After five weeks of fighting in Fallujah, Kilo Company, 3^rd Battalion, 5^th Marines ran into a pocket of diehard insurgents holed up in the center of the city. Here is the story of the costliest firefight of Operation Phantom Fury as described in New Dawn: The Battles for Fallujah.

With winter approaching, the Fallujah nights had turned bitter cold. As Lieutenant Todd Moulder and the 3/5 Kilo Company XO, Lieutenant Ben Diaz, worked to set up defenses at an abandoned school on December 12^th, 2004, Sergeant Jason Arellano’s squad left the school to join in the search for blankets. Third Squad moved into the houses just south of the school and east of the 915 block in search of anything that could help keep them warm during the approaching winter night. Arellano stayed behind on the school roof with his platoon commander.

Back on the long, skinny 915 Block, Arellano’s good friend Corporal Jason Clairday led his squad into the eleventh northern house. Sergeant Jeffery Kirk split his 3rd Squad Marines: some entered the eleventh and twelfth southern houses; others moved to a building in the Janabi Hospital complex across the street to provide overwatch for the foraging Marines.

Corporals Ian Stewart and David Cisneros, along with Lance Corporal Chad Pioske, entered the eleventh southern house. Cisneros and Pioske cleared the bottom floor while Stewart went up the stairs to clear the second floor. But as Stewart moved to enter an upstairs bedroom, shots rang out: he had encountered the first group of a platoon-sized enemy force. Stewart went down in the open doorway, mortally wounded. He called for help, and Cisneros and Pioske charged for the stairs to get to their friend. But gunfire and grenades rained down on them from a dozen insurgents holed up in the second-floor bedrooms, and Cisneros and Pioske were forced to fall back, unable to reach Stewart.

Arellano hadn’t been at the school for more than five minutes when the gunfire erupted. “That’s our Marines in contact,”[1] Arellano exclaimed.  He turned and sprinted down the stairs, taking two, three, four at a time. He ran out into the street, where he could see his squad running west across the street toward the fight; Arellano ran toward the fight too. As he ran past the gun trucks and AMTRACs, he pointed and yelled for them to turn around. More Marines poured out of the school and rushed to the sound of the gunfire.

Sergeant Jeffrey Kirk and Staff Sergeant Melvin Blazer were in the house next door when Stewart was gunned down. Kirk had just returned to duty after having been wounded on November 10th. He had given the medical staff such a hard time that they finally relented and let him check out to return to Kilo Company. Kirk moved outside and started looking for another way to get to the enemy on the second floor. He moved west and found a narrow alley between the enemy’s stronghold and the next house. When he turned to enter the alley, he was shot in the head. Did Kirk know that he would not return home when he framed one of his poems and gave it to his mother?

Just as Kirk went down, Arellano reached the house where Stewart was still trapped. Cisneros, Pioske and others tried repeatedly but in vain to rush back into the building and up the stairs to Stewart’s aid; each time they were met by a hail of gunfire and grenades that forced them to fall back. Marines to Arellano’s north were shooting down from their rooftop positions. Arellano, heart pounding, shouted at the top of his lungs, “Where are they at, Clairday?” Clairday pointed downward and continued to fire onto the rooftop and into the alley below.

Still not knowing Corporal Stewart’s fate, Corporal David Cisneros and Lance Corporal Phillip Miska repeatedly tried to re-enter the building where Stewart was trapped. They kept the enemy pinned for fifteen minutes, preventing them from fleeing or attacking other Marines downstairs. On Cisneros’ third attempt, he too was wounded, peppered with shrapnel from one of a dozen enemy grenades.

The enemy fought ferociously, firing automatic weapons and lobbing grenades down the stairs. “Grenade!” yelled Corporal David Hawley, as another hand grenade rained down on the Marines. Hawley turned and pushed two Marines down the stairs. BOOM! The explosion hurled a golf ball-sized chunk of metal into his thigh, knocking him down the stairs. Hawley continued to fire his M16 until his friends dragged him out of the house.

Then Miska noticed an RPG pointed over the half-wall at the top of the stairs. He repeatedly fired at the metal projectile, hoping to detonate the grenade. His volley forced the grenadier to fire without aiming. The grenade missed the Marines in the stairwell, but the explosion knocked them back down the stairs. Undaunted, Miska and the other Marines regrouped and tried once again to fight their way up the stairs.

Private First Class Renaldo Leal repeatedly rushed back into the fight, pulling three wounded Marines to safety. The casualties were mounting; several Marines were now huddled at a casualty collection point, waiting for medical evacuation.

Frustrated by his inability to get to Stewart, Pioske moved to a second-floor patio in the next building, and from his new position obtained a clear shot. He exchanged protracted fire with the enemy, eventually killing five insurgents. All the while Kilo Company Marines were swarming into all of the adjacent buildings, sealing the enemy’s fate.

The Kilo Marines continued to attack. Arellano ran out of one courtyard into the street. He quickly moved along the wall in search of the next gate and approached a narrow alley. He saw a Marine lying on the ground, and wondered why there was no corpsman helping him. Then he realized that another hero had fallen: Sergeant Kirk was dead. Arellano would remember this sight for the rest of his life, but there was no time to mourn now; he had to keep his head clear, he had to stay in the fight, he had to keep his other Marines from the same fate, he had to get to the trapped Marine. Arellano jumped over Kirk’s body and continued his search for the next gate.

Two doors down to the east, Staff Sergeant Melvin Blazer, Jr., a seasoned, seventeen-year veteran of the Corps, had moved into the next house with a group of Marines; they were trying to find a way across the roof to get to Stewart’s house. Blazer headed up the stairs for the roof. When he reached the landing, three insurgents cut him down in a hail of gunfire. Corporal Mason Fischer rushed to the top of the stairwell, protecting Blazer’s body, while Lance Corporal William Vorheis ran for reinforcements.

Vorheis ran into Stewart’s house. “Staff Sergeant Blazer’s been hit and is trapped on the second deck!” he announced between breaths. First Sergeant Steve Knox, Leal and the other Marines rushed to Blazer’s aid in the building where Corporal Fisher was holding the enemy at bay. Without pause Leal charged up the stairs, jumped into the enemy line of fire, and emptied an entire drum of 5.56 from his SAW. Fisher reached underneath the torrent of outgoing lead and dragged Blazer’s lifeless body out of the line of fire and down the stairs. Leal followed Blazer and Fisher, miraculously unscathed.

By now Captain McNulty, Lieutenant Moulder and the Kilo Company command group had moved to the second-floor balcony of the house between the houses where Stewart and Blazer had been shot; they had enemy insurgents barricaded on either side of them. Arellano moved to the patio to link up with his platoon commander. Moulder ordered him into the house next door where Blazer had just been killed. Arellano’s mind was racing. He scanned the scene, looking for men from his squad.

Moulder pointed and repeated, “Get into that house.”

Not seeing any of his own squad, Arellano turned and pointed at Marines near him. “You, you, you and you, come with me,” he ordered.

Lieutenant Moulder ordered Sergeant Coduto to clear the building below and to find a way into Stewart’s building. He told Corporal Herren to return to Stewart’s building and secure the ground floor.

While Coduto’s squad secured the center building, Sergeant Arellano and his shanghaied squad hurried down the stairs to assault the neighboring house. One of Kilo Company’s gun trucks was parked in the street. Arellano checked to make sure that no Marines were inside the house, then ordered the gun truck gunner to pepper the house with 40mm grenades. The gunner opened fire with his MK-19 automatic grenade launcher. Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, the grenades slammed into the building and exploded in rapid succession; BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Now two separate assaults were ongoing: Arellano and his Marines followed the grenades into the courtyard, while Corporal Clairday and his squad moved roof-to-roof, north-to-south to Stewart’s house. One after the other Clairday, Yeager, Lance Corporals Travis Icard and Hilario Lopez each jumped the four-foot gap between the buildings.  Once on the roof Clairday moved to the front of the stack. Simultaneously Arellano and his newly-formed squad prepared to enter Blazer’s house. Arellano charged in and lobbed grenades into the interior rooms. When Clairday, Arellano’s close friend, moved to enter the second-floor room, an AK-47 rattled, hitting him in the arms and legs. Lance Corporal Yeager laid down a spray of bullets while Clairday crawled out of the line of fire. Clairday refused medical treatment and returned to the front of the stack. Arellano and another Marine headed toward the bottom of the stairs.

The Marines could see Corporal Stewart’s boots just inside and to the right of the patio door. Yeager tossed two grenades into the house. Clairday and Lopez charged in and moved left while Gonzalez and Icard charged right. Sergeant Gonzalez sprayed the wall lockers with bullets as another Marine retrieved Stewart’s body. One of the bullet-riddled cupboard doors swung open and out stumbled an insurgent; Gonzalez instantly cut him down. Across the house Clairday led more Marines into the last room. As Clairday, Yeager and Lopez were assaulting the enemy, Miska and his squad leader charged the stairway one last time. Gunfire rang out and Clairday fell, this time mortally wounded. Lopez jumped into the doorway and began firing while Yeager pulled Clairday’s body from harm’s way. The enemy opened fire on Lopez, at point-blank range, killing him too.

Once Yeager had retrieved Clairday he and Icard returned to the fight, attacking the enemy’s last stronghold. Yeager killed another Muj, but more remained. Icard and Yeager began firing into the door jamb. The insurgents responded by lobbing a grenade onto the landing. Yeager and Icard tried to melt into the walls, hoping to protect themselves from the impending blast, but luckily the grenade failed to explode. Yeager, Miska and Icard resumed their attack and didn’t let up until the last two insurgents were dead.

Meanwhile, two houses down, Arellano moved toward the stairwell on which Melvin Blazer, husband and father of two, had just been mortally wounded.  His M16 pointed up, Arellano began to climb the first flight of stairs—backwards—keeping his weapon trained on the second floor. Another Marine followed and threw a grenade up onto the second floor. As soon as that grenade went off, Arellano and the trailing Marine charged up the remaining stairs. They quickly moved past the room into which Leal had emptied his SAW and ran straight toward the adjacent bedroom.

Smoke from the previous grenades filled the house. Enemy rounds were chipping at the walls all around them. Like Gonzalez, Arellano shot at areas where the insurgents could be hiding as he charged into the bedroom. His bullets ripped into each corner, through a bed, and splintered a row of standup wooden dressers.

Arellano shouted “Clear left! Clear right! Room clear! Nada!”

He returned to the bedroom door and grabbed a grenade to throw into the room the two men had just run past. He could see a group of Marines stacked on the stairs waiting to charge onto the second floor, so he shouted to them that he was about to frag the room. But they had their own plan, and one of the Marines broke from the stack on the stairs and ran toward Arellano. Grenade in hand, pin pulled, Arellano made way for the Marine charging toward his room. The Marine who rushed past threw his grenade into the uncleared room.

“Frag out!” the Marine yelled.

There stood Arellano, holding a live grenade. He wasn’t about to try to put the pin back in, so he tossed his grenade into the room, too.

Arellano shouted, “Frag out,” only seconds after the first exclamation.

The first grenade had not yet exploded. Arellano feared that the Marines below would not realize that two grenades were cooking off.  Arellano’s mind raced as he scrambled for cover. He knew that his Marines were trained to rush a room the instant their grenade detonated, so as to take advantage of the stun effect of the explosion; he feared the Marines would charge up the stairs as soon as the first grenade blew. Arellano had to take action, and would only have a split second after the first explosion.

BOOM! As soon as the first grenade went off, the Marines below did just what Arellano had feared: they started up the stairs. Sergeant Arellano ran to the doorway to stop them. Glancing over, he saw his grenade in the room.

How could this be? Jason thought. Did the insurgents toss my grenade back toward the door? Did it bounce off something in the room, or did the first explosion blow my grenade into the open? No time now to wonder.

Arellano yelled, “Get back! There’s another grena…” BOOM!

Arellano’s life turned to slow motion. He saw everything clearly: the curtains rose in the room; smoke came through each crevice in the bricks, joined by sparks from the flesh-eating fragmentation coming through the mud-brick wall. The force of the explosion spun Arellano onto his hands and knees. The loud boom continued to echo in his ears; he was certain he was deaf.

His world collapsed down into a narrow focus. Had he saved his Marines? Had he kept them from the door?

As the world closed in, another thought filled his consciousness. “I’m hit, I’m hit!”

A distant voice tried to encourage Arellano. “You’re okay.”

Arellano tried to move around, but his palms slipped in a pool of his own blood. Dazed, breathing hard, and feeling weak, Arellano asked the Marine, “What do you mean I’m good?! Can’t you see I’m bleeding to death?”

Arellano felt the blood streaming from his neck, shredded by shrapnel. More metal fragments had ripped into his leg, only millimeters from his femoral artery. When others rushed to try to help him to his feet, he crumpled like a rag doll. It felt as if he were being electrocuted; the pain was excruciating. But he tried to remain as calm as possible, and tried to help as Marines removed his flak jacket.

Kilo Company Marines quickly cleared the house and hoisted their wounded sergeant to carry him to safety. He was dead weight; Arellano couldn’t do much to help as he was dragged down the stairs, head bouncing on each level. Moaning in pain, Arellano watched the wall, then the ceiling, then more Marines rushing into the house, and finally the dingy grey sky. He could still hear gunfire. Now he was lying in the street with the mounting numbers of other wounded, a corpsman cutting away his uniform. It was beautiful to be outside.

Lance Corporal Lenard had finally found his friend and squad leader. He rushed to Arellano’s side and reached down and grabbed his hand. Arellano squeezed Lenard’s hand as the corpsmen worked furiously to stop the bleeding.

“They are going to have to put a tourniquet on your neck,” Lenard joked.

“They better make it tight.” Arellano replied. Then he pointed to his crotch. “How am I down there?”

Smiling, “It’s gone, bro’!” Lenard quipped.

As he was rushed to the waiting AMTRAC, a cold chill engulfed Arellano’s body. Marines hurriedly placed him on the center bench, the back ramp was quickly raised, and the vehicle lurched forward, racing to get Arellano to Bravo Surgical in Camp Fallujah before he really did bleed to death. “Stop giving me morphine,” he told First Sergeant Knox. “I want to feel the pain so I don’t slip away.” Arellano reached to his chest and grabbed the cross dangling from his dogtag chain. He wondered if he would die, and tried to picture his family and Lindsey’s beautiful face. Would he ever see her again? Arellano would fight for his life to the end; he couldn’t leave Lindsey behind.

The other wounded Marines moaned and groaned with every bump in the road on a journey which seemed to take forever. Finally the casevac ground to a stop, the ramp dropped, and Arellano was whisked into the trauma unit.

Kilo Company’s 915 Block fight was the costliest of the entire operation. Five Darkhorse Marines were killed in the fight and more than a dozen were wounded. Read the entire story of the fight to free Fallujah in New Dawn: The Battles for Fallujah. If you don’t see it where you buy your books – ask for it.

The Government Center

“On November 10, 1775, a Corps of Marines was

created by a resolution of the Continental Congress.

Since that date many thousands of men have borne

the name Marine. In memory of them it is fitting that

we who are Marines should commemorate the

birthday of our Corps by calling to mind the

glories of its long and illustrious history…”

MajGen John A. Lejeune, USMC

1 November, 1921

The United States Marine Corps’ 229^th birthday would be a blue sky, sunny day in Fallujah. The soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines of the Task Force Blue Diamond would have little opportunity to celebrate on this day of intense combat. As Kilo Company, 3/5 prepared for the coming fight through the Jolan District, Captain Drew McNulty went on the HET[1] loudspeaker to read General Lejeune’s and the Commandant’s birthday message. McNulty’s voice echoed through the assembly area in the early morning light. After reading the birthday messages, he concluded with, “slow is smooth and smooth is Fast. Today, I expect the enemy to stand and fight. Kill him and kill him twice. HooRah, Semper Fi and happy birthday.”[2]

The enemy woke up in the center of town and found that Avenger had occupied the Government Center during the night. They started firing on the Marines around 0730. Cunningham’s Marines returned the fire from every building that faced south. Enemy snipers and machine gunners continued their fierce duel with the Marines. Meyers’ tanks knocked down a wall and Markley and Meyers pulled their tanks up in between the parade ground bleachers, next to the buildings where Cunningham’s Marines were taking fire. They started shooting across MICHIGAN into an insurgent-filled mosque and hotel on the other side of the main east-west thoroughfare.

Meyers and Markley were pounding the enemy from the protected positions among the concrete bleachers. The enemy fired back from the mosque and charged out in groups of two or three onto MICHIGAN with RPGs and AKs. Most were quickly mowed down by the tankers’ machine gun fire. One determined insurgent ran to flank Meyers’ tank on his right and fired his RPG. The rocket whooshed toward Panzer 6 and exploded against the side of the tank, rocking the entire vehicle off the ground a couple inches. The anti-armor projectile penetrated the hull, nearly missing the fuel cells. Fortunately, none of Meyers’ crew was injured. They kept fighting. They would worry about the damage later.

After quickly checking to insure that he wasn’t wounded, Ball returned to scanning for targets, his turret whining like a vacuum cleaner as it rotated from side to side. He caught a glimpse of the tip of an RPG at the corner of the building next to the mosque. He told Meyers and got the order to fire a main gun round. Ball fired at the corner and watched the HEAT[3] round blow away the side of the building. Bodies flew when the round exploded. Meyers and Markley fought from their protected positions for most of the morning.

Colonel Tucker, the RCT-7 Commanding Officer, had handed out MRE pound cakes and cards with the Commandant’s message to all the squad leaders. They were told to read the birthday message to their Marines when there was a break in the fighting. Then, they would slice the birthday cakes in their timeless ceremony. As a final ceremonial touch, Tucker had asked his commanders to try to play the Marines Hymn at some point during the day.

During a lull in the fighting on the afternoon of the 10^th, LtCol Gary Brandl turned to Tucker, his boss. “Maybe we should play the Marines Hymn now.” Brandl called over to the Army psyops team and told them to play the Hymn over their loudspeakers. As soon as the music started, every enemy fighter within earshot opened fire. They were either incensed at the brazen taunt or they anticipated that the music was heralding an attack. They lost their discipline and began showing themselves, firing on the Marines. The Marines cut down the exposed fighters as if they were shooting pop-ups at a carnival shooting gallery.

The Marines Hymn was playing. Brandl’s Marines were killing the exposed enemy fighters. The spontaneous battle raged until the final note. As if on queue, the enemy quit firing. Brandl turned to Tucker, “That worked pretty well, let’s play it again.”[4]

Three-Five had nearly finished its second long day of clearing. A few more buildings and Kilo Company could rest for the day. Suddenly, McNulty’s Marines encountered two enemy positions a block apart. Sergeant Jeffery Kirk single-handedly assaulted a machine gun team in the first house. He couldn’t seem to find a spot to get a clean shot at the machine gunners without exposing himself. Wounded, Kirk had to fall back again and again. But, he continued his assault. Finally, on his third try, he overcame the enemy machine gunners and killed them.

As Kirk’s fight raged, three close friends, Private First Class Chris Adlesperger, Lance Corporal Erick Hodges and Corporal Ryan Sunnerville came to a corner house, only a block east of Kirk. They entered their umpteenth courtyard of the day. Lance Corporals Alston Hays and John Aylmer and Corporal Jeremy Baker were right behind them in the gate to the street. Adlesperger went to the right and kicked in the first door. Hodges and Sunnerville headed for the second door across the courtyard and walked into a hail of machinegun fire from inside the building. The enemy had been lying in wait for the Marines. One had positioned himself so that he could shoot out into the courtyard through a small hole in the wall. His first burst of gunfire cut Hodges down.

Inside the courtyard, Navy Corpsman Alonso Rogero and Sunnerville were also hit, Rogero in the stomach and Sunnerville in the leg. The Marines exchanged fire with eleven insurgents, less than twenty feet away. Adlesperger rushed to Rogero and Sunnerville’s aid, firing toward the hidden machinegun position. All three made it into an outside alcove out of the enemy’s line of fire.

Aylmer and Hays had just started into the courtyard when the enemy machine gunner opened fire. They hugged the left wall and backed out into the street. Aylmer grabbed Hays. “Hang on.” He told Hays, “just chill right here until we know what’s going on.” Corporal Baker could see Adlesperger, Sunnerville and Rogero huddled just inside the courtyard gate. He waited for the machine gun to stop and then he rushed through the gate. Hays crossed the line of fire behind Baker and rushed into an adjacent courtyard, leaving Aylmer at the corner of the house. Inside the courtyard, Baker noticed a stairway in their alcove, leading to the roof. Baker stood at the door covering the courtyard and he sent Adlesperger to the roof.

The Darkhorse Marines had stumbled into a Chechnyan ambush. The enemy had planned to surprise the Marines as they entered the courtyard and then kill more Marines rushing to their aid. Down the alley, another enemy machine gunner patiently waited on an adjoining rooftop. With the courtyard now empty, the Muj gunner inside the house continued to fire into Hodges’ lifeless body.

Adlesperger cleared the stairway and checked the roof and then raced back to Baker and the others. “The roof is clear,” he told Baker. Baker and Adlesperger helped Sunnerville and Rogero to their feet and up the stairs, none too soon. The enemy threw several grenades into the courtyard and then they went on the attack. Several enemy fighters rushed the stairs. Adlesperger cut them down as they rounded the corner in the alcove.

Lieutenant Cragholm was just south of the house. When the shooting started, he had to make a decision – attack or take cover. In an instant, he pulled a grenade from his vest and started to round the corner into the open. Corporal Fernandez placed his hand on Cragholm’s shoulder. “Sir! No,” the corporal cautioned.

Cragholm shrugged the corporal’s hand from his shoulder and started to move forward. Fernandez grabbed Cragholm, spun him around. “Dude! NO!” He shouted into his platoon commander’s face just as a hundred machine gun rounds peppered the wall just outside the courtyard. Had Cragholm moved into the open, he would have been dead. Cragholm, stopped, took a deep breath and immediately calmed. “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.” From this point forward, he became a warrior, not an excited, green lieutenant.

Aylmer was in the second machine gunner’s line of fire. Bullets hit all around. One punctured his pant leg. Miraculously, none of the rounds found their target. Aylmer waited for the gunner to stop to reload and then he sprinted south in Hays’ footsteps into the adjacent courtyard.

Cragholm started positioning his men to support Adlesperger and his wounded comrades. Corporal Terrence van Doorn’s Third Squad rushed to the adjacent rooftop and found a brick wall separating them from the trapped Marines. They pushed on the wall and it toppled over. Still, the enemy machine gunners were holding Kilo Company at bay. The Marines could not get at the barricaded enemy fighters and they couldn’t call in artillery or close air support while Adlesperger, Rogero and Sunnerville were on the roof.

Inside, two more insurgents charged into the courtyard. Adlesperger greeted them with a fragmentation grenade. One tried to run up the stairs to avoid the explosion, the other ran into the street. Adlesperger shot the man as he ran up the stairs and a dozen Marines sprayed the other man as soon as he stepped into the street. Then, three more insurgents charged out of the house into the courtyard. One tried to get Hodges’ SAW. Adlesperger killed all three from his perch above.

McNulty was in the street between Kirk’s and Hodges’ houses. He had the company’s FiST team and his CAAT vehicles with him when the fighting broke out. He could hear the machine gun fire and his Marines yelling, but he couldn’t figure out where the fight was developing. Gunshots rang out on his right as Kirk made his repeated charges toward the entrenched enemy machine gunners and then shots echoed on his left as Adlesperger fought to protect his friends. An AMTRAC was parked just ahead of the CAAT vehicle. McNulty quickly ordered the up-gunner to open fire. The Marine opened fire on Adlesperger’s house at point blank range, with his .50 caliber machine gun, chipping away large chunks of the building with each round.

McNulty rushed across the street with his First Sergeant, Steve Knox, and some of Taylor’s SEALs to get a better view of the fight. They rushed a building that was catty-corner to Adlesperger’s house, quickly cleared the rooms and then rushed to the roof.

Baker kept trying to call his company commander to tell him that Hodges was trapped in the courtyard. All McNulty could make out was “Hajis in the courtyard.”

By now, van Doorn and his squad had reached Baker, Adlesperger, Sunnerville and Rogero. They helped them climb onto their roof and then rushed the wounded down to a waiting casevac vehicle.

As McNulty positioned himself to command the assault, nearly all of Kilo Company was moving in on Hodge’s house. Once McNulty understood the situation, he moved back down into the street and crossed over to the south wall of the courtyard. He ordered the AMTRAC to push in the blue courtyard gate. The moment the track backed away from the crumpled gate, McNulty pitched two grenades into the courtyard.

By now, Adlesperger, Baker and van Doorn’s squad were down on the street. Adlesperger’s face was bloodied by shrapnel. His blouse was riddled with bullet holes, but he refused to be casevaced until Hodges’ body was recovered. Finally, Baker, also with a bloody face, could finally report to his Company Commander. He told him, “Hodges is in the courtyard.”

McNulty immediately ordered his Marines into the courtyard. Adlesperger led the three-man stack through the collapsed courtyard wall with Baker and McNulty following. As McNulty entered the courtyard, he noticed a wounded insurgent reaching for his weapon. McNulty turned and shot and killed the last holdout as Adlesperger and Baker looked for Hodges’ body. They finally found their friend, buried in the rubble of the collapsed wall. They cleared the rubble and removed his body. Then McNulty had the house completely demolished. Adlesperger, Hodges and Sunnerville had entered an enemy command center. By the time Darkhorse’s fight was over, the Marines had killed fifty enemy fighters in that area. From this point forward the enemy would fight to the death with a fatal fanaticism.

Read the entire story of the fight to free Fallujah in New Dawn: The Battles for Fallujah.

[2] Captain Andrew McNulty, USMC. Raw ABC news footage taken by Geoffrey Thorpe-Willett. Disk #4 18:45

[3] High Explosive, Anti-Tank.

[4] Col Tucker telephone interview, 1/10/08.

New Dawn

American combat operations have ceased and our work in Iraq has shifted to a support role under a new operation name. Now, with the departure of the last combat battalion, the effort will change to Operation New Dawn.

When LTG Thomas Metz, CG of The Phantom Brigade, began preparations for the final fight to free Fallujah in 2004, he named the US military Operation – Phantom Fury. Generals Metz and Casey worked very hard to bring the Iraqi Army on board. They wanted the new Iraqi Army to become a partner in Operation Phantom Fury and to help bring peace and stability to Fallujah.

When the Iraqi Army made the commitment to participate, they assigned their own name to the Operation – Al Fajr or “The Dawn.” Al Fajr is a passage in the Koran. It speaks of wrongdoers returning to the graces of Allah and of a “New Dawn” of peace and enlightenment.

I could have easily named my book “The Dawn,” but I took literary license and used NEW DAWN. There has never been an operation named “New Dawn.” The 2004 attack on Fallujah was Operation al Fajr.

Earlier this year, after reading an advance copy of New Dawn, General David Petraeus requested that the name of America’s operations in Iraq be renamed. Today, the Iraqis are free to forge their own destiny and Operation Iraqi Freedom is over. Many wrongdoers have returned to the graces of Allah and there is a New Dawn of hope for the Iraqi people.

But, in the words of one of the 21^st Century’s foremost experts in counterinsurgent warfare, David Kilcullen, ““In modern counterinsurgency, ‘victory’ may not be final…”

A Gold Star Mother recently thanked me for telling her son’s story. She went on to say, “My biggest fear was that he would be forgotten.”

New Dawn tells the stories of our brave young men and women at war half a world away. Ed Iwan, Jason Clairday, Antoine Smith, Chris Adlesperger and Kevin Shea will all live forever in the pages of New Dawn. Please help me to tell their stories to the American people. Go to my facebook page. Post links to my sites. Tell your frineds. Buy a book and then post a review on the site of your choice.

New Dawn tells a story you will never forget.

New Dawn has already been nominated for the 2011 Marine Corps Heritage Foundation’s ‘General Wallace M. Greene Award.’ The award is given to non-fiction writers who excel in telling the story of the United States Marine Corps.

In addition, New Dawn has been nominated for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in History.

My most honored endorsement recently came from a Marine Sergeant. He called me to tell me, “Your book is friggin awesome.” He went on to say, “I was there and it is ‘spot-on.’”

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Thank you all for your continued support.

Semper Fidelis,

Richard S. Lowry

The Perpetual Problem

The war had never really ended in Fallujah, even though Saddam’s regime was quickly deposed in the spring of 2003. Subsequently the All Americans of the 82nd Airborne Division had been given the onerous mission of securing this restive town thirty miles west of Baghdad. Unfortunately, they never had enough combat power to clear the city of an increasing number of enemy fighters. On April 28, 2003, a protest within the city turned violent and fifteen Iraqis were killed, further inflaming the local population.

The increase in violence throughout the summer and fall of 2003 prompted the American commanders to withdraw their forces to a series of camps outside the city. Fallujah became a safe haven and rallying point for hardened Saddam supporters, former Ba’ath party leaders, Republican Guard members, Iraqi Army diehards and, finally, Islamic fundamentalists. “These were hardcore insurgents who wanted nothing more than to kill Americans,” explained a high ranking officer.

The lightly armed paratroopers developed a “Fort Apache” mentality, only venturing into the city in heavily armed groups. They had not expected so much civilian discontent, but they quickly realized that the people were tied to centuries of local tribe and clan loyalties. Initially, the paratroopers were completely unprepared to deal with the people of Fallujah, but the soldiers worked hard to understand them and their history.

The Euphrates River cuts a swath through the Iraqi wasteland, bringing life-giving water to the Fertile Crescent. Vast barren plains lie to the north, east, and west of Fallujah. The city is an ancient crossroads and Euphrates River crossing connecting Saudi Arabia in the south with Syria and Turkey in the north. The river and roads are lifelines of trade. Fallujah has always been a hub of commerce, both legal and illegal. The main east-west road— Iraq’s oldest and most important commercial artery— is its link to the western world and today known as Highway 10, connecting Baghdad with Amman, Jordan.

Because of Fallujah’s location, control of the city has been contested since antiquity. In the 18th century B.C., Hammurabi expanded his Babylonian empire when he acquired the ancient city of Sippar. During the 1st century A.D., the Romans, Trojans, Arabs, and Persians fought at one time or another for control of what is now known as Fallujah. When the Mongols laid waste to Baghdad in 1258 A.D., Iraq’s economy fell into ruin. Iraq’s civilization lay dormant for centuries until the Iraqi people were conquered by the Ottomans in the 16th century. Control of the Fertile Crescent flipped back and forth between the Ottomans and the Persians for hundreds of years until the Turks reasserted their rule in the early 1800s.

After the Ottoman Empire sided with the Germans in World War I, England fought a series of battles against the Turks along the Euphrates River valley. After the Allied victory in 1918, the British occupied what is now known as Iraq. In 1920 resistance to their occupation increased—and was uncannily similar to what America experienced in the months following the 2003 invasion. Fallujah, the divided city, was one of the flashpoints. The British learned quickly that reconciliation was the key to success in this ancient land. “Fallujah,” explained a regional expert, “had become the symbol of the resistance and had to become the symbol of the reconciliation process.” Thus the British worked to woo the tribal and clan leaders, and Fallujah soon became a model for the nation. As a symbol of national pride, the British selected Fallujah as the site for the coronation of King Faisal, the new pro-British leader, on August 23, 1921.

Throughout the turbulent history of Anbar Province, daily life, business, and government have all revolved around its families, clans, and tribes. The province’s rugged people depend upon one another to survive in an austere environment. Their ancestors learned that the only way to endure through the blistering summers, whimsical shifts in the Euphrates River, and even more whimsical changes in government, was by helping each other. The people are close-knit, fiercely loyal, radically independent, and distrusting of outsiders. They have been ruled by the leaders of their clans and tribes for as long as can be remembered. In 2003, the most prominent tribal leader was Sheik Abdullah Al Janabi, the self-proclaimed leader of the city’s governing Shura Council. Janabi’s tribe was the most hostile to the Americans.

With the ever-shifting political climate, the tribes and clans have had little regard for the country’s artificial international boundaries. To the people of Anbar, smuggling is all in a day’s work, a necessity of commerce. As a result, Fallujah is peppered with trucking industry businesses. Flatbeds and long-haul trucks continually clog the main road. Truck stops, machine shops, and junkyards dominate the industrial area. If you need a tire changed, a chassis welded, a radiator soldered, or a new radio installed, Fallujahans stand ready to provide the service. Once the Americans arrived, the people of Fallujah had the talent, resources, and inclination to smuggle weapons and manufacture IEDs.

Fallujah’s main thoroughfare teemed with BMWs, donkey carts, and long-haul trucks. The road was lined with a mixture of magnificent mansions, majestic mosques, multi-storied concrete buildings, and mudbrick shanties. Throughout the city there were many poor neighborhoods, some middle-class areas, and enclaves with luxurious homes. More large mansions and estates lined the banks of the Euphrates River.

Like most Iraqi cities, Fallujah was built of cinder blocks. Nearly every building was surrounded by a wall. Some walls had been meticulously constructed, the obvious work of a proud stonemason. But many had the look of the repetitive cycle of destruction, repair, more destruction, and hasty reassembly, thrown together in a helter-skelter fashion with blocks stacked upon blocks with little or no mortar, just waiting to be pushed over again. Most houses were small, two- or three-story buildings with concrete slab floors and thick roofs. Others were large, with landscaped courtyards, marble floors, and ornate furnishings.

Fallujah’s homes had been built to shelter their residents from the sweltering heat of the Iraqi summers. They also served to protect their residents from the continuous cycle of senseless violence. Concrete walls and roofs were sometimes three feet thick, with another three feet of dirt piled on the flat roofs. They were veritable bunkers. Most courtyard doors were made of sheet metal with two or three locks. Doors leading into homes were either metal or protected by a locked metal gate.

Because of this, Fallujah could not have been more attractive to the resistance. The population was distrusting of outsiders and naturally rebellious. Its workers provided the wherewithal to smuggle weapons, explosives, and foreign fighters. Its craftsmen provided the talent to build bombs, and every home was a mini-fortress.

As 2003 turned to 2004, the cancer inside Fallujah was growing. Most Fallujahans were unemployed. The insurgents launched attacks on nearby Baghdad and to control commercial traffic. The city was home to gunrunners and smugglers. It seemed as if every storefront had a backroom full of weapons. Everyone knew who specialized in particular items: some sold machine guns, and others provided sophisticated night-vision devices. The local bazaars were crawling with merchants of death.

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NEW DAWN

FOREWORD

PART III

Despite our resolve, we did have some lingering concern of the attack’s timing and the US Presidential election.  On a secure videoconference outlining the attack to the President, he assured us that he saw no connection between the US election and our mission in Fallujah.  In addition, he gave commanders in Iraq the guidance we needed to successfully take out the cancerous safe haven there.

With total support from the chain of command, our options grew.  Special programs gave us valuable and timely intelligence. Iraqi battalions were recruited and trained.  The 1^st Cavalry’s Blackjack Brigade Combat Team’s early departure was delayed.  After gaining the United Kingdom’s support, we moved one of their battalions to just southeast of Fallujah to free more Marines for the Fallujah fight.  General Casey won the confidence of Prime Minister Allawi and the support of the young Iraq government. As the battle neared, Prime Minister Allawi disbanded the Fallujah Brigade, established a 24 hour curfew, and prohibited carrying of weapons in Fallujah – actions that were instrumental to success in Operation New Dawn (we agreed with the Iraqi leaders to rename the operation – an important concession to help win their support).

A dominate combat power force was planned, and this force began to train and ready itself for Operation New Dawn. The team work in preparation was splendid – from the tactical level to the strategic level all were aligned, but with one very subjective part unknown: Information Operations.

Doctrinally we were doing everything right in the Information Operations domain.  Deception feints were successful.  Psyops operations were also very successful, as almost 90% of the population departed Fallujah.  And even with over 200,000 moving out of the city, the exodus did not create the humanitarian problem many predicted.  Our electronic warfare efforts were superb: we listened when we wanted to and jammed when we did not want the enemy to communicate inside or outside Fallujah.  We knew the enemy remained convinced that we would not attack them and that if we did, they would prevail.  We could not hide the movement of massive combat power, but our operational security supported our IO efforts, and the enemy remained confused before and during the battle.  Computer network operations were managed well above the NMC-I/MNF-I levels.  Doctrinally, we were on top of the Information Operations, but I saw one remaining challenge: “The IO Threshold.”

Since the first battle for Fallujah was lost in some measure due to the enemy’s use of information – albeit false information – General Casey could have impose strict rules of engagement for the second battle of Fallujah. On the other hand, General Sattler, MNF-W Commander, had every right to unleash as much combat power has he needed to protect his force and achieve the mission.

Relationships are as important in the military as they are in many other professions; friendships make those relationships tight and loyal threads bind warfighters.  And so it was with General George Casey, Lt. Gen. John Sattler, and me. George trusted his team to adhere to our standard rules of engagement and allowed his operational and tactical commanders to orchestrate this battle.  I would go to John and tell him that we can’t lose this battle before it starts, so his prep must stay beneath the IO Threshold.  In turn, I’d go to George to gain his support for using all available combat power regardless of what the media says until the enemy was defeated.  We were absolutely confident that our Marines and Soldiers would defeat the enemy in Fallujah.

There were, of course, IO challenges we could anticipate and for which we could plan.  We took control of the hospital the evening before the main attack on Fallujah, removing it from the enemy’s IO platform.  When the enemy uses a mosque, school or hospital from which to fight that structure loses its protection under the Fourth Geneva Convention and Rules of Land Warfare.  But since a majority of our young men and women carry digital cameras in their pockets, I asked them to take a picture of the enemy’s misuse of these facilities before rightly using overwhelming combat power against them.  When I visited young commanders, I emphasized to them that to win this battle I needed digital pictures coming my way as much as they needed main gun tank rounds headed toward the enemy.  I knew our Marines and Soldiers were good enough to win the total information war.

We were ready with a plan to strike at the enemy’s strength quickly with overwhelming combat power, political support from home, the Coalition Partners, and the sovereign Iraqi government, and an understanding of the “IO Threshold” by commanders and warfighters alike.  The real burden then fell to Marines, Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen to get the job done, and Richard Lowry has masterfully captured the hard, dangerous, personal fight that took place in Operation New Dawn.  His research and accuracy will not only be enjoyed by readers today, but also help historians for years to come. He has honored young leaders and warfighters as he covers their actions minute-to-minute throughout one of the toughest urban fights in which Americans have fought.

I want to thank Richard for the honor of writing this forward because his book superbly records the major challenge of III Corps’ success in Iraq.  Each of the major units in the Corps fought numerous successful tactical battles.  The operational success achieved in Operation New Dawn by MNF-W, MNC-I, MNF-I and the Iraqi Government then led to the strategic success of national elections in January 2005.

In his book, Richard Lowry has brilliantly captured the successes of the young men and women of all the services who fought and supported Operation New Dawn.  To them and Richard, we owe a debt of gratitude. God Bless them all and God Bless America!

LTG Thomas Metz USA (ret.)

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FOREWORD

PART II

All units took on the task of guarding logistics convoys, and notwithstanding the significant fight in which they found themselves in the northern part of the Sunni triangle, we carved a reserve out of the 1^st Infantry Division.  We increased this reserve by taking a Stryker Battalion from the Multi-National Brigade-North, which added risk to an economy of force operation – a risk that I felt had to be taken.

As for Fallujah, American, Iraqi and international media were strongly criticizing Marine tactics there, while supplies of ammunition, fuel, and water were running low.  As a result of our inability to disrupt the enemy’s effective use of information operations, the political support for continued operations was withdrawn, and the Marines were ordered to withdraw from Fallujah.  The solution was to form an Iraqi unit, the “Fallujah Brigade,” which would be tasked to control the city and bring the Blackwater contractors’ murderers to justice.  Although we all wanted the “Fallujah Brigade” experiment to be successful, very few coalition leaders were optimistic.

As we were transferring authority of Baghdad from the 1^st Armor Division to the 1^st Cavalry Division, young Soldiers were being killed during their last and first weeks in country.  But we decided to keep the 1^st Armor Division an extra ninety days to give the Coalition the combat power to put out the up-rising hot spots, especially in the central south part of Iraq.  Working closely with leaders like Jim Conway, Jim Mattis, Marty Dempsey, Pete Chiarelli, John Batiste, and Carter Ham, the following critical lessons learned were seared into my professional heart during the spring of 2004:

• Information operations are critical to victory on today’s battlefield; you must consider the IO effect of every lethal and non-lethal decision
• Commanders must think through the second and third order effects of their actions or in actions and never forget that failure to make a decision is a decision
• Our doctrine demands a reserve, so follow the doctrine.
• Never take your eye off logistics
• When fighting with a host nation in a counter insurgency, you must start together,  stay together and finish together
• Our young leaders in brigades, regiments and battalions know how to fight “jointly” and can do so with superior effectiveness on today’s battlefield. Senior leaders must maneuver and support them effectively

I promised myself that I would take these lessons and ensure that I had learned from them.  My gut told me that I would need them before my tour in Iraq was complete.

Behind the chaos of the April uprising, the plans for creating the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I) and its subordinate ground component command, the Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I), were taking shape.  By June, MNC-I was fully operational and MNF-I was in its initial operation capacity. CJTF-7 and CPA were inactivated, Iraq was a sovereign government, and the Fallujah Brigade experiment had indeed proven to be a terrible failure: its leaders were in full cooperation with our enemies.  The experiment to let Iraqi forces control a city had failed, and our enemies had a safe haven from which to operate.

The density of our enemies in Fallujah gave our special operations forces a “target-rich environment”.  As these special operations attacks continued over the summer of 2004, and as I realized that the international media covered them less and less, I coined the non-doctrinal term “IO Threshold.” Simply put, the IO Threshold is the boundary below which the media is not interested and above which they are. This concept would play an important part of the second battle of Fallujah.

One evening while in an informal meeting with General Casey and his staff, I asked in how many Iraqi cities do we have to have successful elections for the total elections to be successful?  I answered my question “Baghdad, Basra, Mosel” and then paused.  My good friend General Casey picked up the idea and challenged his staff to develop an answer.  I knew that if Fallujah was one of these cities, we would have to retake it from the enemy in the coming months.

Over the summer and fall, the Fallujah cancer grew, and few leaders in MNF-I, in the Iraqi government, in the Coalition partners or at home in America could accept the status quo there.  Too much violence from Fallujah was moving north to Mosel, east to Baghdad and south to Sunni insurgents who were in a very good position to impact our main supply route into Baghdad.  It was decided that Fallujah had to be taken before the election of January 2005.

From my earlier experiences, I insisted the retaking of Fallujah would be a Corps operation.  When we eventually attacked the enemy there, we would have to be ready for the same kind of nationwide uprising that we experienced in April.  The Corps is a resource provider, and I ordered that the fuel, water and ammunition available inside Iraq be doubled. For example, we went from storing 7 million gallons of diesel fuel in Iraq to almost 15 million gallons. Subordinate commanders across the Coalition were brought into the planning process. Senior commanders and civilian leaders supported our planning process with very positive coordination. For once, the bureaucrats were prone to say “yes”  instead of “no” and the full power of the Coalition would be brought upon the enemy in Fallujah.  My staff recommended the name of this operation be called Operation Phantom Fury, and as the Commander of Fort Hood, Texas’s Phantom Corps, I approved.  Fury was a very good description of my intent.

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I have had several requests for advanced copies of New Dawn. Like you all, I am waiting for the book to roll off the presses. I have no review copies left, so I am starting a series that I will be updating throughout April. I will start at the beginning of the book and post the Foreword, Preface and Chapter 1.

FOREWORD

PART 1

LTG Thomas F. Metz USA (ret.)

In this superbly written book detailing the battles for Fallujah, Richard Lowry focuses on powerful accounts of the tactical campaign.  Braving the toughest urban combat since World War II, our Marines, Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen cleared the way for success at the operational and strategic levels of Operation Iraq Freedom (OIF-I).  As the Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I) commander during Operation New Dawn, I was honored to observe the superb performance of our young men and women; quite simply, their valiance turned the tide.  Today’s readers and tomorrow’s historians will be most thankful that Richard devoted years of his life to ensure New Dawn not only accurately documents these battles, but also rightfully gives the credit to those young Americans whose sacrifices made success possible.

In the fall of 2001, I was already on orders to leave my assignment in the Pentagon as Vice Director of the J8 to command the 24^th Infantry Division and Fort Riley, Kansas.  On the afternoon of September 11^th – after the Twin Towers had collapsed, after American Airlines Flight 77 had slammed into the Pentagon, and after I saw first-hand the devastation that could be wrought by global terrorism – I knew that I would be focused on training and preparing soldiers for war.  I had no vision of what that war would look like, but I knew that the Army in which I enlisted after high school graduation and had served ever since was going to be at war in the twilight of my career.

That afternoon, I could not have envisioned becoming the CENTCOM Chief of Staff during the final planning phases of Operation Iraq Freedom, nor of taking command of the III Corps, deploying it to Iraq, and becoming the senior commander of the ground forces there with the mission of helping its people hold their first free elections.

I had never heard of Fallujah, and I certainly could not envision developing a Corps Operation three years later to rid this city of the thugs, criminals, foreign fighters, insurgents and Al Qaeda operatives whose occupation of Fallujah was a significant obstacle to Iraqi democracy.  On the afternoon of September 11^th, I could not have imagined that my entire career would now point to one operation – an end to the enemy occupation of Fallujah, which was a malignant tumor that needed to be cut away and destroyed. Defeating the enemy in Fallujah would be essential to Iraq’s first successful elections in January 2005. Fortunately, we had the world’s best warfighters, whom Richard has so aptly honored in his book.

On my pre-deployment sight survey prior to moving III Corps Headquarters to Iraq, I met with General Abizaid and learned that LTG Ric Sanchez would remain in Iraq as the Coalition Joint Task Force-7 (CJTF-7) Commander focused on the strategic level of Operation Iraq Freedom. General Abizaid needed me to focus on the day to day operations. As Colonels, Ric and I overlapped for a year at Fort Riley and were accustomed to working together. Based upon General Abizaid’s guidance, I leaned into the operational fight and intelligence that supported it. With a career in the operational Army, I was ready to use my education, training and experiences to successfully achieve our goals in Iraq.

Violence was down in the first three months of 2004 due to Saddam’s capture, but that changed March 31^st when insurgents in Fallujah dragged four Blackwater contractors from their SUVs, beat them savagely, and set them on fire.  The brutal desecration of their bodies – pictures of which were infamously broadcast around the world – prompted some leaders to advocate immediate retaliation.  But although a response was justified, hindsight tells us a more carefully considered one would have better served our short- and long-term goals.

Two concurrent decisions proved also to be missteps – the capture of one of Muqtada al-Sadr’s top deputies and the closure of Al Hawza, a newspaper published by his supporters.  And for good reasons, many leaders – from Anbar, Baghdad, CENTCOM, DoD and on to the White House – were focused on a battle of revenge in Fallujah.  But because of these three uncoordinated, concurrent decisions with respect to Fallujah and Sadr, the Coalition was fighting extreme Sunni and Shia forces across almost the entire country of Iraq by the second week in April.

As LTG Sanchez and Ambassador Bremer focused on Fallujah, I turned to the remainder of the country to help the Coalition’s division and brigade commanders get the resources to successfully put down the uprising.  The enemy destroyed about a dozen bridges on our main supply route from Kuwait, and ambushed convoys at will across the country.  Battle was joined in neighborhoods across Baghdad.  Five thousand gallon tankers could be seen burning from our headquarters. The British and coalition partners were holding their own in the south, but the Poles and coalition partners in south-central Iraq needed help.

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It is hard to believe that it has been seven  years since Jessica Lynch and the 507th Maintenance Company rolled through the dusty streets of An Nasiriyah on March 23, 2003.  Eleven of Jessica’s fellow soldiers were killed that morning, five were captured and a dozen more injured. Lynch was critically injured and near death when she was brought into a military hospital near the site of her ambush.

Within hours of the ambush, the North Carolina Marines of Task Force Tarawa moved to secure the bridges in An Nasiriyah. LtCol Rickey Grabowski’s 1st Battalion, of the 2nd Marine Regiment rolled into the city and encountered stiff resistance. By midmorning they had rescued nearly half of the soldiers who had been ambushed and by noon the Marines were charging forward through a hail of RPGs, AK-47 gunfire, mortar and artillery barrages. By sunset, Grabowski’s Marines had secured their objectives but at a terrible cost. Eighteen of America’s finest died and another dozen were wounded.

In all, twenty-nine Americans died that day in An Nasiriyah. Their story has never really been told. Initially, the situation in Nasiriyah was so confusing that no one knew the connection between the 507th Maintenance Company and the brave Marines of the 2d Marine Regiment. At first, Jessica’s capture was kept quiet for fear that the enemy would move her or worse.

As the days and weeks passed, the news media moved on to Lynch’s rescue and then the fall of Baghdad. When the Department of Defense finally sorted things out and released the names of the Marines and soldiers who died that day, the media took very little interest. No one ever realized that that bloody day in Nasiriyah, on March 23rd, was the costliest day of combat for America in the invasion of Iraq. These twenty-nine American soldiers and Marines were never given a fitting tribute to the ultimate sacrifice they made while in the service of their country.

Before sunrise on the 23rd on March 2003, thirty-three soldiers, traveling in eighteen trucks, stumbled into the dusty desert city of An Nasiriyah. It wasn’t until they had driven all the way through the city that they realized that they were hopelessly lost. As soon as they turned around and tried to retrace their path, every Iraqi with a gun started shooting at the beleaguered convoy. The lead three vehicles managed to run the gauntlet and get back to the U.S. Marines’ front lines.

The next five vehicles broke down and ten soldiers scrambled for cover in a nearby ditch. Surrounded, they each vowed to go down fighting. They had fought to hold off the enemy for nearly an hour, when Major Bill Peeples and the Marine tankers of Alpha Company, 8th Tanks arrived to save the day. The Marines beat back the enemy and rushed the ten soldiers to safety.

The remaining seventeen soldiers were not so fortunate. Eleven were killed and six captured. Specialists Jamaal Addison and James Kiehl both died when their vehicle careened through an intersection and rolled over on its top. Private First Class Howard Johnson II and Private Ruben Estrella-Soto’s truck crashed at the same intersection. Sergeant Donald Walters was lost north of An Nasiriyah when his vehicle broke down. He leapt from his disabled vehicle and laid down covering fire so that the rest of his unit could turn their vehicles and get out of a horrific ambush. Private Brandon Sloan was shot and killed while the vehicle he was in was racing south. Chief Warrant Officer Johnny Mata’s truck shuddered to a stop atop a railroad overpass and burst into flames. Mata was killed, but his driver, Specialist Hudson, survived.

Near the end to the doomed convoy, First Sergeant Robert Dowdy tried to shepherd his soldiers to safety. Private First Class Lori Piestewa was driving Dowdy’s HMMWV. Specialist Edward Anguiano, Sergeant George Buggs and Private First Class Jessica Lynch were riding in the back. Piestewa managed to maneuver around obstacles and raced all the way back through Nasiriyah. When the flatbed in front of her jackknifed, Lori was unable to avoid the back of the skidding truck. She plowed into the rear of the flatbed, instantly killing Dowdy.

We know that Lori and Jessica survived the collision. It is not clear what happened to Buggs and Anguiano. When Patrick Miller approached the crash scene, he glanced in and thought everyone was dead. Hudson, Hernandez, Lynch, Miller, Piestewa, Riley, and Shoshana Johnson were all taken prisoner. Lynch and Piestewa were separated from the others and eventually ended up in the Tykar Military Hospital. Lori died while being treated, leaving Lynch alone and near death.

The soldiers of the 507th Maintenance Company that were killed that day were from all walks of life and every corner of this nation. They were a swatch cut from the American fabric and some of the first to die in this protracted war. Lori Piestewa was an American Indian and single mother. Brandon Sloan and Robert Dowdy were both from Cleveland Ohio. Brandon, 19, had left high school early to join the Army, while Dowdy, 38, was a career soldier. James Kiehl, 22, was a friendly computer technician who left behind a pregnant wife. Buggs and Anguiano were not even members of the 507th. Dowdy had convinced them to take one of their vehicles in tow two nights before. Their tow truck ran out of gas north of An Nasiriyah and Dowdy, Piestewa and Lynch had picked them up.

By noon, the Marines were pressing north to secure two vital bridges in An Nasiriyah. The fighting started long before they reached the Euphrates River but it wasn’t until they moved into downtown Nasiriyah that all hell broke loose. Alpha Company secured the Euphrates River Bridge while Bravo Company swung out to the east side of town. Charlie Company raced over the Euphrates River Bridge and charged through “Ambush Alley” to the Saddam Canal Bridge.

Eighteen Marines died in Charlie Company’s battle for that northern bridge. Donald Cline was a twenty-one year old husband and father of two young boys. Patrick Nixon loved history and wanted to eventually be a teacher. Phillip Jordan was a career Marine and loving husband and father. Fred Pokorney was a giant of a man who had just been promoted to 1st Lieutenant. Sergeant Michael Bitz was the father of two young boys and one-month old twins. David Fribley and Brian Buesing were both Florida natives. Fribley joind the Corps after 9/11 and Buesing had been in the Marines since he graduated from high school. Brendon Reiss was the son of a decorated Vietnam Veteran and Randal Rosacker was the son of a Navy Master Chief submarine sailor. Jose Garibay and Jorge Gonzalez were both from Southern California. Thomas Slocum was a 22 year old from Colorado and Nolen Hutchings was from South Carolina. They were both troubled teens that had worked to turn their lives around in the Corps.

Tamario Burkett was a young Marine from upstate New York. Kemaphoom Chanawongse was born in Thailand and came to the United States at nine years old. He was the first to have a Buddhist funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. Johnathan Gifford wanted to be a Marine since he was a little boy. Michael Williams joined the Corps late in life. At 31, he was just a Lance Corporal but older than most of the young officers he worked for. On his trip over to Iraq, he emailed his girlfriend and asked her to marry him. Thomas Blair was not a member of Charlie Company. He was part of an anti-aircraft unit that had been assigned to Charlie Company. He too, went directly into the Marine Corps after high school graduation.

Twenty-nine lives ended too soon on that clear Sunday in March. Twenty-nine families grieve to this day. These soldiers and Marines died before there was a daily box score in America’s newspapers. They have been buried under 4000 more stories. Donald Cline and Michael Williams died because they chose to help their wounded comrades.

Many more soldiers and Marines would have died that day had it not been for the Herculean efforts of men like, Private First Class Patrick Miller, Sergeant Michael Bitz, Gunnery Sergeant Jason Doran, Lieutenant Mike Seely, Captain Eric Garcia, and Major Bill Peeples. These men are true American heroes.

Read about these brave young men and women in the only book to tell the entire story of America’s first major battle in Operation Iraqi Freedom – “Marines in the Garden of Eden,” Berkley, New York.

Within hours of the Blackwater ambush on the last day of March 2004, the Marines moved to cordon off the entire city. Inside, the enemy prepared for the inevitable assault. Major General James Mattis and Lieutenant General James Conway, however, recommended restraint. The Assistant Division Commander, Brigadier General John Kelly, sought to temper America’s response in the Division’s daily report:

We have a well thought out campaign plan that considers the Fallujah problem across its very complicated spectrum. This plan most certainly includes kinetic action, but going overly kinetic at this juncture plays into the hands of the opposition in exactly the way they assume we will. This is why they shoot and throw hand grenades out of crowds, to bait us into overreaction…We should not fall victim to their hopes for a vengeful response. To react to this provocation, as heinous as it is, will likely negate the efforts of the 82nd Airborne Division paid for in blood, and complicate our campaign plan, which we have not yet been given the opportunity to implement.

Counterinsurgency forces have learned many times in the past that the desire to demonstrate force and resolve has long term and generally negative implications, and destabilize rather than stabilize the environment.

The Marine commanders did not want to further disenfranchise the people of Fallujah. They told their corps commander, U. S. Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, that they could find the perpetrators of the ambush and bring them to justice within two weeks. Sanchez passed on the Marines’ recommendation. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, however, was not impressed with the suggestion for a tempered response and ordered the Marines to attack. Conway and Mattis had delivered their recommendation as to how they thought they should respond, but when they received their orders, they—like any good Marines—unflinchingly obeyed them.

The Fight Begins: Operation Vigilant Resolve

On April 5, 2004, U.S. Marines charged into the city, destroying enemy positions and killing every enemy combatant who stood in their path. One of the Marines driving into Fallujah was Gunnery Sergeant Nicholas Popaditch. Angered by the heinous murders of the Blackwater contractors and the insurgents’ claims that Fallujah was the graveyard of Americans,“Gunny Pop” couldn’t wait to get into the fight…

Read Gunny Pop’s story and those of dozens more American heroes in “New Dawn: The Battles for Fallujah,” coming to a bookstore near you in May, 2010.  Visit www.fallujahbook.com to learn more about New Dawn and Richard S. Lowry’s coming book tour.