Most hand-to-hand fighting is over who controls the weapons.
The Irrigation Ditch
The Rangers had been on the ground for less than a minute when small-arms fire cracked from close range. After evacuating two wounded—one with a life-threatening gunshot wound—they began clearing a large grassy field near the landing zone. Chest-high grass, irrigation ditches, broken sightlines.
Spc. Joseph Gibson, on his fourth three-month tour in Iraq, felt his boot come down on something odd.
“He was kneeled down in one of the irrigation ditches. I actually stepped on him and just because of how the terrain was I really didn’t even think anything of it. I took about two more steps before I thought, ‘I’d better see what that was.’”
He turned and saw an armed man bringing his weapon to bear. Gibson, looking back over his shoulder and pushing through the grass, didn’t have his own rifle in a shooting position.
“He was fixin’ to shoot me and there’s no way I could have shot him first, so I just got in front of his weapon,” he said—getting past the muzzle.
“And he fired it off right next to my face. I tackled him to the ground and grabbed hold of his weapon … and I started hollering for help. While I was doing that he ripped my helmet off.”
The Rangers were moving in an open formation; help would take a moment. In the cramped ditch, Gibson fought alone. He worked to the top position and controlled the enemy’s rifle. The enemy then grabbed Gibson’s rifle, which was slung around his head and lead arm on an assault sling.
“He got my weapon, so I start to hit him in the face,” Gibson said. “He wasn’t trying to aim my weapon at me, he was in no position to do something like that.”
Then another turn:
“I felt him reaching his hand down to grab a knife or something … and then he told me in English he said ‘bomb’ and I realized he had a bomb on him and he was trying to clack himself off.”
Pinned in the ditch, kit pressing into his throat:
“He used his foot to push my chest plate up into my throat and it was beginning to choke me so I let all my weight down on him and I hit him in the face as hard as I could and knocked him out for just a second.”
Gibson seized the moment, created space, and brought his rifle to bear.
“I buried my weapon into his gut and fired one off and he hollered and then that’s when I got off of him and neutralized him.”
The fight with that enemy ended there; the Rangers fought on for about another hour. Later, Gibson reflected:
“As long as I got out of his weapon’s reach, he didn’t have a chance.”
