Medinah ridge

[Timberghozt]

Of all the stuff I seen and did as a young soldier..That one thing is still fresh in my memory and dreams at night.
Not a lot is written about that battle.I thought I would share my story.We had been engaged the day before at AL Busayahh(sp) .Twenty two of my bros had been hit in a artillery barrage and we killed seven bmps and countless mech infantry.Apaches from 2-1 and 3-1 aviation if I remember came to out aid.We had been engaged for about 6 hours with no where to go but forward.We were 40 some clicks forward of the division main body.Out of range of artillery support except for an MLRS deep strike.At the ranged we were engaging we would likely have killed our ownselves with a MLRS strike.
The aviation battalions came in and wasted the enemy in rapid succession.
I remember that night I prayed to God in the middle of that to keep us safe.He did,he provided the Apaches and their pilots who were truly angels from above that night.Killer angels I guess I should call them.

After Al Busayahh many of our Brads were combat ineffective.ISU`s had been blown out in the Arty attack.We still rolled and about 3 am came to within 1 click of defillade t-72`s..
Little did these Medinah Republican Guard guys know,but death was watching.We were running with 3RD brigade ,"Phantom Brigade" as advanced guard 1 AD.We did a passage of lines about daybreak and 2 armor batts and a mech infantry batt engaged the 52 T-72`s that were dug in..
No contest,they died fast deaths from the "silver bullets".
One of my best friends was a gunner n a Brad that morning.He received a Bronze star with V device that morning.His track came along side a wounded brad and he continued to gun killing Iraq infantry trying to finish the crippled Bradley..
On board that morning,Specialist Clarence A."Johny" Cash would lose his life.A main gun round had went through the track killing him instantly as it hit him and the Bradley commander in the turret.The BC was wounded losing a leg.
Sporadic fighting went on for a few hours inside bunker complexes until all were either dead or surrendered.
I have a permanent order for a VUA from Medinah ridge.Some say it happened at night in a rain storm.It didn`t...
anyways, if anyone else was at the ridge that morning,I would like to hear your story...
Gene

[Dagger X-Ray]

Hell of a memory and story. Guess it would be burned into your brain anyway. Pats on the back brother.

[sandfly]

Timber, I remember the battle, I was also there .

[Timberghozt]

Mike whats happenin brother.Good to see ya here.I know you`d remember it.You ate the same dirt I did bro.BTW,I`m working on tracking down a set of orders for a HSM for us.They exist,blanket orders for the period after the war ended and we did that dmz/cease fire line when the Republican Guard were killing Iraqis who had uprose against Hussein in Basrah.
I found out yesterday I got my CIB over here this go around.Take it easy and lemme know when ya get here..
later
Gene

[Cpt.Tamm]

uh, this story is...hard...

[sandfly]

Gene, congrats on the CIB . If you track down the HSM orders let me know . I still talk to quite a few of the fellows from my Scout platoon from that time . I will ask if any of them have a copy of the orders too .

When I get over to the sand box I'll let you know, so we can hang out over there again . .

[Rotgut1AD]

I was there. I was in 3rd platoon, Bcompany 2-70AR 1AD. I was probably one of those tanks that rolled up on the ridge in the day you mentioned.

I remember that day like yesterday, I was part of Iron Brigade, we were out front of 1AD that day, division was rolling in a diamond with our apache support roaming. Our battallion and company was at the head, my platoon was right side to our point platoon. We came up on the ridge and identified Medinah division tanks almost 2 miles ahead, our thermo really was the difference, their IR couldnt see us as well.

We were pretty well hidden on the low side of this ridge, so our entire brigade literally lined up across the ridge, something like 160 tanks and bradleys. We started moving forward slow on the line, I remember our brigade commander, no joke played the cavalry charge over the net. We started taking arty, it was dropping right behind us. We started engaging and tracers started flying. Tank next to me took a rpg to the front slope, didnt even phase it. Asked the driver later about it and he said it was like a gong, didnt even knew the tank got hit. First round my tank fired, I was loading at the time, gunner didnt use a fire command he just ripped it off and the blast back hit me and the TC in the face, it was so hot I thought we got hit and instinctively dropped down. I realized the gunner had shot then, he was looking over at me piecing together what happened and I cussed his ass out, still get a laugh at that. I thought I was screwed.

Apaches came in soon after the start, they literally hovered several hundred feet up from us ripping hellfires off. Ever hear one shoot a hellfire, it is so loud, screams at you. Some infantry iraqi were opening up on us, gunner picked them out and we both laid into them with the M240s, not sure how many we killed. We ended up shooting 7 rounds and killing 7 tanks, my gunner's nickname was Deadeye Clint, guy was very good gunner, he didnt miss. Funny because he wore glasses and I swear one of his eyes was always twitching.

I remember watching A10 swooping in way behind the lines taking out targets. During the fighting, we had heard it was shot down or maybe it was something else, an apache maybe. Either way, two blackhawks came flying in over us real real low, hauling ass. Supposedly they had some spec ops guys on board going in to get the down pilot. I heard later that they got him out in the middle of it, but that the pilot was dead. Not sure if that is true or not, still pretty amazing those guys went in there like that.

We rolled through them when the fighting was over, pressing on I guess. It was total carnage, those images will haunt me forever I think. BMP I think it was, we took out with a heat round, was burning, a body was hanging out the front hatch with basically the upper chest on up missing. A tank we hit, T72, the turret was 50 feet in front of the bottom part and the engine block was blow out the back by 50 feet. Those Sabot rounds were just nasty.

We killed a bunch of them, but quite a few surrendered. This one iraqi soldier, as we came up, he actually got his hand blown off by a .50 cal round, the guy on the tank manning it didnt realize the guy was trying to surrender at first and shot a burst at the guy. I think the guy actually lived, our medics assigned to my company worked on him. Those iraqis were so messed up, some of them were actually trying to get completely naked to show they were trying to surrender, it was pretty much unreal experience.

I think just about all of us from my unit got Army commendation medals, the officers and platoon sergeants got bronze stars for that fight. Nobody from my unit was even injured in the fighting, very much divine intervention considering the amount of fighting involved.

That was my take on that day, hope you enjoyed it.

[Mark-60]

Great storys. Thanks.

It's nice to hear I was at least some help to the guys doing the shooting.


-Mark.

[Redleg13f2h]

Hey there, just tripped over this forum and joined up. I was at Medinah Ridge as well. I might be a litle foggy since I'm at work on midnight shift right now.

I was the FISTV driver for C-4/70 Armor, 2nd bde. We were the furthest to the left flank of the diamond for 1st AD. The days tend to melt together now, but we had a chevy pickup full of armed republican gaurd playing cat and mouse with us while we were rolling. Probably trying to get us into arty range, since we had been seeing the 55 gal drums on top of the mounds of dirt they used for known points. A tank platoon finally got it surrounded and stopped for interrogation. I remember hearing the senior guy was a major. We had a little indirect fire start up and were getting moving again, when it came over the air that 2/70 had come into heavy contact and we were gonna go support their left flank on-line. We reached the area and the M1's started engaging. We were getting pissed off as a FIST team, because every time we got targets worked up the M1' were knocking them out so fast and rolling forward to closely, we'd have to cancel the fire mission. We finally got slowed down by command so we wouldn't roll into a big mess. Pretty soon we got word that aviation was gonna move in and play awhile so don't shoot at 'em. Little while later the Apache's were on-line, staggered with us firing rockets. While implace here, I had our FISTV oriented backwards so the sargent could scan targets with the hammerhead more efficiently and work up targets. I was pretty much staring at all the support with and behind us while my SGT was working fire missions. The mortars were in tight and set-up with us and the scouts were pulling rear security and securing the prisoners. I remember seeing a round pop close to the scouts and seeing them scramble to the vehicles. I let Sgt. Ross know and then a couple more. as I was filling him in, they got closer from the rear of the formation to the front line. I was a newby, so I got a little panicky and made sure he knew they were bracketing us. Our Lt. passed it along to the C.O. and pretty soon rounds were popping all over. The Apache's dispersed for a bit. I remember seeing a round hit on-line right next to the XO's tank and rung his bell a little as he stood pretty tall in the TC hatch, but no real injury. The m-1's were backing up at a good pace. Sgt Ross had smoke rounds in the air yet, so we had to sit tight for a second. Finally we got rolling and rounds were comeing down pretty good. We had one pop next to us and shift my goggles over on me. Sgt Ross yelled to get the thing moving and I replyed something like, "I am, get the other two out pushing." It was alittle tuff for a 2nd there, since we were bunching a little and had to watch for accidents with the mortars, etc. We just went a little ways to get out of the sheaf of the indirect fire and got the hammerhead up again and scanning. One of the platoons gave us an area to scan he thought thee rounds originated from. We got a couple missions going and put a stop to it. We finally got everything to quit moving with some A-10 support as well and were done for the night. Seems like it was the next day at stand-to, we were told we had til 8am to roll forward and kill what we could before the cease-fire took affect. Not long after that we got tasked to go set up an ambush on the road from Kuwait for a big Iraqi convoy heading north in violation of the order to abandon military equipment. We got to the objective and got cancelled off as Apache's had already cleaned them up.

Don Robbins
HHB 2/1 FA, C4/70 AR FIST

[Dagger X-Ray]

Wow, very interesting stories. Brings back a lot of memories...some of them bad.

I remember taking the order for cease fire over the radio. It was several hours before the order was put into effect though. I passed it on to my brigade commander and he looked both releaved and upset. I think he was enjoying making the bad guys go BOOM. Col. Moreno was a great man, up there with the other great military men. I believe he got his 1 star over his performance in DS.

I often wonder what ever happened to him.

[dbotsfordtat]

I was there with C co 1/7 Infantry. We were from Aco, 4-66 armor and our tank was attached to Charlie. Cash was a Scout in 4-66 Ar Bn so I don't know how close we were to him as they had us with the Infantry. Our Tank was disabled by some arty and the Iraqis were trying to finish us off by walking their arty on top of us. Crazy times.

[nome1837]

My kid brother was a SGT with Phantom Brigade. His name was Earl Bartley He entered service in last years of Viet Nam and was assigned duty at Walter Reed working with Vets & family. (His college major was social sciences). He helped me get through some of the rough patches in my marriage with a PTSD Nam Vet. I visited him Thanksgiving through Xmas and was at base when he deployed to Saudi. He sent me a letter dated Feb 24th 1991 3:30 am, stating letters werent being censured since news would be on CNN before it got sent, that they were going in. He said they had been up for hours waiting for the moveout order. He didnt talk about his experiences, didnt want to upset our Mom and he was busy helping to close Achaffenberg when he got back. Then he went to Korea, and then was sent to Fort Ord to help close that one. He passed away in Monterey. I would love to hear from others who might have known him. Earl has a twin who is still in the militarybut ready to be forced retired(?). I get the impression that they didnt talk too much about what happened there or if they did, our brother doesnt want to share. My other brother is an officer in MI with linquistics specialities and Pentagon isnt too keen on getting those guys killed so he spends a lot of time in foreign Capitals but no combat. The only picture I have of Earl "in country" is a benign shot of him outside his tent with all his gear surrounding him. Bertie

[Eric l Hoffman]

Gene,
I served with A co 4/7 Inf attatched to 1st Armor Div , 3rd Bde. We were part of the advanced guard for 1st armor div. I remember Clarence, he was with hhc 4/66 and I believe sfc wiggins was thrown out of the turret minus his right leg, the only survivor. Seams like yesterday and in some ways a life time ago...I was there with you even though we've never met. Take care brother, Eric

[redfish]

Welcome Eric. I hope Gene gets back to ya or some others from your area in Storm but Gene has not been on this website in 5 years. Hope to see ya on the site often. Lots of remember whens and stuff.

[Bakaruda]

I just came across this post for the first time.

Let me start by saying this. I was in HHC 4/66 Armor Commo Section. During Desert Storm I was the Commo Chief for Delta Company. Dco. Was the lead element for the BN. The day all of this went down the Scouts were performing a flanking move. There is a lot of information out there on the actions surrounding what happened. The report at the time was that a RPG hit the Scouts. We lost two Bradley’s in the battle. Cash was killed and Wiggins lost his leg. I wish I could remember the manes for the rest of the platoon. Anyway, the final FOUO report has it that D22 fired the shots that that hit them. I was friends with the TC I find this hard to swallow. Cash was killed a 4:15pm and the cease fire was ordered at 8am the next morning. This will never change, he was a high energy soldier and respected by all. The one thing most people do not know is he did not have to be there. He and his wife lost a baby just a few days before the ground war started. For this he has always been a Hero to me!