Samarra, Iraq
‘RED PLATOON,’ CHARLIE Company 2-505 Parachute Infantry Regiment (from the 82nd Airborne Division) rolled out of Patrol Base Olson just after 0200 last Saturday morning accompanied by three Humvees of Iraqi Police commandos. Their destination was a house in south-central Samarra, where, armed with a name, a tribal affiliation (al Nissani), and a description (5’10” 190 lbs with blonde hair and blue eyes) they were to “kill or capture” an al Qaeda member who was the head of an IED-making (and -planting) cell. The column of seven blacked-out vehicles passed through the ‘Green Zone,’ the secure area between PB Olson, which sits in the northwest corner of Samarra, and the three nearby Iraqi Police Battle Positions (known as BPs 3, 4, and 5), and turned west, out into the heart of the city. The drivers carefully navigated through side streets and narrow alleyways, avoiding the dozens of possible IEDs that had been reported by Iraqi tipsters in the last few days.
After slowly and deliberately making our way across the poorly maintained roads to the established dismount point, a group of us got out of the vehicles and prepared to move on foot to the target house. Meanwhile the gun-trucks moved out to establish a cordon around the area. The first order of business was to establish an OP (observation point) consisting of two U.S. paratroopers (members of the 82nd Airborne are referred to as ‘paratroopers’ rather than as ‘soldiers’) and an Iraqi policeman who would keep an eye on operations from the roof of a house that overlooked the objective.
