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V CORPS' ADVANCE COMES TO A SAND-STILL IN STORM
By JONATHAN FOREMAN in Iraq
March 26, 2003
A dark orange light cast an other-worldly glow as the V Corps circled its "wagons" - guns facing outward - to hunker down while the desert sands raged about them.
The procession to Baghdad slowed for a time yesterday as hundreds of U.S. war machines maneuvered their way into the circular assembly area to wait out the thick swirl of a desert sandstorm.
The whirl of dirt picked up slowly: The wind had begun to whip around 24 hours earlier, visibility decreased by the hour as the wall of sand intensified until vehicles were slowed to a crawl, guided only by red light into their slots.
However fierce the storm, the allied attack would not be quieted. Barrage after barrage of tank-based rockets set the orange skies aglow followed by the enormous bangs of missiles slamming into their targets.
"It was awesome - turned night into day," said Sgt. Roy Lee Brown, 32, from Hackensack.
Along the route to the assembly area, the V Corps were heartened by the sight of Iraqi anti-aircraft batteries destroyed by coalition forces and reports their comrades had crossed the Euphrates River.
Still, there is considerable unease here after the troops heard reports of Saddam's Republican Guard dressed in civilian clothes firing on coalition troops from the backs of pickup trucks with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, including an attack on one of our sister units.
The conditions on the road to Baghdad do little to improve the mood.
The waving crowds - and greedy hands seeking cigarettes, water, food and pornography - were replaced by miles of dreary desert.
Accidents among American military vehicles are commonplace, and several valuable pieces of equipment had to be abandoned.
The grit is inescapable - it gets into every imaginable body crevice and turns the tight quarters of an armored personnel carrier into a nightmare of itching, sneezing and coughing.
Sgt. Nate Tatum, 27, hails from Nevada and trained in the California desert.
"I spent 21/2 years at Fort Irwin, and I never saw anything this bad," he said.
His boss, Lt. Kevin Halstrom, 25, of Albuquerque, N.M., had to walk from vehicle to vehicle in the swirl.
"It took me two hours to go 50 meters," he said.