David's Column

David Hardt serves in Baghdad with his fellow soldiers from Fort Lewis's 3rd Stryker Brigade.

The one thing that can get the men back on their toes and quickly back in the game is a good old-fashioned infantry raid. While back in the rear, I recall training long days and plenty of rainy, cold nights tiresomely trying to become tactically proficient at this drill. Getting ready for a raid is similar to a coach preparing for a game. I remember as a high school coach I would spend long monotonous hours going over specific drills with my team. I would go through every possible scenario that they might come across while in the heat of the game. Doing these drills created time for leaders to step up and the younger players to gain valid knowledge of the ever changing game. Prior to the week’s important game, I would go to great length to gather as much intel as possible on the opponent. I would then create a structured offense as well as defense. I would implement the opponent’s structure into practice and see how the team would adapt. In coaching, the little details in the pre-game planning would definitely make the difference when my team hit the floor. I always knew that my team would show up for a game having been given as much knowledge as I could offer and the empowerment to increase bold confidence to leave everything on the floor, leaving only one thing left — the final outcome.

One of the things I greatly appreciate about Sgt. Lawrence’s leadership qualities is that he makes sure that we all know every inch of possible detail about what we will be facing. Since our squad leader, Staff Sgt. Johnston, has been on leave for two weeks Sgt. Lawrence stepped up and took the reigns. Having only Ray, Sgt. Murrilo and myself in the squad, our team was on the small side, but we could still lay a hurt down if we had to.

Having a small squad would not leave us out of the game on this windy, slightly drizzly night. Sgt. Lawrence gave us the brief as well as other pertinent information for our squad’s task; we then took time to go over the details making sure everyone knew backwards and forwards what we would do. We then gradually moved on to some teaching points, finishing off with a little rehearsal. I have learned through my years of coaching that not all of the stars will always be on line, leaving that little open section I call “situational fate” — or for this certain situation “operational fate.”

As Ray and I prepped our gear, we talked about how great it was going to be to get out there and do something fun. I thought it was humorous that two hours before we were both dead tired and looking forward to some rack time. This event put the pep back in our step. After we got everything together, we made our way to the truck and awaited the word for the fun to start.

The ramp dropped gracefully, and we loaded the truck. Everyone made their way to their assigned seat — well, our favorite seats that is. I like sitting on the bench next to the radio, and Ray likes sitting on the bench across from the radios because there’s more legroom. As we sat in the dark troop compartment, I closed my eyes and started thinking about the raid. Having been given the knowledge of what the squad’s task was, I had time to play the whole scenario game. In reality, you can go over thousands of scenarios and still miss the one that counts.

The truck started, and the radios started blaring with traffic, getting everyone on the right page. The one thing about raids is sometimes the adrenaline doesn’t kick in until you hear the crashing of the ramp hitting pavement. I looked over at Ray and asked him sarcastically, “Hey, Ray, do you have any adrenaline that you can give me? I am, oddly enough, still tired.” He responded in deadpan humor, “I need a big needle of that.” I concurred. When making your way to a raid, it seems from my experience the drive always seems longer, and this one definitely did. While en route not a single word was spoken. It felt like I was at a local library. I bet if we all could hear our inner dialogue out loud it would be very interesting how each person deals with uncertainty and, possibly, his own mortality.


Sgt. Lawrence bent down in the hatch and gave us the timeline for arrival. “Three minutes until drop — remember the plan. Don’t jack it up.” We all gave a solid and convincing “roger, Sergeant.” At that time the truck seemed to become a little restless, not in an alarming way or hinting at nervousness, rather like football players in a tunnel ready to come flying out right after the coach gives his final kick-ass speech.

The ramp dropped; oddly enough, it did not even make a sound for once. I found out later that the driver, Spc. Turnage, accidentally stopped short on the drop ramp switch, leaving the ramp hovering a couple of inches from the ground. I thought it was stealthy to say the least. We all made our way to the wall and instantly went into infantry swat team mode, locking down all areas. As I scanned, I noticed that not a soul in the immediate area had come out to see what was going on. Speed, stealth and surprise are always good things to encompass while on operation. As we waited, kneeling patiently on the wall, the preparation for breach was being put in place. After the successful setting of charge, Sgt. Lawrence gave us the word that the people in the house were awake but unaware of our position, making it a perfect situation.

Five … four … three … two … BOOM … BOOM. The explosions echoed off the houses, making them seem closer than they were. As I knelt second in line, I somehow lost my footing on the edge of the street. Sgt. Murrilo caught me just before I ended up on my butt. Just as I gained my balance, the last explosions rocked the earth. Sgt. Lawrence gave the word, “Go, go, go.” We made our way into the courtyard, weapons up and scanning everywhere. I locked down the door. Sgt. Lawrence gave the second command for the breach of the front door of the house. The door went flying open. I came in second, right after Cpl. Bruinsuma. We started quietly, identifying certain important aspects of the house.

The thing that you are guaranteed to come across is crying women and scared little children. I would be a little nerved if a dude came running up in my house; I think my response would be to defend my family. The next task was to hurry upstairs just in case we had people jumping rough. Luckily, the door happened to be locked from the outside. Sgt. Lawrence went right to work as well as Sgt. Murrilo. Ray and I locked down the three other rooms while they conducted an internal breach method.
Sgt. Lawrence walked way from the door with a smirk on his face. He then turned around and yelled downstairs, “internal breach.” We all stepped in the room to the right of the door and awaited the explosion. Booommmmmmmm. The room filled with dust; parts of the roof came falling down on Ray and me. I looked at Ray with a childlike smile on my face and said, “Holy shit that was awesome.” We all ran across the room to the door looking to knock it down. The door held up against the explosion.
“I can’t believe this shit,” Sgt. Lawrence said out of frustration. He slung his shotgun around and let loose. Bang, bang. The door finally came down. Cpl. Bruinsuma and I went shuffling out the door, making our way to the roof. After realizing that the second roof was clear, we made our way up the stairs to the first floor and came across an older man attempting to jump. Cpl. Bruinsuma grabbed the guy just before he jumped. I went to the right side of the roof and came up empty. I turned around and was just about to help Cpl. Bruinsuma when for some odd reason I turned around and made my way to the farthest part of the roof. I looked down and noticed that there was not that much distance from one roof to the other, so I jumped across. I quietly walked on the roof just in case there was a chance in hell someone was hiding so they would not see me coming. I turned around, and as I was making my way back to the wall, I stopped and looked at a chicken coop that was in the deep right corner of the roof. I made my way over to it thinking, “Who the hell would hide in the chicken coop?” I turned my tactical light on, and there hiding amongst the birds was a man wearing blue pants and a nice shirt huddled in the corner. I think he almost shit himself when I pointed the light at him. He muttered, “Sorry, sir, sorry, not mean.” I laughed out loud getting Cpl. Bruinsuma’s attention.
“Check this shit out. We have this toolshed being a chicken with the chickens.” Cpl. Bruinsuma responded, “Figures he would hide there.”
I pulled the guy out of the chicken coop, and the birds went everywhere. The guy even had bird shit on his shirt. I cuffed him and took him downstairs.

We gathered up all of the ones who were on our list and made way to the trucks. After we handed them over, the squad formed up on the storefront wall. We all looked over at the detainees sitting on the curve; it was nice to have come up with something this time. Sgt. Lawrence came up to us and gave us the lowdown on what was going on. He had the look like bad news was coming, so I held my breath. “OK, who wants to volunteer to guard the detainees?” Ray and I looked at each other. Neither of us wanted any part of that. I wasn’t feeling too hot being sick and all, so I quickly spoke up. “I will watch the detainees.” We walked over to the truck, and just then it started to rain. Therefore, I found myself after a great raid sitting in the back of the Stryker with 12 detainees who had either shit their pants or were throwing up their last dinner everywhere.

The rest of the raid went on without any problems. I am glad that I had a chance to get in on the first part. I felt like we had really gotten the job done. Not every day do we get to have some fun taking down the bad guys, so I will store this moment so that when things get boring we can tell stories of the windy, rainy night in Baghdad when we hustled up some bad guys for the cause.

Comments

[Ruth]

You sure kept me on pins and needles reading this story. This is very dangerous duty. A few less bad guys running loose. Stay safe and thank you for serving your country.

[charles kean c/o Stryker Newsletter]

Glad your raid was successful, David. May they all be and may you and all the guys in the 3rd Stryker Brigade return to your families safe.

[Sharon Williams]

I look for you articles everyday. Thank you so much for the news. My son is in your unit and I love to read about him, it makes me fell better then watching the news. You guys stay safe and come home real soon.

[jenniewilliams]

The picture of spc simco was really
nice. You should take more if him
I am his friend on my space
ha simco

[David B Hardt *(The Writer)]

Hello ranger and blog readers. I am writing
you all to inform you that my computer crashed and is no longer useable. I am currently on my friends writing this. I will do my best to get the stories out as well as pictures, I cant promise anything.
Pray for the computer gods to fix it.
Anyways all is well here.