IEDs were becoming a more common occurrence as the months wore on. Each day a patrol went out, they either found an IED or one blew up. Fortunately, most of the IEDs that did blow never really did much harm. But when they did find their mark, it never ended well.

IEDs came in all shapes and sizes. Most of the ones we encountered were typically 155 mm artillery shells that were wired up to some sort of device, whether it was a remote detonator or a wired one. For the most part, the IEDs were buried in the ground or hidden within objects, like the one I encountered during the first half of the deployment. However, there were times that the IED was vehicle-borne, like the one that killed Wilfong and Vincent. The vehicle-borne IEDs were less frequent, but they were just as nerve-racking.

A few days after our battle on the east side of Fallujah, Blue Platoon was sent out on another patrol to sweep the main roads for IEDs. About halfway through their patrol, they began patrolling the alternate service routes (ASRs) that were parallel to the road. Soon thereafter, they noticed a suspicious-looking vehicle parked underneath an overpass. The vehicle appeared to be abandoned, and there was no one in the vicinity. When Second Lieutenant Rowell was informed of the situation, he sent over his scout team to check it out. Sergeant Leuba, the scout leader for the Blue Platoon, cautiously led his team in the direction of the vehicle. About halfway there, they came across a fairly deep creek that they had to cross in order to reach the vehicle. Rowell, deciding that the scouts may be too exposed crossing the creek, decided to call them back so they could regroup and figure out a different way to get to the car. As soon as they turned around and headed back toward Rowell’s position, the car exploded, with debris flying everywhere. Rowell and his scouts thanked their lucky stars that they had made that decision. Many fine Marines would have been killed that day if they had continued on. Unfortunately, Blue Platoon wouldn’t be so lucky next time.

On July 1, Blue Platoon headed out on another counter-IED sweep. My platoon was acting as the REACT force. We always ended up being the REACT force for Blue Platoon. As part of the REACT force, we had to ensure that our gear and vehicles were ready to go in a moments notice. Once everything was prepped, we sat around in the hooches and either cleaned our weapons or played cards to kill time.

With Sergeant Callendar and Sergeant Hendrickson both wounded and no longer acting as vehicle commanders, Blue Platoon had a few replacements take over on their vehicles. On this particular day, Sergeant Jake Rhinehart and Sergeant Simms took over as vehicle commander and gunner, respectively, for Blue 3. As the platoon headed out for patrol, I gave a quick nod to a couple of the guys and quietly wished for their safety. After having encountered so many IEDs in the last few months, it became a new habit to quietly hope for everyone’s safe return back from patrol. It wasn’t much, just a few hushed words to myself, but it helped relax my nerves. I headed back to the hooch wondering what I was going to do to kill time.

Blue Platoon was dying to get their patrol done that day. They were scheduled for a little R&R over at Camp Fallujah that afternoon, and everyone was excited to be able to take a dip in the pool they had on the base. The last thing they wanted was for anything to happen that would delay their plans.

Their patrol route was situated about six miles west of Abu Ghraib. They had patrolled up and down the main road for quite a while, so they decided to set up in a screen line position to observe the route and its surroundings, looking for any suspicious activity that may be occurring. After an hour of seeing nothing but sand, they resumed their patrol of the main road.

Right around 11:30 a.m., they began to head back toward Camp Fallujah to wrap up their patrol for the day and get some much-needed R&R. Rowell had the vehicles cross over the intersection and begin heading back. As the platoon began to turn around, Sergeant Rhinehart called over to company headquarters to inform them of their position. In the meantime, Sergeant Simms was bullshitting with Lance Corporal Timothy Creager, the driver, over the internal speaker system about being back home. Creager, a tall, lanky country boy from Tennessee, was telling Simms how he was going to take his city butt out for some bull riding. And that was when it hit.

A bright white flash consumed the interior of the vehicle, and a loud, thunderous boom could be heard from miles around. The vehicle was instantly engulfed in flames. The moment the IED went off, the scouts immediately evacuated the vehicle. Corporal Hall, Corporal Cuba, Lance Corporal Torok, and Doc Ferguson all jumped out onto the road and began to assess the situation. Other than a few burns, scrapes, and bruises, as well as some hearing loss, they all fared relatively well. The vehicle crew was a different story.

The explosion had momentarily knocked Rhinehart and Simms unconscious, and they were both slumped over the sides of the turret. Fire was quickly consuming the vehicle, and they only had a matter of minutes to evacuate the LAV. All around them, rounds were cooking off due to the extreme heat. It sounded as if they were under fire.

Rhinehart, sensing the direness of the situation, began to try to lift himself out of the vehicle so he could make his way to a safer position. As he began to climb, his foot bent back, and he fell back inside the turret. With all of his might, he reached up and lifted himself up out of the turret. Once on the top, knowing his legs would no longer support him, he lay on his side and rolled off the vehicle, landing ten feet below with a thud.

In the meantime, Simms finally came to and realized the situation he was in. He began to try to lift himself out of the turret but felt something tugging him back in. He saw that his comm helmet was still connected to the vehicle, so he ripped off the helmet and made his way out of the turret. Rather than climb down the side, he made his way to the back of the vehicle and decided to jump from that area since it was a bit closer to the ground. He called over to the scouts to catch him, but they were too late in coming. As he was about to jump, a sharp pain shot up through his body, and rather than jumping, he fell right off the back.

Creager, on the other hand, never even made it out of the vehicle. From what I was told later on, no one really knew the exact cause of death. A few of the scouts found what looked like small metal cubes that the bomb maker probably added to the IED to cause maximum damage. Also, after the initial blast, the compressor tank exploded, sending a ball of flame throughout the scout compartment.

Outside, Corporal Justin Hall and Doc Ferguson catered to the burns they received from the compression tank explosion, and then they, along with some of the other scouts, did their best to attend to Rhinehart and Simms. Rhinehart was in very bad shape, with wounds and burns all over his body. By the looks of his face, you could see the pain he was feeling. Simms wasn’t as bad but didn’t fare too well either. He suffered severe burns as well as a couple of wounds from shrapnel. Surprisingly, though, he seemed to be very calm, most likely due to shock. It wasn’t until someone poured cold water on Simms’s hands that he let out a yell.

As everyone was tending to Rhinehart and Simms, Rowell pulled his vehicle up alongside the burning vehicle, and the scouts loaded Rhinehart and Simms into the back of the LAV and hurriedly brought them to the Abu Ghraib medical facility. A few days later, they were flown to the States, where they would receive better medical treatment.

Our platoon, as the REACT force, showed up shortly after the explosion to provide relief to Blue Platoon. We had positioned ourselves farther away from Rhinehart’s vehicle, but I could still see it burning in the distance, black smoke billowing up into the air. Gunny Rossignol showed up on the scene as well. It’s probably a good thing that he did because a contingent of Army personnel came out with a crane and lowboy and didn’t seem to understand the care needed for transporting the destroyed LAV. Rossignol explained that an Outlaw was still inside and that they had better ensure that they took great care in putting the vehicle onto the lowboy and transporting it back to Camp Fallujah.

Once the scene was clear, our platoon headed back to Camp Baharia to be debriefed, and Gunny followed the lowboy to Camp Fallujah. He stayed there for quite some time to ensure that mortuary affairs were able to extract Creager’s body out carefully. The next day, as he did every time an Outlaw was killed, Gunny would head back to Camp Fallujah to inventory the fallen Outlaw’s personal possessions and send them back home.

We finally arrived back at the camp, and I could physically feel the sadness in the air. All the Outlaws were out of the hooches mourning the loss of a brother and the injuries that Simms and Rhinehart sustained. Some were talking to the guys from Blue Platoon trying to find out more information about what had happened.

After a period of time, we were all instructed to gather around the command center so Captain Shepard could talk to us. We made our way over to the area with our heads bowed. We were one more man down; one more brother had been lost. That day was supposed to be a joyous day for Blue Platoon, one in which they let off a little steam and forgot about the hostile environment they were in. Instead, it turned into a day of mourning, a day when one of our own was taken from us.

Shepard came out and gave a short speech. It was nothing memorable, just like most of his speeches. It did nothing to help us through our day of mourning. Thankfully, First Sergeant Sprague followed up with a speech of his own. I may have mentioned it before, but I cannot say it enough: Sprague was one hell of a speaker. He began to speak in a soft tone, slowly recounting how great a Marine Creager was. He spoke about how we, as a company, had lost many fine Marines and how we would overcome such loss. And then he finished off with what I thought was the most memorable part of the speech. He said that God already had two scouts for his LAV, and he was looking for a driver. Those three Marines, our brothers, were now looking down on us and providing us with the security we needed to make it through the rest of our deployment. I may not be a religious man, but it brought a tear to my eye. And from the looks of it, it brought tears to the rest of the company.

I wish I could end it here and say that his prediction was true, that no fellow Outlaws would be harmed. It would have made for a happy ending. But alas, that was never the case. Death was just around the corner, and he had plans for the Outlaws.