For the next six hours, the Green Berets battled desperately–and Seideman, pulling out his camera, recorded the fight. His pictures, which the Army Special Forces allowed him to release to NEWSWEEK, provide a rare glimpse of the secret war behind the lines. The public has seen few photos of actual combat during Desert Storm, and until now, no photos have been made public of the missions conducted by America’s commando forces.
For Seideman and the eight other Green Berets, the war began the night of Feb. 21, three days before Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf launched his ground campaign. Their mission: infiltrate deep into Iraq to warn Schwarzkopf if Saddam’s Army tried to counterattack the allies’ “Hail Mary” flanking maneuver from the west. Two Army Black Hawk helicopters landed on a barren, gray field that looked like a moonscape. The team piled out with their 100-pound rucksacks and marched for a day to a point north of the Euphrates River.
They had dug in and begun transmitting intelligence on Iraqi convoys when the shepherd spotted them. The team scrambled out of their holes and raced to a nearby irrigation ditch. Sgt. 1/c Michael Flick radioed for evacuation. But a daylight rescue was too dangerous: “We can get you out at 2000 hours,” came the response. Flick turned to his team leader, Capt. Jim Thompson. They looked at their watches; 8 p.m. was 12 hours away. Thompson said little, but his grim expression said a lot. His sharpshooters had picked off Iraqi soldiers advancing so far, but the lightly armed team couldn’t hold out for 12 hours against over whelming odds.
Air Force F-16 Falcons swooped in, dropping cluster bombs around the team’s ditch. For the next six hours, the F-16 pilots, with call signs like “Dingo” and “Pointer,” kept the Iraqi soldiers away. Thompson peered out of the ditch and spotted a truck with enemy reinforcements. “I’ve got movers,” he barked into his radio. “I’ve got movers too,” replied Pointer, wiping out the truck. But a fog was setting in and more trucks were pulling up. The Falcons would soon be unable to see their targets. A daylight evacuation had to be attempted. Two Black Hawks came racing in, so low that their skids bounced along the ground. The commandos dove into the choppers, which lifted off within seconds. Everyone escaped unhurt. And Seideman had the record of a mission he’d never forget.
