bobdina
08-20-2010, 01:14 PM
'They started swarming like bees'
Capt. Jason Conroy | Baghdad, Iraq | April 5, 2003
By Ashley Rowland
Stars and Stripes
Maj. Jason Conroy remembers four soldiers standing on top of a tank in Baghdad, the sky behind them black with smoke as rocket-propelled grenades whizzed past their heads and bullets skipped off the pavement onto the sides of their wounded tank.
The four men worked furiously to put out a fire on the back of their vehicle, even pouring a five-gallon jug of water on it in a last-ditch effort to save the tank rather than leave it behind for the Iraqis.
As they worked, 14 tanks and 80 soldiers formed a perimeter around the tank in a highway intersection, defending its crew from the Iraqi troops assaulting from all sides and from an overpass above.
Among them was Conroy, then a 31-year-old captain leading a company of soldiers into downtown Baghdad during the U.S. push into the city on April 5, 2003. When Conroy learned a day earlier that his company would be entering the city, he thought it was a joke. Send an armored battalion into the heart of downtown Baghdad?
“You have to think, at that time, no one had been to Baghdad yet,” he said. “We weren’t sure what was going on. We weren’t sure yet what to expect.”
The company had spent the past few weeks fighting their way north through Najaf, Karbala and Mahmudiyah, after spending months in Kuwait in anticipation of the invasion. They knew they would probably be sent into Baghdad but didn’t expect the assault to come so soon — or to be the first ones to go in.
The Iraqi military wasn’t expecting them so soon, either. As the convoy traveled on Highway 8 toward the heart of the city, Conroy saw Iraqis scrambling into position, even rushing in troops in cars and buses, to prepare for an assault on the Americans.
Despite the surprise element of the attack, Conroy and his company ran into enemy fire almost immediately after leaving Mahmudiyah around 5 a.m. And as the tail element of a three-company force pushing into Baghdad, they caught the brunt of the counterattack from the Iraqis, he said.
“We were sort of the reserve punch,” said Conroy, now stationed at Camp Red Cloud in South Korea.
About 30 minutes into the trip, the tank was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired from an apartment complex along the highway. The tank’s fuel cell was hit, and fire broke out.
The Iraqis wasted no time in attacking the halted convoy.
“They started swarming like bees,” said Conroy, who directed the firefight as he blocked a highway offramp to prevent Iraqis from entering the perimeter. Suicide drivers tried to ram into the convoy, and Iraqis held AK-47s out of their car windows and shot at them.
His main worry was the safety of the four soldiers trying to save their tank.
“We were taking a lot of fire at the time,” he said. “They were up there and exposed.”
The crew struggled to put out the flames, and at one point thought they had succeeded. But when they hitched their tank to another one to get towed, the fire flared up again. After another 30 minutes, the unit finally abandoned it.
“It was a matter of pride,” Conroy said of their efforts to save it. “The crew didn’t want to lose their tank.”
The rest of the “Thunder Run,” as the company called their mission, was “like going through a car wash of [enemy] fire,” Conroy said.
Two of his men were seriously wounded but both survived.
The company reached its destination, the Baghdad airport, about two hours after it started.
Conroy was awarded the Silver Star for rallying the company during the attack and for his “composure under pressure” that day and throughout the company’s nearly monthlong push into Iraq, according to the award citation.
He also received a Bronze Star for his overall leadership during the invasion.
But he downplays his achievements, and said his soldiers deserve attention for their efforts that day in Baghdad and during the rest of the invasion.
“Some guys had just gotten out of high school, and these guys were going out there, putting their lives on the line, saving civilians on the battlefield,” he said. “To me, they were just heroic actions.”
One of Conroy’s proudest moments came a few days after the Thunder Run, as his company helped take the rest of downtown Baghdad, including Zawra Park and the famous arches where Saddam Hussein had reviewed his troops.
“It was a historic moment,” he said. “There was a lot of pride for the soldiers.”
rowlanda@pstripes.osd.mil
Capt. Jason Conroy | Baghdad, Iraq | April 5, 2003
By Ashley Rowland
Stars and Stripes
Maj. Jason Conroy remembers four soldiers standing on top of a tank in Baghdad, the sky behind them black with smoke as rocket-propelled grenades whizzed past their heads and bullets skipped off the pavement onto the sides of their wounded tank.
The four men worked furiously to put out a fire on the back of their vehicle, even pouring a five-gallon jug of water on it in a last-ditch effort to save the tank rather than leave it behind for the Iraqis.
As they worked, 14 tanks and 80 soldiers formed a perimeter around the tank in a highway intersection, defending its crew from the Iraqi troops assaulting from all sides and from an overpass above.
Among them was Conroy, then a 31-year-old captain leading a company of soldiers into downtown Baghdad during the U.S. push into the city on April 5, 2003. When Conroy learned a day earlier that his company would be entering the city, he thought it was a joke. Send an armored battalion into the heart of downtown Baghdad?
“You have to think, at that time, no one had been to Baghdad yet,” he said. “We weren’t sure what was going on. We weren’t sure yet what to expect.”
The company had spent the past few weeks fighting their way north through Najaf, Karbala and Mahmudiyah, after spending months in Kuwait in anticipation of the invasion. They knew they would probably be sent into Baghdad but didn’t expect the assault to come so soon — or to be the first ones to go in.
The Iraqi military wasn’t expecting them so soon, either. As the convoy traveled on Highway 8 toward the heart of the city, Conroy saw Iraqis scrambling into position, even rushing in troops in cars and buses, to prepare for an assault on the Americans.
Despite the surprise element of the attack, Conroy and his company ran into enemy fire almost immediately after leaving Mahmudiyah around 5 a.m. And as the tail element of a three-company force pushing into Baghdad, they caught the brunt of the counterattack from the Iraqis, he said.
“We were sort of the reserve punch,” said Conroy, now stationed at Camp Red Cloud in South Korea.
About 30 minutes into the trip, the tank was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired from an apartment complex along the highway. The tank’s fuel cell was hit, and fire broke out.
The Iraqis wasted no time in attacking the halted convoy.
“They started swarming like bees,” said Conroy, who directed the firefight as he blocked a highway offramp to prevent Iraqis from entering the perimeter. Suicide drivers tried to ram into the convoy, and Iraqis held AK-47s out of their car windows and shot at them.
His main worry was the safety of the four soldiers trying to save their tank.
“We were taking a lot of fire at the time,” he said. “They were up there and exposed.”
The crew struggled to put out the flames, and at one point thought they had succeeded. But when they hitched their tank to another one to get towed, the fire flared up again. After another 30 minutes, the unit finally abandoned it.
“It was a matter of pride,” Conroy said of their efforts to save it. “The crew didn’t want to lose their tank.”
The rest of the “Thunder Run,” as the company called their mission, was “like going through a car wash of [enemy] fire,” Conroy said.
Two of his men were seriously wounded but both survived.
The company reached its destination, the Baghdad airport, about two hours after it started.
Conroy was awarded the Silver Star for rallying the company during the attack and for his “composure under pressure” that day and throughout the company’s nearly monthlong push into Iraq, according to the award citation.
He also received a Bronze Star for his overall leadership during the invasion.
But he downplays his achievements, and said his soldiers deserve attention for their efforts that day in Baghdad and during the rest of the invasion.
“Some guys had just gotten out of high school, and these guys were going out there, putting their lives on the line, saving civilians on the battlefield,” he said. “To me, they were just heroic actions.”
One of Conroy’s proudest moments came a few days after the Thunder Run, as his company helped take the rest of downtown Baghdad, including Zawra Park and the famous arches where Saddam Hussein had reviewed his troops.
“It was a historic moment,” he said. “There was a lot of pride for the soldiers.”
rowlanda@pstripes.osd.mil