March 28, 2003
Quick-thinking NCOs rescue soldiers from burning tank
By Sean D. Naylor
Army Times
CENTRAL IRAQ — For a few long, terrifying minutes, Pfc. Adam Small faced every armor soldier’s nightmare: the prospect of burning to death while trapped in his own disabled tank.
He was saved, like so many soldiers before him, by a couple of squared-away, quick-thinking NCOs.
SmallÂ’s ordeal began just after 5 p.m. March 25, on an evening when a sandstorm at sunset had suffused the air with an unearthly red glow.
As the sky darkened rapidly and rain began to fall, a column of Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles from B, or “Bonecrusher,” Troop, of 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized), was pushing forward toward a bridge they were supposed to seize.
The column was still two miles from the bridge, and bunched up more tightly than doctrine would usually call for, when incoming tracer rounds heralded the start of another in a series of ambushes the unit had endured. The troopers shrugged it off — they were getting used to being fired at.
But then something happened that none of them had experienced — something, in fact, that no American soldier had ever experienced. And it happened twice in the space of a few seconds.
A projectile, now thought to be a rocket-propelled grenade, hurtled with the force of a freight train into the back of the tank commanded by Sgt. 1st Class Curtis Anderson, 38, of Sacramento, Calif
Almost simultaneously, a similar jolt rocked SmallÂ’s tank, 35 yards behind AndersonÂ’s.
“It felt like the tank bounced,” said tank driver Small, 19, of Greensboro, N.C.
The force of the blast knocked out the tankÂ’s loader, Spc. Brian French, 23, of Billings, Mont., who was climbing down into his seat from his turret hatch at the moment of impact.
“We got hit! We’re getting hit! We’re getting hit!” yelled Staff Sgt. Charles Kilgore, the tank commander.
Small, seated in the driverÂ’s compartment in front of the turret, tried to push his hatch up to escape. But it was jammed, and only opened a few inches. He could see flames, and let it slam shut.
The other three crewmembers were getting themselves together, and getting out. But because of the angle the turret was at when it was hit, Small couldnÂ’t escape through the turret either. He was trapped by fire and the jammed hatch above him, and by the jammed turret behind him. The tankÂ’s 120mm ammunition started to cook off, exploding in the flames.
Tears of fear ran down his cheeks.
Sgt. 1st. Class Javier Camacho, 35, of Bayamon, Puerto Rico, the platoon sergeant for B Troop’s 4th Platoon, was commanding a tank half a mile behind Small’s at the time the two tanks were knocked out. “Somebody got hit,” said his gunner, Sgt. Jeremiah Gallegos.
Within a couple of minutes, CamachoÂ’s tank came to the scene. AndersonÂ’s tank was knocked out, but its engine was still running. Its crew had abandoned it and jumped into a Bradley. SmallÂ’s tank was burning fiercely.
The three soldiers who had escaped asked for Camacho’s help in rescuing Small. “When they told me he was still there, my heart stopped,” Camacho said. “He’s not one of my soldiers, but I could just imagine burning to death in a tank. I wouldn’t leave nobody like that.”
Camacho, the squadronÂ’s master gunner and a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War, leaped into action. With help from Gallegos and Sgt. 1st Class Steven Newby, he doused the propellant that was burning on top of SmallÂ’s hatch, then set about dislodging the jammed hatch.
Meanwhile, fighting continued around them. It was hard to tell which bullets were fired by the enemy, and which were the .50-caliber rounds cooking off.
Finally, the hatch popped open, and they pulled Small out.
“When he came out of the tank he was hyperventilating,” Camacho said.
Camacho and Newby brought Small to a ditch next to the road, and then to the relative safety of a Bradley. As the column pulled away, all thoughts of the securing the bridge shelved for the time being, another RPG bounced off the road in front of CamachoÂ’s tank.
“All you could hear was the sound of bullets going by,” Camacho said. “It was an exciting night.”
Looking back, Camacho said he didn’t assess the danger inherent in what he did. “I didn’t think about being afraid,” he said. “I just wanted to get that kid out.”
The two tanks were total losses — the first Abrams tanks ever destroyed in their 20 years of service by enemy fire.
