There were landmines in the road

There were landmines in the road? OK, so this landmine problem forced the convoy to employ the "routine safety practice" of turning on their headlights. Everything went downhill from there.

But the routine safety practice apparently alerted area residents to the convoy’s presence. An entire town along the route switched off its lights all at once, a move Marines believe is used to send signals from one river town to the next.

As the bridging unit approached the river crossing early Sunday, they switched off the truck headlights even though many soldiers lacked night-vision goggles. In the gloom, one truck rolled off the road and into a ditch, bringing the column to a dead halt in the darkness.

The soldiers soon discovered another problem: The river banks, sodden after recent rains, might have been too wet to support the oncoming American tanks.

"I hope security keeps us safe all day," Capt. Chris Taylor of the 814th said as officers tried to find other ways to get troops and equipment across the river.

But when dawn broke, the column came under mortar fire from Ubaydi, the nearest town. Two mortars dropped within feet of the Marines’ command post and an officer’s Humvee. The insurgents the Marines expected to find north of the river were on the south side as well.