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Take Down: The 3rd Infantry
Division's Twenty-One Day Assault on Baghdad From the Introduction... It was a few thousand soldiers like Sergeant Johnson at the tip of the spear that made the 3rd ID the most awesome weapon of war America has ever placed on the battlefield. They were men who proved absolutely ruthless in fight, but a moment later would start helping enemy wounded, even at great personal risk. [This] story from Sergeant Johnson's experience around As Samawah gives insight into the character of the men who fight America's wars. In his own words: We were in an overwatch position after the battle of As Samawah. I was watching through the thermals and I see this Iraqi attempting to sneak up on us in the dark. He gets about seventy-five meters away when all of a sudden this bull comes out of nowhere and demolishes the guy. Really lays him out and thrashes him. The whole platoon is watching and is in absolute hysterics. Then somehow the guy manages to stab the bull and it bellows and runs away. Using his rifle as a crutch he then starts back towards my vehicle! He then falls down and begins to crawl towards us. When he is about thirty-five meters away he aims the rifle at us so we killed him with the coax. His rifle was a really nice .303 British so I kept it for a while. Later in the war I was shooting RPG guys from two hundred plus meters away. When that .303 hit them they stayed down for good. Anyway later that night the bull came back and stomped on this guy for hours. He would gore him, throw him up in the air, and then stomp on him some more. The next day the guy was about three inches thick! We later protected the bull the whole time he was there. We conducted first aid for his wounds and gave him all the water and vegetables we could find. We also protected him from other Iraqis and other soldiers. This was the 3rd ID'S war, and this is their story. It is not a happy story. There were no parades or welcoming crowds. Iraqi units did not all melt away or surrender as the troops had been led to believe they would. Rather, tens of thousands of Iraqis fought with fanatical, even suicidal, intensity. They were met by dedicated, hard-fighting American soldiers. Sergeant Johnson's story is typical of the hundreds of engagements the 3rd ID fought before it finally stormed into Baghdad. It is a story of twenty-one days of brutal fighting, a story that until now has remained largely untold. Mostly it is the story of American soldiers who killed in order to do what America asked them to do, but as one officer stated, "My men could not wait to stop killing and start helping people." It is a special breed of man that can fight America's wars one day and turn to repairing schoolhouses the next. —Jim Lacey, Take Down: The 3rd Infantry Division's Twenty-One Day Assault on Baghdad, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2007.
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Jim Lacey has written a magnificent battle narrative to put beside David Zucchino's Thunder Run. Few combat historians are able to achieve a narrative balance between the big picture of brigades and battalions and the actions of small units. Lacey has done that and delivers a history that finally tells just how the war in Iraq was won. Most highly recommended. Available at Amazon and other retailers.
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