Ambushed 507th Maintenance Company soldiers tell their story

EDITOR'S Note: The ambush of the Army's 507th Maintenance Company on March 23 was deadly. Of the 33 soldiers who made a wrong turn into the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, 11 were killed and six captured. With Thursday's release of an official report on the incident, survivors have been given permission to speak. Four talked in detail to The Associated Press; this is their story.

By Michael Luo and Chris Roberts ~ The Associated Press

Sgt. Matthew Rose was getting nervous. Somewhere along the way, the 507th Maintenance Company had missed a turn. Probably nothing serious, but they were clearly in the wrong place.

As the 16-vehicle convoy made a U-turn, a 2 1/2-ton truck in the middle of the line suddenly coughed and died -- out of gas. Rose and a few others took up defensive positions while mechanics scrambled to refuel the truck with 5-gallon cans. Clutching his M-16, the 37-year-old father of six scanned the road south toward the city of Nasiriyah.

Rose was the unit's supply sergeant. He kept track of items like toilet paper, wrenches and spare tires. Guard duty in hostile territory wasn't normally a part of his job.

Rose was relieved when the order finally came down to get back in their vehicles and start back toward town.

He steered his 5-ton bobtail and trailer, laden with supplies, east on the four-lane road. Suddenly, he heard gunfire.

The 507th had driven into an ambush.

Directions and delays

The directions to Objective RAMS, the 507th's destination in the middle of southeastern Iraq, were simple enough: travel overland to the Iraqi border; link up to the hardball (a paved road) Route Blue, also known as Highway 8; make a left onto Route Jackson, Highway 1; stay on Route Jackson until it intersected again with Route Blue.

The 507th's commander, Capt. Troy Kent King, was new to his job, taking charge just as the company was departing for Iraq from Fort Bliss, Texas. He was a quiet leader -- easygoing, smart and a good listener. He'd joined the Army a decade ago as a dental assistant and got his captain's bars in October. This was his first time in combat.

On March 20, the first day of the war, the company, which provides support for a Patriot missile battalion, moved out of its staging area in Kuwait at 2 p.m. Almost immediately, things began going wrong.

The company's drivers weren't experienced driving over desert sand. As the 33 vehicles, many weighed down by tons of equipment, snaked toward the border, they began bogging down. Staff Sgt. Tarik Jackson, in charge of maintaining the 507th's fleet, rode at the end of the convoy in a 5-ton tow truck. Whenever someone got stuck, he peeled off to help.

Cpl. Damien Luten, a beefy 24-year-old supply clerk from Indiana, called on Jackson's tow truck a half-dozen times to pull him out of the sand.

Ahead of them in the convoy, Rose, the supply sergeant, was riding with his supply clerk, 19-year-old Pfc. Jessica Lynch of West Virginia. Lynch was nervous, and Rose, her mentor, tried to project confidence.

By 5:30 a.m. on March 22, the vehicles in the little convoy were scattered for miles across the desert and had fallen well behind the rest of the Third Infantry Division they were supposed to be accompanying.

King's battalion commanders told him they couldn't wait and told him to push forward as best he could. King sent 32 soldiers in 17 vehicles ahead with the main convoy and waited for the rest of his company to show up.

The remaining half -- 33 soldiers and 18 vehicles -- finally reached him at a desert checkpoint at 7:30 p.m.

Out of contact

By now, the American advance had morphed into a mind-bending traffic jam as vehicles from various units converged and headed north.

Out of radio range of his superiors, King decided to take the most direct route to Highway 8 -- straight overland. It took the convoy five hours to drive the 8 miles to the highway.

Heading west on Route Blue now, the convoy watched for a manned traffic control point where they should have been directed onto Route Jackson. By the time they got there, the post had been abandoned. King asked some Marines in the area if Route Blue continued north. They confirmed that it did.

King had already made a crucial mistake, according to the Army report on the incident. He was supposed to lead his company from Route Blue to Route Jackson, but on his personal map, he had highlighted Route Blue all the way.

Sgt. Curtis Campbell, 27, a logistics specialist, was driving behind King with a load of Patriot missile parts. He felt reassured when he spotted lights in the distance, figuring they were from the main convoy.

Already on the wrong road, King missed a left turn that would have kept them on Route Blue and bypassed the heart of the city of Nasiriyah.

Now they were heading north on Route 7/8, crossing a bridge over the Euphrates River and driving directly into what soon became known as "ambush alley."

A dangerous turnaround

Buildings were becoming more tightly packed, some hugging the road. Trenches and berms lined the roadside, but they appeared abandoned. They passed an Iraqi military checkpoint, a phone-booth-sized shack manned by an Iraqi soldier. He waved at them.

The group had gone a half-mile up that road when King realized he had somehow lost Route Blue and decided to turn the convoy around.

Now, the members of the 507th became separated. The larger vehicles had to travel farther down the road to find a spot wide enough to turn.

The convoy was now split into three groups. The first three vehicles, led by King, sprinted ahead. Rose led a second group of four vehicles that included Campbell, Jackson and Luten. Far behind was the largest group, with 17 soldiers, including Lynch, their vehicles all towing cumbersome trailers or disabled vehicles.

Losing shelter

Rose had entered the city as the lead vehicle in the second group, but now the speedier vehicles were passing him. A fuel truck with two soldiers rumbled past, its shot-out tires flapping. As Jackson raced by, Rose saw his good friend slumped over in the passenger seat. Then came Campbell, and finally Luten, also obviously hurt.

Iraqis dressed in civilian clothes were firing rocket-propelled grenade launchers now. Campbell also spotted a tank. The Army estimated 250 Iraqis converged to attack the 507th, according to Rose.

The slow-moving third group was under heavy fire. Veering to avoid an Iraqi dump truck, one tractor-trailer carrying two soldiers went off the road. It was immediately struck from behind by the Humvee carrying Lynch and four others. Three were killed instantly; Lynch and Pfc. Lori Piestewa, who died later in captivity, were badly hurt. Behind them, another soldier was killed by gunfire.

Two other vehicles nearly made it out of the ambush before the soldiers inside were killed. Everyone in the third group with Miller was either killed or captured.

Rescue arrives for some

Of the 33 soldiers who entered Nasiriyah that morning, only 16 would emerge that day, four of them wounded. Ultimately, 11 soldiers were killed and six were captured, among them Lynch, who was later rescued from an Iraqi hospital.

Rose received the Bronze Star with V-device for valor for his actions that day; Campbell, a Purple Heart and Bronze Star; Jackson and Luten, Purple Hearts.