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Remember the start of Iraq War?
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 2004-11-09 3:03 PM |
Elite  3498     Chicago |  Subject: Remember the start of Iraq War?Do you guys remember the "start" of the Iraq War when the US was glued to their TV as they saw a bunker buster bomb attempt to kill Sadaam holed up in a bunker with his top aides? Do you also happen to remember the CNN coverage of an unmanned camera on top of a hotel during the first day of the conflict? Remeber that lone car driving down the street that was caught by the camera? Read on... An Elite Athlete. By Tom Demerly. It is dark and Mike Smith's clothing is wet. Mike Smith is an athlete, an elite athlete in fact. He is a triathlete, has done Ironman several times, a couple adventure races and even run the Marathon Des Sables in Morocco; a 152 mile running race through the Sahara done in stages. Mike has some college, is gifted in foreign languages, reads a lot and has an amazing memory for details. He enjoys travel. He is a quiet guy but a very good athlete. Mike's friends say he has a natural toughness. He can't spend as much time training for triathlons as he'd like to because his job keeps him busy. Especially now. This is Mike's busy season. But he still seems very fit. Even without much training Mike has managed some impressive performances in endurance events. It's a big night for Mike. He's at work tonight. As I mentioned his clothing is wet, partially from dew, partially from perspiration. He and his four coworkers, Dan, Larry, Pete and Maurice are working on a rooftop at the corner of Jamia St. and Khulafa St. across from Omar Bin Yasir. Mike is looking through the viewfinder of a British made Pilkington LF25 laser designator. The crosshairs are centered on a ventilation shaft. Theshaft is on the roof of The Republican Guard Palace in downtown Baghdad across the Tigris River. Saddam Hussein is inside, seven floors below, three floors below ground level, attending a crisis meeting. Mike's coworker Pete (also an Ironman finisher, Lake Placid, 2000) keys some information into a small laptop computer and hits "burst transmit." The DMDG (Digital Message Device Group) uplinks data to another of Mike's coworkers (this time a man he's never met, but they both work for their Uncle, "Sam") and a fellow athlete, at 21'500 feet above Iraq 15 miles from downtown Baghdad. This man's office is the cockpit of an F-117 stealth fighter. When Mike and Pete's signal is received the man in the airplane leaves his orbit outside Baghdad, turns left, and heads downtown. Mike has 40 seconds to complete his work for tonight, and then he can go for a run. Mike squeezes the trigger of his LF25 and a dot appears on the ventilator shaft five city blocks and across the river away from him and his coworkers. Mike speaks softly into his microphone; "Target illuminated. Danger close. Danger Close. Danger close. Over." Seconds later two GBU-24B two thousand pound laser-guided, hardened case, delayed fuse "bunker buster" bombs fall free from the F-117. The bombs enter "the funnel" and begin finding their way to the tiny dot projected by Mike's LF25. They glide approximately three miles across the ground and fall four miles on the way to the spot marked by Mike and his friends. When they reach the ventilator shaft marked by Mike and his friends the two bunker busters enter the roof in a puff of dust and debris. They plow through the first four floors of the building like a two-ton steel telephone pole traveling over 400 m.p.h., tossing desks, ceiling tiles, computers and chairs out the shattering windows. Then they hit the six-foot thick reinforced concrete roof of the bunker. They burrow four more feet and detonate. The shock wave is transparent but reverberates through the ground to the river where a Doppler wave appears on the surface of the Tigris. When the seismic shock reaches the building Mike is on he levitates an inch off the roof from the concussion. Then the sound hits. The two explosions are like a simultaneous crack of thunder as the building's walls seem to swell momentarily, then burst apart on an expanding fireball that slowly, eerily, boils above Baghdad casting rotating shadows as the fire climbs into the night. Debris begins to rain; structural steel, chunks of concrete, shards of glass, flaming fabrics and papers. On the tail of the two laser-guided bombs a procession of BGM-109G/TLAMBlock IV Enhanced Tomahawks begin their terminal plunge. The laser-guided bombs performed the incision, the GPS and computer guided TLAM Tomahawks complete the operation. In rapid-fire succession the missiles find their mark and riddle the Palace with massive explosions, finishing the job. The earth heaves in a final death convulsion. Mike's job is done for tonight. Now all he has to do is get home. Mike and his friends drive an old Mercedes through the streets of Baghdad as the sirens start. They take Jamia to Al Kut, cross Al Kut and go right(South) on the Expressway out of town. An unsuspecting remote CNN camera mounted on the balcony of the Al Rashid Hotel picks up their vehicle headed out of town. Viewers at home wonder what a car is doing on the street during the beginning of a war. They don't know it is packed with five members of the U.S. Army's SFOD-D, Special Forces Operational Detachment - Delta. Six miles out of town they park their Mercedes on the shoulder, pull their gear out of the trunk and begin to run into the desert night. The moon is nearly full. Instinctively they fan out, on line, in a "lazy 'W' ." They run five miles at a brisk pace, good training for this evening, especially with 27 lb. packs on their back. Behind them there is fire on the horizon. Mike and his fellow athletes have a meeting to catch, and they can't be late. Twenty-seven miles out a huge gray 92 foot long insect hurtles 40 feet above the desert at 140 mph The MH-53J Pave Low III is piloted by another athlete, also a triathlete, named Jim, from Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He is flying to meet Mike. After running five miles into the desert Mike uses his GPS to confirm his position. He is in the right place at the right time. He removes an infrared strobe light from his pack and pushes the red button on the bottom of it. It blinks invisibly in the dark. He and his friends form a wide 360 degree circle while waiting for their ride home. Two miles out Jim in the Pave Low sees Mike's strobe through his night-vision goggles. He gently moves the control stick and pulls back on the collective to line up on Mike's infrared strobe. Mike's ride home is here. The big Pave Low helicopter flares for landing over the desert and quickly touches down in a swirling tempest of dust. Mike and his friends run up the ramp after their identity is confirmed. Mike counts them up the ramp of the helicopter over the scream of the engines. When he shows the crew chief five fingers the helicopter lifts off and the ramp comes up. The dark gray Pave Low spins in its own length and picks up speed going back the way it came, changing course slightly to avoid detection. The men and women in our armed forces, especially Special Operations, are often well trained, gifted athletes. All of them, including Mike, would rather be sleeping the night away in anticipation of a long training ride rather than lying on a damp roof in an unfriendly neighborhood guiding bombs to their mark or doing other things we'll never hear about. Regardless of your opinions about the war, the sacrifices these people are making and the risks they are taking are extraordinary. They believe they are making them on our behalf. Their skills, daring and accomplishments almost always go unspoken. They are truly Elite Athletes. |
| 2004-11-09 3:20 PM in reply to: #80863 |
Pro 5153 Helena, MT | Subject: RE: Remember the start of Iraq War? Neat! My dad was Special Forces! Though I keep on trying to talk him into it, he's convinced he's 'too old' to do triathlons... :-P Thanks for sharing that story.... very interesting. |
| 2004-11-09 4:27 PM in reply to: #80863 |
Veteran 101 | Subject: RE: Remember the start of Iraq War? That is a great story; however, it is a work of historical fiction. In the article below the author gives his reasons for writing the story. I’m certainly not trying to minimize the efforts of the military, but thought I should set the record straight. My wife and I are planning a trip to Boston next spring and I’ve been brushing up on my early US history. (I like to have as much “background” information as I can when I go somewhere. I think you can relate to a city much better when you know its history.) We have been blessed as a country for 250 years to have people like the ones who are memorialized in this story out there risking everything so that we can have the freedom to do what we want. I think many people do not understand the sacrifices that have been made and are still being made. Read a biography of George Washington. He may have never completed a triathlon, but I don’t think anyone would ever dispute that he was an “elite athlete.” An Elite Athlete: The Inside Story. By Tom Demerly. On March 23rd I posted an editorial called "An Elite Athlete" to our website. It was a tribute to America's soldiers in general, and Special Operations specifically. Since the editorial went up we saw what we thought was an unusual spike in site traffic. Then our site host contacted us. They told us our hit traffic had exceeded our contracted transfer rate by an "enormous margin". We transferred to our own server due to the increase in traffic. Good thing we did. Since then our site received approximately 1 million hits. I nearly pooped my pants. We got e-mails from parents of soldiers, wives of soldiers, relatives of soldiers, old retired soldiers, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and general well wishers. The most valuable e-mails we got were from the men themselves. I got a call from CBS News in New York. They wanted to know where I got the information. They were looking for a story. I told them "Sorry, no story here… We just sell bikes". I got an e-mail from Joe Galloway, Defense Correspondent for the Knight-Ridder Newspaper chain in Washington D.C. I got an e-mail and a phone call from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division for Intelligence at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. They were interested in hearing my sources. I was like "Ahh, you guys taught me this stuff." A literary agent from New York, Andrew Zack of the Zack Company, who represents 50 well known authors to several major publishers contacted me and now I am working with him on book ideas. More newspapers and radio stations contacted me. More people grabbed the story and cut and pasted it and mailed it to their friends. I did interviews and made speeches. Somehow, either through the miracle of the Internet or a news report or both our editorial was making the rounds on the web. And fast. I got 151 e-mails this morning. I have received hundreds of e-mails in response to "An Elite Athlete". Only three are critical of the editorial, one a woman who said it glorified war. I wrote her back saying I thought she missed the point but thanking her for her response. "An Elite Athlete" is historical fiction. There is no specific person as "Mike Smith". The activities depicted in the story are not based on any specific operation. I made them up in my head in about 37 minutes. I was watching CNN the night before and saw a big bomb score a direct hit on the Republican Palace in Baghdad and then, minutes later, saw a lone white Mercedes sedan on a CNN remote camera leaving the area. I thought, "Hmmmm, that's interesting." Then I came in here the next morning and wrote the story. That's it. To me the story was so obviously fictional I thought there would be no chance it could be interpreted as fact. Factual information as detailed as "An Elite Athlete" would never be available in the public domain about existing or on-going operations. I figured everyone would know that. The military does not formally recognize Delta as a part of their normal operational organization tables. "An Elite Athlete" is a fictional look through the smoke and mirrors that is special operations. As many writers and readers know, truth is always stranger than fiction. And "An Elite Athlete" is a perfect example: On April 2, Sunday NBC, MSNBC, CNN, CBS and other major news networks reported that an American POW, Pfc. Jessica Lynch of the 507th Maintenance Company, had been rescued by a "Combined Special Operations Mission" that included, according to reports, Army Rangers and Navy Special Warfare Operatives (SEALs). Grainy night vision images of the operation showed withering fire power being directed during a diversionary raid (according to U.S. Central Command). Then the video showed soldiers (presumably Special Operations personnel from their Nomex fire resistant uniforms and customized M4 carbines) carrying the wounded Pfc. Lynch from a Special Operations MH-60 Blackhawk (or Pavehawk depending on the unit) to a larger aircraft for medevac. As I said, truth is stranger than fiction. Imagine the rescue: Private Lynch, wounded, certainly frightened but doing her best as a U.S. soldier to stay alive and keep the faith that she will survive. The rescue team enters the building from the roof, the ground- everywhere at once. They are quickly clearing rooms on the way to their objective. Moving with speed and precision from years of training. All hell is being unleashed outside. They enter the room with Private Lynch. A soldier bends over the wounded Private's bed and says, "I am here to rescue you". In the hours preceding Private Lynch's rescue it is safe to assume that she was one of the loneliest people on the planet, clinging to a fragile hope that seemed to slip by the hour. But then Special Operations arrived. Under fire she is extracted to a waiting special operations helicopter. And freedom. "At this point [Lynch] is safe, she has been retrieved, and some brave souls put their lives on the line," said U.S. Central Command spokesman Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks following the operation. Brigadier General Vincent Brooks went on to say in a press briefing, "In an operation like this ... there is a lot of deception." It is unlikely we will never know the full story surrounding the rescue of Pfc. Lynch. And the same goes for many, many special operations being conducted around the clock. They are secret and shall remain so. Forever. There will be no public historical record. And that is the way it should be. At CIA Headquarters in McLean, Virginia when you enter the main lobby of the old building there is the beautiful, granite 16-foot CIA emblem inlaid into the floor. It is a holy place, like going to church. If you look to your right as you enter the lobby there is a white granite wall. On it are 79 stars. One star for each of 79 CIA operatives who have lost their lives in service to our country. Below it is a book with 44 names of persons who have a star on that wall. Each Memorial Day the story of one of those names is read in the lobby. There are 35 other stars on the wall. Their story can never be told. There are many more stories about people who don't even have a star. And there is room for more stars. All without recognition. So I wrote "An Elite Athlete" to recognize, in a very small way, the contributions of people who never get recognition. I'm excited that the little story seems to have worked. Over a million people have read it. In a way it's funny a lot of people thought the story was true. That flatters me (as a writer). But I will make you a guarantee: The true stories we will never hear would make for much more compelling reading. These people are Elite Athletes. I'm glad so many people enjoyed this little tale, and thank all of you for your kind words. More importantly, thanks to the Meat Eaters, Shadow Men, Ghosts, Spooks, Drivers, Door Kickers, D-Boys, and Operators doing their job at this hour. Have an Airborne day, and Drive On. |
| 2004-11-09 4:37 PM in reply to: #80863 |
Elite 3498 Chicago | Subject: RE: Remember the start of Iraq War? Now what, you're going to tell everyone there's no Santa Clause too? |
| 2004-11-09 4:44 PM in reply to: #80931 |
Veteran 101 | Subject: RE: Remember the start of Iraq War? There's no Santa?  Then who's going to bring me my new bike for Christmas? |
| 2004-11-09 6:07 PM in reply to: #80863 |
Master 1927 Chicago | Subject: RE: Remember the start of Iraq War? There better be a Santa - I need a Tri Bike! Hmmm. I've got mixed feelings about this article. As prose it's good, (although I was wondering did the special forces unit raid all the triathlon races for recruits it seemed everyone was an athlete) but it shows what's really wrong with the Internet. The fact that anybody can write anything and it get around the world instantneously without facts or corraboration is dangerous. What if Al Jazerra had picked it up and passed it on to the insurgents and they started bombing all the Mercedes' or whatever. I know simplistic thought but still could occur. As a former journalist who lives by the motto, "If your mother says she loves you get a second source," it would have behooved the writer to put a disclaimmer that this story was fictional especially since he picked out the CNN car. I mean Law and Order does it why not him? But I guess that would have let the wind out of his sails a bit. |
| 2004-11-09 6:12 PM in reply to: #80863 |
Master 1927 Chicago | Subject: RE: Remember the start of Iraq War? Instead of making up stuff he could have wrote about Maj. Williams Maples, a six-time finisher of Ultramrathon contest who staged his own 135-mile version of California's Badwater Ultramarathon race in Iraq after his deployment prohibited him from traveling to the race. He did it as a fund-raiser asking family and friends to send school supplies for Iraqi children. 52 boxes of thos supplies arrived at Camp Taqaddum and were given to local children. (Runners Word Dec. '04). Now that's a story worth reading! I guess, I'm not a huge fan of fiction because I've spent most of my life covering real life and real life is just so much better. |
| 2004-11-09 6:13 PM in reply to: #80863 |
Elite 3498 Chicago | Subject: RE: Remember the start of Iraq War? Seriously...there is no Santa guys. Trust me. |
| 2004-11-09 6:16 PM in reply to: #80958 |
Pro 5153 Helena, MT | Subject: RE: Remember the start of Iraq War? Yeah, Ovetta. I was duped by it! LOL! Whether or not it was his intention to fool folks, he seems to assume an awfully good understanding of how the military works of all of his readers. It didn't sound that far-fetched to me...my dad has told me some crazy stuff about Vietnam and particularly, about Border Patrol operations (which the gov't probably wouldn't have released, but regardless, I know)! And it got Steve, and he served in the military. You're right, he should have put a disclaimer on it.... |
| 2004-11-09 6:24 PM in reply to: #80863 |
Master 1927 Chicago | Subject: RE: Remember the start of Iraq War? Steve, I refuse to believe the propaganda you are peddling that says there is no Santa Claus! I've got a telegram right here from the North Pole and they ask that you cease and desist this horrible rumor you are spreading about Santa Claus' lack of existence. Stop it our I'll call me lawyer!
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 2004-11-09 6:28 PM in reply to: #80963 |
| Subject: ... This user's post has been ignored. |
| 2004-11-09 6:58 PM in reply to: #80863 |
| Elite 3498 Chicago | Subject: RE: Remember the start of Iraq War? Oh, I forgot to mention... No tooth fairy or easter bunny either. But did you know that the guy down the street that owns the flower shop is a covert CIA agent? Oh, wait, that was Fokker's future father in-law....nevermind... Yeah, Kim's right, that story did "get" me and it is quite plausable as evidenced by the number of government phone calls the author "allegedly" received. The guys I met in jump school that were PJs, Force Recon, and in the Teams all fit the bill of the triathletes Tom describes in his fairy tale. For those of you who have ever been to Lackland or know people who have been to OL-H especially know what I'm talking about. Edited by Steve- 2004-11-09 6:58 PM |
| 2004-11-10 5:45 AM in reply to: #80863 |
| Champion 5850 Michigan | Subject: RE: Remember the start of Iraq War? Fokker? That's funny. My Partner always refers to Fokker and Kaiser Sosay. It took me years to figure out what he was talking about. That tells you how many movies and how much TV I watch. But Santa? I know who he is, man. Don't go spreading ugly rumors. That's just mean spirited. Trix Edited by trixie 2004-11-10 5:45 AM |
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