Marine Corps News: Reporter John Koopman and the 3/4 Marines during the Iraq War www.MarineParents.com

REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK
'Ain't like driving on the highway,' says soldier
No headlights allowed at night
Saturday, April 5, 2003

Outside Baghdad -- It's the kind of accident everyone fears the most.

Journalist Michael Kelly and the driver of the Army humvee he was riding both were killed Thursday night when their vehicle rolled into a canal as it was trying to evade fire.

As the military forces move north to converge on Baghdad, thousands of vehicles -- everything from humvees, none too small to begin with, to 65-ton tanks -- all travel down the same road. Sometimes multiple convoys share the same route.

There's a lot of traffic and no traffic cops.

After dark, the military enforces strict light discipline. For security reasons, there are no headlights, no interior lights, not even glowing cigarettes. The fear is that any light will give away troops' position to the enemy.

After dark, drivers use night vision goggles in order to see the vehicle in front of them. The military has gone metric -- a nighttime speed of 15 to 25 kilometers per hour, roughly 10 to 15 mph, is maintained in a nonstop stream. Huge vehicles travel under complete darkness with very little margin of error.

"This ain't like driving on the highway," one Marine said.

When people bed down for the night, they pick their spots carefully, looking for places far away from traffic. A battalion in the 5th Marines lost an executive officer and a senior staff uncommissioned officer when a tracked vehicle ran over their sleeping bags.

The first casualty that the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines took was a lance corporal who drowned when his humvee ran into a water-filled ditch as his vehicle was maneuvering at nighttime, an accident similar to the one that befell Kelly and his driver.

As the Marines have crossed Iraq from south to north, the landscape changed.

It's still flat, but this is farmland, not the desert of the south.

All along the road Friday, there were thousands of Iraqis on foot. Most, but not all, were walking away from the capital.

On view on either side of the highway were remnants of Iraqi military positions. There were a lot of shot-up and burned-out tanks and anti-aircraft guns, some set at the corners of intersections, some in the middle of fields, barely visible from the road.

As the Marines got closer to the city, resistance stiffened. Rumors swirled that Jordanian and Egyptian volunteers to Saddam Hussein's army were in the area.

As darkness fell, a glow could be seen on the horizon. Word went around that it was an American tank that had been blown up by a truck bomb next to the tank. The U.S. military said the bombing disabled the tank, but did not kill any Marines.

That stopped the advance for the evening, but it prompted an artillery barrage in the direction of Baghdad. Hundreds, maybe thousands of 155mm howitzer rounds streaked overhead throughout much of the night as the Americans pounded Iraqi positions.

Across the night sky, artillery blasts and concussions from one edge of the horizon streaked overhead in a kaleidoscope of light. When rounds of Rocket Assisted Projectiles (RAP) were launched, thunder was heard moments later, on the opposite horizon.

Traveling with many American units are Iraqis serving as interpreters, who translate both language and culture.

One of them now on the move with Marines southeast of Baghdad, who asked that his name not be used, lives in Detroit. He fought in the 1991 Gulf War on the Iraqi side. But after that war ended, he was involved in the failed Shiite uprising against Hussein and ended up with a bullet in his back.

He made his way to Jordan, where he eventually asked for and got asylum in the United States. His first American home was in Nashville, where he developed an appreciation of country-western music and American beer. Then he moved to Detroit, where he learned a trade.

He says he volunteered to help the Americans because he wants his people to be free, as he is. He's a civilian, who wears the same uniform as everyone else here but carries no weapon.

When the Americans talk to prisoners of war, seeking information about such things as the location of Iraqi troops or the local Baath Party headquarters, he translates. When they talk to civilians about what their needs are, he helps out with cultural difficulties.

Still, he has no desire to live again in Iraq after this war ends. "If someone offered me $1 million to live here, I would not take it. I like my freedom too much."

E-mail John Koopman at jkoopman@sfchronicle.com.