Surf and Turf Thanksgiving

  The last few days that we were in Fallujah were slower.  We had time to walk around and sleep.  It was also a time that I struggled with as one of our missions had been to block Iraqis from swimming across the Euphrates river.  Sgt. White talks about this in his book as "like shooting fish in a barrel"  Click on the picture of him playing the mandolin to read about it.
  

Nov 20,2004

    Things have slowed down the past few days. We have been finding things to do on our roof to help the time pass now that we are not getting shot at as much. Mario Tobias, the driver for our LAV, found some onions and that started it. After the grilled onions we made flat bread, then donuts with cinnamon and yesterday, I bought some eggs while on patrol and we had them today for breakfast.

    Yesterday we patrolled through a village where we had taken fire from days before. Things went smoothly. We took over 100 detainees and found a couple weapons caches. Days earlier when we made contact we killed nine of them and Wilson was the first CIC guy to be shot. From what I've heard, he will be okay. He was shot in the calf, in and out. A guy with him got jacked up, shot in the pelvis. A LAV from 3^rd Plt. was hit by a R-PG. It went right through the scout compartment. Lucky for the scouts they were not in it.

  The looks that we got as we returned to base camp were those of respect.  Everybody had been watching us on TV all month. They had been seeing our wounded and dead being flown in and out.  They knew what we had been going through yet they had no idea.  We walked with a strut. 

Nov 28th,2006

We got back inside the wire on Thanksgiving Day just in time to have a huge Thanksgiving meal. Yesterday we celebrated the 229^th birthday of the Marine Corps – late (10 Nov). After the cake cutting ceremony and a steak and lobster tail dinner, we were given 2 Budweiser and a shooter of Bacardi. Somehow I ended up drinking 4 beers and three shooters. Everybody had a good time.

It was more in celebration of still being alive than the birthday or Thanksgiving. We fought those bastards for almost 20 days straight. We killed more than I can count. We detained hundreds if not a thousand. We destroyed their city, and they still have the will to fight. They won't give up. Nobody could expect it to happen overnight. I can not put into words the satisfaction of taking control of the bridge were the Iraqi's hung four American civilian security contractors.

I am glad that I survived but wish that we all would of.  I am proud of how my men fought and without loosing our moral compass.  Not everybody in that city was the enemy, but it was hard to tell sometimes. 

The memories of that Thanksgiving have so far stayed with me through the years as my reason to give thanks.  To have survived the bloodiest battle of the war and to have had my men survive as well, is something that I am grateful for often, but always on Thanksgiving.  Although some Marines woke up in Germany and some not at all, I know that the Marines that wake up today are happy to be alive. 

I believe the memories of Fallujah will stay with me forever, and there are to many to write down and a lot that I will never share.  They are the ones that choke me up hearing the National Anthem and let me watch the fireworks on the fourth of July as more than just a show.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

I meet a girl

Nov 16

I've had a hard time keeping up with this General's log. It seems that so much can happen in a day. Anyway EOD's (explosive ordnance disposal) scouts pushed to the East clearing the houses we had just engaged, finding nobody – dead or alive.

    We continued with the mission moving slow, finding one IED (improvised explosive device) after the next. Watching around us Thompson turned and said to me that they were shooting at the Cobras (helicopters). I looked up to see the second, surface to air, missile launched into the sky. I quickly shot an Azimuth with my compass at its point of origin or as people like to say, it's "POO". Ha Ha

   

I think that I had impressed the Capt with my quick thinking to get an azimuth of the launched missile.  I remember he was at least surprised, then excited realizing he had a chance to get these guys.  He quickly had his maps in front of him on the radio calling for fire. 
To call for a fire mission, like I had done several days before, is when you give the known location of yourself and then the distance and direction (azimuth)  of the enemy.  Then, maybe miles away, a mortar platoon or artillery launches shells into the sky. One at a time at first, allowing you to see where they land and make adjustments to have the bombs drop right on top of the enemy. Once you are on target, you "fire for effect" and watch as the fire rains down.  All of this happening in the time it takes for a helicopter to crash.

 The helicopter dropped in elevation behind us, and then flew to our front where I couldn't see it land in a farm field. One pilot was okay while the other had shrapnel to his back and a broken arm. The injured pilot was ground medevacked and minutes later I handed the captain yellow smoke to mark an LZ (landing zone )for a 46 to pick up their pilot. He popped smoke and tossed it in the middle of the road about 30 meters from us. I didn't expect for the helicopter to land right on the smoke, but they did.

    The first pilot stayed back to provide security for the downed bird and we continued our mission. It was taking a lot longer than we had thought and had become dark. We had been finding IED's then trying to detonate them by shooting them with the .50 caliber or 25mm. If that didn't work we would have EOD come up and blow them in place. There would always be a countdown to detonation, or a heads up before someone engaged. But when I heard a nearby blast without either of those two things happening, I knew something was wrong.

 

   

A reserve battalion from Texas and Louisiana call sign "Cajun" had dismounts patrolling both sides of the road looking for wires leading up the road to an IED. Since it was now dark they were pretty much dragging their feet, hoping to trip over one. They had found one and followed it up to the road where it blew them up. The Captain called for an Air Medevac, but by the time Gunny had loaded up the casualties (2 urgent surgical, 2 urgent, and 1 priority) and two routine – the birds were coming in. I jumped out the back of my vehicle and cracked the two green chem-lights I had tied to the end of a bootlace I had taken off my K BAR and began swinging them over my head to mark the LZ with the "Buzz-saw". Two CH-46's landed right in front of me. The wind almost knocked me over. I met the flight nurse on the road, a woman. Even with everything going on, I still noticed and thought for a second, but could not recall the last time I talked to a girl face to face. She asked where the casualties were and where the corpsman was. I took her to the back of the log ,where the casualties had been loaded , and walked up just as the doors were swinging open. Doc jumped out and began talking with the nurse, yelling over the noise of the helicopter. I grabbed a corner of the liter with the most critical patient and began  running  him to the first bird. It was dark and loud, so I saw no blood, but I did notice how bad he was shaking. He was going into shock. We got him in and I went back for the next. He did not seem to be in as bad of shape as the first but heavier. We still got him there with a quick jog and just like that the helicopters flew away.

    That mission took us 25 hours to drive no more than 5 miles, finding a total of anywhere between 15 and 20 IED's. I had lost count.

I witness a miricle

 Nov 14

We are parked outside the Wolfpack CP, after bringing LCPL Aricidino here for Medevac. We were on the rooftop just finishing up eating breakfast when we were engaged from across the river. Dino was hit in the top right side of his back SAPI plate by a .50 CAL, knocking him off his feet. But there was no blood and he will be okay.

As I read what I had written I remember it being a lot more dramatic.  I try to understand why I would have watered it down so much.  I think that exhaustion had a lot to do with it, we had been fighting for days.  although it seemed as though things had begun to calm down, they hadn't. When we came under fire it was not a couple pot shots, we were being engaged.  I remember seeing Dino spin around as his feet came out from under him, I thought he was dead.  As the Doc made his way to us we searched for the location of our attackers and I don't even remember what the outcome of that was.  I made my way over to Dino only to find him sitting up with his shirt cut off.   This is a miracle.

The Sapi plate was a new technology that was designed to stop small arms fire, not .50 caliber rounds.  you can see how close it came to both missing the plate and even penetrating it. 

Just a few days ago we were tasked with clearing Route Boston from Vehicle Check Point 2 South to Route Iron. We had just stepped off. We had two tanks in front , then Cajun1/23 with dismounts clearing the shoulders of the road, them first then us with EOD in trace. We went not even 50 meters and were ambushed. The tanks took 3 RPG hits and one flew right in front of us hitting an oil tank elevated. The Capt. saw where the 4^th one had come from and took control of the turret traversing left and throwing a three round burst into the house.

I think that this was the first time that I had traveled outside of our CP since we began Phantom Fury.  The Cajun unit was an Army reserve company that we had attached to to help get us off the peninsula.  What had happened was as we came in hard and fast, the Iraqis had came in behind us.  We were trapped, pinned down, boxed in.  How could we have been so dumb.  We were going to have to fight our way out. 

Fog of War

Since I rode with the Company Commander we were in search for an ideal spot to set up his command post the driveway that we had just escaped had not provided us with any cover.  I made a mistake.  We walked down that drive with flashlights which I believe is what provided them a target. I am thankful that nobody was killed because of it. 

We turned down the next corner and again dismounted to patrol in front of the vehicles. McDonald made it from the back of the vehicle to the front before he passed out from his concussion. I was on the left side of the road and he was on the right. I ran over and sat him up by yanking his Flak. When he sat up he woke up and jumped to his feet not knowing where he was, spinning and pointing his rifle in every direction. Thompson reported more shots coming from the front.

The confusion of battle is described as the fog of war in which there no longer is a clear plan as to what you are doing, just reacting to whats going on without the confidence of whether you are making the right decisions.  McDonald was injured. We were taking fire and the mission of finding a place to set up command was still a priority.

    We medevaced McDonald and found our CP. Scouts cleared two huge houses and set up our LPOP (listening post/observation post) on the roof of the house on the West bank of the Euphrates. Everything was quiet for a couple of hours. Then it began to rain. The lightning from the storm gave away our position and we watched as an anti-aircraft gun walked its tracers down from the sky on to our rooftop. We returned fire, as did the LAV's on the ground. They stopped shooting at us with the AA gun, but small arms continued through the night.

Nobody slept that night.  We fought in the rain.  I was terrified. The fog had lifted and we knew what we needed to do.  We killed them before they killed us.  With the night almost over and the realization that we had survived, I remember thinking that it seemed that night had lasted a week.  How I had been blown up only hours ago and thinking if I would see McDonald again, I wouldn't. 

When the sun rose we saw at least a dozen sandbag reinforced fighting positions that we had taken out in the through the night. Things were quiet until two RP-G's were launched at us from a house just off to our south on the other side of the river, one bouncing off of black 4's LAV.  My scouts engaged as I called for fire with the 81mm mortars. After two adjustments, I fired for effect with the rounds dropping right on top of the house. I shot three more fire missions through out the day.

Phantom Fury

The Second Battle of Fallujah — code-names
Operation Al-Fajr (Arabic, "the dawn") and Operation Phantom Fury — was a joint U.S.-Iraqi -British offensive in November and December 2004. It was led by the U.S. Marine Corps against the Iraqi insurgency stronghold in the city of Fallujah and was authorized by the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Interim Government.

The U.S. military called it "some of the heaviest urban combat U.S. Marines have been involved in since the Battle of Huế City in Vietnam in 1968."


This operation was the second major operation in Fallujah. Earlier, in April 2004, Coalition Forces fought the First Battle of Fallujah in order to capture or kill insurgent elements considered responsible for the deaths of a Blackwater Security team. When Coalition Forces (a majority being U.S. Marines) fought into the center of the city, the Iraqi government requested that control of the city be turned over to an Iraqi-run local security force, which then began stockpiling weapons and building complex defenses across the city in mid-2004.

The Second Battle of Fallujah was the bloodiest battle of the Iraq War and has been the bloodiest battle of the twenty-first century to date.

Minutes before War

 The unease that had been following us from Korean Village had settled into a calm.  We had been given our orders and we were all very quite.  I remember that we decided to play poker while we waited.  It was a brilliant idea to keep our minds off what was to be ahead.

On Nov 7^th at 1900 we stepped of from ASP Rock to begin Operation Phantom Fury. 20 minutes later my vehicle was hit by an IED. We are guessing it was two 155 rounds buried on the right side of the road. The blast was tremendous. I had my back to it since I ride on the left side and it felt like I had been hit by a bus. My whole body was thrown forward by the blast, then falling into the vehicle through the scout hatch ,turned around upside down and feeling inside out. I had thought I had been hit.  

These are the craters left from the explosion 

Trying to decide how to explain the pain that is quickly replaced by adrenalin and anger I have decided is not possible, or maybe I just did. 

McDonald who was riding on the side of the blast also did not get hit by any shrapnel but was screaming that he could not hear. As the LAV kept moving the confusion continued. I checked that McDonald was not bleeding from the ears and kept asking the others if they were okay. We had stopped and Doc Patlen came up to assess McDonald and seemed relieved that it was just a loss of hearing. McDonald, angry as hell just kept screaming that he was okay and just could not hear. Doc said to make sure he did not go to sleep and we pushed forward. Looking for a place to set up the CP, the Capt. had the scouts out to open a gate to an Iraqi house. We were met by 4 Iraqi's who we sat down on the road by gunpoint. Thompson stayed with them as the rest of us opened the gate and began patrolling down the long driveway. McDonald was still unable to hear. The vehicle was 30-40 meters behind us when we came under fire from across the river. We all dropped into the prone as we saw tracers fly over our heads and heard the rounds whizzing by and hitting the tree branches in front of us. Within seconds the captain returned fire with the 25mm. We had no targets to engage from the prone and moved back to the vehicle. Johnstone had got them; he said at least 4. So the shooting had stopped but we still got the hell out of there.