Sonja Ruhren vividly remembers this morning from 16 years ago: a few days before Christmas, he heard someone enter the driveway and knock on his door. A couple of uniformed infantrymen were on their porch in Stafford, Virginia. One was a chaplain. Confused, she asked them out of the cold. They seemed painfully uncomfortable. It took them a while despite everything why they were there. They had come to tell him about their only son, Davey, his most productive friend, his “Golden Boy,” the sensitive, beneficial, and forgiving green-eyed son. she grew up as a single mother. He was gone. Dead in Iraq.
Angry with rage, she ordered the troops to leave her house. His anger against the U. S. military gave way to pain in the following days, a pain so suffocating that the mere collection of the will to get out of bed in the morning has turned into a struggle. The day you lost Davey, December 21, can be very painful every year.
“Sometimes December 21 comes and I’m numb. It doesn’t have compatibility with me,” he tells me. “And he comes and cuts me, hits me absolutely on the ground. And there are times when December 21st”. comes in and I’m fine, but the next day, it slaps me really hard. Really strong. “
That day in 2004, a suicide bomber infiltrated a giant U. S. Army base in northern Iraq, entered the heated dining tent there in the busiest part of lunchtime and detonated its explosives. The deafening explosion killed 23 people. Among the dead were the attacker, Ruhren’s son, thirteen other U. S. soldiers, 4 civilian contractors and 4 Iraqi soldiers; dozens more were injured.
The bombing of the Marez complex’s base of operations in Mosul was the deadliest attack on a U. S. army facility during the Iraq War, according to icasualties. org, which tracks troop deaths. It’s been news all over the world. George W. Bush focused on the grief of people enjoyed as Sonja Ruhren, and told reporters, “We pray for them. We make our condolences more sincere to the people who enjoy and suffer today.
I survived the attack.
A Virginia National Guard reporter at the time ordered lunch at a pasta bar inside the store when he attacked the suicide bomber. I was about 50 steps from the center of the explosion. While writing an essay for The War Horse last year about my experience, I began looking for data on the identity of the suicide bomber, who supported him, and how he was given to base it. Since then, I have received more than 500 pages of documents from the US Army. U. S. through the Freedom of Information Act. Although highly worded and annexes were missing, the documents provide the clearest picture of what happened.
The files, which come with eyewitness accounts, images of evidence collected at the blast site, and crime lab reports, call the attacker and describe the type of bomb he used. They cite a captured member of a terrorist organization who said the suicide bomber had beaten other people running in Marez and reveal security flaws at the base that the attacker could have exploited.
Today, survivors are still recovering from the visual and invisible wounds suffered in the surprise attack, affected by post-traumatic tension disorder, traumatic brain and nightmares. for the attack, Ansar al-Sunna, also known as Ansar al-Islam.
This organization remained a risk in Iraq, Iran as well. In October last year, Ansar al-Islam reappeared and claimed that this was an attack with improvised explosive devices on Iraqi paramilitary forces in Diyala province. Three months later, more than a hundred U. S. infantrymen suffered traumatic brain injuries after an Iranian missile attack at Al Asad airbase in Iraq. The attack was in reaction to the U. S. drone strike on January 3 that killed a senior Iranian general in Baghdad, Qassim Suleimani. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned this year that the United States would possibly close its embassy in Baghdad due to persistent rocket attacks through Iranian-backed militias.
Years ago, Ruhren won a large number of documents from the army about what happened at Marez. To avoid further anger and negativity, he refused to read the files, learning from veterans in his son’s unit about security breaches that existed at the base.
“I’ve heard a lot over the years about what happened that day and how things could have been avoided,” he said. “If I read the same things I heard, I don’t know what I would do because, from what I understand, it may have just been avoided. It is possible that all this has been avoided. All components”.
The war was still in Iraq the year the suicide bomber attacked, President Bush said “major combat operations” had ended last year under a banner that read “Mission Accomplished. “Things were getting worse throughout the day. In March 2004, four U. S. security contractors were ambushed and killed in Fallujah; their bodies were mutilated and some hung from a bridge over the Uphrates River. About 20 km away, five U. S. infantrymen were killed through a massive bomb on the road that same day. By the fall of 2004, more than 1,000 U. S. soldiers had died in Iraq. In the midst of the Fallujah War, insurgents, perhaps some who fled the fighting, stormed Mosul police stations and stole firearms, ammunition and bulletproof vests.
Mosul, one of Iraq’s largest cities, extends to both sides of the Tigris River and houses the ruins of the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh, as well as the site believed to be the tomb of Jonah, the biblical prophet. In 2004, terrorists associated with al-Qaeda in Iraq and former members of Saddam Hussein’s regime were active in the region. Attacks by the insurgents increased dramatically in Mosul that year as a component of an intimidation crusade that led many Iraqis to leave their armies without authorization and leave their civilian jobs at U. S. bases. Between November and December 2004, 212 bodies were recovered in Mosul, including 36 sets of remains of Iraqi security forces, all victims of execution-type killings, improvised explosive devices, bomb cars, snipers, mortar attacks and small arms shooting killed 26 U. S. infantrymen in and around Mosul in early December of that year.
Military leaders had moved a Stryker battalion out of Mosul’s rule to fight and serve as a reserve force in Baghdad rule. But as the situation deteriorated, they reversed their course in November 2004 and returned the unit to Mosul. Reinforcements arrived in December. At the time, more than 4,000 Americans, allies, civilian contractors, Iraqis and other infantrymen occupied the Marez Advanced Base of Operations, a huge army facility at the southern end of Mosul. Originally the site of the headquarters of the Fifth Corps of the Iraqi Republican Guard, it included an Iraqi tank cemetery, as well as more than three hundred buildings and other structures, adding the ruins of an ancient Christian monastery, St. Elijah or Dair Mar Elia. The perimeter of the base extends for miles. U. S. troops trained Iraqi infantrymen in Marez.
The base had a huge white canvas tent that soldiers called “DFAC” or a restaurant. Built with a metal frame on a gray concrete floor, it functioned as a school cafeteria with long lines of diners passing hot trays filled with burgers, birds American and Iraqi troops ate in combination in a spacious living room near salad bars and pasta. Several internal televisions were constantly listening to sporting events. For Christmas, the tent decorated with red and green banners and photos of Santa Claus and his reindeer. Insurgents continually attacked the dining tent with mortars as staff built a new concrete and metal dining room on the same street.
On an assignment for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, photographer Dean Hoffmeyer and I went to Marez that year to report on the 276th Virginia National Guard Engineer Battalion. On December 21, we will have lunch in the dining hall at the address to report on an Iraqi Contractor who photographed portraits of US infantrymen stationed at Marez. The dining tent was packed with infantrymen that day, adding Nicholas Mason and David Ruhren. They struggled in high school and joined the Virginia National Guard in the component in reaction to 9/11. Mason and Ruhren, who had reached out to Marez, were collecting food for a long project to come. A fellow Virginia guard and a former Navy corporal, Mark Pratt, were also there, sitting near the food service line. he saw Mason and Ruhren and was in position to get up and salute.
Around noon, I left Dean on the main service line and crossed the crowded seat to head to the place where the suicide bomber would detonate his explosives moments later. I had just ordered a plate of pasta and was about to sit again when the explosion icy I turned around and saw a huge fireball coming out of the most sensitive store. The sunlight passed through the huge hole, the explosion broke the ceiling. The explosion pulled the troops out of their seats, leaving the floor full of garbage. corpses, half-eaten food and cooking utensils. Iraqi doctors, contractors and troops bravely rushed to the aid of their wounded comrades, turned the overturned tables into stretchers, and treated the wounded just outside the entrance. and quick gestures.
At the army hospital near Mosul Airfield, patients were treated for burns, shrapnel and eye damage. Initially, the army assumed that the explosion came here from a rocket or mortar howitzer. At a palace in Mosul that night, I interviewed the commander of U. S. Forces in the domain, then Brigue. General Carter Ham. Il led task force Olympia, a unit built around a Stryker Brigade combat team. His unit took over the security of the 101st Airborne Division domain in February of this year. tears in Ham’s eyes when he said the explosion may have come from a bomb placed.
“This is the worst day of my life, ” he said. “These are moments like those when [our troops] shine. “His voice was full of emotion. ” It hurts,” he added, “it hurts. “
Investigators eventually concluded that the explosion came here from a suicide bomber who had packed his explosives with ball bearings, some of which had been recovered from the bodies of fallen U. S. troops. Tissue fragments recovered from the scene contained a substance commonly used as an element. Researchers discovered parts of a 9-volt battery that insurgents use to force bombs on the roads. They discovered a piece of copper that resembles a component of a shooting hat. They also recovered reinforced canvas parts compatible with the fabrics they had. noticed in suicidal vests.
The United States Army then appointed Brigadier General Richard Formica, Third Corps artillery commander, to investigate. In its 52-page report on the suicide bombing, Formica reported that someone had stolen plastic explosives, probably of the same type. like those used in the attack, in Marez less than two months before. Seven days after the attack, investigators discovered five breaches in the 1980s fence surrounding the southern component of the base where explosives may have been smuggled in. of the breaches were intentionally cut and one appeared to have been caused by a vehicle colliding inside the base. People may have simply crawled under other parts of the fence. Formica also realized that no one was tracking who entered the mess hall on the day of the attack, the base in the past had assigned other people for this work, according to the military. Accounting procedures. The suicide bomber was likely dressed in an Iraqi army uniform, Formica wrote, and may have walked up to the base with a visitor’s badge.
“While I can’t say with certainty how the writer was able to access FOB Marez, the spaces covered in this report were contributing factors, either or in combination, that established the situations that allowed the writer to access FOB Marez and [the ] DFAC,” he wrote.
He added: “FOB Marez is a vital and difficult basis to secure. It had force coverage systems, however, there were execution points that could be exploited.
Among the documents I received were also reports from the U. S. Army Criminal Investigation Commission. They say an interpreter working at the base told army investigators that he saw an Iraqi guard give a local Iraqi a set of bulletproof vests at a door the day before the attack. The guard, the interpreter said, escorted the same guy at that door on the day of the bombing and made sure he overlooked american guards and “bomb dogs. “Iraqi infantrymen told investigators they saw a guy in a normal Iraqi army uniform enter the dining room with 3 members of the Iraqi National Guard. The guy stood out because he was missing a helmet and bulletproof vest.
An American soldier who survived the attack told Formica that a colleague who had died from the explosion had seen a user interested in the dining room store and argued that there will have to be new criteria for Iraqi uniforms, indicating that this user’s appearance was Two civilian KBR workers – their names have been erased from the archives – they told investigators at Fort Hood , Texas, who had discovered that there were fewer Iraqi infantrymen than the same old in the dining tent that day. said he saw the suicide bomber moments before the explosion. The attacker, he said, was about five feet and six inches tall, weighed 150 pounds, was of Middle Eastern descent, and wore an army uniform in a jacket.
“I saw his right hand pass parallel to his shoulder, and then the explosion occurred,” the contractor told investigators. “I just saw a flame sprouting from his body.
Two weeks after the attack, the Associated Press reported that an Arab newspaper knew the suicide bomber as Ahmed Said Ahmed Ghamdi, a 20-year-old Saudi medical student. The Saudi newspaper, according to AP, quoted unknown friends of the man’s father, who refused to talk about the attack.
The records I got from the U. S. military. But it’s not the first time They identify someone else as the attacker and say they received help from Iraqi guards running at the base. These main points come from a long made in 2005 through Muhammad Amir Husayn Mari, a captured member of Ansar al-Sunna. Mari knew the suicide bomber as a Saudi named Abu Umar Al Shammari and said that two other people — their names were erased from the archives — “came to an agreement with the Iraqi guards at the front of the camp and told me that they had borrowed a uniform from one of the guards. The husband said Al Shammari was wearing the uniform over his suicide vest, adding that “the guards allowed him to enter the base smoothly. “
Ansar al-Sunna claimed the duty of the attack and then released a video purporting to show the attack. Also known as Ansar al-Islam, the organization formed in 2001 through the merger of several Kurdish Islamist organizations, had close ties to Al Qaeda and was made the decision to overthrow the Iraqi government and expel US troops, according to Stanford University’s Militant Organization Mapping project. Members of the organization were captured or killed. Some fled to Iran, where they reorganized and operated under a new direction. Although Iran has denied having ties to Ansar al-Islam, according to activist organizations Mapping, it hosted the organization and provided a secure direction for combatants to enter and register in Iraq.
Mari told his captors that he was the one who pointed a bayonet at a map in the opening scene of the short film that Ansar al-Sunna published about the suicide bombing. Then, Mari said, appears among 3 masked men — dressed in black — that A Kiss in the video. One of them reads a statement, stating: “The lion will head towards its target, and enjoy lunchtime when the dining room is full of crusaders and their Iraqi allies. Then the operation will take place. ” A giant white tent resembling the corridor of Marez’s dining room is filmed from afar. An explosion explodes from above, sending a can of black smoke into the air. In the final scene, someone driving on a road near the tent films a giant hole he left through The Explosion.
After analyzing the terrain in the video and the time period for the sound of the explosion, the U. S. military met the Mosul buildings where the video was likely filmed. Six days after the bombing, U. S. troops attacked this site, arrested 16 other people and discovered A Camera. Records don’t say Mari was one of the captures that day. Born in Mosul, he worked as a computer scientist in a sewing factory before fitting in a propagandist, called himself “emir of the media”, who created pamphlets and pamphlets of Ansar al-Sunna. He told his captors that he was determined to “persecute american crusaders and occupiers” and punish “Iraqi spies cooperating with Americans. “Ansar al-Sunna increased the budget for his activities by rescuing hostages and collecting donations from Mosul residents, Mari added.
Mari said she regretted her movements and asked to be released; instead, accused of murder, attempted murder and conspiracy in connection with the suicide bombing, he was convicted through Iraq’s Central Criminal Court, created through the provisional authority of the US-led coalition. – and sentenced to death.
Formica and Ham refused to be interviewed for this article and answered questions sent by email. The Pentagon also answered questions emailed about security deficiencies in Marez, the identity of the suicide bomber, where he received his explosives. how it infiltrated the base and what classes the U. S. military learned from the attack.
The suicide bombing killed a primary sergeant serving in a special forces unit, four army national guards, an army reservist, a military Seabee and seven soldiers, as well as a captain. Between the ages of 20 and 47, they served in sets in Louisiana, Maine. , New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington. Some had women and young children.
Nicholas Mason, 20, and David Ruhren were among the dead. Mason, who passed through Nick, graduated from King George High School and served in the local volunteer fireplace department. He had just finished his freshman year at Virginia Tech and was interested in education to become a “sapper,” an elite combat engineer in the army. Funny, he wore a smile that indicated he had run off with something mischievous, said his father, Vic Mason. He may easily burn out from the troubles, his father added, and it was difficult for other people to remain angry with him. For his prom, Nick made a silver ribbon tuxedo. He weighed around 30 pounds. During their memorial service, mourners wore ribbons made from the same type of duct tape. Nick’s middle name, Conan, comes from the 1982 Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie “Conan the Barbarian. ” He lived up to his name, his father said, “just being a warrior in everything he did, be it in the military or wrestling. When he gave in to it, it was going to be hard to stop him from doing it. His colleagues identified him as helping save their lives in Iraq by welding heavy armor on their vehicles.
A unique child, Ruhren was a great shield from his mother, Sonja. She remembers him when he was a child who would bring him his bandage whenever he had minor injuries. He would get her a blanket and leave it on the couch when she was sick. Nicknamed Davey, he had a center for the homeless. As a child, he brought home vulnerable animals he feared would not do it alone: baby fish, baby turtles, baby frogs. He once brought home a catfish and put it in his aquarium, where he temporarily ate his tropical fish and eventually grew a foot long. His mother sent him to Lake Arrowhead after Davey’s death. His son played soccer and joined the ROTC at Gar-field High School in Prince William County, Virginia. He took courses to become an emergency medical technician, although he dreamed of running as a police officer or child psychologist. When they gave him the house for Thanksgiving in 2004, his mother said, Davey seemed moderate. He told him that he was concerned for his comrades in Iraq because he was not there to protect them. He was known as the most productive Array50 caliber device gunner in his battalion.
Sonja Ruhren and Vic Mason told me they hoped the U. S. military had learned of the suicide bombing and made life-saving changes.
“In fact, there have been protection deficiencies and that’s something I hope will be corrected and continue to fix,” Mason said. “With the terrorist teams out there, you can’t be lax. You can’t be lax, because in any one it may be another 11-S. Maybe it’s another bombing in Mosul, maybe it’s anything.
Some infantrymen who survived the suicide bombing are still in trouble today. Mark Pratt, 55, from Gloucester, Virginia, flew out of his chair and lost consciousness from the explosion just as he was about to greet Davey and Nick. Army as a first-class sergeant, the former Virginia guard suffered a back injury, post-traumatic tension disorder, and traumatic brain injury caused by the explosion. His wife left his civilian homework with the Virginia National Guard to take a look at him.
“I still have nightmares about it,” he told me about his survival of the suicide bombing. “I don’t faint in crowded places. I don’t like being with people. Loud noises amaze me. I still have flashbacks.
Pratt joined other veterans wounded in the suicide bombing to sue the Iranian government, saying he supported Ansar al-Sunna. Pratt and Sonja Ruhren, who is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit, need an apology from those who committed the suicide bombing in Marez. The Iranian government has not responded to repeated requests for comment.
Ruhren and Mason’s families – came here in combination and supported each other in pain – raised thousands of dollars to help veterans in need and to fund scholarships for students at Garfield and King George high schools. The parents said, they live on this charity. Both were superhumously promoted to the rank of sergeant and won Purple Hearts. A National Guard Preparation Center in Fredericksburg has been renamed after them. Their families piled up in the armory with their unit’s veterans on December 21. last year and launched dozens of red balloons. Red Davey’s favorite color. Some heart-shaped balloons flew in front of an American flag in front of the arsenal, dispersed and disappeared in the distance.
Among those killed on 21 December 2004, the suicide bombing at Marez’s advanced base of operations was:
Army PFC. Lionel Ayro, 22, jeanerette, Louisiana.
First Marine Master Joel E. Baldwin, 37, Arlington, Virginia.
Army CPS. Jonathan Castro, 21, de Corona, California.
Army CPS. Thomas J. Dostie, 20, from Somerville, Maine.
Army CPS. Cory M. Hewitt, 26, de Stewart, Tennessee.
Army Captain William W. Jacobsen Jr. , 31, Charlotte, North Carolina.
The sergeant. Robert S. Johnson, 23, de Castro Valley, California.
First-class Army Sergeant Paul D. Karpowich, 30, Bridgeport, Pennsylvania.
Army CPS. Nicholas C. Mason, 20, of King George, Virginia.
The sergeant. Julian S. Melo, 47, Brooklyn, New York.
The sergeant. Major Robert D. Odell, 38, manassas, Virginia.
The sergeant. Lynn R. Poulin Sr. , 47, de Freedom, Maine.
Army CPS. David A. Ruhren, 20, de Stafford, Virginia.
The sergeant. Darren D. VanKomen, 33, de Bluefield, West Virginia.
Leslie W. Davis, 53, Magnolia, Texas.
Brett A. Hunter, 29, de Chickasaw, Alabama.
Allen Smith, 45, from Rosharon, Texas.
Anthony M. Stramiello Jr. , 61, of Astoria, Oregon.
Iraqi Army NCO Majdee Yousef Aziz
Iraqi National Guard Sherzad Kamo Bro
1st Lieutenant of Iraqi Army Mushtag Satar Jabar
Iraqi Army Sgt. Ahmad Hashem Mahdi
Jeremy Redmon writes about the army and veterans for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and is a professor of journalism at Kennesaw State University. He joined U. S. troops in 3 Iraq between 2004 and 2006. Follow him on Twitter on @JeremyLRedmon
Star Photo: Dean Hoffmeyer / Richmond Times-Dispatch / Photographic Representation via Paul Szoldra