In 2000, Hollywood scriptwriter Graham Roland enrolled in college, halfheartedly taking classes at Cal State-Fullerton when he decided he needed a challenge. He wanted to become a writer but needed money for school. A California resident who spent his summers with his dad in Oklahoma, Roland was also looking for a male role model in his life and found it in the Marine Corps.
“Coming out of high school, I was an OK student, not a great student,” Roland said. “I had already formulated this idea I wanted to write and hadn’t really focused in on writing for film and television yet, but I knew that I needed something to write about.”
Initially motivated by the promise of the GI Bill, a couple of key experiences inspired Roland to join the Corps. A friend of his had joined the Marines right after graduation, and his transformation left an impression on Roland.
“I saw him when we came back and he was like a totally different person. … His personality, the way he carried himself … [In school] he was a knucklehead, he wasn’t very focused. He was a good student … after boot camp leave. That really changed him. That stuck in my mind.”
Roland enlisted in the Corps in 2000 at a recruiting station in the Bay Area and completed boot camp at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego. He trained for two months at Fort Sill, Okla., to become a forward observer, 0861 MOS, in artillery, and the base was about two hours from where his dad lived.
Cpl Graham Roland, center, with GySgt Dallas Miller, left, and LCpl Roberto Mancha, waiting to leave the wire at Camp Ramadi, Iraq, December 2005.
Roland had come of age in the ’90s, and believed there wouldn’t be another ground war. The ’90s involved a lot of bombing people, and Desert Storm happened fast. But by the time he deployed to Fallujah in 2005, the Corps didn’t need forward observers. He had been taken out of his artillery battery, where he was a reservist in Seal Beach, Calif., and put with an active-duty field military police (MP) company, the only MP company in the 1st Marine Division. Roland didn’t do anything artillery focused during the deployment. Instead, his unit executed convoy security and prisoner transfers in country. They also did security for Personal Security Detachment missions around the election, escorting high-value individuals.
“[We would] take them to a house in Ramadi. Watch the house, they would come out and we would take them back to Camp Fallujah.” In hindsight, he said he liked how it turned out. He didn’t know what it would have looked like to be in an artillery battery during the occupation phase of OIF. He had friends he trained with who had been part of OIF 1 in 2003. When it came time for Roland to go the war, “it had shifted into such a different place,” he said. “I am grateful for how it happened.”
Within his MP company, Roland, a corporal at the time, led a small unit of 25 to 30 reservists. The reservists attached to three platoons. Most of his platoon was active duty, doing their second or even third tour in Iraq.
“They whipped us into shape, told us what to expect, and I felt a great measure of comfort being with these guys because they had done it before,” Roland said. He got to see much of the country during deployment because his team, while based in Fallujah, was constantly moving between Baghdad and Ramadi. His team even went to the Syrian and Jordanian borders. “We were on the move a lot,” he said. “It was an exciting job to have.”
Having arrived in Fallujah in September, his team spent the winter working almost exclusively at night. They didn’t have a lot of enemy contact or activity during the winter, but that changed as the weather turned and got warmer, with longer days around mid-February 2006. Roland recalled, “The last couple of months of our deployment, things really started to pick up. We went through a period of a couple of weeks [where we] got hit with IEDs three or four times in a really short period of time.” Nobody was severely injured because their vehicles were up-armored, although a few of his teammates were concussed. Roland’s own vehicle was hit. He didn’t see the IED, but his driver saw it and swerved the truck violently, thinking it looked like an 88 mm mortar wired with a piece of detonation cord.
“I don’t remember the incident,” Roland said, “but the aftermath of it … being in shock and looking for the people that might have set it off.”
They finished the mission and headed back to base. He remembers the adrenaline. “I was young, we all were young. I thought naively that nothing bad was going to happen to me. Nothing really did … it was scary, but physically I was OK.
“The IED was on my side, and had he not [swerved] we would have rolled right over it. The one soft spot in the humvees was the undercarriage; he could have driven right over it. … Who knows, it might not have done any damage … that was the first time I felt like, ‘This is real.’ ”
It was jarring for him, and near the end of the deployment, it put him in a “different mental space for the rest of [his] time in country.”
“I was very hyper-focused, and so hyper-aware, every time we left the base; we were all counting the days; ‘We’re almost home, nothing bad can happen.’ ”
After their deployment, some of the Marines whom he had served with in Iraq ended up going to Afghanistan. “The stories I heard, it was much more kinetic, and the fighting was much more [like] Vietnam. For us, our deployment was like fighting ghosts. You would get hit with an IED, or someone would shoot off a couple of rounds at your direction, and they would just be gone.”
He remembers the frustration of the enemy taking cheap shots but never having the ability to confront them. He remembers enemy attacks as poorly executed and not very effective. “In our battalion, we had a couple of people KIA doing security at a polling station when a suicide bomber was in line and detonated his vest. It was in our battalion, but not my platoon or company.”
Roland shared a vivid memory from his deployment. “[There was] a guy that was, in hindsight, doing a dry run to see what our reaction would be. … We were on our way back to Abu Ghraib, and he was coming at us from a frontage road. We passed him, and the .50-cal from the truck behind us engaged him. He didn’t stop. ‘Shots fired’ came over the radio, and we stopped. [Our] gunner put a lot of rounds in the engine block and wind-shield, completely disabled the vehicle. I thought that guy was dead. We surrounded the vehicle, and he came out.
“He survived and, even with all those rounds, he had only lost his thumb. It was like a miracle. There was nothing in the vehicle. … We had given so many different warnings with flares, used our escalation of force (EOF), and everybody knew the EOF rules.
“This guy went way past it. … You could tell they were planning something, and this was the dry run. They were poking the bear to see how we would react to it.”
A lot of Roland’s memories of Iraq are in the gray-green night vision goggles. His team wore the old, heavy ones that give you headaches. He and his team had to learn to drive and operate at night, wearing them for hours on end. They would operate blacked out (with no lights) and experienced lot of tense moments that were so “eerily spooky that you didn’t know what was going on, and it ended up being nothing.”
His team called their trail vehicles “ghost vehicles,” and when he got promoted in country to sergeant, he was put in charge of one of them. Roland’s job at the end of his deployment was to be the first one out of the wire, to check to make sure there was nothing laid out in the road. He’d be “getting out of the truck and deciding if it [was] enough to call explosive ordnance disposal on a pile of trash in the road. Either we had extra-ordinarily good luck or, by combination, they just weren’t very good.” His team’s experiences were after the Battle of Fallujah, “so it wasn’t totally safe, but nothing like it was.”
Graham Roland, left, brings his Marine experiences on set with director Morten Tyldum during the filming of “Jack Ryan,” Season One, June 2017, Marrakech, Morocco. (Photo courtesy of Graham Roland)
Roland’s enlistment was up six months after he returned. He had a year of college left. He changed his major from film and took a writing class taught by TV writer/producer Robert Engels (“Twin Peaks,” “Andromeda,” “SeaQuest DSV”). Engels was teaching a class that had never been offered at the university before, on the one-hour TV drama. Roland had taken other writing classes but had “no aspirations at all to be a TV writer. I wanted to work in features and be a director. I thought my career was going to be very different.”
He wrote a spec script, a hypothetical episode, of his favorite series, “The Sopranos.” He turned out his first round of pages for the professor about three weeks into class. At the end of one class, Engels said, ‘Who’s Graham?’ Roland responded with, “That’s me.” He said, “Oh, yeah, the Marine guy … Walk with me to my next class.”
Engels told him, “I really like your writing, but I’m curious about your experience in the Marines. I’m wondering if you can write me an original pilot about being a Marine and your experience overseas. It doesn’t have to be true; it just has to be inspired by that.”
Roland said, “I think I can do that.”
Engels replied with, “If you can do that, I will give you an ‘A.’ All you have to do is finish it. It doesn’t have to be good. Give me 50 pages of you and your story.”
He wasn’t doing this with anybody else in the class; he was making them spec their favorite TV show. Engels wanted to see what Roland could do. Roland “rogered up” and finished the script. Engels gave him notes as if he were a working writer.
When he finished, Engels said, “I think you can do this for a living.”
Roland had never met a working TV writer, and this experience boosted his confidence. Engels helped him get a manager within a couple of weeks of graduation. The manager told him to move out to LA.
“He really got the ball rolling,” Roland reflected. Engels’ practical advice and support stemmed from his own experience as a working writer on “Twin Peaks,” a show Roland loved growing up. Telling Roland he thought he could “make a living at this,” he said, was maybe the “biggest thing that ever happened to me, career-wise.”
“It went from being like, ‘We’ll see how it goes,’ to a tangible kind of thing where this guy believes I can do it, and now I believe I can do it. I got very lucky. That same spec I wrote about being in Iraq, it got me a manager, an agent and my first job on the show ‘Prison Break,’ all within a year.”
He’d been back from deployment for less than two years when he started his career on “Prison Break.” Using his Marine Corps experience as a touchstone, Roland said, “Really, had I not had that [deployment] experience, I could have never written that script. … Looking back on it, I didn’t know anything. … I knew very little about being a writer. I learned about being a writer after I got a job being a writer.”
Early in his writing career, although he was inspired by certain shows, Roland was unable to sit down and have a clear concept of what made “a good drama.” He struggled to tell someone what made a good scene and settled for things he thought were “cool.” Conveying authenticity, though, was something he was good at.
Authenticity is what people respond to in his writing.
“All those moments and characters … that I came across in my deployment [were given an outlet in that] script,” he said. The script was science fiction, not based in reality at all, but “it was the setting … the world … how Marines talked to each other. How the characters interacted was what people responded to.”
The script he wrote led to his second job on “Lost.” He had the opportunity to co-write three episodes for the hit show. The opportunity introduced him to producer and showrunner Carlton Cuse, who he has worked with several times since. They even produced one of Roland’s own shows together. “That spec did everything for me,” he said. “It changed my life.”
On set of “Dark Winds,” Season 2 (left to right): director, Chris Eyre; co-creator, Graham Roland; and showrunner, John Wirth.
Roland carries the Marine Corps’ training with him—the perseverance and putting in the hours to continue pushing forward when “you think you can’t anymore. That is definitely something I got from being a Marine … and the tactfulness and chain of command. All of those things I learned there has played a role in my career.”
Roland drew on his Marine Corps service to co-create the hit Amazon Prime Video “Jack Ryan” series. “I had done some traveling, but I had never been to a place that was seemingly so different from my home [than when I was in Iraq]. These people are a lot more like me than people realize. That was born out of being around them every day. Their lives were kind of existing around us. Seeing the majority of them just wanting the same things we all wanted—take their kids to school, take care of their families, be able to work, [although] yes, there were differences. … When we decided to do a story on Islamic extremism, the antagonist for that season was a Middle Eastern terrorist. I remember … thinking, ‘If I am going to do this, I am going to do my best to show that person’s story too.’ ”
Graham Roland, second from right, with the cast and producers of “Dark Winds” at the show’s premiere in Santa Fe, N.M., June 2022. (Photo courtesy of Graham Roland)
He wanted to show “how they could have gotten to that place. That is why the pilot started out with the [character] when he was a little boy. You find out that this extremely traumatic event happened to him and his brother. There is a scene in one of the episodes I wrote where he is playing an Arabic version of Monopoly. They were all little attempts to say this person is misguided and lost, but I think, at the core of it, there is more to the story and to people, that [they] are more similar than dissimilar. I don’t think I could have done that storyline had I not deployed and had that experience.”
Roland’s new series, “Dark Winds,” which airs on AMC, is based on the novel series Leaphorn & Chee, written by decorated Army World War II veteran Tony Hillerman. He has strong characters who are military veterans throughout the show. The lead character, Joe Leaphorn, portrayed by Zahn McClarnon, is a Korean War veteran. Sheriff Gordo Sena, played by A Martinez, is shown as a World War II veteran.
“I got everything I thought I wanted out of [the Marine Corps,]” Roland shared, “and a lot more. The things that I carry with me are those friendships that are unlike any other you’ll ever have. … When I see them, it is like no time has passed.” The Corps was a “tough experience,” but, he said, “I wouldn’t change anything about it. Some of my favorite memories are from that period. They are all usually based around those friendships.”
Featured Image (Top): Future Hollywood writer Graham Roland in Camp Fallujah, Iraq, September 2005.
Authors Bio:
LtCol Joel Searls, USMCR, is a journalist, writer and creative who serves in COMMSTRAT for the Marine Corps Reserve. He has completed the Writer’s Guild Foundation Veterans Writing Project, is a produced playwright, a commissioned screenwriter and an entertainment consultant. His most recent feature film-producing project is “Running with the Devil,” and his most recent TV series producing project is “Top Combat Pilot.” He is a graduate of The Ohio State University.
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.
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 Wadiin 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 wadiled 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 Wadiseparating 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 Wadiwas 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.
