Publication:Chattanooga Times Free Press
Date:Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Section:Front Page; Page:1

By Edward Lee Pitts Military Affairs

CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait — The Tennessee National Guard troops’ eyes never wavered from screens showing video of the homemade bombs they have heard about but now are just weeks away from encountering.

In one video, a soldier in a U.S. convoy focuses his camera on three children walking along a road moments before a car explodes into flames. The powerful blast kills all three children.

More footage shows a convoy’s lead vehicle vanishing in a fireball of smoke and debris on an empty dirt road. A third video shows a stopped convoy where one vehicle already down from an explosion is hit again by another bomb just as a stretcher is brought out to those injured in the first attack.

The videos were an eerie centerpiece for a class soldiers with the 278th Regimental Combat Team took late last week on improvised explosive devices. The members of the 278th now are preparing for their own convoy into Iraq.

Class instructor Sgt. Will Alt, who has spent months in Iraq with his Army unit, said the homemade roadside bombs are the weapon of choice wielded by insurgents in the country.

"We just kicked a hornet’s nest," Sgt. Alt said, referring to the coalition forces’ recent offensive in the rebel stronghold of Fallujah. "They are spread out all over the country now hitting us hard everywhere."

First Lt. Will Sarrell, 37, of Dayton, Tenn., said the 90-minute training class hit home even though he had heard most of the information before.

"It is sobering now because we are on this side of the border," he said.

Sgt. Alt said guerrilla attacks have evolved into a deadly game of cat and mouse between U.S. forces and the opposition.

"The more we adapt, the more they adapt," he told the troops. "It is just a dog chasing his tail all of the time."

Sgt. 1st Class Edward Cook, of Knoxville, said the videos made it clear the insurgents will stop at nothing to kill Americans.

"If they don’t care about their own children, they don’t care about us," he said.

"It’s scary," said 1st Sgt. Harley Upchurch, 45, also of Dayton, "but these guys have been training for five months now. We know what we are looking for. We will be all right."

Sgt. Alt said the most dangerous trend in Iraq is the use of broken-down vehicles filled with explosives. The vehicle itself becomes its own deadly weapon as thousands of fragments turn into projectiles, he said.

The insurgents will not run out of explosive materials any time soon despite recent discoveries of weapons by U.S. troops, Sgt. Alt said.

"There are military caches everywhere we don’t know about," he said. "The insurgents can get as many of them as they want any day of the week."

He said U.S. troops do have an advantage in wielding firepower so strong and quick it often forces rushed insurgents to become sloppy and plant explosives that don’t go off or are easily seen.

Sgt. Alt said the insurgents favor small remote-control devices easily concealed in their palms, such as rewired door bells, garage door openers, pagers and wireless phones. That can make it difficult for troops to retaliate after an incident, he said.

"The only way you can shoot someone is if you are 100 percent sure they detonated that (explosive device)," he said. He warned that troops with quick trigger fingers could face charges in certain cases.

Sgt. Alt’s final advice to the class centered on avoiding patterns.

"Everywhere you go and everything you do in the country, there is always somebody watching," he said, referring to Iraqi workers on U.S. bases who often are offered cash by insurgents for any information.

E-mail Lee Pitts at lpitts@timesfreepress.com

Story Copyright to Chattanooga Times Free press