![]() ![]() It was a pretty intense scream,” added Schrad, who was in the same truck as Birkel. ![]() “Jake (Graff) came over the radio and he said they were taking contact from the left side, and it was more than just a regular radio call. “I think it probably kind of set in for me when you started hearing some of your buddies on the radio that they were hit,” remembered Birkel. “You could just hear the constant rifle rounds coming through. “You could see the RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) smoke going through the air,” Schrad said. This was understandable from ditches and buildings in this open area, 40 to 50 attackers showered the convoy with bullets and rocket-propelled grenades. “You’re bumper-to-bumper,” Bloebaum added, “and there’s no way to get a 60-foot truck backed up right away and get moving.”Ĭivilian truck drivers from countries like Pakistan and Turkey abandoned their unprotected trucks and ran for cover, adding to the traffic jam. “On a two-lane road when you have mud on your left and on your right, and you know that somebody’s already stuck, the whole road is blocked with trucks at that point,” Beck said. Water and mud on either side of the highway kept trucks from going around flooding ditches was believed to be another part of the ambush. “That’s what we assumed, they were trying to stop the convoy,” Bloebaum added. “Trying to completely block our convoy from the front to end is the thinking.” “And there was a van coming down the opposite side of the road and then an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) hit it and flipped it over in front of the convoy," Beck said. That was the start,” Bloebaum remembered. “Through the radio mic you can hear that she was getting blasted by an automatic weapon. On a radio, they heard something happening to the gun truck leading the convoy. Bloebaum was riding in the passenger seat next to Beck. Premonitions became reality shortly before noon. “I don’t know why, but there was just something that it didn’t feel right.” ![]() “I remember telling Tim that I didn’t want to leave that morning,” Beck said. Her future husband Tim Bos a few trucks ahead. Jenny Beck was driving a truck toward the middle of the convoy. A small roadside protest, then an Iraqi police officer shouldering a grenade launcher. “There were things that kind of triggered a sense of, hey, there’s something weird going on today,” recalled Schrad, driving a semi toward the back of the convoy. But soldiers say that beautiful day, 10 years ago, was different from the moment their trucks pulled out on a four-lane divided highway called Route Bismarck. “So our SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) honestly was to hit the gas go.” You’re not equipped to sit there and fight,” said Josh Birkel. “You’re in a semi with a 40-foot trailer. “They knew when we were coming.”īut they’d always sped away from the trouble. They had been attacked on previous missions with roadside bombs and small arms fire, which was no surprise, because regardless of tactics, mile long convoys attract attention in a war zone. This convoy included pairs of Nebraska soldiers in green semi-trucks, civilians driving white semis and three Humvee gun trucks providing security. They’d been doing this for several months at this point, halfway through the deployment. They were young, most in their early 20s. Schrad and 13 other soldiers from the Nebraska Army National Guard’s 1075th Transportation Company were rolling out of a base in Kuwait, taking a 33-vehicle supply convoy into Iraq. “One of the most beautiful days I can remember weather wise, the entire deployment I was over there,” is how Jay Schrad remembered the morning of March 20, 2005. ![]()
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