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Another story of the 3rd ACR in Iraq. We join our heroes in a helicopter over Tall Afar...
When Outlaw Troop arrived in Tall Afar last spring, the city was an insurgent stronghold and Army helicopters were constantly threatened by antiaircraft weapons set up by former Iraqi army air defense officers, regimental commanders said. "Flying fast over the city, you were guaranteed to be hit by small-arms fire," said Strye.Later in the story Cpt Strye says of the Army, "I don't want it to be my entire identity. I don't want to be put on a pedestal, I just want to be Monica."One morning last summer, as dawn broke over Tall Afar's labyrinthine Sarai neighborhood, Piro and Buckhouse were watching a building for an imminent raid. They spotted lookouts on a nearby school. "You get that little tingle in the back of your neck that says something isn't right," recalled Buckhouse, of Racine, Wis.
On the ground, assaulting U.S. ground troops were ambushed from the school and began taking heavy casualties. The fire had the GIs pinned down, and medics couldn't evacuate the wounded. "Outlaw, we need a gun run south of the city," came the radio call.
With Piro at the controls, the Kiowa swooped in from the south to attack with its machine gun. The aircraft was breaking away when suddenly it was hit by a barrage of fire. "We're taking fire left," Buckhouse called out. Piro heard the popping of bullets and felt the helicopter lurch. A round had hit the fuel cell, igniting it. An alarm bell went off in the cockpit.
"We're losing fuel!" Piro said, as the Kiowa started to drop.
Read it all. (And I agree, there's a movie there. But we'll never see it.)
