NG Company takes fight to enemy in insurgent stronghold

Infantry Magazine,  July-August, 2006  by Aaron Flint

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For nearly a year, National Guard soldiers with Alpha Company, Task Force Saber, controlled a sector in the place Time magazine cited as the worst place in Iraq--Ramadi.

The Marines operated in the heart of Ramadi on one side of the river, while Alpha Company operated in the urban area on the other side of the river. The urban portion of Alpha's battlespace alone contained upwards of 40,000 people. Faced with the daily threat of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), small arms fire, sniper and rocket attacks, Alpha's commander, Major Jason Pelletier of Milton, Vt., put together an unorthodox team of tankers, infantrymen, field artillerymen, and Long Range Surveillance snipers from different units across Vermont, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania to stay on the offense in the counterinsurgency fight.

During their time in Ramadi, Alpha, whose parent unit is 3-172nd Infantry Battalion (Mountain) headquartered in Jericho, Vt., successfully held the line in a battalion-sized battlespace for close to a year while serving under Task Force Saber and the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 28th Infantry Division. More than holding the line, Alpha took the fight to the enemy, increasing the foothold of coalition and Iraqi Security Forces.

"We took the Iraqi Army from conducting squad-level patrols to owning their own urban battalion battlespace in under a year," said Pelletier of the increased presence of Iraqi Army forces in Ramadi. "We've done it by creating an unconventional combat set that is combined arms in nature."

To hinder the IED threat and provide security for the main routes into and out of the city, Alpha manned observation posts (OPs) with tanks, high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles (HMMWVs), and Bradley fighting vehicles from the main combined arms platoons referred to as "vigilant hunters." From these OPs, the men were able to successfully engage IED emplacement teams on the main routes and overwatch the sector. With a combined arms team of tankers and infantrymen, Alpha was able to combine the optics and the firepower of the tanks and Bradleys with the ground assets in the HMMWV crews.

While manning OPs, the platoon charged with securing the sector at any given time then used their HMMWV crews to patrol the heart of the city. These crews became the eyes, ears, and representatives of the unit on the ground. In addition to regular combat patrol missions, these crews roamed the city and gathered atmospherics on the neighborhoods, checking in with shop owners and local families on services and any unusual activity in the area.

"It was pretty wild," said Sergeant Brandon Allmond, a 21-year-old tanker from Philadelphia, Pa., who ended up serving as a truck commander with Alpha Company. "When you're roving, it's just your two trucks and the guys in those trucks. You are your own security, you are your own overwatch, and you are your own assault team."

While it was mainly the truck crews roving the guts of the city, they knew they had the Bradley and tank crews watching their backs at all times.

Although a smaller unit, Alpha was able to organize into a highly lethal team. Crucial to Alpha's success were the enablers who contributed their resources to the mission. Several teams composed the enablers offering resources to the mission, including the Task Force Saber intelligence shop, as well as tactical human intelligence teams, Naval Special Warfare teams through their work with the Iraqi soldiers, Marine Corps K9 teams, Civil Affairs groups, counter-IED engineer units, and others.

Part of that enabler team included Marine Corps Major David Berke from Miramar, Calif. Berke and his Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (ANGLICO) team started operating with Alpha Company when Berke first came to Ramadi.

"I never thought in my career I'd be on the ground in a firefight with my M-4 (rifle)," said Berke, an F-18 fighter pilot who spent the last three years as a Top Gun flight instructor.

As a piece of the full spectrum combined arms fight, Berke's ANGLICO teams coordinated air support for the Soldiers when they came under enemy contact or were conducting raids, creating a link between the Army ground units and the Marine aviation units in sector. Berke is used to seeing the fight from 20,000 feet in the air, traveling at 500 miles per hour. Now, Berke is on the ground in the middle of firefights, getting shot at by rocket propelled grenades and going on high-speed car chases.

"The only way to be effective as a direct supporting unit is if I know the battlespace as well as you do," said Berke. "I need to know the mosques, the soccer fields, and the alleyways. The more familiar I am with the battlespace--the less time it's going to take me to get the air support you need."

Besides coordinating air support, he and his team could be counted on as skilled riflemen on the ground. In another sector, Berke was pinned down in enemy crossfire. Fortunately, he was already in radio contact with the F-18 pilot overhead.