I suspect the tool used here was an M240, but it could have been an M249 SAW- explaining why it took a hundred-round belt to kill a truck- or a .50. No matter. It worked.

So the word for Spec4 Ross for what he pulled off is not *hero,* though like that word, misapplied to everything from ball players to guitar pickers, a return to the original definition is called for. Specialist Ross is a Champion.

-archy-/-

[Holly_P]

Allow me to rephrase my statement then. He's my hero.

[Feiny]

That is an amazing story. I look forward to this leading the news tomorrow.

[archy]

Allow me to rephrase my statement then. He's my hero.

You'll get no disagreement from me about his being fully deserving of that high honour. He earned every bit of it.

-archy-/-