More on Operation Tomahawk Strike 11
Iraqis, Coalition reestablish security on Haifa
Saturday, 27 January 2007
Story and photo by Spc. Shea Butler
7th Mobile Public Affairs Detachmen
BAGHDAD — The company
of Soldiers starts the day before the sun, knowing in the back of their
minds that it is going to be a long day full of fire fights with the
enemy. As grenades detonate around them and bullets fly by, they target
the enemy and engage immediately, proving that “courage is the absence
of fear.”
For the second time in the past several weeks,
Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker
Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division teamed up with Iraqi Army
troops to take on insurgents on Haifa Street, in Baghdad’s Karkh
district Jan. 24.
The Haifa Street operation, dubbed
Operation Tomahawk Strike 11, aimed to disrupt insurgents in order to
establish security, said Capt. Isaac Torres, commander, Company C, 1-23
Inf.
The Soldiers started the operation at 3 a.m. when they
gathered for pre-combat inspections, received the updated status of the
area of operation and piled in their Strykers. They were prepared for a
long day. They expected enemy fire.
“We knew we were going
to get fired at, and we were ready for it,” said Sgt. Kevin McCallum, a
native of Aikens, S.C., with Co. C.
Their assumptions were
accurate. It wasn’t long after entering their objective area that the
enemy threw grenades. It was continuous from that point on.
“There was pretty much constant firing back and forth all day with (only a) few slow periods,” McCallum said.
Despite all the noise coming from various weapons being fired, Co. C
kept up communication between one another which helped the success of
the mission.
“The communication was great. Everyone was
relaying information about targeting and identifying the enemy. Some of
it was over the radio and some was just yelling back and forth,”
McCallum said. Noncommissioned officers communicated to everyone in
their sectors of fire, constantly rotating around the building the
company had secured. NCOs made sure that Soldiers were staying out of
windows and were doing well.
While the NCOs were vigilant, the
junior enlisted troops didn’t need much guidance. They have been in
similar dangerous fire fights.
“They have all been in enough fire fights to know what is going on,” McCallum said. “They know all the rules of engagement.”
Training is part of what helped these Soldiers through the long day, but adrenaline helped too.
“It was a long day but there was so much adrenaline it made easier,” he
said. “We took shots through some windows and adrenaline really kicked
in. We immediately got on line, located the enemy and suppressed fire.”
Firing slowed down greatly towards the end of the day. When the smoke
cleared, 21 insurgents had been detained and a weapons cache uncovered.
“The mission was a success,” Torres said. “The enemy was
greatly disrupted and the Iraqi Army and coalition forces made an
impact”
UPDATE: BlackAnthem has more pictures.
