Captain As Maestro, Conducting Amid Crises

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
March 21, 2008 By Michael Kamber
On a recent winter evening in Mosul, Capt. David Sandoval sat at his desk dealing with the day’s various crises.
Insurgents had fired on one of his platoons, killing a 10-year-old boy nearby. The captain sent men into the neighborhood to make sure residents knew American troops had not fired, and “to get the message out that the insurgents only bring you death and hardship,” he said.
Radios squawked updates from the field, and a phone rang incessantly with changes to a battle plan.
Two laptops sat before the captain. On one he updated targets his men would capture and kill before the night was over. He switched to the second computer and tried to finish a letter to his soldiers’ Family Readiness Group, run by his wife in the United States.
Then things got really hectic.
As darkness fell, an observer spotted three men with shovels. They lingered near a dirt intersection. A bomb buried in the same location killed five American soldiers a month earlier.
Captain Sandoval began to juggle three phones, his eyes glued to a computer screen showing coordinates.
On one phone, he raised his platoon at a combat outpost in the area, directing it toward the intersection. On the second phone, he talked to a helicopter pilot flying over Mosul’s deadly east side. On the third, he talked to the spotter. Captain Sandoval was the operation’s maestro, coordinating the movements of the three and relaying messages.
The spotter was not permitted to authorize action against the men; he had not seen what the Army terms “hostile intent.” The men sauntered away, and Captain Sandoval put his head on the table in frustration, knowing they might secretly bury an explosive device elsewhere, one that could kill or maim his men.
Suddenly the radio chirped again. “They’re back at the intersection, they’ve started digging.”
Captain Sandoval grabbed the second phone, called in a missile strike from the helicopter pilot, and then used the third phone to get his platoon moving again.
A moment later the pilot radioed back. “Two of the men are wounded,” the pilot said. “They’re crawling away from the scene.” Then, “a car is pulling up, they’re getting into the car.”
Was the car part of the insurgents’ cell, or driven by a helpful passer-by? Captain Sandoval had no idea; the helicopter held fire.
Captain Sandoval’s knuckles turned white during a frenzied 20 minutes in which his men sped through the streets in Bradley armored vehicles, searching in vain for the car. Shouts came over the radio; “Which car is it, I’m on Broadway near 42nd.”
Captain Sandoval radioed back, “It just turned on Canal Street.”
The car was lost for minutes. Captain Sandoval closed his eyes, as if in prayer. Then the helicopter pilot found the vehicle in a residential neighborhood. The Bradleys were there quickly. Captain Sandoval’s soldiers fanned out through the neighborhood.
He talked them through the search. “The car should be warm, there may be blood inside,” he said. “Watch your rooftops. Go house to house. They’re there somewhere.”
Minutes passed, then a call came back. “We found a dead guy under a couch.” Two men in the house were taken into custody and led out to the getaway car.
“Open the trunk, but watch their hands,” Captain Sandoval said. “Make sure they can’t trigger anything. Make sure they don’t have cellphones.”
The radio crackled a response; the trunk was full of explosives.
Then came another call: “The dead guy under the couch. He’s not dead.”
The wounded insurgent was in critical condition, bleeding, his leg so badly broken his foot faced backward. Captain Sandoval tried unsuccessfully to get an Iraqi unit to the scene to evacuate the insurgent.
“I’ve got to get this guy to the hospital or he’s going to die,” he radioed. “I can’t leave the explosives there unguarded.” No luck. He talked a second platoon to the scene, and the insurgent was taken to a hospital.
“My greatest fear is losing one of my soldiers,” Captain Sandoval said, as his men drove back to their base and Army doctors worked on the wounded man.
“I set my soldiers up as best I can,” he said. “I give them every advantage, then I send them out. In the back of my mind I think about that bomb in the road that they can’t see.”
 
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