When Kids Are in the Cross Hairs

By Alex Perry/Karbala

The image of the children is impossible to forget. When the fire fight in Karbala first broke out, all they could think of was their first casualty, Brown--his side open, his eyes lulling--being carried out past them. But Specialist Larry Brown was a man of 20, and he was a professional infantryman. The kids, boys, were maybe 7 or 8 and had no place there. Bravo Company wasted them. Had to. Right when the fire fight was at its hottest, when maybe 100 guys were popping up across the rooftops firing AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, the boys bounced into the courtyard below the building where Bravo was spread out and attempted to retrieve an RPG dropped by a dead Iraqi. "It sounds terrible when you hear about this cold, away from the fight," says commander Lieut. Colonel Chris Holden. "We shot and killed children. But I accept full responsibility for that. That's the kind of fight it was."

It was the kind of ugly, house-to-house bloodbath the U.S. had feared most, especially in Baghdad. But it happened first in Karbala, which before Baghdad collapsed, loomed as a potential stranglehold on the supply route leading to the capital. History had already stamped Karbala in blood. In 680 A.D., Muhammad's grandson Hussein and a small group of supporters fought to the death here over the right to lead the Muslim faith. Now scouts reported that 500 to 700 Fedayeen Saddam were digging in to make a stand.

For Bravo Company, part of the 502nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne, the battle for Karbala started ahead of schedule on the morning of April 5. Bravo was still two blocks south of its first objective, a water-treatment plant, when it began taking fire. "We were two minutes in, and we were in full contact," said Sergeant Mark de la Garza.

Taking cover behind his Bradley fighting vehicle, called Red 2, Sergeant David C. Brown radioed Sergeant Patrick Jarchow in Red 3, and devised a plan that would define the day. Starting from the water plant, Jarchow's men would jump from roof to roof, with Brown matching them on the ground, kicking in doors and clearing houses, identifying targets. Killing them.

The two squads moved steadily northeast through the city. When they reached an intersection, with both squads on the ground, Sergeant Brown pivoted left and saw a man holding two RPGs. "I popped two rounds at him, and I see the impact in his chest and gut. He reached down, grabbed one RPG, and it goes off and blows his foot off. It ricochets off and comes straight at us. We cross over the intersection, and that's when I saw Larry Brown get hit." Behind Sergeant Brown, Specialist Brown had reached the junction and was met with a short burst of waist-high fire. "He fell against the wall on his left. I yelled, 'Get Brown! Cover! He's hit!'"

Through the haze of smoke grenades, Sergeants Brown and Jarchow saw a father and daughter approach the fallen RPG gunner. Jarchow shot at the gunner again. In Sergeant Brown's words, "The girl helps him up, and they're walking away and I popped him again, and he's down. He moves again, and I empty my magazine into him."

As the wounded Specialist Brown was helped into the back of a Bradley, the RPG gunner, to the squad's utter amazement, started to move again. "We emptied 50 rounds into him," said Sergeant Brown, "and then we shot him with a 7.62 from the Bradley. He's still talking when we leave." Not many Iraqis are. Hour by hour, enemy corpses are piling up below Bravo's rooftop perch.

Two boys are about to be added to that pile. The 3rd Platoon had been on a roof for 25 minutes when two small figures came spinning out of the courtyard, almost as if they had been pushed, and began inching toward an RPG lying in the street. "They've been testing us--getting closer to us and walking away," said Staff Sergeant James Dyer. "And the guys are all saying, 'Don't pick it up, don't touch that!' Maybe 20 or 30 guys, shouting, 'Don't do it!'" A warning shot kicked up dust at the first boy's feet. He stopped and looked up: M-4s, M-16s and heavier squad automatic weapons and Bravo 240s, an entire arsenal, was leveled at him.

Then, fixing the Americans with his clear, brown eyes, the boy walked forward--slowly, deliberately, defiantly--and picked up the round. "The moment he touched it, you could see a wall of lead slam into those kids," says Dyer. "It dropped the first kid immediately. The second one was hit a second later--you could see him tumble as he was running."

Eventually, after an unrelenting hour of fire and running, one squad made its way back to the water plant. The 18 wounded U.S. soldiers were evacuated by a Black Hawk that took off around 6 p.m., a full four hours after Specialist Brown had been hit. It was too late: he died soon after.

Holden said his dead opponents--279 Iraqi Fedayeen and up to 100 foreign mujahedin, mostly Syrians--had been the most formidable yet. "I respect them," Holden said. "They had a rehearsed plan, and they knew what they were doing." And as Karbala's ancient sand swallows this new river of blood, the men of Bravo Company will find some honor in this timeless soldiers' code of warriors well met. But as weeks fade to months, and months to years, the remembered gaze of a clear-eyed Iraqi boy is certain to linger.