In command of 6th Squadron, 6th Cavalry - part of the 11th Aviation Regiment - when the regiment launched its initial attacks in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Colonel Michael Barbee, in this interview, recounts in remarkable detail the role his "Six-Shooters" and their AH64D Apache Attack Helicopters played in the opening days of OIF. He begins with "the night before 3rd Infantry Division crossed the berm. We had the mission to destroy some artillery in the vicinity of An Nasiriyah." As it turned out, though, a near perfect storm of problems arose that finally convinced Barbee to abort the mission mid-flight. First, visibility was only 60 percent of what was required. Second, his command and control Blackhawk went inadvertent instrument meteorological conditions, leaving him with no C2 back to headquarters, and then, third, he lost his embedded recovery capability. Fourth and finally, weather also prevented his Chinook - which would be setting up their fat cow FARP to refuel them - from getting in either. "At that point I aborted the mission," Barbee said. "While I had no contact with my higher headquarters, I directed that all three troops do a 180 along the route." Ironically, three nights later, "because of those factors, I didn't want to be the guy who spoke up on the night of 23 March and said I wasn't confident we had all the information and intel as well as the support we needed for this mission," even though both he and the 2-6 commander strongly felt that they did not have a "good grasp on the enemy" and were also concerned about refueling. "I get asked sometimes why I went," Barbee said, who flew with Alpha Troop that night. "Well, the answer is simple. I'm a soldier and the commander said to go." Flying against and suppressing targets through what he described as a "fireworks show" of enemy tracer fire, Barbee tells how the rules of engagement - which stressed (he feels overly so) the ability to recognize possibly capitulating forces and minimize collateral damage - actually discouraged some of his gunners from returning fire. "If we didn't do those things, the regimental commander told us that, 'Your tapes will be reviewed at the highest levels.' I found out later after the mission, from talking to some of my young co-pilot gunners, that that had been so ingrained in their brain, that they figured they should shoot only as a last resort. And here I came out in the middle of this mission and told them to shoot at everybody. We needed to make them pay." "That was a gauntlet of fire that no other aircrews have probably seen in either volume or intensity since Vietnam," Barbee said, and he hails the performance of both his aircrews and the AH64D, which he considers an "awesome aircraft."

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited