The Battle of Salman Pak 

Melvin E. Kriesel

Colonel Melvin (Buzz) Kriesel is retired from the U.S. Army Special Forces.

The following is an account of a truly remarkable small unit action that took place in Iraq on March 20, 2005. It describes the deadly combat efficiency and discipline of a U.S. Army Military Police squad when it was ambushed while escorting a supply convoy south of Baghdad. The report was forwarded to me by a member of the MILNET, a group of retired military who closely follow the actions of our soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The description of the battle was written by the Brigade S-2 (intelligence officer) who was ordered to prepare an official report of the MP squad’s actions during the ambush. It is one of the best after-action reports that I have ever read. It is an outstanding testimony to the conduct and bravery of our soldiers under fire

There are several things to bear in mind as you read the report. First, the soldiers in this engagement are support troops—military police and medics—who normally occupy rear areas or provide route security for tactical forces moving into battle. Second, the soldiers described in the report are all from the 617th MP Company of the Kentucky National Guard. After you read this report, you will never again think that guard soldiers are inferior to regular army troops! Third, you will see that women in combat, if well trained, are as deadly with their weapons as their male counterparts.

There is one final comment that may explain why these soldiers were so successful . . . and deadly. Army counter-ambush doctrine calls for soldiers to do something counter to a man’s instinct. Our doctrine requires that soldiers, when ambushed, charge immediately into the enemy. Never away from the ambush! Always into it! Only highly trained, exceptionally disciplined troops will do that. The willingness of these soldiers to close with and destroy the enemy is a testament to the officers and NCOs who trained them.

Please note that the S-2 edited the email before he sent it out. He maintained Operational Security and removed the names of the combatants. He meant for the report to be widely shared as a means of showing the professionalism of our soldiers in action. Any errors in grammar and spelling are those of a man in a theater of war. I have not tried to correct or amend his “rough draft.” There is little else that I can add other than several comments on weapons and tactics in the endnotes I use to explain the military acronyms used by the Brigade S-2.

Finally, you may wish to pray for the recovery of the American soldiers who were wounded in the engagement.

After Action Report: Raven 42 Action in Salman Pak March 22, 2005

Over the next few days you will see on the television news shows, and in the print news media the story of a military police squad who are heroes. Through those outlets, I doubt that their story will get out in a truly descriptive manner. I can’t express to you the pride, awe, and respect I feel for the soldiers of call sign Raven 42.

On Sunday afternoon, in a very bad section of scrub-land called Salman Pak, on the southeastern outskirts of Baghdad, 40 to 50 heavily-armed Iraqi insurgents attacked a convoy of 30 civilian tractor-trailer trucks that were moving supplies for the coalition forces, along an alternate supply route. These tractor-trailers, driven by third country nationals (primarily Turkish), were escorted by 3 armored Hummers¹ from the COSCOM.² When the insurgents attacked, one of the Hummers was in their kill zone and the three soldiers aboard were immediately wounded, and the platform taken under heavy machinegun and RPG³ fire.

Along with them, three of the truck drivers were killed, 6 were wounded in the tractor-trailer trucks. The enemy attacked from a farmer’s barren field next to the road, with a tree line perpendicular to the ASR,⁴ two dry irrigation ditches forming a rough L-shaped trenchline, and a house standing off the dirt road. After three minutes of sustained fire, a squad of enemy moved forward toward the disabled and suppressed trucks. Each of the enemy had hand-cuffs and were looking to take hostages for ransom or worse, to take those three wounded U.S. soldiers for more internet beheadings.

About this time, three armored Hummers that formed the MP squad under call sign Raven 42, 617th MP Co, Kentucky National Guard, assigned to the 503rd MP Bn (Fort Bragg), 18th MP Bde, arrived on the scene like the cavalry.⁵ The squad had been shadowing the convoy from a distance behind the last vehicle, and when the convoy trucks stopped and became backed up from the initial attack, the squad sped up, paralleled the convoy up the shoulder of the road, and moved to the sound of gunfire.⁶

They arrived on the scene just as a squad of about ten enemy had moved forward across the farmer’s field and were about 20 meters from the road. The MP squad opened fire with .50 cal machineguns and Mk l9 grenade launchers and drove across the front of the enemy’s kill zone, between the enemy and the trucks, drawing fire off of the tractortrailers.

The MPs crossed the kill zone and then turned up an access road at a right angle to the ASR and next to the field full of enemy fighters. The three vehicles, carrying nine MPs and one medic, stopped in a line on the dirt access road and flanked the enemy positions with plunging fire from the .50 cal and the SAW machinegun (Squad Automatic Weapon). In front of them, was a line of seven sedans, with all their doors and trunk lids open, the getaway cars and the lone two-story house off on their left.

Immediately the middle vehicle was hit by an RPG knocking the gunner unconscious from his turret and down into the vehicle. The vehicle commander (tactical commander), the squad’s leader, thought the gunner was dead, but tried to treat him from inside the vehicle. Simultaneously, the rear vehicle’s driver and TC, section leader two, open their doors and dismount to fight, while their gunner continued firing from his position in the gun platform on top of the Hummer. Immediately, all three fall under heavy return machinegun fire, wounded. The driver of the middle vehicle saw them fall from the rearview mirror, dismounts and sprints to get into the third vehicle and take up the SAW on top of the vehicle. The squad’s medic dismounts from that third vehicle, and joined by the first vehicle’s driver (CLS trained⁷) who sprinted back to join him, begins combat life-saving techniques to treat the three wounded MPs.

The gunner on the floor of the second vehicle is revived by his TC, the squad leader, and he climbs back into the .50 cal and opens fire. The Squad leader dismounted with his M4 carbine, and 2 hand grenades, grabbed the section leader out of the first vehicle who had rendered radio reports of their first contact. The two of them, squad leader staff sergeant and team leader sergeant with her M4 and M203 grenade launcher, rush the nearest ditch about 20 meters away to start clearing the natural trenchline.⁸ The enemy has gone into the ditches and is hiding behind several small trees in the back of the lot. The .50 cal and SAW flanking fire tears apart the ten enemy in the lead trenchline.

Meanwhile, the two treating the three wounded on the ground at the rear vehicle come under sniper fire from the farmer’s house. Each of them, remember one is a medic, pull out AT-4 rocket launchers from the HMMWV and nearly-simultaneously fire the rockets into the house to neutralize the shooter. The two sergeants work their way up the trenchline, throwing grenades, firing grenades from the launcher, and firing their M4s.

The sergeant runs low on ammo and runs back to a vehicle to reload. She moves to her squad leader’s vehicle, and because this squad is led so well, she knows exactly where to reach her arm blindly into a different vehicle to find ammo--because each vehicle is packed exactly the same way, with discipline.⁹

As she turns to move back to the trenchline, the gunner in the second vehicle sees an AIF¹⁰ jump from behind one of the cars and start firing on the Sergeant. He pulls his 9mm, because the .50 cal is pointed in the other direction, and shoots five rounds wounding him.¹¹ The sergeant moves back to the trenchline under fire from the back of the field, with fresh mags, two more grenades, and three more M203 rounds. The Mk 19 gunner suppresses the rear of the field.

Now, rejoined with the squad leader, the two sergeants continue clearing the enemy from the trenchline, until they see no more movement. A lone man with an RPG launcher on his shoulder steps from behind a tree and prepares to fire on the three Hummers and is killed with a single aimed SAW shot thru the head by the previously knocked out gunner on platform two, who now has a SAW out to supplement the .50 cal in the mount.

The team leader sergeant--she claims four killed by aimed M4 shots.

The Squad Leader--he threw four grenades taking out at least two AIF, and attributes one other to her aimed M203 fire.

The gunner on platform two, previously knocked out from a hit by the RPG, has now swung his .50 cal around and, realizing that the line of vehicles represents a hazard and possible getaway for the bad guys, starts shooting the .50 cal into the engine blocks until his field of fire is limited. He realizes that his vehicle is still running despite the RPG hit, and drops down from his weapon, into the driver’s seat and moves the vehicle forward on two flat tires about 100 meters into a better firing position. Just then, the vehicle dies, oil spraying everywhere. He remounts his .50 cal and continues shooting the remaining of the seven cars lined up and ready for a get-away that wasn’t to happen. The fire dies down about then, and a second squad arrives on the scene, dismounts and helps the two giving first aid to the wounded at platform three. Two minutes later three other squads from the 617th arrive, along with the CO, and the field is secured, consolidation begins.

Those seven Americans (with the three wounded) killed in total 24 heavily armed enemy, wounded 6 (two later died), and captured one unwounded, who feigned injury to escape the fight. They seized 22 AK-47s, 6 RPG launchers w/16 rockets, 13 RPK machineguns, 3 PKM machineguns, 40 hand grenades, 123 fully loaded 30-rd AK magazines, 52 empty mags, and 10 belts of 2500 rds of PK ammo.

The three wounded MPs have been evacuated to Landstuhl, [Germany]. One lost a kidney and will be paralyzed. The other two will most likely recover, though one will forever have a bullet lodged between second and third ribs below his heart. No word on the three COSCOM soldiers wounded in the initial volleys. Of the 7 members of Raven 42 who walked away, two are caucasian women, the rest men--one is Mexican-American, the medic is African-American, and the other two are caucasian--the great American melting pot.

They believed even before this fight that their NCOs were the best in the Army, and that they have the best squad in the Army. The medic who fired the AT-4 said he remembered how from the week before when his squad leader forced him to train on it, though he didn’t think as a medic he would ever use one. He said he chose to use it in that moment to protect the three wounded on the ground in front of him, once they came under fire from the building. The day before this mission, they took the new RFI bandoliers that were recently issued, and experimented with mounting them in their vehicles. Once they figured out how, they pre-loaded a second basic load of ammo into magazines, put them into the bandoliers, and mounted them in their vehicles--the same exact way in every vehicle--load plans enforced and checked by leaders!

Leadership under fire--once those three leaders (NCOs) stepped out of their vehicles; the squad was committed to the fight.

Their only complaints in the AAR (after action report) were: the lack of stopping power in the 9mm; the .50 cal incendiary rounds they are issued in lieu of ball ammo (shortage of ball in the inventory) didn’t have the penetrating power needed to pierce the walls of the building; and that everyone in the squad was not CLS (combat life saving) trained.

Yesterday, Monday, was spent with the chaplain and the chain of command conducting AARs. Today, every news media in theater wanted them. “Good Morning America,” NBC, CBS, FOX, ABC, Stars and Stripes, and many radio stations from Kentucky all were lined up today. The female E5 sergeant who fought through the trenchline will become the anti-Jessica Lynch media poster child. She and her squad leader deserve every bit of recognition they will get, and more. They all do.

I participated in their AAR as the BDE S2, and am helping in putting together an action report to justify future valor awards. Let’s not talk about women in combat. Let’s not talk about the new Close Combat Badge not including MPs.

End Notes

¹“Hummer” is the slang term for the HMMWV tactical vehicle. It is the basic mobility vehicle for squad transport. It replaced the “jeep” used from WW II to Vietnam. The HMMWVs used in this engagement were all “hardened,” up-armored vehicles. They defeated everything the enemy threw at them.

²COSCOM: corps support command--The echelon that provides supply, military police, medical, and other support services to deployed combat units.

³RPG: rocket propelled grenade--cheap, accurate, devastating weapons developed by the Soviets and now used throughout the Third World. RPGs are propelled by a cheap rocket motor. The U.S. Army uses the M136 AT 4 Rocket Launcher, a more expensive and heavier “burn in the tube” rocket.

⁴ASR: Alternate Supply Route. The convoy was using a route off the MSR (Main Supply Route) as a security measure to avoid “patterning” their supply routes.

⁵ Bde: Brigade; Bn: Battalion (there are normally three to five battalions in a brigade.

⁶U.S. Army doctrine employs a classic principle of war, “When in doubt, move to the sound of the guns.”

⁷CLS: combat life saving. Training given all combat soldiers in addition to the basic medical training previously given. It supplements the skills of combat medics and is showing marked improvement in soldier survival on the battlefield.

⁸This action is likely to earn the female sergeant and her companion a Silver Star. There are very few soldiers who earn a Silver Star, especially female soldiers as they are not normally in small unit actions of this type.

⁹Cross loading critical items and standard load lists is Army doctrine. It takes leadership and discipline to ensure that soldiers do it. It enables them to find ammo or critical items when wounded or under extreme stress.

¹⁰AIF: anti-iraq forces.

¹¹The 9mm Pistol replaced the .45 caliber pistol just as I was leaving the Army. One round from the venerable .45 caliber M 1911 would have done more than wound the enemy soldier. It would have put him down. Today, Special Forces, Seals, Rangers and all who engage in CQB (close quarters battle) are being issued or buying their own .45s. There is an old adage: “Never go to a gun fight with a handgun that uses ammo that doesn’t start with “4.”     *

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