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Was it a goat carcass? A dead dog in the road? The headlights caught only a dim shape.
Whatever it was, Spc. Travis Waltner swerved his Humvee to the left. Just as he did, two things happened.
The radio spoke: “Let’s go blackout,” he heard his squad leader, Staff Sgt. David Berry, say from the Humvee behind him. Then …
BOOM!
The blast lifted Waltner’s Humvee half off the ground.
“IED! IED!” he radioed.
•••
The squad of Humvees was called Assassin 2-2, part of Bravo Battery, which belongs to the Kansas National Guard’s 161st Field Artillery.
The battery left its 155mm howitzers behind when it was sent in April 2006 to Iraq.
Its job: Patrol about 80 square miles around Convoy Support Center Scania in south-central Iraq; look for “bad guys.”
Sixty miles south of Baghdad, Scania was a rest and refueling station for the convoys that rolled up and down Highway 1, also known as Main Supply Route Tampa. It was the link between the embattled Iraqi capital and Kuwait.
They were in Babil Province, the breadbasket of Iraq, with fields of wheat, alfalfa and other crops and a network of canals. It was like a Union 76 truck stop along I-70 back home — except for the high blast walls.
Units that had served there told Bravo that their tour would be “a cakewalk,” and that was fine with them.
“You go there with the mentality that it will be all right,” said 23-year-old Spc. Tyler Wing of Kingman.
But Bravo Battery didn’t always play it safe.
Eleven months into a 15-month deployment, the unit had a reputation.
“We always wanted to go in and get after it a little bit more,” said 33-year-old Sgt. Richard Kenmore of Wichita.
They never turned down a mission. They also prided themselves on finding IEDs, the deadly roadside bombs responsible for maiming scores of American troops.
Bravo squads would often leave their Humvees — something soldiers are warned against — to search for the bombs hidden along the cluttered roads.
But you would never find them all.
Intelligence had been warning about a nastier type of IED called explosively formed penetrators — EFPs.
EFPs contain a copper disc, which, when hurled by the blast, shapes itself into a molten missile that can pierce inches of tank armor.
Even Humvees with upgraded armor offer little defense.
“I’d take my chances with an IED any day over an EFP,” said Sgt. Nathan Reed. “Your chances of living are not very good. You’re either going to be killed by the blast or shredded by shrapnel.”
Although part of 2-2, the Mountainburg, Ark., man was not Guard, but Individual Ready Reserve — experienced soldiers who still owe time to the military and are sent to fill vacancies.
“We didn’t fear death,” he said. “I just don’t want it to hurt. I don’t want to go home in parts.”
•••
The night was pleasant enough, a 60-degree gift, given the 60 pounds of body armor beneath their fatigues. But clouds covered the moon. The darkness was deep.
“There were a lot of bad vibes,” said Spc. John Duncan of Newton, a gunner with a second squad, Assassin 2-3, which also pulled out of the gate after midnight.
The squads were cautious. Their presence on the six-hour security patrol, Reed recalled, was to let the bad guys know “we’re still out and about. … Don’t do anything stupid.”
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