Balwanz ordered his men to set their M16 rifles to fire on semi-automatic to preserve ammunition. At one point in the firefight, he noticed two of his men waving good-bye to each other.
“Every time a gun fired, an Iraqi dropped,” Balwanz recounted. The Green Berets’ marksmanship was proving crucial – prompting the Iraqis to discard the notion of charging 525’s position. Instead, most of them settled for spraying fire from their AK-47 rifles. Some, described by Balwanz as “Bedouins,” had long-barreled rifles – and rounds from those were impacting close to the Green Berets. The Iraqis were also getting reinforcements.
They were not the only ones. F-16s from the South Carolina Air National Guard had arrived, however the radio the ODA needed to communicate with them was damaged. One pilot decided to have the planes under him hit a communications facility. The Iraqis began fleeing when the bombs hit the target. Balwanz eventually was able to contact the planes, and began to call in air strikes. Cluster bombs began to make short work of their targets. As darkness fell, Balwanz’s team improvised a means to help the F-16 pilots locate their position using a mirror.
Eventually, the team was recovered by an MH-60 Blackhawk from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. While the fight had taken hours, none of the Green Berets were killed or wounded in that engagement.
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