Washington Post:
One day the Marines found Iraqi paramilitary forces using a hospital in Nasiriyah as a base to stage their hit-and-run missions . "We went to a hospital and a doctor started to shoot at us," said Khalid Al Anzi, 34, a Kuwaiti working as an interpreter for the Marines. "The Marines don't shoot back, they talk and they call the other people to come out."
In the end, after hours of patience surrounding the building, Marines took 170 Iraqis captive and found 200 weapons, loads of ammunition, 3,000 chemical protection suits and even a tank in the hospital compound, officers have said.
The situation left Al Anzi fighting off tears as he sat in a recovery tent today with his friend and fellow translator, Duaij Mohammed, 32, who was sliced by shrapnel. "Bad, bad, bad situation there," Al Anzi said softly. "Believe me, if you see with your own eyes, you would cry."
Woolhether saw it with his own eyes and could not believe it. Just years out of high school, the young corporal from Wisconsin was part of a unit preparing to move forward to the first bridge on the east side of Nasiriyah when suddenly it was attacked from behind. Iraqi fighters had somehow flanked them and attacked from the southeast.
"You lay there on the ground," recalled Woolhether. "You don't know where that [stuff] is coming from. Five feet to the right isn't any safer than five feet to the left."
The Iraqis sprayed their automatic weapons fire and rocket-propelled grenades until they began blowing up U.S. military vehicles parked at an abandoned gas station south of the first bridge. "All they were doing was panning left, panning right, leaving the men happy to hit something," said Gunnery Sgt. Terry Hale, 32. "If they hit something that exploded, they would keep firing at it."
One of the rocketed grenades hit close to Cpl. Willie Anderson, 23, from Bossier, La., "I saw about five people standing behind the building," he said. "They got a (expletive) RPG," he added, referring to a rocket propelled grenade. "All I could do was cover my face. It blinded me and knocked me back. That's all I remember."
With bullets and shrapnel flying, the Marines eventually called in artillery on their own position -- and then jumped over a wall to take cover from their own guns.
Hale, who broke his leg scaling the wall to avoid the U.S. artillery, served during the 1991 Persian Gulf War but said he never saw anything like Nasiriyah. The Marines, he said, found tanks dug into the ground in wait for passing U.S. convoys and small caches of weapons everywhere so the irregular fighters could simply walk up, grab prepositioned guns and open fire.
"They were waiting for us," he said. "It was unreal. It was something you don't ever want to have to go through."
One day the Marines found Iraqi paramilitary forces using a hospital in Nasiriyah as a base to stage their hit-and-run missions . "We went to a hospital and a doctor started to shoot at us," said Khalid Al Anzi, 34, a Kuwaiti working as an interpreter for the Marines. "The Marines don't shoot back, they talk and they call the other people to come out."
In the end, after hours of patience surrounding the building, Marines took 170 Iraqis captive and found 200 weapons, loads of ammunition, 3,000 chemical protection suits and even a tank in the hospital compound, officers have said.
The situation left Al Anzi fighting off tears as he sat in a recovery tent today with his friend and fellow translator, Duaij Mohammed, 32, who was sliced by shrapnel. "Bad, bad, bad situation there," Al Anzi said softly. "Believe me, if you see with your own eyes, you would cry."
Woolhether saw it with his own eyes and could not believe it. Just years out of high school, the young corporal from Wisconsin was part of a unit preparing to move forward to the first bridge on the east side of Nasiriyah when suddenly it was attacked from behind. Iraqi fighters had somehow flanked them and attacked from the southeast.
"You lay there on the ground," recalled Woolhether. "You don't know where that [stuff] is coming from. Five feet to the right isn't any safer than five feet to the left."
The Iraqis sprayed their automatic weapons fire and rocket-propelled grenades until they began blowing up U.S. military vehicles parked at an abandoned gas station south of the first bridge. "All they were doing was panning left, panning right, leaving the men happy to hit something," said Gunnery Sgt. Terry Hale, 32. "If they hit something that exploded, they would keep firing at it."
One of the rocketed grenades hit close to Cpl. Willie Anderson, 23, from Bossier, La., "I saw about five people standing behind the building," he said. "They got a (expletive) RPG," he added, referring to a rocket propelled grenade. "All I could do was cover my face. It blinded me and knocked me back. That's all I remember."
With bullets and shrapnel flying, the Marines eventually called in artillery on their own position -- and then jumped over a wall to take cover from their own guns.
Hale, who broke his leg scaling the wall to avoid the U.S. artillery, served during the 1991 Persian Gulf War but said he never saw anything like Nasiriyah. The Marines, he said, found tanks dug into the ground in wait for passing U.S. convoys and small caches of weapons everywhere so the irregular fighters could simply walk up, grab prepositioned guns and open fire.
"They were waiting for us," he said. "It was unreal. It was something you don't ever want to have to go through."
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