Op-ed views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.

It’s been twenty years since the fateful ambush of February 21, 2004. We were at the end of our Iraq tour, in two weeks 352 Civil Affairs Command would be heading home fifteen months since landing in Kuwait in the early morning darkness on January 13, 2003, one month after being mobilized.

Before leaving, however, Lt. Col King wanted to visit a sheik whom he had befriended bringing along Brig. Gen. David Blackledge, our commanding officer. I wasn’t scheduled to be on the trip, but a slot opened when one of the captains dropped out. It was always dangerous, but better the danger than missing the opportunity. We would travel in three SUVs, Vehicle 1(lead) with Hassan, my former driver behind the wheel, Lt. Col. King, and two Iraqi interpreters. Brig. Gen. Blackledge would follow (Vehicle 2) in his Ford Explorer with Capt. Guidry, his aide driving, Capt. Smathers (JAG), and Falah, my former interpreter and friend. I would be in Vehicle 3 (trail) riding shotgun, Capt. Edwards drove and Master Sergeant Blosser in back with his German G-3, a weapon he preferred over the M-16 for its range and bigger bullet.

I still remember Falah in the operations center saying he thought of me as an older brother. Falah and Hassan had worked for Lt. Col. Schweitzer, the intelligence officer with whom I regularly traveled, meeting with the locals, he for intelligence, I, as the command public affairs officer, for civil affairs story angles. When Schweitzer went home Falah and Hassan decided they were working for me. Along with inheriting them, I inherited Schweitzer’s Iraqi liaison role.

That morning Falah wasn’t his usual upbeat self. I don’t think he was happy with King or the seating arrangements putting him in the Explorer’s back seat, but King was the convoy leader and it was his show to run. I was just along for the ride. There was nothing particularly interesting at first, I even found myself drifting off; it was all rather routine. We had had the usual briefing of what to do in case of attack and then we were off into an overcast morning. We were to visit a village in the vicinity of Iskanderia in the Sunni triangle. As we drove through Iskanderia itself the looks from the locals were decidedly unfriendly. Being cautious I had rolled up my window to hopefully ward off a grenade. If we had been hit, I wouldn’t have been surprised, but we rolled through unmolested. Smathers later said he too had had a sense of foreboding; he wasn’t too far off. Through town, once again on the open highway, we breathed easier, we shouldn’t have. Gravel started hitting the windshield, but it wasn’t gravel. Unlike in movies, bullets make a pop-pop sound. In an instant, I bent below the dash as we raced out of the kill zone bullets raking the SUVs. Someone yelled “ambush,” I don’t know who, I don’t even remember the windshield being blown out. Accounts reported our little convoy was hit from two or three sides in a classic ambush pattern. Blackledge’s Expedition, its tires shot out at 100 mph, bounced over the median and began rolling over and over down the road. Blosser was firing out our left window when a tracer hit the gas tank igniting the fuel. We looked like the clown car at the circus flames shooting out the rear as the radio barked “Get out of there!” Edwards slammed on the brakes. I can still feel the terror at being burned to death, how the fire was growing, how the seat belt wouldn’t release, how the door jammed, how it took an eternity to kick it open, unconsciously grabbing the camera bag as I jumped out. Blosser shouted, “Major Layer, get away!” I slid behind a pile of dirt seconds before the vehicle exploded in a fireball. In the early days of the war, I felt I would be killed, the feeling abated, and now this.

Because of an old injury, I had clipped my holster shoulder style to my protective vest for left-handed draw. Now I was firing the pistol with my right hand; I didn’t even remember pulling it out. Without a word Blosser, Edwards, and I instinctively moved in a triangle to recover Vehicle 2. Blackledge, standing outside the wreckage was putting rounds down range with the Sterling he had “liberated” from an Iraqi. Then King called out, “Forget him, he’s dead.” It was Falah, a bullet through the head. There was little blood. Guidry said something and I grabbed the handle on the back of Falah’s flak jacket and with one hand jerked his body off Smathers. Only after pulling Smathers out could we see how badly banged up he was from being pounded by Falah’s body as the vehicle rolled. By now King had commandeered an Iraqi and his car (an American sedan). The two interpreters who had been with Hassan climbed into the front seat and Smathers and I got in the back, Smathers on the right side. As he had lost his pistol, I gave him mine, grabbing Falah’s AK and ammo. Blackledge and King rode with Hassan who had gotten through the kill zone with only his rear window shot out. The next order of business was to get out of there–fast.

Driving “pedal to the metal” we reached the Polish army checkpoint. They immediately stopped all highway traffic and called in helos to evacuate us to their hospital. King paid off the Iraqi driver, and Hassan drove up the road to home, safer without us around. On landing, medics rushed Smathers into surgery for his legs. He would remain until medevacked to the Green Zone a few days later and then home. (Subsequently, American surgeons would have to redo the Polish physician’s work.) Blackledge was treated for his back, Guidry for a minor facial injury and Blosser for first-degree facial burns. Blackledge, King, and his interpreters heloed back to the Green Zone where the general would be hospitalized. A passing convoy gave the rest of us a lift back to base. As we drove by villages I saw for the first-time seething hatred on Iraqi faces.

Falah’s body was recovered by a U.S. Army patrol, brought to the American morgue and returned to his family. I spoke at his memorial, that part of me would be forever in Iraq. I remembered how Falah had said when we traveled to meetings that if we ran into trouble I was to say nothing, he would tell them I was from Mosul, “They look like you up there” he said. Thanks to him, and Hassan, I got to know the Iraqis, their hopes, their uncertainties, their humor, was invited into their homes, and met their children. We joked about Schweitzer’s quarters looking like a twelve-year old’s room. I still ponder how I might have saved him had I delayed his transfer to King. I was advised not to keep contact with Hassan after we left as it would place his life in danger.

Back in quarters, I had passed off the blood specks on the left leg of my uniform as from a scraped knee. A few weeks later a medic at Walter Reed’s emergency room, examining a dark spot on my thigh, dug out part of a bullet, X-rays revealed shrapnel deeply embedded in my left calf. I didn’t know I’d been hit, never felt anything. It could have been worse, a bullet scorched the hem of my jacket, a little closer and it would have pierced the femoral artery.

The trip probably had been unnecessary given what we later learned. They knew we were coming. I was furious that film of the ambush was already up on Reuters when we got back. I wanted to grab whomever the reporter was and shake him like a terrier shakes a rat to find out who the bad guys were. I don’t know if anyone ever did.

—-
Postscript. Two years to the month after the ambush Smathers died of a heart attack while walking the dog he had somehow connived to rescue from Baghdad. He was only in his forties.

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William Layer

Lt. Colonel Civil Affairs, USAR (ret) served twenty-six years in the regular and reserve components of the US Army. He was civil military liaison for the 260th Military Police, DC National Guard, State Public Affairs Officer, Commander of the Public Affairs unit and a counter-drug intelligence analyst. Transferring to the 352 Civil Affairs Command as monuments and archives officer, he became the Command Public Affairs Officer in Iraq as well as liaison to local Iraqi leaders and acting Secretary to the General Staff. He was instrumental in recovering photographic artifacts of the Iraqi Royal family while in Baghdad. He was wounded in action in an ambush in Feb. 2004 for which he was awarded the Purple Heart.
In his civilian career he worked primarily in Army Public Affairs and for the Air Force as historian to the presidential wing in the early Reagan administration and later for Air Force Legislative Liaison covering congressional hearings and assisting in preparing testimony for senior leaders.
His essays and reviews have appeared in the scholarly and popular press including Asian Affairs and the Washington Times. He is co-author, with Ali Wahab, of The Iraqi Royal Family, a Collection of Photographs Recovered from The Ruins of the Zuhur Palace, 2004.
A native New Yorker, he holds a BA with honors in history from Findlay College (Ohio) and an MA in history from The Ohio State University. He is a graduate of the US Army Command & General Staff College and was graduated with distinction US Naval War College with a MA in National Security and Strategic Studies.

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