Steel Curtain: The Ambush of Second Platoon

In July 2005, the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) put to sea from California with Battalion Landing Team (BLT) 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, embarked. The deployment began in typical fashion. Marines made port calls and participated in exercises through Australia, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries. By September, the MEU had sailed into the Red Sea and on to Egypt. As the Marines transited the Suez Canal, word disseminated of their next operation. The BLT was headed to combat in Iraq.

The new orders proved largely expected. Throughout the previous year, numerous MEUs supported the fighting in Fallujah, Najaf and other areas of Iraq. Even 2/1 had previously experienced an identical situation in 2003 as part of the 15th MEU, surging north from Kuwait with the initial invading force. By 2005, several invasion veterans lingered in the battalion. Considerably more had fought through the battalion’s next Iraq deployment during the First Battle of Fallujah in April 2004. Now on its third deployment in as many years, senior leaders called on the BLT to support the largest Marine Corps operation in Iraq since Operation Phantom Fury. The main effort focused on arresting control of the wildest part of Iraq’s “Wild West,” the Al Qa’im region.

Then-GySgt Michael D. Fay produced numerous paintings and drawings during Operation Steel Curtain. In this scene, Capt Ross Parrish, the Fox Co Commander, coordinates his forces over the radio in Karabilah, Iraq, during combat on the Marine Corps Birthday.

Al Qa’im made up the northwest corner of Iraq along the Syrian border. In 2004, while 2/1 battled insurgents some 200 miles down the Euphrates River valley, other Marines faced uprisings throughout Al Qa’im. On April 14, 2004, in Karabilah, Corporal Jason Dunham was mortally wounded smothering a grenade and saving the lives of two other Marines. He became the first Marine to receive the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War. Conditions worsened as the year progressed, culminating in November when virtually all American forces departed Al Qa’im to support Operation Phantom Fury in Fallujah. The battle forced insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi out of the city. He retreated northwest and reestablished a base of operations in Al Qa’im. Zarqawi cemented his control over the region throughout 2005, despite a persistent Marine presence and limited offensive operations. The approach of Iraqi parliamentary elections, however, demanded a secure environment in which to conduct voting. The balance of power in Al Qa’im would not truly be tested until the arrival of 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, that August.

The Marines of 3/6 occupied Camp Al Qa’im, based several miles south of the urban centers along the Euphrates River. One company operated out of another American outpost called Camp Gannon, guarding over the Syrian border crossing in Husaybah. The Marines executed Operation Iron Fist at the beginning of October, sweeping through portions of Karabilah and Sadah and establishing forward battle positions across the region. The battalion was spread thin manning each position, most engaging the enemy in daily firefights to hold their ground. 

3/6 occupied the Al Qa’im region prior to BLT 2/1’s arrival. Beginning at the western edge, Operation Steel Curtain aimed to clear through Husaybah and Karabilah before pushing east into Ubaydi.

As 3/6 maintained the foothold in Al Qa’im through the remainder of the month, BLT 2/1 flew into Iraq. Both battalions would work together through the next phase of the Marines’ attack plan, dubbed Operation Steel Curtain, to clear the entire region, building by building, and drive out the insurgency before the election. The BLT transitioned rapidly from the MEU training mindset to mental preparation for imminent combat.

“Everything felt pretty surreal as I remember it,” said Justin VanHout, then a lance corporal in 2/1’s Fox Company, 2nd Platoon, 1st Squad. “Everything happened so fast. We flew from Kuwait up to Al-Asad and staged there. They sent a convoy up from Kuwait bringing all of our equipment. About that time, we got word there was some sort of accident, a vehicle rollover, and we lost our first Marine. Lance Corporal Christopher Poston. I think that moment kind of set a demeanor for a lot of us, like, ‘Well, here we go.’ Kind of gave us the impression that we were actually in it.”

LCpl Jeff Jendrzejczyk, an 0351 assaultman attached to 2nd Plt, Fox Co, BLT 2/1, rests during combat operations in Karabilah on the Marine Corps Birthday. Michael D. Fay produced a painting based on this photograph titled “The Other Side of Exhausted.”

“For me, things still weren’t hitting that we were actually in a combat zone,” added Shawn Studzinski, another lance corporal in 2nd Platoon’s 1st Squad. “We’d be walking around base at Al-Asad and all of the sudden an alarm would go off because there was a mortar strike, but still it’s not clicking. Then, on one of our company’s first missions, we were barely outside the wire when one of our 7-tons hit an IED. Everybody made it out OK, but that really kind of woke me up.”

By Nov. 5, VanHout, Studzinski and the rest of 2nd Platoon had staged at the Syrian border crossing on the outskirts of Husaybah, prepared to attack east into the city. Fox Company occupied the left flank of 2/1’s advance. Their objective was to clear a modern grid-style section of the city known by Marines as “the 440 district” for the number of buildings it contained. Tense house-to-house fighting erupted across the front in spurts, increasing in frequency and ferocity as the Marines advanced. Grenades, rockets or tank main gun rounds frequently preceded grunts kicking in doors to soften up the enemy inside. The Marines worked methodically through Husaybah for three days, then moved directly on to Karabilah. After nine days of fighting, anyone left to oppose the Marines fled east down the Euphrates.

Through Steel Curtain’s opening days, 3/6 operated as the main effort. As the battalion advanced, rifle platoons re-mained behind to establish new battle positions and prevent the enemy’s return. By Nov. 13, 3/6 occupied nine separate positions sprinkled throughout Husaybah, Karabilah and Sadah. There was only one city that hadn’t been cleared. That task fell to BLT 2/1.

The city of Ubaydi lay in the center of a heart-shaped bend in the Euphrates at the eastern edge of Al Qa’im. The main road running directly up the center of the heart divided Ubaydi into “old” and “new” sections. Old Ubaydi consisted of sparsely populated farmland and anti-quated structures. New Ubaydi looked mostly like the modern urban center the BLT Marines had advanced through in Husaybah. Commanders called in supporting U.S. Army units to sweep through Old Ubaydi, while also securing any avenues of escape to the north across the river. BLT 2/1 was tasked with clearing the new city. Shooting it out in the streets morphed into point-blank combat house to house, with booby traps and hardened defensive positions greeting Marines behind each barricaded door. The insurgents’ backs were against the river, and with Americans waiting on the opposite bank, they faced the oncoming wave of Marines with no option but to hold out and fight to the death.

The grunts marched into their as-sembly areas outside Ubaydi under the cover of darkness on the night of Nov. 13. They moved dismounted into the city due to the significant threat of IEDs surrounding the area, especially along the roads. Tragically, their concerns proved well founded. As the battalion approached Ubaydi before dawn on Nov. 14, Major Ramon J. Mendoza Jr., the Echo company commander, stepped on a pressure plate. The resulting explosion killed Mendoza and wounded other Marines in the vicinity.

Marines from Fox Co, BLT 2/1, push into the palm grove standing between the edge of New Ubaydi and the Euphrates River. Many of the enemy who ambushed 2nd Plt on Nov. 16 were killed as they fled into this wooded area.

The BLT assaulted north shortly after sunrise. A new level of intensity hindered their progress. From Fox Company’s 1st Platoon, LCpl Christopher M. McCrackin burst into one house, triggering a hidden explosive device. Shrapnel tore into his body, leaving him mortally wounded. Several hours later, Cpl John M. Longoria breached a door with his fire team and ran into five insurgents armed with machine guns. In the ensuing firefight, Longoria was shot in the neck and killed.

“There was one point where our [standard operating procedure] was to put a grenade, M203 round or SMAW rocket into every building before Marines went in because you just didn’t know what you were going to meet on the other side of the door,” said Jeff Jendrzejczyk, an 0351 assaultman and SMAW gunner attached to Fox Company, 2nd Platoon, 2nd Squad. “I fired 113 SMAW rockets in combat. Most of those were in Ubaydi.”

LCpl Jeff Jendrzejczyk, an 0351 assaultman attached to 2nd Plt, Fox Co, BLT 2/1, fires a SMAW rocket in Ubaydi, Iraq

For two days, Fox Co pushed through the city, emerging from the urban maze into a sprawling countryside of farmland leading up to the Euphrates. On the morning of Nov. 16, the company spread out on line to sweep across the remaining ground. 2nd Platoon fell in the company’s center. A complex of 20 farmhouses and other structures stretched across several hundred meters along the Marines’ path—the last buildings between them and the river. A large grove of palm trees stood beyond the houses, obscuring the Marines’ view of the riverbank.

Three rifle squads filled out 2nd Platoon. 1st Squad cleared through structures around the outer rim of the complex, while 3rd Squad moved up the center. 2nd Squad remained behind, providing ground security for the BLT’s tank platoon.

“1st Squad was moving along this long stone wall towards a building on the edge of a collection of farmhouses,” VanHout said. “We stopped for a minute and all of the sudden there was a big boom. Something went off on the other side of the wall. Next thing we knew, there was gunfire everywhere and everything is going to hell. We sprinted to the end of the wall and got into our assigned building. Just as we finished clearing the first floor and another team was moving up the stairs, an insurgent burst into the house through an open back door. He had no idea we were in there. Shawn Studzinski and several others were still in the hallway when the insurgent started firing. Sparks were flying everywhere and one of our engineers got shot through the wrist. I was just inside a room next to them. I remember watching Shawn like in slow motion. He turns, drops to a knee, perfect freaking Marine form, and ‘Boom! Boom!’ Double-taps the guy right in the chest.”

“The insurgent fell into a room down the hall … and we could see his feet sticking out into the hallway,” said Studzinski. “We could see he was still moving. The engineer who was shot started screaming behind me. One of the team leaders yelled at us to frag the room. I kept watch on the doorway while VanHout moved up and pitched a grenade into the room. Somehow, the guy was still alive after it went off, so we captured him and turned him over to the Iraqi forces with us.”

“I made it up to the roof and someone told me to start firing 203 rounds into the palm grove beyond the houses,” VanHout said. “I looked down into the courtyard outside the house and saw a blown-up car and dead cow blown to pieces. I was trying to connect all the dots; the explosion, the gunfire, the insurgent we killed. In that moment, we were all so isolated inside that house. We had no knowledge of what was going on with the rest of the platoon. In hindsight, I think that initial explosion was the kicker that started everything that morning. But at the time, we had no idea that 3rd Squad and some of the other guys were in total mayhem.”

As the shooting began, 3rd Squad moved toward the buildings near the center of the complex. The squad oper-ated short-handed with only two fire teams. One team set up in a building to provide overwatch while the remaining team prepared to make entry into a farmhouse 75 yards away.

Nineteen-year-old LCpl Ben Sanbeck stacked up with his fire team outside the front door. Sanbeck took point with Cpl Joshua J. Ware next in line and two more Marines behind him. Ware pushed his hand against Sanbeck’s shoulder, silently signaling the junior Marine to dart right once they made it through the door. Over the preceding days, every Marine in 3rd Squad had expended their fragmentation grenades clearing house to house. The only thing Sanbeck possessed was a flashbang.

Above: In this heartbreaking depiction, Michael D. Fay captures a glimpse of the emotional and chaotic scene inside the casualty collection point on Nov. 16, 2005.

“I threw the flashbang through the door and all that did was stir the hornet’s nest,” Sanbeck reflected today. “That gave them timing. They knew as soon as it went off, we were coming through the door. I rounded the corner and as soon as I made entry, the insurgents already had a grenade in the air. It landed between me and Ware and went off before I could even yell ‘Grenade.’ Then an RPK machine gun opened up and chaos ensued.”

The Marines unknowingly made entry into a barricaded insurgent stronghold: the enemy’s last stand. Numerous enemy fighters lay behind toppled wardrobes or other objects providing cover. Others carved small mouse holes through walls at waist level, directing their fire just below the Marines’ body armor. More of the enemy waited outside in other structures or concealed within the palm grove, waiting to engage additional Marines coming to rescue those who ended up inside.

Sanbeck’s momentum carried him through the doorway and into a room off the main hallway just inside. Three machine-gun bullets grazed off his helmet as he fell. The grenade blast decimated both his legs and blew his M16 out of his hands. The grenade mortally wounded Ware, who slumped in the hallway. A machine-gun bullet struck the next Marine in line in the center of his helmet, ricocheting off the night vision goggle mount and knocking him back through the door. The last Marine in the stack also fell back outside the front door with shrapnel wounds from the grenade blast.

“I was so beat up from that grenade, I’m pretty sure the enemy thought I was dead,” Sanbeck said. “There was so much blood coming out of my legs, I’m pretty sure at some point I probably lost consciousness. I was stuck inside that room, knowing the rest of my team was pinned down outside, trying to figure out where they were, but they couldn’t hear me over all the gunfire.”

From their overwatch position 75 yards away, the remainder of 3rd Squad watched in horror as their fellow fire team shattered. They were close enough to see and hear what was going on, but too far away to communicate. Each team possessed personal short-range radios. Amidst the gunfire and explosions, no one from the team inside the stronghold was answering. Cpl Jeffry A. Rogers, LCpl John A. Lucente, LCpl Joshua Mooi and a combat engineer attached to the squad immediately sprinted toward the house.

Insurgents opened fire as the Marines dashed over the open distance. One bullet tore through the engineer’s leg. Rogers helped him move to cover while Mooi and Lucente reached the house and staged outside the front door. The last two Marines from Sanbeck’s fire team lay bleeding and dazed just inside. Mooi and Lucente snatched them both and moved them 25 yards under fire to another structure nearby.

“That building became our casualty collection point simply because we brought the wounded there and that was the best we could do,” remembered Mooi today. “This very quickly went from a casualty incident to a mass casualty incident.”

In the aftermath of the ambush on Nov. 16, 2005, one of the structures where enemy fighters took shelter stands in ruin.

Staff Sergeant Robert Homer pushed up to the front door as Rogers, Lucente and Mooi returned to search for Sanbeck and Ware. As 2nd Platoon’s platoon sergeant, Homer immediately communicated the situation over the radio and ordered 1st and 2nd squads to collapse on the house. Standing at the front door, Mooi shouted through the opening trying to locate Sanbeck, who struggled to respond over the roar of gunfire. Finally, the Marines lay down enough covering fire for Mooi and Lucente to push inside and drag Sanbeck out by his Kevlar vest.

Rogers, Lucente and Mooi stacked up again at the front door, determined to recover Ware. A burst of machine-gun fire tore through Lucente’s abdomen as they pushed back into the house, mortally wounding him. As he lay dying, Lucente passed a grenade to Mooi. He shoved it through the mouse hole in the wall where the enemy fire originated, killing the enemy gunner behind it.

Second Lieutenant Donald R. McGlothlin, the platoon commander of 2nd Platoon, entered the house and pushed passed Mooi and Lucente, placing himself between his Marines and the enemy trying to kill them. He returned fire as Mooi dragged Lucente back outside. Mooi returned and finally recovered Ware while McGlothlin remained engaged.

LCpl Joshua Mooi, painted by Michael D. Fay during Operation Steel Curtain. For his outstanding heroism, initiative and dedication to his fellow Marines on Nov. 16, 2005, Mooi received the Navy Cross.

“I was outside talking to Rogers, and I asked him where the Lieutenant was,” Mooi remembered. “I didn’t realize that he never came back out. I knew I had to go get him, so I went back inside. That was the last conversation I had with Rogers.”

Mooi pushed back into the house on his own and located McGlothlin lying mortally wounded from grenade shrapnel and machine-gun bullets. As he neared a stairwell leading to the roof, Mooi encountered an insurgent standing on a landing, throwing grenades over the roofline into the courtyard. Before the enemy could react, Mooi shot and killed him. As Mooi dragged McGlothlin out the front door, he discovered that in the time it took him to kill the insurgent and remove McGlothlin, Rogers had also been shot and killed. The scene outside the house juxtaposed absolute chaos with astounding heroism, as wounded Marines and corpsmen treated and packaged for evacuation others who were more wounded than themselves.

Simultaneously, 2nd Squad walked behind a line of tanks several hundred feet away, advancing toward the farmhouses. The tanks throttled up and bolted toward the enemy fire when the ambush kicked off. 2nd Squad sprinted behind the last tank, trying to keep up. Tiny explosions impacted the dirt around them as they ran from insurgents targeting the Marines. The last tank finally stopped, and the Marines took cover. Cpl Javier Alvarez, the 2nd Squad leader, picked up the phone on the back of the tank and directed the crew to put a main gun round into the house where the enemy fire originated. The Marines plugged their ears as the 120 mm cannon roared. They trudged alongside once again as the tank rolled out, enemy rounds still cracking through the air.

“I was focused on engaging the area next to us where a lot of enemy fire was coming from, so I wasn’t paying attention to the radio to know what was going on,” Alvarez remembered. “Someone told me to have the tank put another main gun round into the building in front of us, only about 40 feet away. I relayed that to the guy inside the tank, and he said he couldn’t because there were friendlies inside. I looked around the side and saw Cpl Rogers down injured next to the building. There were insurgents popping out and shooting at us and our machine guns were engaging them. It was really close. I had been in my own world and had no idea what was going on in that house. It was chaos.”

Alvarez organized his squad and sprinted across the open area between the tank and the house. He emptied one magazine into the windows and reloaded as he ran. Abrupt punches across both his legs stole his attention. Bloodstains on his trousers rapidly increased in size, flowing from multiple gunshot wounds. Somehow, the injuries failed to take him down. He inserted a fresh magazine and continued sprinting until he fell against the side of the house beneath an open window. Seated upright with his back to the wall, Alvarez spread his legs out in front of him. Multiple bullets tore through both thighs and his left calf, each wound bleeding steadily.

A Marine pulled tourniquets for both of Alvarez’s legs. As he placed them high on Alvarez’s thighs, an insurgent appeared in the window above them and shot the Marine in the head. The round struck off his helmet, knocking him to the ground between Alvarez’s legs in a daze. Alvarez lifted his rifle and emptied another magazine into the window.

“I brought my rifle down to reload and was looking off to my right,” Alvarez said. “When I looked back down, I saw a grenade rolling around next to me. There were friendlies inside, a stacked team in front of me, a Marine behind me, a Marine in between my legs; instantly I just thought, ‘I need to get this away from us.’ So, I picked it up and tried to throw it away, but as I turned to release it, it detonated.”

The explosion went off an arm’s length above his head, causing Alvarez to black out. He came to seconds later and im-mediately felt his hand burning. When he raised his arm, he discovered the hand was completely gone. The Marines around him lay wounded by the blast. Homer ignored his own injuries and ran up to Alvarez, placed a tourniquet on his devastated arm, and assisted him to the casualty collection point (CCP).

Hospital Corpsman Third Class Jesse Hickey accompanied 2nd Squad up to the house. He immediately went to work treating the wounded Marines piling up outside. The insurgent inside lobbing grenades over the roofline maintained a steady barrage until Mooi finally pushed through the house and killed him. Hickey, Homer and numerous others suffered wounds upon wounds as the explosives detonated.

“It was just grenade after grenade after grenade,” remembered Jendrzejczyk, who also made the dash under fire with Alvarez’s 2nd Squad. “Me and Doc Hickey carried Rogers’ body to the collection point, then went back to grab Lucente. When we went to pick him up, a grenade came out the window and Doc took all the shrapnel from that. Now, he’s there trying to bandage himself while I’m trying to bandage Lucente. It was just absolute chaos.”

“Our other platoon corpsman, Doc Eric Rust, had almost the same wounds as me,” said Sanbeck. “He took a grenade to the legs while he was bent over working on somebody. Our corpsmen were just remarkable. We called them, ‘Devil Docs’ because they were really just Marines with band-aids. They aren’t supposed to be in the fight like that, and yet here is Doc Rust shooting his 9 mm pistol with one hand and putting a tourniquet on with the other. I don’t think anything in medical school prepared him for that.”

Lance Corporal Roger W. Deeds served as a machine-gun section leader attached to 2nd Plt. As Marines began to fall in and around the house, Deeds handed off his machine gun to another Marine and sprinted forward to help. He assisted the corpsmen treating the wounded and prepared them for evacuation. Like so many others, Deeds responded when the platoon sergeant called for help. He remained exposed outside the house providing covering fire until he too was mortally wounded.

Homer crossed the deadly 25-yard kill zone between the house and the CCP numerous times, moving casualties away from danger. Grenade shrapnel stitched across his side, leaving him severely wounded, yet he refused to join the others piling up at the CCP. Mooi eventually found Homer at the CCP after they both helped evacuate separate casualties to inform him Lt McGlothlin was dead and Homer was now in command.

After evacuating Lucente, Jendrzejczyk realized he was the most medically trained Marine available at the CCP.

“I had gone through advanced combat lifesaver training in Egypt before we flew into Iraq,” he said. “That probably helped me the most. I threw down my rocket and was able to help the corpsmen because nobody else was really trained, and both corpsmen had been hit. There were enough rifles around that I didn’t need to go out there and fight the fight. What I needed to do was help with the mass casualty [situation], so I focused on the CCP and trying to get all these wounded Marines to the medevac bird while the fighting was still going.”

Mooi returned to the house once again, following his conversation with Homer. After watching his entire squad wiped out in the fighting, Mooi determined to personally finish what they had started.

“I decided, it took all of them, so it was either going to take me, too, or we were going to win this,” he stated. “At the time, I’m a 19-year-old infantry Marine; like, I thought I was untouchable. I ran back to the house and took point on a mixed team from 2nd Squad. Someone passed me a hand grenade because I didn’t have one. I tossed it inside, then went back in.”

Several Marines followed Mooi as he led back through the house clearing room by room. They engaged more insurgents, eventually arriving at the back door. Mooi burst into the light with his rifle shouldered at the ready.

“We came rolling out the back door into the yard. There was a pile of fuel barrels right there, and a guy with a machine gun lying next to them. I turned and fired a couple rounds at him as he turned and fired a couple rounds at me. I don’t know if I hit him, but he definitely hit me. I am the luckiest person in the world. Three of the rounds he fired hit my rifle magazine and did not go through. Another round hit the upper receiver and got stuck in the bolt carrier group. That all would have been in my neck and face. I went to fire again and realized my rifle was down, so I rolled back to try to get back inside the house. The Marine behind me opened up and was able to kill the insurgent.”

By the time Mooi and the Marines from 2nd Squad finished clearing the house, the majority of casualties outside were moved to the CCP. First Squad arrived from their supporting position to assist with the casualties.

“Everything was happening so fast,” VanHout said. “So fast it really kind of rocked us. We cleared through our house and got onto the roof, then we got the call over the radio about the mass casualty incident and immediately moved down and were trucking back along the stone wall towards the CCP. As we were coming back that trail, that’s the first time all of us in 1st Squad saw one of our casualties coming out of the battle the rest of the platoon was in.”

“We got to a little break in the wall and I saw a Marine dragging another body,” Studzinski remembered. “I realized the person he was dragging was wearing our cammies, then saw the name tape on his back and it was Ware. Then I turned towards the building where all the fighting was going on and saw Cpl Rogers’ body leaning up against a pillar of the carport parking area. Lt McGlothlin was lying nearby, and I could see in his face that he was dead as well. We moved towards the CCP and as soon as I was about to go through the door, I saw another Marine lying face down. I saw the name tape on the back of his Kevlar and it was LCpl Deeds. The first thought that immediately came into my brain was that he just had a daughter born while we were on ship. I went inside and saw Cpl Alvarez with a chunk out of his leg and his hand looking like a fist full of spaghetti. I went into another room and saw Lucente laying on the ground with Jendrzejczyk and Doc Hickey working on him, while another Marine was working on Doc Hickey because he was wounded too.”

“By that point, most of the combat in that main house was over, and we were already starting to get Blackhawks in for medevac,” VanHout added. “I don’t know what adrenaline was doing to the timespan, but this was only a matter of 15 or 20 minutes. I remember seeing Lt McGlothlin at the CCP leaned up against a wall with a poncho liner over him, half blown off by the breeze. It was the most surreal moment of my life. A couple of us went to him and started getting him ready to go on the helicopter. We brought him to the chopper, and I thought I was watching a scene from ‘Apocalypse Now’ or something, with blood running out of the bird and down over the skids. I just couldn’t believe it. But, we loaded him up and I just turned around and went back looking for the next guy.”

While 2nd Platoon’s battle raged inside the house, the Fox Company command group set up on the roof of a three-story building nearby. Captain Ross Parrish, Commanding Officer, Fox Company, ordered a 100-round fire-for-effect mor-tar mission into the palm grove beyond the house. Numerous enemy fighters fleeing the buildings were cut down in the trees by falling explosives. Standing next to Parrish, Capt Brian Gilbertson masterfully worked the radio coordinating air support. A C-130 transport pilot by trade, Gilbertson attached to Fox on the deployment as their forward air controller. Less than 30 minutes after the shooting started, he had U.S. Army and Marine Corps helos on the ground evacuating casualties. Simultaneously, he vectored in Cobra gunships from Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 369, pouring rockets into the palm grove.

While Fox Co remained in Ubaydi for several days, a Marine etched marks on the side of one building tallying the enemy dead. By the time the Marines departed, the count reached 57.

“We reconsolidated at the command post after clearing the house,” said Mooi. Miraculously, he emerged from the ferocious firefight without a scratch. “There was stuff going on all around that building now; tanks shooting main gun rounds into it, helicopters flying all around doing gun runs. There was a mortar team on the roof at the CP just letting it rain down into the palm grove where the remaining bad guys were at. It was beautiful. We were at the point where all the support weapons are doing their job, so all the ground guys kind of slowed down. That’s when everything really started to sink in, and all the adrenaline started to fade.”

The fighting lasted less than an hour. The house where 3rd Squad encountered the insurgent stronghold partially col-lapsed under a barrage of tank main gun fire. Thousands of bullet holes, scorch marks, and spalling marred the outside walls. The BLT remained in Ubaydi for three more days patrolling around the same area. At some point, a grunt began scrawling tally marks on one of the buildings counting the enemy dead who lay where they fell. By the time the battalion departed, the tally reached 57.

Operation Steel Curtain closed successfully achieving its goal. The Marines of 3/6 remained in Al Qa’im to oversee the elections. BLT 2/1 pulled out of the region to the city of Hit, where they remained through Christmas. After the new year the battalion returned to their ships, and the 13th MEU sailed home.

Fox Co’s 2nd Platoon completely disintegrated in the aftermath of Nov. 16.

“We went into Ubaydi with 43 Marines,” said Jendrzejczyk. “Only 17 of us walked out. That changed all of us forever.”

The survivors amalgamated into other platoons, left to wonder how many of their brothers fared after disappearing from the battlefield on medevac helicopters. The wounded dispersed through hospitals across Iraq, Germany and eventually the United States, all of them only later learning the full extent of what happened to their platoon.

Sanbeck underwent his first surgery to save his legs while still in Iraq. Despite the heavy dosage of morphine coursing through his bloodstream, doctors made him sign a waiver stating he understood they might have to amputate both lower limbs. As more casualties from the battle arrived, Sanbeck overheard someone listing the Marines who had been killed. Only then did he understand how devastating the ambush had been.

Alvarez woke up in a hospital in Germany with burns across his face, eardrums blown, shrapnel throughout his body, four gunshot wounds in his legs, and his hand completely gone. He went unconscious and was intubated during the flight to Bethesda, Md., where his long road to recovery began. Alvarez’s rapid evacuation immediately severed him from contact with his platoon. Without any telephone numbers or an account on social media, Alvarez struggled to reconnect with the remainder of 2nd Platoon.

Capt Parrish undertook the monumental task of piecing together the ambush in the weeks following Nov. 16. On the voyage home, he asked his Marines to write witness statements detailing their individual points of view. The resulting picture of the battle revealed the awesome depth of selfless heroism exhibited by many Marines that day. Parrish next determined to ensure his Marines were appropriately recognized and worked with his staff to author citations for individual medals.

“November 16th is certainly an exception from my 30 years in the service,” Parrish reflected today, now a colonel still on active duty nearing retirement. “It’s what we train for, but those kinds of high intensity, close quarters engagements don’t occur that frequently. Those Marines fought like lions. I couldn’t be more proud of them. When fatigued, when under duress and under fire, with an enemy that has you ambushed, they flipped the script with their level of proficiency, professionalism and violence.”

The awards churned slowly through the Corps’ bureaucracy. After three years, Robert Oltman, the commanding officer of BLT 2/1 during their time on the 13th MEU, received promotion to colonel and a transfer to Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va. Oltman never lost sight of his Marines from 2/1 and those who died in Iraq. He regularly drove across base to the awards branch to inquire on the status of the awards. He became a persistent visitor, personally ensuring the packages for each of his Marines worked through the system.

“There were a lot of heroes that day that nobody knows about,” Oltman said. “So many Marines did so many extraordinary things that allowed more people to come home than may have, had they not taken the actions they took.”

Joshua Mooi left active duty in August 2008 and returned home to begin civilian life around Chicago, Ill. That fall, he received a call informing him the Marine Corps had awarded him the Navy Cross, a medal for valor second only to the Medal of Honor. He flew to Camp Pendleton, Calif., the following January, where Oltman proudly presented him with the medal. Mooi did not stand alone. Homer, Alvarez, and Doc Hickey shared the stage, all receiving Silver Stars. The family of Lt McGlothlin came forward to posthumously accept a Silver Star on his behalf. Numerous others received Bronze Stars with combat distinguished devices, including Lucente and Deeds recognized posthumously. Additionally, Oltman pinned Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medals with combat distinguished devices on Marines such as Jendrzejczyk, and Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals with “V” on many others like Sanbeck. Still more came forward to receive a Purple Heart.

“I had it all written down at some point because it was just mind-blowing how many citations and commendations were awarded,” Sanbeck remembered. “When we had that ceremony, more of Fox Company went forward for some kind of award from Col Oltman than not. Here are all the young guys in the battalion looking at us like, ‘Holy cow, these are the guys training us now.’ It reminded me of when I came to 2/1 and all my seniors were receiving awards for things they did in Fallujah.”

The passage of 20 years has done little to dull the memory or pain of Nov. 16. For the Marines of 2nd Platoon, the awards they received serve as a persistent call to memory of the brothers they lost.

“I have carried that day with me ever since,” said Jendrzejczyk. “The guys who were there, we very rarely talk about it. What we lived through wasn’t just combat. It was hell. Through it all, we forged a bond that it doesn’t matter the distance or the time that goes by, nothing is going to erase that. We all know Steel Curtain is still there, and if we are struggling and need to talk about it, we can. We always try to remind ourselves that we need to live a life that they would have been proud of.”

“We all live for who we lost and try to do them proud,” echoed Sanbeck. “We were so young and everything happened so fast. I don’t think a day goes by that I haven’t thought about them or that I haven’t made a decision based on that. I think early on, a lot of us didn’t want to have fun in life because we had guilt and felt like you shouldn’t enjoy life. A lot of us were mad and angry at the world for losing what we had and trying to fit into ‘normal’ civilization with no one understanding and listening to people complain about such simple, meaningless things. Now, I think it’s more of a mentality where a lot of us feel like, ‘You know what, they wouldn’t want us to live like that.’ Not everyone can just make that shift, but for me, I don’t leave any rock unturned in life now. If there’s something I can go do and enjoy it, I’m going to go do it. It’s time to take ahold of life, because that’s what they would have wanted us to do.”

BLT 2/1 holds a memorial service in Iraq for the Marines killed in action. During three months in country, the BLT suffered nine killed and many more wounded. Five of the KIA died on Nov. 16.

“Sixteen November: The Line Held”

By Devon Wilfong

In eternal memory of:

2ndLt Donald R. McGlothlin

Cpl Jeffry A. Rogers

LCpl Roger W. Deeds

LCpl John A. Lucente

Cpl Joshua J. Ware

The sun rose slow on foreign sand,

Where war had scarred the 

  river’s hand.

Fox 2/1 moved house to house,

Through Ubaydi’s deathtrap, silent, 

  doused.

They knew the risk, they knew the cost,

Each man beside them worth more 

  than lost.

Then thunder broke from 

  walls unseen—

An ambush split the desert scene.

No time for fear, no room for doubt,

Just fire and smoke and shouted route.

The alley screamed, the rifles spoke,

And every breath drew heat and smoke.

They fought with grit, they fought 

  as one,

Five lives were taken before 

  day’s done.

But not before their courage roared—

Their names now etched in 

  Marine Corps lore:

2ndLt Donald R. McGlothlin, bold,

Who led them straight into the fold.

Cpl Jeffry A. Rogers, fierce and fast,

Who stood defiant to the last.

LCpl Roger W. Deeds, unshaken, 

  proud,

Who faced the storm and never bowed.

LCpl John A. Lucente, sharp and true,

At just nineteen, he saw it through.

Cpl Joshua J. Ware, all heart and fire,

Whose will outlasts the gunman’s ire.

They did not run. They did not bend.

They held the line until the end.

And though they fell on foreign ground,

Their echoes in the Corps resound.

So raise your glass and say their names,

Not lost to time, nor war’s cruel games.

For they remain in memory sealed—

On Sixteen November, the line held.

 

Author’s bio: Kyle Watts is the staff writer for Leatherneck. He served on active duty in the Marine Corps as a communications officer from 2009-13. He is the 2019 winner of the Colonel Robert Debs Heinl Jr. Award for Marine Corps History.

Featured Image (Top): 2nd Plt, Fox Co, BLT 2/1, entered Ubaydi on Nov. 14, 2005, with 43 Marines. When the operation ended a few days later, only 17 walked out unscathed. The survivors are pictured here preparing to leave the city. Then-GySgt Michael D. Fay accompanies the platoon in this photo, leaning on the truck door in the foreground.

The Battle of the Emerald Wadi

From the Leatherneck Archives: March 2015

Editor’s note: The following article, written by the commander of Weapons Company, pro-vides a firsthand account of 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment along the Emerald Wadi in Al Qa’im, Al Anbar Province, Iraq, in October 2005. 

The 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment deployed to the Al Qa’im region of Iraq in late August 2005. When 3/6 assumed control of the battlespace from 3/2 late in the summer of 2005, the entire region was strongly influenced by insurgents and foreign fighters.

Operation Iron Fist began on Oct. 1, 2005, in the towns of Sadah and eastern Karabilah in the Al Qa’im region of Al Anbar province. Task Force 3/6 was given the arduous mission of clearing insurgents and disrupting the lines of communication along the Euphrates River Valley from Syria. The intent was to establish battle positions (BPs), maintain a presence in the towns and create relationships with the locals. The mission was accomplished, and both towns were cleared as the battalion began to conduct patrols and build a rapport with the local population. 

The Emerald Wadi, running left to right above, is the dry creek bed separating eastern and western Karabilah, Iraq. The 3rd Bn, 6th Marines’ Scout Sniper Plt, known as Reaper, was tasked with maintaining observation of its two bridges.

After the success of Operation Iron Fist, elements of Weapons Company, 3/6 oriented to the west along the dried creek bed known as the Emerald Wadi in order to disrupt and interdict insurgents attempting to move to the east. According to Captain Brendan Heatherman, the commanding officer of Co K, 3/6, the positions along the wadi led the insurgency to believe that a push into Karabilah and Husaybah from the east was imminent. This mistaken belief would be especially beneficial in later months during Operation Steel Curtain when 3/6 came from the opposite direction.

Lieutenant Colonel Julian D. Alford, CO, 3rd Bn, 6th Marines, assigned Weapons Co’s First Mobile Assault Platoon (MAP 1), led by First Lieutenant Jeremy Wilkinson, and its Scout Sniper Plt (Reaper), led by Gunnery Sergeant Donald Rieg, with the mission of maintaining continuous observation of the two bridges (one north and one south) over the Emerald Wadi separating western and eastern Karabilah. Gunny Rieg had recently taken command of the platoon when 1stLt Tom Wilberg was wounded after his up-armored HMMWV (high-mobility, multipurpose, wheeled vehicle) struck an improvised explosive device (IED) a few days earlier. 

Gunny Rieg, along with two four-man sniper teams (Sergeant Jeremy Riddle’s and Lance Corporal George Hatchcock’s teams), established a position in a building along the wadi. It was a typical large two-story concrete house with a walled roof that provided clear observation of both bridges and good fields of fire. The house, known as Reaper base, also had an unusually tall and thick concrete-walled yard where two or three gun trucks could be parked. 

It did not take long for the enemy to take umbrage at Reaper’s presence, and they launched a volley of rockets, mortars, small-arms and machine-gun fire at Reaper’s position. During the fight, one Marine finished staging ammunition and equipment in a ground-floor room when a C5 rocket exploded in the house, narrowly missing both the Marine and the ammunition. Reaper exchanged fire across the wadi for at least two hours until shortly after nightfall. 

It was an indication of what was to come for the next 21 days. 

On the morning of Oct. 7, other Reaper teams and two tanks (Tiger teams 3 and 4) arrived, and improvements for the defense of the house began immediately. The plan was for Tigers 3 and 4 to rotate with Tigers 1 and 2 every few days. Loopholes were created, and sandbags were trucked in to reinforce the walls and sniper hides. During the day, the enemy launched more than a half-dozen rockets and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) at the house and tanks—with little effectiveness. The tanks returned fire with main gun rounds at the enemy firing positions, silencing the rocket and RPG fire. Sporadic and inaccurate small-arms fire was received throughout the day, which proved to be more annoying than effective. The pattern continued for the next two days. 

CAMP AL QA’IM, Iraq (Oct. 26, 2005) — A shot helmet, belonging to Lacey Springs, Ala., native Lance Cpl Bradley A. Snipes, antitank assaultman, 3rd Mobile Assault Platoon, Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, rests on a benched marked as property of Weapons Company, 3rd Bn., 6th Marines. (Official U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Jerad W. Alexander)

On Oct. 10, a squad of “Kilo” Co Marines arrived from BP Chosin to help with security as sniper teams were pulled from Reaper base to conduct other missions. Capt Heatherman, the Co K commander, said, “We didn’t feel our mission was to go out and find firefights because they would find us.” His words were proven true that day as the squad from Kilo Co was welcomed by the enemy opening up with RPGs and small-arms fire. 

Reaper teams led by Sgt Riddle and Sgt Thomas Smith departed Reaper base early the next morning across Route Diamond to set up an ambush on an enemy firing position. At 0700, two men were spotted with rockets moving to another firing position. Shortly afterward, rockets were fired at Reaper base, causing no damage. Knowing the probable egress route the men would take, the Reaper teams prepared for their return. The two men, carrying their rocket launchers, soon returned the same way they had come; they would not fire at Reaper base, or anyone else for that matter, again. 

Later that day, one of the Tiger teams engaged with and killed three men who were preparing to launch RPGs from a house across the wadi. Two main gun rounds ensured no fire was received from that house again. Later that night, mortar rounds landed just outside the house walls. Reaper remained on alert throughout the night, expecting a night attack that did not materialize.

The morning of Oct. 12 dawned with sporadic rifle fire on Reaper base, but the origin of the shots could not be determined. Two hours later, Sgt Smith was in the firing position on the north side of the house when he spotted two insurgents shooting at the base. He took two shots with his heavy barrel M16, putting one man down immediately and hitting the other. The second insurgent managed to find cover before he was killed. It had become clear that as long as Reaper base was occupied, the insurgents would try to force out the Marines. 

The leadership of 3/6: Capt Clinton Culp (CO, Wpns Co); Capt Conlon Carabine (CO, Co I); Capt Justin Ansel (CO, H&S Co); Maj Chris O’Connor (S-3); LtCol Julian “Dale” Alford (Bn CO); Maj Toby Patterson (Bn XO); Capt Rich Pitchford (CO, Co L); Capt Brendan Heatherman (CO, Co K); Capt Mike Haley (CO, Co B, 3rd AA Bn) and Capt Robb Sucher (CO, Wpns Co, 1st LAR).

LtCol Alford sent one of the battalion’s forward air controllers, Capt Ryan Pope, call sign “Zero,” and his radio-telegraph operator, Corporal Kevin Williams, to assist in the fight. They went right to work as, yet again, machine-gun and mortar fire was inbound. With marking assistance from the tanks, Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron (HMLA) 369, the “Gunfighters,” made several gun runs on the insurgent firing position and forward observer.

At the same time, Kilo Co was under mortar attack at BP Iwo Jima. Cpl Scott Royal’s Reaper team 2 and LCpl Hatch-cock’s team 7 had moved to a building in eastern Karabilah to observe Main Supply Route (MSR) Diamond, west of BP Iwo, looking for the insurgent mortar crews. Within five minutes of the mortar fire stopping, two men forced their way into the building where the Reaper teams were located but were shot by the security man on LCpl Hatchcock’s team as they entered the building. The insurgents started to fire on Reaper base early on the morning of Oct. 13 and continued to do so with small arms until midday when machine guns began firing from multiple positions. 

Kilo Co’s 3d Plt had a BP to the south, and it began to receive fire as well. The accuracy of the insurgents’ rounds seemed to improve dramatically. Reaper identified one building across the wadi from which insurgents were firing; Zero had the Gunfighters engage with hellfire missiles, and the fire from the enemy decreased significantly. 

Cpl Eliel Quinones, or “Q” as his fellow Marines called him, was in the “crow’s nest” on the roof of Reaper base when he took a single round to the head. The round cracked his skull, removing his hair and portions of his scalp, yet somehow he remained conscious. As he was pulled out of the firing position and moved into the house, he managed to identify the building from which the insurgent shot him. A medevac was called for, but Army helicopters were out too far to assist. 

Zero and Cpl Williams worked diligently to get a UH-1N Huey on station from the Gunfighters to conduct the medevac, and with two tank teams and a light armored reconnaissance (LAR) platoon providing covering fire, the Huey was able to conduct the medevac. In an incredible feat of flying prowess, the helicopter put down in the tiny landing zone, with less than 6 feet from the rotors to light poles. It took less than eight minutes from the time Cpl Quinones was hit until the time he was placed in the Huey. He was awarded a Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal with combat “V” for his efforts in identifying the source of fire despite his wounds. 

Marines from the Scout Sniper Plt on the roof of Reaper base in October 2005. (Photo courtesy of Maj Clinton A. Culp, USMC (Ret)

As the insurgents’ accuracy increased, Reaper Marines took more and more care with their movements, even ducking behind curtained windows. A C5 rocket sailed just over Reaper base and hit the house to the south. It missed Reaper base by only a foot or so. 

On Oct. 14, Zero vectored in ScanEagle, to take a look at the buildings and road just to the west side of the buildings that were directly adjacent to the wadi. As the afternoon began, enemy machine-gun and small-arms fire began anew. ScanEagle located the source of fire, and a GBU-12 bomb was dropped on the position. Shortly afterward, the tank platoon commander was struck by small arms while moving down MSR Diamond. The tanks returned fire as the tank moved back to a covered position for the medevac. As the sun went down, so did the incoming fire.

The morning of the 15th brought more of the same, including more accurate small-arms fire from one or two shooters. The tank teams needed to pull back to the railroad station at Al Qa’im (3/6’s main base) for some maintenance, so the LAR Plt took up positions to Reaper’s immediate flanks. No sooner had it pulled into position than it began to receive RPG fire. The platoon returned fire while Zero dropped another GBU-12 on the insurgents’ position. Insurgent fire died off for the rest of the day.

Before sunup on Oct. 16, Cpl Royal’s and Sgt Erik Rue’s Reaper teams moved to a hide position that would cover the flank of the LAR Plt. At 0815, the teams spotted two insurgents moving along MSR Bronze with RPGs and AK-47s in order to get a firing position on the light armored vehicles (LAVs) and tanks. The enemy was dispatched, but the teams began to take fire from other insurgents. 

As the LAR Plt moved to extract the teams, more insurgents were spotted mov-ing to get a line of fire on the LAVs. Mean-while, Zero brought in rotary-wing close air support (CAS), and it seemed the per-fect time to try the MK19, which had re-cently been installed on the roof of Reaper base after one of the snipers had remarked, “If 240s are good, MK19s are better!” 

The tall mount was then taken off a cargo HMMWV and sandbagged on the roof and a tarp placed over it for concealment. The MK19 thumped away as the Gunfighters made a few runs in support of the extraction. The engagement escalated as more insurgents moved to isolate the Reaper teams; even 3rd Plt, Kilo Co got into the mix as the fire and movement spilled over into its sector. LAR Plt and the Reaper teams were able to return to the Reaper base around 1230. Every vehicle had taken multiple small-arms and machine-gun hits. Each also had at least one flat tire and several near misses of RPGs. At least 18 insurgents had been killed with no Marine casualties. 

Brass litters the rooftop of Reaper base after one of many firefights during October 2005.

The next few days were relatively quiet, and on the 19th, Air/Naval Gunfire Liaison Co’s (ANGLICO’s) Wild Eagle 3-1 arrived on deck to assist Zero with the CAS fight. One of the Reaper teams spotted several insurgents setting up a mortar on a roof-top. After waiting until the insurgent mortar team was ready to fire, Reaper opened up with the MK19. It took a few rounds to get on target, but all five insurgents and their weapon system were eliminated. The battalion took a hard hit that same day when a suicide vehicle was driven into a squad of Marines from Co K just north of BP Iwo Jima. LCpl Norman Anderson III was killed and every other squad member wounded. The next day brought another near miss from a C5 rocket, which impacted the house to the south again. 

On the morning of Oct. 22, a large dust cloud formed in front of one of the tanks after an RPG impacted less than one meter in front of it. The tanks returned fire with .50-caliber rounds and a main gun round. About an hour later, Reaper teams spotted two insurgents with AKs and RPGs trying to sneak across MSR Diamond; the teams dispatched them. Only light fire was received throughout the rest of the day and for the next few days. 

After a relatively quiet few days, six insurgents were spotted on MSR Diamond on Oct. 25; one was shot before the LAVs maneuvered on the insurgents’ anticipated route and caught them in the open. Mortar fire was called in to close off the insurgents’ egress. At the same time, Reaper base was receiving small arms and machine-gun fire. Tanks returned fire with the help of a Hellfire missile from one of the Gunfighters’ Hueys. 

The highlight of the day occurred shortly after the engagement ended as LtCol Alford reenlisted Sgt Riddle on the roof of Reaper base. 

The morning of the 26th started at 0625 as more than 20 insurgents with AKs and RPGs were spotted moving on the west side of the Emerald Wadi. Reaper base, tanks and LAR were put on “stand-to,” and air was requested. Reports were received of several of the insurgents placing IEDs along the roads on the west side of the bridges that crossed the wadi. Both 3rd Plt, Kilo Co and MAP 1 were put on notice as well. Before the air arrived on station, the tanks and LAR Plt maneuvered into position and mortars were called in as Reaper, tanks and LAR engaged. Several of the insurgents fell in the initial volley, and the rest fled into the surrounding buildings. The insurgents tried to consolidate their position and returned AK, RPK (Soviet light machine gun) and RPG fire to no avail as rotary-wing and fixed-wing CAS arrived on station. 

From left: Sgt Thomas Smith, Reaper team 5 leader; Cpl John Stalvey; and Cpl James Guffey, Reaper team 1, before the Battle of the Emerald Wadi. Cpl Stalvey, one of the battalion’s snipers, was killed by an IED, Oct. 3, 2005.

Capt Phil Laing and his LAR Co arrived at the same time for a battle handover. The 27th saw light small-arms fire which Laing’s company easily returned. On the morning of the 28th, 1stLt Durand Tanner’s MAP 2 arrived to extract Reaper. The LAR Co provided cover for Reaper as they withdrew to Al Qa’im to rest and refit for the next mission: Operation Steel Curtain.

The Scout Sniper Plt, with the help of MAP 1, 3rd Plt, Kilo Co, tanks, LAR and CAS had kept the insurgents looking in the wrong direction for 22 days. Alford later reflected proudly, “Those boys had a hell of a fight for those three weeks, and it allowed us to move behind the enemy and attack them in the rear. Classic operational flanking movement.” 

The Battle of the Emerald Wadi was a critical element in 3/6’s ability to consolidate combat power in Al Qa’im before the launch of Operation Steel Curtain.

Executive Editor’s note: The November issue of Leatherneck will include an article about the “Fox” Co, 2/1 Marines who were fighting in New Ubaydi during Operation Steel Curtain.

Author’s bio: A prior enlisted Marine, Maj Clinton A. Culp was commissioned in 1997 and served as an advisor to the Afghan Commando Battalion during Operation Enduring Freedom and as the CO of Weapons Co, 3rd Bn, 6th Marines during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He re-tired in 2009.

Featured Image (Top): A Marine sniper from 3/6 takes a well-earned break.

“Six Days in Fallujah” Review

Opinion: Long-Delayed Video Game
Delivers Realistic Depiction of Iraq Battle

War has forever been entwined with popular culture. Artists have attempted to replicate, with great attention to detail, iconic scenes of countless battles. Homer’s “Iliad” was spread throughout antiquity as poets recited the mythological history of the Trojan War. Many of today’s Ma­rines were first exposed to the history of the Corps through literary accounts such as “Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific,” by Robert Leckie or Eugene Sledge’s “With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa.” With the creation of film, and movies such as “Saving Private Ryan,” storytelling evolved, redefining how war was pre­sented to the public. Perhaps it was in­evitable, then, that video games—as a form of entertainment—would take up the mantle of trying to depict war within popular culture.

As long as storytellers, writers, artists, filmmakers, and game designers tried to replicate war, controversy closely fol­lowed. Painters have been accused of glorifying war. Poet Walt Whitman claimed, “The real war will never get in the books.” Director Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” was labeled by a writer from the New York Observer as a “pornography of violence and cruelty.” A World War II-themed videogame directed by Spielberg, titled “Medal of Honor,” became so mired in controversy that it was almost pulled from release before now being recognized as one of the greatest first-person shooters on the PlayStation platform. Ultimately, the question as to whether war should be depicted in popular culture is moot—as storytellers and creators will always adapt their depictions of war with evolv­ing media. Rather, we should be asking how to best depict war in popular culture. Enter “Six Days in Fallujah.”

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“Six Days in Fallujah,” a first-person shooter (FPS) game, simulates the chaos of urban warfare. (Photo courtesy of Victura)

The Fight
On Nov. 7, 2004, the city of Fallujah, Iraq, ignited into a conflagration as Ma­rines and soldiers of U.S.-led coalition forces launched Operation Phantom Fury to rid the city of militant Islamic extrem­ists in what would be later called the Second Battle of Fallujah. The insurgents had turned the city into a fortress com­plete with tunnels, trenches, spider holes and improvised explosive devices of all varieties. Further complicating the co­ali­tion assault were the thousands of civilians who were unable to evacuate the city and remained hidden on every block. In the ensuing one month, two weeks, and two days, the Marines and members of the coalition fought in the bloodiest instance of urban combat in the 21st century—only to be surpassed almost two decades later with the ongoing war in Ukraine. The cost was terrible. Close to 100 Americans died and more than 500 were wounded. In addition, there were over 60 coalition casualties, the insurgents were largely annihilated, and at least 800 civilians were killed. Controversy closely followed the battle, as various media outlets reported on the use of white phosphorus and depleted uranium munitions, the extensive civilian casualties, the destruction wrought upon the city, and both real and supposed atrocities committed by both coalition and insurgent forces. Despite this, the Second Battle of Fallujah has become enshrined within the pantheon of Marine Corps battles—further demonstrating the combat prowess of the Corps against all enemies.

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Sgt Eddie Garcia fought in the Battle of Fallujah and wanted to develop a game based on his experience in combat. Courtesy of Victura.

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During game development, former infantry officer Capt Read Omohundro describes the Marines’ encounter with the enemy during the battle. Courtesy of Victura.

Among the wounded Marines was Sergeant Eddie Garcia, who was serious­ly injured by an insurgent-fired mortar. His fellow Marines managed to stop the bleeding and bring him to safety at a nearby field hospital before he was trans­ferred to Baghdad, then Germany, and eventu­al­ly to the United States. Upon re­turning home, Garcia reached out to Peter Tamte—a video game developer with Atomic Games.

The two had met before the battle. Garcia had been sent by the Marine Corps to be their subject matter expert for various training simulations that Atomic Games was developing. Through­out de­veloping these Marine Corps train­ing simulations, the two got to know each other quite well, with Garcia providing keen insight into how Marines fought and operated. However, when Garcia ap­proached Tamte after his return home, it was not to develop another training sim­­ulation—he wanted to de­velop a video game based on the battle he had just fought.

The idea of a game quickly went from concept to reality. As the veterans of the Second Battle of Fallujah began returning to the United States when their deploy­ments ended, Tamte and Atomic Games began conducting interviews with dozens of Marines who were willing to share their experiences. The interviews were expanded to include Iraqis who survived the battle. Recurring motifs from these interviews were the uncertainty and intimacy of close-quarters combat, the fear of what lurked behind the next door, the utter necessity of teamwork, the dif­ficulty of fighting a radical enemy that could easily blend into a terrified civilian populace, and the combat fatigue induced by constant fighting and witnessing death regularly. It soon became apparent that the game needed to be grounded in re­alism and authenticity—both in gameplay and storytelling.

The game’s development was formally announced in 2009 and was planned for a 2010 release. However, problems began to arise. The controversy of the Battle of Fallujah and the public distaste for Ameri­can intervention in the Middle East reared their heads. Some argued that the game’s subject was too recent to tastefully be de­picted in a video game; others argued that the game would neg­atively depict Muslims by their worst stereotypes and devolve into a racist kill simulator; and some accused the de­velopers of creat­ing a propaganda piece that glorified a con­flict that many viewed to be unjust. The controversy spawned by this crit­icism pushed the game’s publisher, Konami, to suspend its role in the project in April 2009. Within two years, Atomic Games went into bankruptcy—putting the future of “Six Days in Fallujah” into question.

Despite this series of obstacles, Tamte held onto hope. He eventually formed a new gaming company, Victura, to carry the mantle of producing “Six Days in Fallujah,” with developers from games such as “Halo” and “Destiny” jumping on board to help finish the project. Within two years, in late June, an early access version of the game became available for purchase via Steam. Since its release, “Six Days in Fallujah” has undergone a few updates, and the completed ver­sion will be available in 2024. Currently, the game is limited to online cooperative mode with teams of up to four people. However, a single-player campaign is in development. Based on the available content, we can begin to disseminate how “Six Days in Fallujah” authentically depicts war as a means of popular cul­ture and to what degree it maintains authenticity.

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Courtesy of Victura
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Players are provided with a unique experience each playthrough. Gameplay includes environmental im­mersion, differing map designs and relentless enemies.

Gameplay
Upon starting the game, the player is presented with a short film (with a History Channel-esque vibe) describing the situation with period footage, photo­graphy and interviews. Loading screens include images of veterans and Iraqi sur­vivors accompanied by their quotes describing the battle. From this onset, the player realizes they are part of a real story with real people—not a generic war story where the characters are made up. In doing so, the game is trying to place players into the shoes of someone who took part in this battle—putting extra emotional weight behind the experience they are about to have.

After assembling a team in the co-op mode lobby, players are then thrust into a generated situation to accomplish a randomized mission, such as locating and destroying an enemy supply cache, securing an enemy strongpoint, or re­pelling waves of attacks supported by vehicle-borne IEDs (VBIED). To repli­cate the fear of not knowing what lurks behind every door, “Six Days in Fallujah” employs a map-design randomizer feature that creates new maps every playthrough: buildings will not appear in the same place, entrances will be along different walls, enemies will not hide behind the same doors, etc. This randomizer is per­haps the strongest feature of gameplay, as it forces the players to handle each situation uniquely, rather than memoriz­ing a cookie-cutter scenario as in most other first-person shooters.

The learning curve for playing “Six Days in Fallujah” is steep and the game­play is unforgiving—reminiscent of the famed game “Oregon Trail”: you can easily die at any time, for any reason, in any possible way. Snipers fire with deadly accuracy should you expose yourself for too long; mortars can wipe out an entire team with a single round; the enemy will fix your team with machinegun fire while a VBIED rolls up your flank and detonates behind you; insurgents will fire at you be­tween cracks of war-torn buildings; your team can easily be caught in the fatal funnel of every doorway; the list is end­less. This is not your typical run-and-gun game. The weapons feel weighted, and the recoil must be accounted for when pulling the trigger. Wounds must be bandaged; injured teammates must be assisted to get back into the fight; and ammunition can only be replenished at your AAV. Additionally, to quote Murphy’s law of combat operations: “Friendly fire isn’t,” which was a hard-learned lesson while clearing buildings. Many first-person shooter gamers may not be used to the slower pacing of the game; however, many gamers—some of whom served in combat—have applauded the game’s pacing as being more realistic.

You learn quickly that teamwork is the only way to accomplish missions—and even that does not guarantee success. If you try to move too fast, your team can get caught in an ambush; move too slow, the enemy can gain the initiative and outmaneuver your position; stay too close together, a single grenade can wipe your team; and spread too far out, you risk be­ing defeated in detail. From my own experiences, of the 30 games played by myself and with two teammates, we were defeated within two minutes on 18 at­tempts, lasted longer than five minutes on 11, and accomplished the objective once. However, with proper coordination, patience and a basic understanding of the principles of fire-and-maneuver tac­tics, players can fight and win in the labyrinth of Fallujah.

Ultimately, “Six Days in Fallujah” is an experience akin to a horror-survival game that strives to ground its gameplay in a higher level of depth and realism. To an extent, the game is a teaching tool as much as it is a means of entertainment. Yes, not every feature is perfect as some reviewers have pointed out, but with the game still being in development, time allows for the edges to be smoothed out for greater historical accuracy. However, in an era where Nicki Minaj is a playable character in “Call of Duty” and where “Battlefield V” bastardized World War II with historically inaccurate character customizations, “Six Days of Fallujah” is a breath of fresh air for those who want a historical experience when gaming. And to those who question as to whether this game is coming out “too soon,” I respond with this:

After over 20 years of fighting two wars, many Americans cannot name a single battle or recall any cities in Iraq or Afghanistan besides maybe Baghdad. To them, places such as Fallujah, Marjah, Mosul, Basra, or Kandahar mean nothing. They cannot recall any place where their tax dollars sent our country’s finest to fight and die in wars that were fought for reasons that are increasingly unclear to the general public. What “Six Days in Fallujah” has done is keep the Iraq War in the public consciousness, to remind us that these wars involved real people who had to live with the consequences of being in monumental historical situa­tions. It portrays war as a human exper­ience and attempts to do so as accurately as possible. If “Six Days in Fallujah” can encourage a young gamer to reflect upon the struggles of the Iraq War, watch an educational film on the subject, or read histories or biographies from survivors, then the game has served its purpose.

For now, gamers must be content with the available cooperative mode. Only with the release of a single-player campaign can we truly understand the full extent to which “Six Days in Fallujah” can be used to tell the story of one of the Marine Corps’ most hard-fought battles in Iraq.

Author’s note: I would like to thank Danny Roldan and Ricc Donate-Perez for playtesting “Six Days in Fallujah” with me to help write this article.

Author’s bio: William Treuting is an editor and content creator for the Marine Corps Gazette. He is a cohost of the MCA’s “Scuttlebutt” podcast and direc­tor of MCA Films.

“The Gift”

Revealing the Lasting Impact of Corporal Jason Dunham

In the years following Jason’s death, the Dunham family donated several items to the collection of artifacts housed at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, including his woodland MARPAT blouse. (Photo by Kyle Watts)

In 2003, film producer and director David Kniess caught a red-eye flight from California, bound for the East Coast. A young Marine took the seat next to him. They struck up a conversation, and Kniess soon abandoned any thought of sleeping on the plane.

“He was just one of those people that you meet, and you immediately know there’s some­thing special about them,” Kniess recalled in a recent interview. “Very courteous, charis­matic; one of those people you meet, and you don’t want the conversation to end.”

The two stayed up talking through the night as the flight crossed the country. Kniess learned the young man’s name was Jason Dunham. He would soon be deploying to combat with “Kilo” Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines. When the plane landed and they caught different connecting flights, Kniess shook Dunham’s hand and told him to take care of himself.

Several months later, in May 2004, Kniess received a call from a friend.
“Did you see The Wall Street Journal today?”
“No, why?”
“Remember that kid you told me about? Do you know what he did? Go get the paper.”

Kniess picked up a copy and saw Dunham’s portrait on the front page. He read on to learn how Dunham had been gravely wounded in Iraq and died eight days later after smothering a grenade with his Kevlar helmet to save the lives of two of his Marines.

Kniess wrote a short story about his exper­ience meeting Dunham on the flight and published it online. The story made its way to Jason’s parents, Deb and Dan Dunham, in Scio, N.Y. Before long, Kniess found a voicemail on his phone from Dunham’s mother. He initially ignored the message. What would he say to her?

When she called again, he realized he could not continue putting off the conversation. Kniess returned the Dunhams’ call, speaking with them about the story he wrote and rem­iniscing about their son. A friendship de­vel­oped quickly, and within a month, Kniess was on his way to their home in western New York.

The relationship with the Dunham family expanded in the following months. In Septem­ber 2004, Kniess met Dunham’s fellow Ma­rines as they returned from their deployment in Iraq. He listened to their stories and learned the full details of what Dunham had done and became determined to create a documen­tary about Dunham and the Marines who served with him.

Dan Dunham, left, adopted Jason as a baby. He and his wife, Deb, right, raised Jason in Scio, N.Y, with his siblings. In the film, Dan and Deb recount Jason’s history, what drove him to the Corps, how he grew into the selfless and charismatic man that he became.

As the years passed, he maintained a close relationship with the Dunham family and the Marines Dunham served alongside. One by one they left the Marine Corps, while Kniess waited for the right time to tell Dunham’s story.

Shortly before Kniess met Dunham’s family and began developing relationships with his Marines, he had worked on a separate documentary covering Vietnam veterans in the battle of Khe Sanh. One of the Marines being interviewed, a Bronze Star with “V” recipient named Bob Arotta, struggled as he recounted the friends he’d lost.

“He told me some very graphic stories from his time during the siege,” Kniess remembered. “He told me, ‘You know, the things that hap­pened then affect me more now than on the day they happened.’ That message was fresh in my mind as these guys started coming home from the war. I kept thinking, when is that day going to come for them? They were still in the Marine Corps. They still had the brotherhood. But I knew that day would come when the full effect of the war would hit them, and I worried about all of them. Sure enough, over the years I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. A lot of these guys are doing great now, but some of them aren’t with us anymore. It got to a point where they became old enough and a lot of this reflection had already happened.”

In 2020, 16 years after Dunham’s death, Kniess felt that enough time had passed, and it was time to tell the story. Not just the story of Dunham’s service and heroism, but also how his actions formed the foundation of life-altering events for so many others who served with him. Filming and production of the documentary began despite significant delays brought on by the Coronavirus pandemic. Travel and gatherings were restricted, but the team found a way to make it work as they traveled around the nation interviewing everyone necessary to tell the story.

LCpl Bill Hampton (left) and PFC Kelly Miller (right) fought alongside Dunham in Iraq and were wounded in the grenade blast that Dunham smothered with his Kevlar helmet. These Marines, along with numerous others from Kilo, 3/7, share the gripping details of what Dunham did on Apr. 14, 2004, and how his sacrifice changed their lives. (Photos courtesy of Three Branches Productions, LLC)

The film opens with Dunham’s family back­ground. Dan and Deb Dunham are not his biologi­cal parents, and the film details how Dan came to adopt him. From a young age, Dunham learned what responsibility and a strong work ethic looked like as he watched over his younger brother and worked with his father on a dairy farm. His parents encouraged Dunham’s enlistment in the Marines. They understood, even before he graduated high school, Dunham needed a challenge to thrive; not a contest against others, but to continually challenge himself.

“We get a lot of credit for what he did,” Deb Dunham states in the film. “We don’t deserve that. We sent them [the Marine Corps] a young man that had a lot of good values. He went to the Marine Corps and the seeds that we prayed we had planted and would [grow] well, they blossomed, and the Marines polished what we gave them. Whenever people would say, ‘Are you a Marine?’ Jason would flash that grin and say, ‘You bet your sweet ass I am.’ He was proud of it. He was a Devil Dog, and that was what he wanted to be and do.”

The film proceeds into Dunham’s service in the Corps and eventual deployment to Iraq with Kilo, 3/7. One lesser-known fact emerges from the film; Dunham extended his enlistment so he could deploy to Iraq with his Marines.

The documentary covers the details of Dunham’s heroism and the events leading up to his final act of smothering a grenade with his Kevlar helmet. The two Marines next to him that day, Private First Class Kelly Miller and Lance Corporal Bill Hampton, describe what happened and reflect on Dunham’s his actions, as he traded his life for theirs. Other Marines who watched Dunham’s patrol leave the wire that day reveal the aftermath of the loss and how the details of his actions came to light. Stunning images of Dunham’s helmet, ripped to shreds, play alongside Marines’ descriptions of how they tried to process the day.

Much of the later portions of the film demonstrate precisely how Dunham’s actions continue to im­pact a growing number of people. Many of the Marines interviewed have battled guilt and post-traumatic stress. Dan Dunham describes his own bout with guilt following his decision to take his son off life support eight days after he was wounded.

Another perspective offered by the documentary comes from the spouse of a Marine who served with Dunham in Iraq. Becky Dean, the ex-wife of Marine veteran Mark Dean, participated in the film and described her former husband’s significant battle with PTSD in the years following his de­ployment in the hope of helping to demonstrate the tragic effects of war on the families back home.

“A lot of people don’t realize that PTSD is transferred to the kids and spouse,” said Kniess. “Especially the spouses. They are front and center. They get the brunt of it. Having Becky’s story included is something I think a lot of people out there will relate to.”

Perhaps the most powerful part of the story centers on a Kilo 3/7 reunion organized for the film. In September 2021, 3/7 Marines from across the nation gathered in the Dunhams’ driveway in New York before marching to the local cemetery where Dunham is buried. The candid remarks captured for the film on that occasion are both heartbreaking and inspiring, revealing the true extent to which Jason Dunham impacted the people who had the privilege of knowing him.

The production crew endured numerous hard­ships and setbacks filming during the pandemic but despite these challenges, Kniess reflected that the most difficult part of making the documentary was conducting the interviews. Month after month, interview after interview, Kniess and his team relived Dunham’s story with Kilo 3/7 veterans around the nation. Each time felt like opening an old wound. He knew it would be difficult for the Marines to relive that day. Kniess did not fully expect the emotional toll it would take on him. He saw it in the faces of his team as well. Tears flowed freely on multiple occasions, and heavy-hearted interviews ended with the team hugging the interviewee one by one and thanking them for sharing their story.

Healing emerged through the pain, however. The process of reliving and celebrating Dunham’s story held enormous therapeutic value for some. Jason Sanders, one of the Marines with Dunham on his final patrol in Iraq, offers a profoundly insightful view during his interview in the film.

Sailors aboard the Arleigh Burke class guided-missile destroyer USS Jason Dunham (DDG-109) on Dec. 2, 2018, while deployed in the Mediterranean Sea.

“It’s kind of hard to give up your stories to some­one who has never been involved in anything like that,” Sanders says. “It’s real hard to, because you’re sitting there wondering, I don’t think they’re really comprehending what the hell I’m saying, you know? And you can’t expect anybody else to know the feelings that you felt that day, because it’s not normal. You kind of have to let your guard down and let people help you.”

The difficulty of the interviews also played a role in naming the film. One of the cameramen working on the production team spent time as a combat photographer in Iraq, Afghanistan, and, most recently, Syria in 2018. The interviews with Dunham’s Marines brought back gruesome mem­ories of his time as a combat photographer and drove him to tears.

“You need to call this thing ‘The Gift,’” he told Kniess one day after an interview concluded. “What Jason did was a gift. You’ve got children being born, families being started, and people who were able to go on and do things with their lives because of this gift.” As Kniess expanded the interviews, more and more people referred to “the gift” that Dunham had given them. By the time filming was complete, there could be no other title.

Dunham is recognized today through many tributes. Most notably, the U.S. Navy named a guided missile destroyer in his honor, USS Jason Dunham (DDG-109). Even so, in the years since he became the first Marine to receive the Medal of Honor since Vietnam, Dunham’s story has been largely overshadowed by later recipients perhaps because a surprising number of Medal of Honor recipients from the global war on terrorism survived to receive their medals.

“The Gift” documentary succeeds in rejuvenat­ing Dunham’s story in a moving and relevant way. The Marines interviewed unanimously echo a resounding fact; Dunham’s sacrifice affects them more now than it did the day it happened. “There are two things I want people to get from this doc­umentary,” Kniess said. “The general public, I want them to gain a better understanding of what it’s like for Marines and Soldiers to go to war, what they experience, and how it affects them. Everyone in uniform these days has had the experience of someone coming up to them and saying, ‘Thank you for your service.’ I don’t think a lot of people who do that really understand what those words mean. I don’t blame them or fault them for that. I think it’s great they take the time to say it, but I hope people will watch this film so the next time they say it, they will better understand what those words mean.

“As for the veteran community, I know there are still guys out there struggling. There’s going to be someone out there watching this, and they’re going to learn about some of the guys we interviewed, the drug addiction, all the things they went through, and how they turned their lives around. I’m hoping that veterans like that will watch this and think, ‘Well, if they did it, why can’t I?’”

“The Gift” was produced by Three Branches Productions, LLC, a veteran-owned production company. The company was founded by three veterans: Kniess, who served in the Navy; Vincent Vargas, an Army Ranger; and Anthony Taylor, a Marine. The fourth member of the team, a civilian, is executive producer Chase Peel. “The Gift” won Best Documentary at the Utah Film Festival in January, has been invited to the GI Film Festival in San Diego, Calif., taking place this month. Kniess received the Santini Patriot Spirit Award at the Beaufort International Film Festival in February for his role as director, and the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation’s Major Norman Hatch Award for best documentary feature. Three Branches produced two versions of the story, a two-hour feature length film, and a five-part series. “The Gift” will release on streaming media in spring 2023. Visit www.watchthegift.com for updated information about the release date.

Desert Shield/Desert Storm

From the Leatherneck Archives: April 1991

Stories from the Marines on the Ground

Jan. 15, 1991, Was Payday at the Front, But Nobody Remembers It

Just hours before Operation Desert Storm began, Sergeant Kevin Kessinger, a tank commander with the 1st Marine Division’s armor-heavy Task Force Ripper, said the only thing different about Jan. 15, 1991, was that it was payday.

But over the predawn crackle of radio updates, it seemed that Kessinger and his crew would have to leave their checks in the bank.

Kessinger and his fellow Marines have been in Saudi Arabia for seven months. They said they have had plenty of time to contemplate war, and that they have come to terms with it.

“You know when you join the Marine Corps that people go to combat,” said Lance Corporal Kevin Moroney, Kessinger’s tank driver. “It’s on our minds, but we don’t dwell on it.”

This sentiment, which prevailed among Marines throughout Operation Desert Shield, did not change with the passing of the United Nations deadline. There was little change whatsoever. The recent change in weather from scorching heat to rain and cold was, in fact, welcomed by the Marines of Task Force Ripper.

“It’s been wet and miserable, but at least it’s different,” said Moroney of Lucas, Ohio. “Anything different is welcome.”

The last word from Kessinger and Moroney just before they embarked on the biggest change in their lives was that they were going into it with confidence and caution.

“The only thing I’m worrying about is doing something stupid and getting one of my Marines killed,” said Kessinger, who has been training for war for more than nine years. He added that he believes the United States has the best-trained military force in the world and that all he has to do is live up to its standards. “The people who are doing the planning for this operation are simply the best,” he said.

Colonel Carlton Fulford, commanding officer of Task Force Ripper, expressed similar concerns for his men, and also expressed confidence in the Marines’ ability to defeat Iraqi forces. He said that this is in part due to the quality and quantity of training they have had since arriving in August.

“Since the beginning of August, we have literally been on one solid training cycle,” Fulford said. “We haven’t gone out on liberty, and we haven’t gone out to the liberty ship, wherever that is. We’re desert-hard, and we know each other real well.

“I would prefer not to go to war because of the cost in human lives,” Fulford added, “but should we go, I think this organization is as ready and prepared as it could possibly be at this time.”

As Fulford, Kessinger and all the other Marine leaders here prepared for the imminent responsibilities of perhaps one of the world’s most grave crises, the waiting was indeed over.

“Things haven’t changed much out here,” Kessinger said. “Like I said, it’s payday and I haven’t been paid yet. I don’t even remember yesterday.”

Sgt Brad Mitzelfelt, USMC

Fire Mission: LCpl Gabriel Juarez Yanked the Lanyard And Sent the First Arty Rounds Onto the Iraqis

The first artillery offensive by U.S. ground troops took place here Jan. 21, 1991. The 1st Marine Di­vision artillery unit opened fire from Saudi Arabia across the border on Iraqi positions at 3:14 a.m. and concluded its mission at 3:40.

The actual firing time lasted six minutes. The battery pumped out 71 rounds of improved conventional ammunition shells from M198 155 mm howitzers, covering roughly 1,000 square meters, according to Captain Phillip Thompson, a battalion fire direction officer. The unit was about 3 miles from the border and fired about 8 to 10 miles into Kuwait.

During a routine training exercise, Lance Corporal Gabriel Juarez probably wouldn’t have moved at lightning speed after waking up at 3 a.m. to assist in firing artillery rounds into an impact range.

But this wasn’t Camp Pendleton, Okinawa, Hawaii, or any other training base. This was Saudi Arabia in the midst of a war, and Juarez and the rest of his gun crew had just received a “real-world” fire mission.

They received the order nine hours after setting-in their positions near the Iraqi border. The temperatures had been cold all night, and since his battery’s mission involved some waiting, Gun Six’s crew was at 50 percent guard—one half remaining awake and on alert, and the other half asleep and/or trying to stay warm.

“We received a call for fire from an infantry regiment and were told that an enemy artillery battery was actually firing down into Khafji [from across the border],” Thompson said.

“We were told to bring only what we needed for the raid, so we didn’t have much cold-weather gear with us,” Juarez said. “But it [worrying about the cold] kept our minds off of thinking about incoming rounds we might have taken from the Iraqis or anything else that could have gone wrong.

“It was a rude awakening,” he said, “but it didn’t take long to wake up. After I heard that we had a fire mission, the butterflies kicked in. We all just jumped up, everybody went to their respective places, and we started throwing rounds downrange.”

Juarez is the number one man, meaning that he is the last man to contribute to the gun’s operation by priming the powder charge and pulling the lanyard which fires the projectiles. “At first, pulling the lanyard wasn’t too big of a deal because my adrenaline was pumping and I just wanted to shoot the rounds downrange and get out of there, knowing that we might be taking some incoming fire, too,” Juarez said. “In a way, it was almost like a regular training mission, but at the end, we all started to ponder that we were the first ones to fire on them (the Iraqi forces).

“When you shoot the type of rounds we fired and as much as we did, the trails of the gun dig in pretty much so it took longer than usual to get them out and hooked up to the truck, but we did well, considering we were pretty tired.”

Thompson said that the battalion had less than 12 hours notice that it was going to execute the mission. Despite the short notice, the “cannon cockers” were on the road at 3:30 p.m. on the 20th and were in place at 6 p.m. They waited for a fire mission throughout the night.

About two hours before they unleashed their howitzers, the battery received enemy fire, but it had no effect, landing about 2,000 meters southeast of its position.
According to First Lieutenant Christopher Mayette, a battery executive officer, the possible targets the battery was to engage included multiple rocket launchers, a command-and-control site, and a surface-to-air missile site. “The rocket-launcher battery is one that fired upon us, but was later taken out by air,” he said. “We ended up firing on a different battery that was firing on Marine positions near the border.”
Gunnery Sergeant Juan DeWilliams said that Marines rehearse for combat but cannot rehearse actual combat. “The boys impressed me,” said the 14-year veteran. “We did what we had to do, then got the hell out of there.”

“I was nervous of the unexpected,” said Sergeant Norman Arias. “I’m an artillery meteorologist. My job is to get weather-condition information to the fire direction center, so the guns don’t have to use ‘Kentucky windage’ to aim their rounds. It felt good knowing I helped the guns get all those rounds downrange and on target.”

LCpl Robert Redwine said, “The 3rd Marines were the first to take incoming from Iraqi troops, and now we were able to give some of it back.” Redwine was one of the Marines who supplied the security for the mission. “I was happy to be out there and to make a little history,” said the Marine from Portland, Ore.

Cpl Steve Nelson, USMC and
Sgt John Dodd, USMC
Image

Cpl Donald Vaught, left, and Cpl Marc Carbonetto, both “Stinger” missile­men, practice honing in on targets from USS Guam in the Persian Gulf. They were part of an 18,000-Marine amphibious force that tied down several Iraqi divisions, forcing them to keep close to the Kuwaiti coast while trying to guess where the Marines would land.

While Cannoneers Sent Rounds Downrange, Infantrymen Took Incoming and Waited forWord to Attack

“Incoming, incoming! Hit your fight­ing holes!” could be heard throughout the area as the leathernecks from an in­fantry battalion of the 1st Marine Division rushed for cover.

For more than a week, these Marines were taking artillery rounds from Iraqi positions inside the Kuwaiti border.

“We don’t mind taking incoming as long as we don’t take any hits,” said Captain Kent Bradford, an operations officer. Bradford said the Iraqis had been dropping two to three rounds a night for five nights running but hadn’t hit them yet.

“Marines here haven’t displayed any amount of stress or strain,” added the captain. “The apprehension is there, but we don’t talk about shells landing on our position.”
Being shelled was the worst feeling in the world for Private First Class Scott Zmiewsky. “You don’t know where the rounds are coming from, and all you can do is run for cover,” said Zmiewsky.

“At first you’re scared,” added Lance Corporal Chad Graff. “You find yourself stopping what you are doing and looking around. Then all of a sudden, it clicks in your head what to do.”

The incoming wasn’t like the Iraqis were pounding the hell out of them, noted First Lieutenant David Johannsen, a platoon commander. “It’s just a couple of rounds a night,” said the Algonquin, Ill., native.

“Yeah, just enough to tick you off,” said LCpl John Couch. “They wake us up in the middle of night. We have to head to our fighting holes, then back to the rack after the attack is over.”

Sgt John Dodd, USMC

For These Guys, Desert Storm Means Getting Sandblasted by Helicopters

Image

Getting sandblasted from helicopter prop wash is part of the price Landing Support Battalion Marines paid to keep their fellow leathernecks supplied.

Hunkered down in a hole in the desert floor, four Marines sat and idly talked as the frigid wind of the Saudi winter passed overhead. Storm clouds covered the sky, intermittently spitting rain at them.

A low grumbling caused the Marines to perk up and look out over flatland toward the horizon.

“Bird comin’,” one of the Marines stated matter-of-factly.

Grabbing goggles and helmets, two Marines wearing reflective vests clam­bered out of the protective pit and scurried onto the landing zone (LZ).

Like giant bumblebees, two approaching CH-53E helicopters gently maneuvered toward the LZ. Their “pollen,” six pallets of meals, ready to eat (MRE), dangled in nets underneath. The helicopter support team used a variety of hand-and-arm signals to guide the incoming ’53s safely down onto the LZ.

Unhooking their load, the helicopters pulled up and soared out of the area.

Marines of the helicopter support team (HST), part of Beach and Terminal Operations Company, 2nd Landing Support Battalion (LSB), are the eyes and ears of helo pilots who approach and land in an LZ under their control.

During the first weeks of Operation Desert Storm, these HST Marines were working to help furnish a supply depot near the Kuwaiti border. The incoming “birds” were supplying the depot with MREs, medical supplies and maintenance parts.

“Our main mission is to talk the helos into the zone,” said HST leader Corporal J. Shane Bost. “We also help the Landing Support Equipment Marines move the cargo off the LZ, and we package and hook up any outgoing cargo.”

The Lexington, N.C., native said that his company had been in country and manning the landing zone about a month. He added that the helicopter support teams quickly learned how treacherous the desert can be during their operations.

“We have a lot more trouble seeing the birds when they get close to the ground,” the Camp Lejeune Marine said. “We get sandblasted pretty good from the rotor wash.”

Bost and his crew are usually part of an HST; however, they can perform a number of duties required of a beaching operation.

“If we were at the beach, the entire BTO company would be staging vehicles and gear. If there were any helo support ops to do, we would probably be doing that also.” He added the red patches LSB Marines wear on their utility trousers and covers are to let people on the beach know who they are as they run the operation.

Other duties an HST is tasked with are helping to move litters of wounded per­sonnel on and off helos during a medevac and the management of personnel hitching rides on the aircraft.

Although infrequent, mishaps can occur as the HST performs its duties.

“I was bringing in a bird with an external load the other day,” began Private First Class Timothy L. McClintic, a member of Bost’s HST. “He cut his load and was pulling up when one of his engines blew. The bird began wobbling around and came down within about 30 feet of me. The pilot moved to the side of his cargo and came down pretty hard,” said the landing support specialist from Seymour, Ind.

Luckily, no one was hurt in the incident and the HST reviews events such as this.
“We often have safety briefs with the pilots. They tell us if they have trouble over the LZ, they’ll try to head to an 11 o’clock position and so we move to 5 o’clock,” commented Bost.

The HST Marines are usually on the LZ shortly after daybreak. They often work into the night as long as the birds are coming in. A spotlight on the bird and their reflective vests help pilots to pinpoint them in the dark.

“We are a mobile unit, like all Marine units,” Bost said, as he brushed desert grit from one of his crew’s automatic weapons. “We don’t know how long we’ll be here at this supply depot. But anywhere we’re needed by the helos, that’s where we’ll go.”

Cpl Kevin Doll, USMC
Image

LCpl Danny J. House talks to an incoming helo via radio.

Tanks a Lot! The Corps Put Abrams Tank on
Front Line In Time for Shoot-Out

Image

LCpl John C. Maloney maneuvers his M1A1 Abrams. Tanks helped spearhead drives by the 1st and 2nd Marine Di­vi­sions that reached Kuwait City in less than three days.

Image

LCpl Adam Kennedy peers up through the gunner’s hatch of his M1A1 tank before aiming it north and driving into Kuwait.

Marines of 2nd Tank Battalion, 2nd Marine Division unloaded M1A1 tanks from military prepositioning ships Jan. 10. The Abrams tanks will gradually re­place the aging M-60s and are the first of the sophisticated tanks to join the Corps. They couldn’t have arrived in Saudi Arabia at a better time.

The tanks are out-of-the-factory new. When they rolled out of their assembly plants, they rolled onto ships and were joined with forces already in place.

When the ships docked, 2nd Tank Bn Marines boarded them to ready the tanks for offload. Private First Class Chester Bryans climbed aboard the first tank. After a quick light and instrument check, he drove the 67.5-ton tank onto the ramp spanning the gap from ship to shore.

Bryans taxied the tank to a rally point to ready it for its first test. There, a factory employee replaced Bryans for the trial run.

Once in position, a road guide gave his signal, and the tank lunged forward, picking up speed. The tank’s engine revved up as its driver drove down the darkened road, at approximately 40 mph.

At the end of the half-mile strip, the driver parked the tank in a staging area, where tankers started the depreservation process by taking off equipment boxes and removing tape from the M256 120 mm main guns.

For several days, the Marines equipped the tanks with machine guns, removed the packing grease, and readied what they call “Silent Death” for combat.

In November, the 2nd Tank Bn leather­necks had learned to operate the new tank.
“We spent two weeks learning about the M-1A1,” Lance Corporal Allan Bouchard of Lexington, N.C., said. “We mostly focused on our own stations because of the (Persian Gulf) crisis.”

According to Bouchard, the Marines like the M-1A1 much better than the M-60. “It’s a lot faster, has a lower profile, a larger gun and has much better armor,” he said. “It’s just a far better tank.”

The Marines are also very confident of the tank’s capabilities. “We can outrun, outgun and take a hit better than any other tank made,” Corporal James J. Reinhardt of Cherokee, Iowa, said. “Besides, the M-1A1 even has an NBC (nuclear, bio­logical and chemical) defense system on board so we don’t have to worry about getting gassed.”

With the new tanks in Saudi Arabia, 2nd Tanks now has a piece of equipment with the technology of tomorrow, for combat today.

Cpl Philip Haring, USMC
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M1A1 Abrams tanks arrived in Saudi Arabia in time to roll into Kuwait and battle the Soviet-made T-55 and T-62 tanks.

2nd Marine Division Took First Iraqi Prisoners: “Very Prudent Individuals”

The first Iraqi prisoners taken by the 2nd Marine Division surrendered on the afternoon of Feb. 5, 1991.

The six Iraqi soldiers, two officers and four enlisted men, drove to the berm in a vehicle displaying a white flag. They dismounted, walked to Marine units that had them under observation and asked to surrender. “Each had the pamphlets explaining surrender procedures,” said Lieutenant Colonel Jan Huly, the assistant operations officer of the division.

“They were part of a combat engineer unit,” Huly said. “They told us that they were disenchanted with the war effort. They indicated that food, medicine and other basic needs were in short supply. They were very prudent individuals.”

The prisoners ate meals, ready to eat (MREs) and a hot meal, underwent a medical checkup and had the opportunity to clean up. “They were in pretty good condition when they showed up,” said Huly, “but they were grateful for the food. They especially enjoyed the MRE candy.”

LtCol Huly stated that after questioning, the prisoners were turned over for their detainment in accordance with the Geneva Convention.

“They indicated that their particular unit was suffering greatly from desertions, apparently the results of allied bombing. They also indicated that many more of their soldiers would defect, but they lack the opportunity. There seems to be a shortage of almost everything there, so it seems that our bombing campaign is having positive effects for us,” Huly said.

Sgt Earnie Grafton, USMC

Getting Attention The Hard Way

They weren’t looking for trouble; they just wanted to be seen. Ele­ments of the 1st Marine Division were sending out mobile patrols to let everybody up north know that the United States had its eye on the area near the border.

“The patrols are mainly for surveillance and to establish a U.S. presence in the area,” said Captain Kevin Scott, a rifle company commander. “If there are un­friendlies in the area, they see us, and, therefore, know that we’re still interested in the ground we’re patrolling. It keeps them guessing.”

Each company of the task force which was running the patrols usually headed out with troops, vehicles and weaponry consisting of small arms, antiarmor, and large-caliber weapons. They also had the ability to call for fire and always had a Saudi liaison officer or translator with them.

“If we keep doing these patrols, some­body’s bound to see us and call it in on their radio,” said Sergeant Don Milojevich, a Weapons Company Marine. “As long as they know we’re here, it’s good.

With weapons always at the ready, the patrols usually headed out at midmorning and returned to their respective base camps just before nightfall.

Rolling across the barren desert, the patrols often met up with Saudi military personnel and stopped to converse for a while to further make their presence known.
Sheep and camel herders and other Bedouins were also passed by, often waving or holding up the “peace” or “victory” sign.

Whether it was dry, dusty terrain or mud-filled sabkhas, the patrols pressed on through the desert, stopping from time to time in order to compute a grid to give them their exact location and keep them on the right course.

“They [the Iraqis] may still have a forward observer in the Khafji area,” Scott said. “We want to be seen.”

Cpl Steve Nelson, USMC