By MICHAEL R. GORDON
The saga of Pvt. Kelley Prewitt was one of them. Private Prewitt joined the Army last May and served in an armor support platoon, which hauls ammunition to tanks in the fight. I heard the story when I visited the Third Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, which is now headquartered in a former Iraqi petroleum institute on the outskirts of Baghdad.
It was a small episode in a big war. But it reveals a lot about the nature of that war.
In a conventional conflict the tanks take the fight to the enemy and supply troops operate behind the front lines. But in this war there often was no clear front line. American forces were pitted against paramilitary fighters, who often let the tanks and the Bradley fighting vehicles pass so they could attack the vulnerable logistics troops that followed them.
Supply troops and even headquarters staff, who were not designated for combat, sometimes found themselves in the thick of the action. Hauling ammunition for the tanks was sometimes more dangerous than fighting in them.
That certainly was the case when Private Prewitt was shot on a stretch of highway and Staff Sgt. Jimmy Ealon Harrison, an Army medic, rushed to his aid.
The story begins on April 6 when the Third Brigade moved to cut off the northern approaches to Baghdad. The brigade had set up its tactical headquarters in a fenced compound that housed the institute. A convoy of four HEMMTs, large Army trucks used to haul ammunitions and fuel, was up front and the private was driving one of them.
Private Prewitt, 24, of Birmingham, Ala., was trained as a tank crewman. But he was a newcomer to his unit and by the time he arrived all the tank crews were at full strength. So he was assigned instead to the seemingly safer job of driving ammunition and supplies to the tankers.
As events unfolded that day, an Iraqi was moving toward the American troops apparently trying to surrender. As a precaution against suicide bombers, the Americans ordered him to lie prone on the ground. But as the Americans kept their guns trained on him they came under fire. Most of it was directed at the supply column. The Iraqis were trying to blow up the fuel and ammunition used to support the American advance.
As the fire intensified, the drivers were ordered to abandon their vehicles and to take cover inside the compound. As soon as Private Prewitt got out of his truck, he was hit by a tracer round, which bored a large hole in his right thigh. He tried to keep moving, dragging himself backward from his HEMMT using the palms of his hands. The tracer rounds that hit him also struck the ammunition on his vehicle, igniting a fire and eventually an explosion. He was in the middle of a shooting gallery, severely injured and alone.
Specialist Eliodoro Molina, who worked in public affairs, sought to come to his rescue but was restrained by a superior, who told him there was too much shooting and that he would become another casualty. As the bullets whizzed across the highway, Sergeant Harrison, the medic, heard somebody yelling for a medic and was alarmed to see Private Prewitt crawling in the street.
``I looked around,'' he recalled. ``Nobody was going to get him.''
The sergeant scaled the fence and headed toward the injured private. He handed his M-16 rifle to a comrade, told him to give him covering fire and then scaled the fence of the compound and headed for the injured private, first by crawling, then by sprinting. The firefight was intensifying and Private Prewitt said he felt numb. So the sergeant handed him his 9-millimeter pistol and told him to shoot any attackers.
``I can't see,'' Private Prewitt said. The soldier's pupils were dilated and he was in shock.
``You'll be O.K,'' Sergeant Harrison responded. ``If I tell you just squeeze the trigger.''
As the medic worked, three soldiers rushed forward with a stretcher: First Lt. Derrick N. Pray, a chemical officer whose job is defensive preparations against a poison gas attack; First Lt. Keith M. Eppers, an administrative officer; and Spec. Edmond S. Wesley, another medic. Specialist Molina and another soldier raced out into the street and drove away two of the HEMMTs before they blew up. Half of the supply column was saved.
After Private Prewitt was carried to headquarters, a helicopter was summoned. The private's artery appeared to have been severed and he needed be to taken to a surgical team in the rear. The soldiers marked out a landing zone and waited.
Eventually, the soldiers got the word that the weather at the helicopter airfield was too bad to fly, according to Army aviation officers. The news went down hard. Now, after waiting and struggling to save the private they would have to drive him to the rear. A convoy was organized and the soldiers began to take Private Prewitt back, taking fire as they moved down the same road they had just fought their way up.
Private Prewitt died on route.
On that day the battle was not waged by tanks or attack helicopters. The soldiers were medics and headquarters staff, the kind of officers who usually deal with supply issues, public affairs and administration.
``All the infantry and tanks were in combat down the road fighting,'' Lieutenant Pray said. ``There were no infantry types. Just straight S-1 type staff officers and two medics. Staff guys.
``We had to defend ourselves, so you go back to your instincts,'' he said.
But it was a day that still weighs on some of the soldiers. Asked if he still thought about Private Prewitt, Sergeant Harrison said he thinks about him every day.
``I see him,'' Sergeant Harrison said. ``I see him crawling back. I see him there by himself. I see him looking up at me for relief. I see him all the time. I did not know that much about him. I never lost anybody until then.''