After the grenade exploded, I grabbed my weapon and turned around and started looking. I couldn’t find anybody to engage. It seemed like a typical insurgent attack. Fire and run. There was nothing to shoot at, so we went ahead and loaded up in the truck. I again set my rifle down and climbed in. What we did not know was that the grenade was used to try to flush us out and push us into the ambush. They had set up on the Main Supply Route (MSR) about a block down from us. By now the other convoy was coming through the intersection and the lead truck was about a block down.
The insurgents threw hand grenades from the rooftops down onto the other convoy. There were two hand grenades that hit the last truck. These were not regular hand grenades. They were RPK-3 Russian antitank grenades with a shaped charge in the front end of the grenade. The first RPK-3 hit right in front of the Tactical Convoy Commander position and blew a basketball-sized hole in the top of the armored truck. It peeled the steel plate down with the full force of the blast and shrapnel going straight into the TCC’s lap.
The second hand grenade hit right above the right rear tire. When the explosion happened I could see debris flying up into the air. That visually stuck with me as the most vivid damage from that engagement. I could not see the vehicle when it was hit. The building shielded it from our view at the time of the attack. I got on the radio and ordered the convoy to get out into the intersection and help these guys out. Then we pulled out into the intersection. The convoy commander had turned around and come back through the ambush and was sitting at the intersection. He and I did a quick frequency swap so that we could talk from inside the Humvees. He confirmed to us that he did not have contact with his entire convoy. They had lost their fourth truck.
The TCC’s body armor and chest plate basically saved the life of the guy behind him. The explosion had knocked everyone unconscious. The truck went down to the end of the block and veered off down a side street and ran into the side of a building. The radios were dead. No one knew where they were. It was a scary ten minutes for their convoy commander.
I called back to the battalion headquarters at Spiecher to get the Apaches spun up. We needed some air support. The convoy commander went to help find his truck. We held the south part of the ambush site at the intersection. What was coming next? How coordinated was this attack? The minutes eased by, and tension didn’t break.
In the worst of situations, Lord, please bind my heart to yours. Fill me, guide me, lead me, protect me, and fulfill your purposes in and through me.
“When your people go to war against their enemies, wherever you send them, and when they pray to the LORD… then hear from heaven their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause.” (1 Kings 8:44–45)