![]() ![]() The tank company commander saw the light, and stopped, bringing the power and might needed to push back the enemy fighters and get the platoon out. Aguero, in a last-ditch effort, ran down the alley waving his flashlight in the dark. Watching the tanks rolling by, SFC Swope frantically called into the radio for them to stop. ![]() “I remember looking at the street, you’d see the rounds that were missing, you could see the impact on the street, and it kind of looked like rain when it hits puddles.”Ĭharlie Company passed by the alleyway, but with the antennas shot off the lead Bradley fighting vehicles, the Bradleys were unable to hear the radio calls to stop.Įventually, a tank company came up the adjoining road. Troy Denomy, the commander of Charlie Company, recalled. “It was multiple rounds constantly,” Capt. Out on the streets of Sadr City, the multiple rescue teams attempting to reach the pinned down platoon came under fierce attack and incurred heavy casualties. Up on the roof, the soldiers were frantically trying to signal their location, using smoke grenades, electronic signaling equipment, even ripping off the sleeves of their uniforms to start a fire. As enemy fighters continuously assaulted the platoon, Swope was on the Humvee’s radio for the entire fight, the only point of contact with rescue teams struggling to get to them. 1st Class Jerry Swope stayed down in the alley in one of the remaining Humvees. How was the platoon rescued?īack at the house in the alley, with an Iraqi family still inside, soldiers from the platoon took up positions on the roof. As the 2-5 Cav took over control, al Sadr unleashed his militia – the thousands-strong Mahdi Army – not just in Sadr City, but across Baghdad and in other cities. ![]() The final straw came when the U.S.-led coalition shut down a popular newspaper and arrested a close ally. In the days ahead of April 4, his followers had been protesting in the thousands in Baghdad and other areas. Drawing on the continuing instability, rampant unemployment and poverty still plaguing Shia communities, al Sadr was stirring up resentment across the country. The son of a powerful and popular Shia leader who was assassinated during Hussein’s rule, he fiercely opposed the American occupation. The population, predominantly Shia, had suffered under the Sunni leadership of Saddam Hussein, and the incoming 2-5 battalion was anticipating a reconstruction and peace keeping mission.īut a young militant Shia cleric, Moqtada al Sadr, had other plans. In the previous six months, only one U.S. invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein, American forces still faced violence across the country, but Sadr City had been relatively calm. Here’s more about the ambush that would be known as Black Sunday: Volesky and rescue teams from the battalion’s Charlie and Alpha Company raced into the city, facing an onslaught of gun fire, rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) and pipe bombs.īy the end of the night, eight soldiers would be dead and more than 60 wounded - the largest casualty count in one day for the First Cavalry Division since Vietnam. Then reports arrived of enemy fighters seizing the local police stations in the neighborhood. Gary Volesky, was taking over command as radio reports came in from the platoon detailing the increasing intensity of the fight. Shane Aguero, the platoon leader, directed the team down an alleyway, where the soldiers took cover in a house.īack at the battalion’s base, Camp War Eagle, located just outside Sadr City, the new commander, Lt. Others were wounded and two of the platoon’s four Humvees were disabled. A platoon of 18 soldiers and their interpreter was returning to its base from the most routine of missions, providing security for sewage trucks, when it suddenly came under fire. — - On April 4, 2004, the 2-5 battalion of the 1st Cavalry Division was just taking over responsibility for Sadr City, a large Baghdad slum with a population of 2 million. ![]()
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