Heavy Metal - A Tank Company's Battle to Baghdad

England gave the order to fire, Freeman squeezed the triggers, and the Iraqi tank erupted in a cloud of flame and white-hot debris that rained down on the Abrams.

Ray White’s tank spotted a T-72 in an alley to the left as it pushed north. His gunner, Sgt. Cullie Alexander, fired a SABOT round and that tank virtually disintegrated. Its engine was knocked out of the main body and its turret was popped and sent spinning off into the air. The next day the turret was found nearly 300 meters away, on top of a three-story building.

Pinkston kept his tank moving forward through the flames and smoke and the ammunition cooking off inside the destroyed T-72s.

This one small section of Mahmudiyah was now a hellish inferno.

The heat was intense, the smoke thick and black and greasy with the smell of diesel. And still we could see people standing out in the streets, watching all this happen.

The kills knocked the T-72s backward and sideways just enough to give our tanks a path as we continued to push north to link up with a platoon of Charlie Rock, which was waiting at the north end of the city.

Pinkston and his crew were finding other tanks hidden in alleys or parked on side streets as they drove on. One tank was even inside a parking garage.

Pinkston and England passed the burning tanks and were approaching another corner. As they rounded it, Stewart spotted the front slopes of more armored vehicles.

...continued