Crossing the Border

I will let my ACTUAL journal do most of the talking for this post.

March 21, 2003 2nd Battalion 1st Marines crossed the Kuwaiti border into Iraq and engaged elements of the Iraqi border guard and the 51st Mechanized Division. CAAT platoon supported Fox Company’s attack by clearing the initial breach point and escorting Fox Co (call sign: Terrapin) to their objective, the Umm Qasr new port facility. On March 24 I wrote the following journal entry:

Two things from this entry, first I am not sure why on earth looking back that we wouldn’t expect any resistance at the border. Maybe there was good reason, or maybe I was in a bit of denial. I have no idea. Second, I THINK the ground offensive had actually launched the morning prior. The spearhead units of I MEF were crossing the border and were pushing through Safwan North towards Nasiriyah.

Here are some pictures taken by journalists attached to the battalion of the incoming artillery:

The above picture was actually taken from the Kuwait side of the berm, you can see on the right hand side what appears to be one of the British Bridging units that helped us cross the tank ditch.

Here you can see Fox Co and 81mm Mortar platoon in the large troop trucks, in the background the initial artillery shells are falling directly in front of the CAAT platoon screening forces (I am the far right humvee)

I left the captions the photographer had placed on the pictures. It is important to note that we were taking both friendly danger close artillery from a British unit, AND fire from an Iraqi D-30 155mm artillery battery that was set up, ironically, right outside of our main objective.

Battalion Objective 5 was a massive radio antenna set up that could be seen for miles around. The British unit we were attached to for the invasion was planning on using it as an Enemy Prisoner Of War Collection Point (ECP).

Echo Company found a much larger group of Iraqi soldiers who surrendered, but they had a lot more than 8 guys and two humvees to deal with them. One of the prisoners was a Lt. Col. We also found maps, uniforms, and various other items of interest.

We ended up spending a few days at Az Zubayr waiting for the British to take over the ports and surrounding area, afterwards we got our marching orders up to An Nasiriyah to relieve Task Force Tarawa.

We had a very eventful first day of the war, and I am proud of the fact that for the first 72 hours of the war my squad was able to operate independently receiving orders via radio and being left to accomplish tasks with no supervision. We were fairly lucky that no one was seriously injured in the artillery barrages on the first day, nor in the brief skirmishes we found ourselves in for the net two days around Umm Qasr and Az Zubayr.

Ryan.