April 7, 2003
"Critter" Crittenden
Yesterday I received an email from Omar Fadhil, who has been reading this series. He said he is enjoying it and wanted to thank me for my “bravery.” I feel very small receiving that kind of praise from someone like Omar, and I will dedicate what little I have to offer today to Omar and his brother Mohammed, who have to be brave every day of their lives, because they are Baghdadis: ...
One of the White Platoon tanks, equipped with a heavy mine-clearing plow, was called forward. Then we rolled toward the gate, where flames and black smoke were swirling around the destroyed remains of several vehicles and gum emplacements. The bodies of several Iraqi soldiers were lying in the road, partially blackened and slumped in puddles of their own blood, legs, arms and heads skewed all wrong from the force of the tank fire. The massive gateway to the palace district looked like a concrete Arc d’Triomph. Its heavy wrought-iron gates, emblazoned with the Baath Party’s fascist-looking eagle crest, were twisted and hanging off the concrete pillars where the lead tank had smashed through them.
We rolled into the palace complex, down a broad avenue lined with hedges and walls, with palaces and government buildings, one after another, behind them. The column halted on the boulevard outside the gates of a massive Versailles-like palace, topped with four gargantuan, identical busts of Saddam in an Arabesque war helmet. We stared dumbly at them. ...
I turned around to look toward the roadside hedges and the ditches under them as the tanks opened fire. I realized I was looking straight into the faces of three Iraqi soldiers. They were no more than 30 feet away, staring back at us from the shadows under the hedge, where they lay in the shallow ditch. ...
When it quieted down on the boulevard, Wolford ordered his tank platoons to begin clearing the surrounding streets and palace grounds. The 113 followed Wolford and the Red tanks as they busted through the metal gates of one of the palaces. The heavy armored vehicles clanked through rose gardens, past ornamental ponds and a playground. White ducks in one pond swam away from us in alarm.
“Everyone gets a bath tonight,” Wolford said. ...
