More car trouble
Another Humvee breakdown. Another four years off my life.
This time we got into trouble outside a place called Bakar village near LSA Anaconda. "This place absolutely hates us," Staff Sgt. James Heaney of Port Orchard said Tuesday evening as we motored past the village during another "presence patrol" designed to suppress insurgent activity in the area.
Just down the road Heaney pointed out the field where two 81st Brigade soldiers were killed in an ambush last month. Just down the road from there, he pointed out a former Iraqi police station that was abandoned after weeks of constant attack by insurgents.
Just down the road from there, we stopped to keep watch over the area, and, ominously, to let our radiator cool down. A group of soldiers in another Humvee in our patrol had spotted fluid leaking from beneath our rig, and the needle on the dashboard temperature gauge was in the red.
"We'll let it cool down, add some water, and it should be all right," Heaney said.
A little over an hour later, darkness fell as we prepared to make another sweep through Bakar before heading home.
We got just to the outskirts of town when Pfc. Matt Fong, a Tukwila resident who was driving, informed Heaney that the temperature needle was back in the red.
Heaney cursed. "Understand, this is not an area where we need to be stopping," he said.
The decision was made to call off the patrol and head back to Anaconda ASAP. A quickly executed three-point turn had us on the shortest route back to camp. The question then became: Would the Humvee make it back under its own power?
As Fong sped along, he reported the engine temperature to Heaney every 30 seconds. "250. 250. Beyond 250."
A Humvee behind us then radioed that water was streaming from the bottom of our rig. Heaney, a highly competent noncommissioned officer, was clearly agitated, which did nothing for my confidence. "Get us in," he shouted at Fong.
Less than a minute later, though, we were stopped on the shoulder. Heaney cursed again. "We're going to end up towing it," he said.
As soldiers set up a security perimeter around the crippled Humvee, Heaney and Sgt. Rick Larsen of Sequim hooked Heaney's rig up to another Humvee with a tow strap. The speed with which they worked would have made a NASCAR pit crew envious. Nothing like the threat of getting shot to motivate you.
The photograph above, which Peter shot through night-vision equipment, shows Heaney and Larsen as they stretch the tow strap between the two rigs.
Then, at the excruciating speed of 15 mph, with the headlights off so as not to advertise our crippled condition, we limped back in to Anaconda.
Heaney later apologized that the mission was cut short. "I take pride in maintaining my truck," he said.
At that point, I was just glad to be back inside the wire, where the only real threat is the occasional rocket attack.
alynn on 07.21.04 @ 12:39 AM CST
