10th Mountain Troops ‘Fish’ for Insurgents
CAMP LIBERTY, Baghdad, Iraq -- Soldiers wading through a dark, humid swamp of water and bamboo sounds more like Vietnam than Iraq. But these were the conditions Soldiers from Task Force 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment faced as they submerged themselves up to their necks in water hunting down insurgents in a densely vegetated canal.
The Soldiers captured eight insurgents and a large weapons cache without firing a shot.
It was nearly midnight when troops from the 1st Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment, spotted a weapons cache from their Kiowa Warrior helicopter. The gusts from the helicopter blew a tarp off of the cache and Soldiers spotted an insurgent running into a canal. The helicopter remained on the scene to prevent the insurgent from escaping. Task Force 2-14 Infantry, which includes elements of 1st Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment, and 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment, soon arrived on the scene.
“The Kiowa pinned them down until our unit could weed them out,” said Capt. William Prayner, Jr., commander of 2-14’s Headquarters Company.
Soldiers from Task Force 2-14 then faced the arduous task of fishing the insurgents out of the canal, which was several hundred meters long. Facing an unknown number of possibly armed insurgents, the “Golden Dragons” entered the unknown and submerged themselves in the water that at times was over some Soldiers heads.
Based on the weapons systems viewed from the air, the troops expected to find insurgents “armed to the teeth,” according to one Soldier.
Regardless of the threat, Spc. Alexander Parcover and Spc. Nicholas Gathings, 2-14 Infantry, volunteered to start the search. It was impossible for the both Soldiers to hold a weapon and navigate through the vegetation, so Gathings slung his weapon over his back and sifted through dense reeds while Parcover covered him from behind. Some parts of the canal were so deep or covered with reeds that it was nearly impossible to navigate.
“The temperature really dropped that night,” said Sgt. Bryan Ruffo, 1-509th Infantry. “All the guys were freezing. There was bamboo at least 20 feet high. It was so tight and the water was about six feet deep.”
“We had to get out and go back in a few times because it was so thick,” Parcover said. “We were ready to leave because we couldn’t find anyone. Then we heard someone speak Arabic.”
The pair soon found an insurgent wading in the canal. They started yelling orders and pulled the insurgent out of the canal. Several more insurgents were captured soon after.
“After we caught the first one, all of a sudden Soldiers kept popping up saying ‘We found one!’” Parcover said.
Spc. German Villasenor and Pfc. Joshua Butterworth, 1-509th Infantry, also volunteered to enter the canal. The water was too high for them to use their weapons. Despite this, they found four insurgents clustered together and managed to secure them despite being outnumbered.
“They were up to their necks in water and mud,” Prayner said. “Some were trying to breathe through reeds. The Soldiers refused to quit until everyone was captured.”
Soldiers from 2-14 Infantry also confiscated a 12.7-millimeter Dishka machine gun, two rocket propelled grenade launchers, two RPK machine guns and an AK-47. The Diska was aimed at a highway with the intention of hitting multinational forces, said Cpl. Anthony Nelson, 2-14 Infantry.
“They wouldn’t have hit us, but they could have hit a convoy and messed them up pretty bad,” he said.
Prayner called the bloodless capture of the insurgents a huge accomplishment. His troops agreed.
“We were totally in charge,” Parcover said. “I’m glad no one got hurt and we took these guys alive. A living (insurgent) is better than a dead one. Now we can gather intelligence from them.”