FOCUS: IRAQ SECURITY
Soldier from Tonawanda immersed in Iraq’s drama
A world away from his roots, Sgt. Tim Vergo stands shoulder to shoulder with the Iraqis as they confront a crucial transition to make themselves secure.
COMBAT OUTPOST CAHILL, Iraq — Kneeling next to the prone Iraqi soldier sighting down the barrel of an M-16 rifle, Army Sgt. Joseph T. “Tim” Vergo admonishes the man to position his legs a little differently, and to stop shifting around so much between shots.
“You’re not shooting the way I told you. Don’t move so much,” Vergo, a 23-year-old soldier who grew up in the Town of Tonawanda, tells the Iraqi through an interpreter. “Tell him every time he moves his head, he changes his sight picture. Could be good, could be bad.”
Vergo serves at this rugged little base just north of the city of Salman Pak, about 25 miles south of Baghdad. A paratrooper with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, he mimes the proper shooting technique with his hands for the Iraqi soldier.
“Breathe, shoot, breathe,” he says. This is what the slowly ending war in Iraq looks like, circa 2009. U. S. soldiers help train Iraqi soldiers, hoping the homegrown troops can handle the nationwide security burden they are scheduled to accept within the next year. Under the new Status of Forces Agreement, U. S. combat units are pulling out of the large cities today, and in areas such as Salman Pak, missions must be conducted with a 50-50 split between U. S. and Iraqi forces. Overall, the mission tempo is way down.
For soldiers such as Vergo, a graduate of St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute, it makes for a “boring” deployment, all things being relative. Vergo joined the infantry in 2005, all but guaranteeing a trip to Iraq or Afghanistan.
“I wanted the experience, some adventure,” he explained. “Fight for my country, that whole business.
“And when I was a civilian, just going to college,” Vergo said, talking in the dark and musty makeshift barracks, “I was embarrassed, really, that I wasn’t over here, fighting, when so many people were.”
Vergo’s Combat Infantryman’s Badge — earned during the dark and terrible summer of 2007, and the 15-month extended deployment of the so-called surge—is proof enough that it wasn’t always this way.
During that deployment, which soldiers called the “hardest anyone in Charlie Company ever had,” Vergo’s unit manned a security station in Bayji, a large city 125 miles north of Baghdad. Alongside Iraqi policemen, they faced a summer of continual mortar fire, snipers who killed three U. S. paratroopers, and a suicide truck bomber who nearly destroyed the compound.
Vergo was on duty that morning of June 25, 2007, when just one U. S. platoon was in the small outpost alongside Iraqi police officers. The bomb, loaded with 1,500 pounds of explosives, destroyed the Iraqi police barracks, killing almost 30 in their beds.
Then the fighting started. The station was besieged by well-trained insurgents, as well as sympathetic, though inaccurate, local fire from all directions. Assisted by helicopter gunships, Vergo’s platoon fought alone, before reinforcements arrived and beat back the attack.
“It was pretty chaotic day. We got up on the roof, repelled the rest of the attack that was coming in,” he said. “I was like, ‘Yes, we’re going to be out of here. We’re definitely not going to be in this [post] anymore.’ But at the end of that day, I realized we’re going to be here, and we’re going to rebuild it. At the time, I really didn’t want to do that.”
The soldiers hated duty at the station, exposed and isolated in the violent city. As part of the surge, dozens of these small outposts were opened. Al-Qaidalinked insurgents attacked many of them, destroying two and killing many U. S. soldiers and Iraqis. Bayji’s station never shut down, and money and effort kept it a solid presence in a constantly lethal city. By mid-July, most of the damage was repaired or at least abated.
“We not only stayed, but increased our presence,” Vergo said. “I felt pretty good stopping al-Qaida from doing what they were trying to do.”
In fact, the death toll among Iraqi police had a strong effect on a local population that had absolutely no love for the Americans in their midst.
“I remember one guy came to the gate, whose dad was a police captain who was killed that day,” Vergo said. “The local populace was really upset that al-Qaida killed their fathers, sons. That attack didn’t help al-Qaida in Bayji, that’s for sure.”
In 2007, Vergo — a big guy — carried the squad’s heavy machine gun, and was a junior soldier who did what he was told. Now a team leader, it’s his job to take care of himself and also to watch out for and direct the movements of the two junior soldiers in his fire team.
With this deployment now two-thirds over, soldiers are trying to keep from being complacent, and team leaders such as Vergo have to keep reminding their subordinates that if it ever goes bad, it will go bad quickly.
“We’re always being watched when we’re on patrol. I remind them, as soon as you drop your guard, that’s the time. If the enemy sees us start to slack, that’s when they’ll think it’s OK to attack us,” he said. “We always try to look — I don’t want to say aggressive—but ready to respond to anything.”
He’ll be getting out of the Army when the unit concludes its deployment in November. “My father keeps asking me, ‘Are you a squad leader yet?’ and I keep telling him, ‘No, Dad, I’m getting out.’ Not going to be a squad leader.”
Almost to a man, Charlie Company’s soldiers are enthusiastically cynical and gleefully bitter, railing against everything from the morning heat to walking the rocky pathways to the port-a-john toilets; the only complaints and gripes that aren’t respected are the ones that aren’t creative.
“We’re going to do a real good job, but we’re going to complain the whole way,” Vergo said. “Army’s probably been like that since ancient times.”
It’s easy for even objective observers to be cynical at the current situation. A mission with the Iraqi army begins at 6 a. m., about an hour late, and Vergo and other paratroopers follow a gaggle of Iraqi soldiers as they “search” a variety of homes in a rural neighborhood.
The Iraqis bumble along, without much tactical skill. Weapons are carried barrel down; the Iraqis cluster together.
If the morning operation had actually surprised any local insurgents, it would have been a dangerous situation. U. S. soldiers would have been fighting, while the Iraqi soldiers would have behaved, at best, unpredictably.
Vergo wasn’t especially concerned, though.
“We had it under control,” he said. “The Iraqi captain could control his guys. We would have maneuvered, and the Iraqis would have supported us.”
Just a few hundred yards from the Tigris River, the mission took place on a hot morning, probably 110 degrees by 8 a. m. Iraq soldiers searched an unused compound close to the dirt road, while Vergo positioned his two men in one corner.
“Sometimes there’s a cool breeze, out by the river,” one soldier says to the other, as both kneel and sweat in the dirt and dust.
“Haven’t felt a breeze today,” said Pfc. Nicholas Knickerbocker, a Vergo team member. “Not talking about today; today disgusts.”
“Can’t wait for next month, then August,” Knickerbocker replies. “When’s it start to cool down?”
“I’d say late August into September, you’ll start to notice,” Vergo said. “It won’t really cool down until October. Still be kind of hot.”
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