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LCpl. Patrick T.
O'Day, U.S.M.C (KIA)
April 1, 2003
STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
Military officials confirmed Monday that a 20-year-old Marine from Santa Rosa died last week when his tank plunged off a bridge and into the Euphrates River in southern Iraq.
Patrick O'Day was listed as missing Friday when Marines came to the home of O'Day's parents, Tim and Angela O'Day, to tell them of the incident. O'Day's newlywed wife, Shauna O'Day, also of Santa Rosa, was with the parents this past weekend.
"We, in the back of our minds, knew that was just a classification and we were just waiting for the final bad news," Tim O'Day said Monday. "We knew what was coming."
The tank's three other crew members -- Marine Staff Sgt. Donald C. May, Jr., 31, of Richmond, Va.; Pfc. Francisco A. Martinez Flores, 21, of Los Angeles; and Cpl. Robert M. Rodriquez, 21, of Queens, N.Y. -- also were listed as dead. They were assigned to the 1st Tank Battalion, 7th Regiment, 1st Marine Division, which was conducting convoy operations early last week north of Nasiriyah.
O'Day served as a gunner aboard the tank.
New details of the deaths emerged Monday from Iraq after a preliminary investigation of the event and news reports from the scene.
A statement from the U.S. Central Command in Qatar said a preliminary investigation indicated that the driver of O'Day's tank had been shot and killed before the tank rolled off the bridge into the river.
But other Marines in O'Day's tank battalion told a USA Today reporter that they knew nothing about anybody being shot, let alone the driver who sits protected by armor inside the tank. They suspected the crew simply became disoriented and drove off the bridge.
O'Day's M1A1 Abrams tank, nicknamed "Hermes," was part of a convoy that reached the bridge March 24 and stopped while commanders tried to figure out how to cross the Euphrates, USA Today reported today. Other Marines camped along the bridge told the tank crews that the unfinished bridge was impassable.
Instead, the tank commander decided to cross the river at a marsh that was dry enough to support the Abrams tanks, USA Today reported.
The tanks rumbled off one after another to the marsh but commanders now believe that O'Day's tank went straight for the bridge, either missing the radio order to head for the marsh or losing sight of the tank in front of it, USA Today said.
O'Day's tank then plunged off the bridge, landing upside down, on its turret, into the Euphrates, USA Today said.
Crews train to escape from an overturned tank but not one under water, USA Today said, noting that even if O'Day's crew had been able to open a hatch, water would have rushed in, making escape nearly impossible.
The detachment of Marines under the bridge said they heard the accident but didn't realize what had happened.
Members of the tank battalion said they didn't notice "Hermes" missing until about five miles past the bridge. Investigators did not go looking for the tank until sometime the next day.
Brig. Gen. John Kelly, assistant commander of the 1st Marine Division, said the incident was under investigation. He said the cause might have been that the driver fell asleep, but it also is possible the driver might have been momentarily blinded by blowing sand.
Although Allied forces encountered huge difficulties during a sandstorm last week, with visibility sometimes reduce to barely a few feet, one of the Marines under the Euphrates bridge said it was dark but clear at the time of the accident.
"All of a sudden this big, huge splash comes," said Master Sgt. Scott Kerslake, 42, of Gainesville, Fla. "Huge splash. We got up and saw a big part of the bridge missing."
But he said he and his comrades assumed that a vehicle in the convoy had struck the edge of the 100-yard bridge without going over and that the splash was caused by falling debris.
Had they seen the 60-ton Abrams tank hit the water, there probably is nothing they could have done to save the men, Marines with Kerslake's unit said.
The next day, other Marines found three bags, carrying personal effects, floating in the Euphrates downstream from the bridge. But the assumption by the Marines guarding the bridge was that they had fallen off a moving vehicle.
"It was chaotic," Kerslake said. Communications were patchy for the crew under the bridge, which was part of the 2nd Marine Division, in part because its headquarters was in Nasiriyah in the midst of a battle. "Then a lieutenant colonel shows up" on Friday, announcing he's missing a tank, Kerslake said.
Later Friday, Kerslake said, divers entered the Euphrates and soon found the sunken tank. It was dragged from the river Saturday.
It took all day, with two tank recovery vehicles towing the Abrams ashore, righting it and leaving it several yards from the north bank. It remained there Monday, as if cast in mud, parked out of the way of the dozens of Marines assigned to guard the bridge.
The bodies of the crewmen were found and removed.
This story includes information from Staff Writers Guy Kovner, Cecilia Vega and the New York Times.