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Finalist - Mark O’Neill, U.S.Army
Baghdad, Iraq
BENEATH THE SADDAM MOSQUE
My Civil Affairs team and I were at a General Information Center , a GIC, monitoring a neighborhood advisory committee meeting. I had five soldiers outside guarding the entrance and one soldier with me in the meeting, where we sat trying to listen to the translator. It was hot and dull. I had to get up frequently and pretend to get water.
An Iraqi man came rushing into the meeting jabbering something. Our translator came over and said translated what he said. The man said that L, one of the females who worked in the Information Center was kidnapped. My teammate and I froze up, because we both knew L. She was very pretty, intelligent, and she really cared about Iraq .
I ran outside while my teammate got the details. I grabbed two soldiers, SPC M and SPC A. They were ready to go. We ran back inside and hooked up with SPC C. C told us that the kidnappers had taken her out back while she was storing some old equipment. Behind the GIC was the gigantic, sprawling "Saddam Mosque" - the world's largest unfinished building. It was a mess of unfinished concrete domes. Her co-worker thought she was taken in there.
We radioed the two soldiers that we had left out front to take a one HMVEE and circle around the block. We left one to cover the front entrance. I called the Command Post to see if it was possible for me to pursue bad guys into an unfinished Mosque. If it was finished, there was no way they would let us in. Finally five minutes later, we got word to go into the Mosque. Fortunately, the country was still under control of the American military at the time.
We ran through the Mosque, looking for Iraqis to see if they had any information. The Mosque housed quite a few homeless people. I was looking for someone who looked like they had an education. I went through five guys before an old woman pointed me to where the kidnappers had gone.
She pointed to a finished concreted dome, an annex to the great structure. "Mujahadeen" she said. I had once read an intel report that the some Sunni radicals used the grand Saddam Mosque to hide weapons and hold meetings. I pulled my men aside and briefed them. We would assault the concrete dome with one fire team and one overwatch team, hiding above and sniping at those below.
I sent M and A to climb the construction stairs to get on a exterior landing. C and I checked our equipment. I sprayed some lubricant into my M-4 carbine. Once A and M were in place, we moved out.
The bad guys did not see us coming; they were stopping and deciding what to do. C came around the corner and got the drop on them. But, one of them was quick, he pulled L back into a tunnel and shut the door. The other bad guy gave up. I grabbed his weapon and quickly searched him. He became a liability. "You guys cover him." I called to up above.
C and I had to enter the tunnels. We entered three rooms, but found nothing. But, on the other side of one we came to a big tunnel, where they were moving away from us.
We were bounding and moving in the tunnel when L broke free on her own. She ran towards us. "Get down" I yelled. The bad guys were going to shoot her in the back. Instead I raised my weapon above her head and fired. I dropped two of them. And the other two gave up.
L came up to me and hugged me. It was all good. The two live bad guys went to jail.
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