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March 8, 2004, Monday, Scotsman 'EVERY SOLDIER IS A HERO AFTER A FIRE FIGHT' Gethin Chamberlain Defence Correspondent THE mortar platoon were nervous. They had been in Iraq for one day, but already they felt dangerously exposed. On the mortar line covering Bridge 5 over the Shatt al Basra, the dirty waterway that ran down the western edge of Iraq's second city, it seemed to them that they were in the front line. The night before they had watched the orange glow of the fires burning on the horizon and listened to the sound of gunfire and the dull thud of explosions around them. But there were no orders to fire. It was hard to sleep; it was their first night in the country, and all around them, the war was under way. They all knew that they would soon be in action; the adrenaline was pumping. Now it was dawn on the morning of 23 March, a Sunday, and they were going about the business of making themselves feel a little more human, brewing up tea, washing in what little water they carried with them, shaving, smoking a few cigarettes. It was Sergeant Jim Mathieson, the section commander for one of the two mortar lines, who was the first to realise that they were under fire. He was standing on top of his FV432 vehicle at the time, adding another 6ft 2ins to the 7ft 6ins that the vehicle already stood. "I knew straight away that it was directed towards us. I wasn't interested in how high above my head, I just knew it was above the mortar line's heads, so it was just remote control. There was no checking that everybody was all right, I just jumped in my cupola and started firing back with the GPMG general purpose machine gun . "This was the first time I'd been fired on. It's been drummed into you on exercises but nothing, no amount of training, can prepare you for it unless you've actually been in that situation before and able to control your fear but the adrenaline and the high discipline and the military training takes over." About 20 metres back from the mortar line a rocket- propelled grenade whistled over the head of Corporal John Rose and exploded behind him with a dull thud. Cpl Rose was the control post operator, whose job it was to direct the firing. It had been a while since he did his basic training as an infantry soldier, but as the grenades and the bullets of the AK47s whistled overhead, it all kicked back in. "Being honest, there was no direction from me," Sgt Mathieson admits. "Another commander might say 'I then directed Cpl Rose to take five men and move off' but I didn't give any direction whatever. I was too busy giving fire support and he just went. "He went initially with one other bloke and then another two joined in and then another two joined in and that's when I said 'Stop, nobody else goes because if we get a fire mission we're screwed'." Rose didn't stop to think about it. He never planned to be a hero, and he would be the first to say that was the case. It just seemed to make sense at the time. He grabbed his SA-80 rifle, and started to run. With a private by his side, he raced forward about 50 metres. Over their heads, Sgt Mathieson was blazing away with the GPMG. The others followed, each covering the other as they moved forwards. They all thought the firing was aimed at them, though later they realised it had been the sniper team who had just pulled up near the mosque who were taking most of the fire. Chris Sinclair and the rest of the sniper team had arrived at about 6am, intending to move into an observation post to look for signs of enemy activity. But the 21-year-old said they did not have a chance to find cover before they caught sight of five armed men clambering out of a truck. As the Iraqis moved forwards, the snipers opened fire. One shot went over the heads of the running men, but Corporal Mark Harvey was next to fire, and one of the Iraqis went down. "I was a bit scared in case they saw us," Sinclair said, "but when it happened they scattered and disappeared." The snipers gave chase. Corporal "Pedro" Laing, who was awarded the Military Cross for his part in the action, was in the lead. Dodging RPGs, bullets and grenades, they swarmed into the house where they believed the fedayeen had taken cover. In the chaos, Cpl Harvey was seriously injured by an RPG which exploded close by, but the others pressed on. Sinclair watched them go. They had left him looking after their kit when they gave chase. He stayed back, giving them cover; part of him wanted to be in the thick of it, but part of him was glad it was someone else. But his biggest problem at that moment was that the radios had gone dead. "When they started moving forward they started getting problems with their radios, they couldn't get any communication," he says. In the most hi-tech war of modern wars, he reverted to the old role of runner. Shy about his own bravery, he still earned a Joint Commanders' Commendation. "I was just running backwards and forwards, relaying messages from them to our commander. Then all hell broke loose." Cpl Laing had spotted an old man outside an open door; when he looked again, the man was gone and the door was closed. But just at that moment, Sinclair lost contact with the rest of the team. "That's when I started moving forward. I got back in touch with Cpl Robertson and he said Cpl Laing was going to go into the building. Then Cpl Laing kicked the door open and I saw him pull out an old man. The old man was really scared, he was putting his hands up and saying, 'No, no'. "So he grabbed him and pulled him out of the way and the next thing he hit the ground and started shouting. I couldn't make out what he was shouting because I was still moving forward, I was just having a quick scan and running forward and the next thing I heard an explosion go off and then there was lots of small arms fire from everywhere." A little way away, Cpl Rose and his men were closing in. They had covered 800 metres of open ground when they spotted the snipers taking fire. They moved towards them from the right to come in from behind the houses from where the fedayeen were firing. Cpl Rose switched his rifle to automatic, and rolled two grenades into the first building. "I just rolled the grenade in and hit the deck. The grenade goes in and you hit the deck and bang. You don't notice the blast," he says. "The first thing you do is you get up and put your foot in, you do it very quickly to see if anything happens and if it doesn't you just run in and pick a part of the building and spray left to right of the building. "It is harder in real life than it is in training because in training the light in the room is the same as outside but in the event the room is pitch black because there were no windows, so it was just a case of going in. You couldn't see anything, it was pure black, all you could hear was the groans from the areas where they had been injured from the first grenade, so that's what you go for first. You start at one end and you just spray to the other part of the building in the direction of where you hear the moans." Cpl Rose's weapons jammed: he stepped outside and one of the others went in and finished the job. But still it was not over. The snipers were shouting to him, telling him he was coming under fire from another position, a low hedgerow about 40 or 50 metres away. Cpl Rose hadn't noticed; it was only later that he realised they had been under fire all the time. So he moved his team round to join up with the snipers and Cpl Laing decided that he should take his team along the right flank round to the rear of the second position, while the snipers would stay where they were to give covering fire if required. Back at the mortar line, Sgt Mathieson had watched them crossing the open ground, but he had lost sight of his men. "We lost coms for a while and there were panic stations. I could see them for so far, they went 500 or 600 metres away and then unfortunately we had to stop firing because we didn't know where they were. "They went out of sight and then we lost coms for about half an hour, and that's when real panic sets in because we really didn't know what the hell was going on." Out of contact with his commanders, Cpl Rose pressed on towards the hedge line where the last of the militia were refusing to give in. He took another grenade from his webbing. "I threw the grenade at the rear of the position and one of the snipers threw a grenade through the front and one of my team then pushed out and cleared the position and then we found all the weapons and RPGs and we went through the motions of searching the enemy dead and clearing the positions, bringing the bodies out and disposing of the weapons. "You just go in and see the bodies. There were four of them, one officer and three other ranks." And then it was over. But the reality is that war stories do not end with the last bullet fired, the last enemy killed. "They were strange," Sgt Mathieson said, unsure whether to go on. "Cpl Rose came and spoke to me. I don't want to make a fool of the guy but he was quite distraught and he was in tears, not in front of everybody, but he came round and explained and I said 'Right, I need a full sit rep so I can send it up to battle group'. "He was quite distraught about what had happened, about what he'd had to do. What is strange is that you get it out of your system and get back to work because you may have to do it again tomorrow or next week so you can't be distraught and you can't be upset, it's just a case of 'Right, you had to do it, it was either you or him, or whatever the situation was, and you're upset, no problem, go and get a brew and a fag or whatever, and when we've got a fire mission coming in, do your job'. "As a commander, that was the hardest job I've got to do, knowing that people have been doing things like that and feeling the way they are and deep inside they are really feeling that they want to go in a corner and have a good cry to themselves and they can't because they've got to do their job. And that was before we even started firing mortars. "I don't want it sounding like they went in like some war story where we went in and killed someone and just cracked on with our jobs because that's not true. "They came back and the general feeling was that they'd had to take another person's life and the general feeling was that people were upset about that and then at the same time they knew that they had to get on with their jobs." For Cpl Rose, it has been hard: "Afterwards I thought how easy it was, how good the training was, how well the army train you to achieve your aim. I didn't have to think twice about it because I was leading a section of men up there and I brought them back and I was happy. "Now I try not to think about it, though it keeps getting brought up because I got an MC. It's harder than if it had just been a normal contact and I hadn't got an MC, because everybody is asking you about it all the time and you don't want to say 'I done this and I done that'. But I never got the MC for myself, I got it for the whole thing that the team done, because I wouldn't have been up there on my own. "As soon as we got back I went on a course to qualify me for sergeant and that was when I was awarded the MC, I was put up in front of everybody and the chief instructor told everybody 'Corporal Rose has got the MC'. Once you tell people that, they are inquisitive to find out what you've done and people just ask about it. I still have not spoken to my parents about it and told them what I've done because I feel it is part of my job. "I'm proud I've got it because my family is proud. I just feel I should eat humble pie and get on with it because it's my job, that's what I do, and if the government or the Queen feels I've done something above and beyond then, OK. "But that's what I joined the army for. I never ever thought I would do it but I've done it and there is not going to be another chance for a long time, hopefully." Sgt Mathieson, now a colour sergeant, says it is hard to forget about what they were asked to do. "It's not the same firing mortars. It's like dropping bombs from a B-52, you drop your load and you go. Up close and personal it's completely different. "You don't think about it after each fire mission but now, I think about it every day. It will stay with me for the rest of my life and that is something that is strange to try to find the words to describe. There are some things you do in your life that you would be proud of and some you might be not so proud of, but it's a different situation you're in. It is something that is going to stay with me and I can't describe how you live with it. I think about it every now and again when I'm having a brew or something."
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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