My Men are My Heroes (4 page)

Meanwhile a growing number of experienced foreign fighters were making their way to Fallujah from Baghdad, Ramadi, and Mosul to the north. Exactly how many was unclear. Although the Coalition sent unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Special Forces spooks, and informants to count the growing insurgent army, the reported numbers ranged from 1,500 to 15,000, depending on who was telling the tale. The most accepted figure was about 3,000 regular fighters and another 5,000 active supporters of the insurgency, although these numbers are still hotly debated.

Calculating more refined estimates of the opposition was doubly difficult because it was so diverse. Among them were soldiers, street criminals, politically motivated secular insurgents who wanted to rule, part-time neighborhood warriors looking for glory vicious foreign fighters with murky agendas, and disenfranchised Baathists who did not necessarily agree with anyone else. There were simply too many factions with too many agendas to count them accurately. Estimates would have to do.

Some of the insurgents preferred rhetoric to combat, and others seemed almost eager to die. But not all were fractious amateurs. If that had been true, the battle would have been over in hours instead of weeks.

Marine intelligence officers identified jihadists from at least 16 countries. Among them were Saudis, Jordanians, Syrians, Yemenis, Pakistanis, Afghans, and Iranians. Many were veteran warriors who had fought in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

Most notorious among those was the infamous Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi. He had set up his al Qaeda network in Fallujah, and in the interval preceding the battle he orchestrated a few beheadings for al Jazeera television to let the world know he was back in action. At the same time Zarqawi and his followers made serious preparations for a fight-to-the-death
invasion. They organized bomb-making factories, torture chambers, and booby-trapped death houses. They also intimidated the city's residents into joining, or at least not opposing, their cause. Zarqawi's presence brought even more attention to the situation. Everyone with a title in Iraq wanted to capture him. For the moment he posed a greater evil than Osama bin Laden himself.

Some of the Iraqi fighters were formidable as well. Among them were well-trained, well-equipped, battle-hardened soldiers who had been fighting the Marines for more than five months and other Marine Corps units before them.

In their own way the insurgents were as determined as the Coalition to prevail. To have even a small chance they had cobbled themselves together into die-hard squads and companies. Most would not survive the invasion.

“Some of them were well trained and some of them had never touched a weapon before,” Buhl says. “But they were brave and willing to die. One time a squad of them blew down a house on top of themselves to kill Marines. At Fallujah I told my men to kill every one of them because if we didn't, they would be trying to kill us on our next deployment or the one after that.”

To the insurgents defending Fallujah it all made sense. They believed that they were warriors of Allah, and Allah had a plan to defeat the Marines. Fortunately for the Marines and soldiers who would soon confront them, the insurgents were wrong.

“Every Marine knew that someday we were going to have to crush them,” Buhl says.

A final battle was inevitable.

Opposing the Islamic warriors was the entire 1 st Marine Division, “The Old Breed,” 22,000 marvelously trained Marines with the temperament of junkyard dogs.

All across the northern boundary they strained at the leash to get the on-again, off-again operation under way. The Old Breed made its reputation of handling its enemies with unparalleled toughness at Guadalcanal. Marines have been dying to preserve that reputation ever since. One Marine said he would rather chew off his arm at the shoulder than tangle with the 1st Marine Division.

The heart of the Old Breed is its infantry battalions. They are the “mailed fist.” Their job is to root out the enemy and destroy them posthaste. Afterward the infantry occupies the conquered territory to provide absolute proof of who ultimately prevailed. In the battle of Fallujah, the Blue Diamonds, as the division is also called, fielded four superbly prepared, nearly self-contained battalions each with more than 1,200 highly trained Marine infantrymen. The attacking infantrymen intended to use rockets, grenades, small arms, and their fists to gain the upper hand in the city.

The 5,000 infantry were backed up by a host of supporting arms specialists including military police, recon, armor, artillery, intelligence specialists, radar operators, aviation mechanics, communication experts, aerial surveillance crews, supply units, engineers, construction troops, and linguists. These elements are designated “combat and logistical support” units and make up the essential “logistical tail” of the division.

In the thick of the action was Buhl's “Thundering Third,” a proud unit that keeps a bull for a mascot and a battle flag bearing a thick tassel of campaign streamers. In Marine Corps vernacular the Third is “Three-One,” usually written “3/1” on maps and in logs and other places where formality is unimportant. The battalion's colorful battle streamers carry the names of almost every major American conflict around the world since the
battalion was formed in 1942 at the beginning of World War II. Like most of the battalions in the 1st Marine Division, 3/1 fought in Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm.

In Korea 3/1 assaulted the fortified port of Inchon, helped capture Seoul after the landing, and cleared Hell Fire Valley on the march north to the Yalu River. The Thundering Third stayed through the war until Operation Boulder City when the last Chinese human wave attacks were launched immediately prior to the Korean armistice in 1953.

In Vietnam 3/1 fought brutal battles around An Hoa, Hoi An River, Goi Noi Island, and the terrible “Arizona” free-fire zone of immense proportions, where phantom armies and ghost troops endlessly haunted the U.S. forces.

During Operation Iraqi Freedom in the spring of 2003, 3/1 broke through fierce resistance at An Nasiriyah during the all-important fights for the bridges leading into the heart of Iraq. That fierce contest was one of the first big battles in the fledgling war, and news media from around the world focused on 3/1 Marines reducing the opposition to smoking holes while holding open the road leading through Iraqi lines.

In November 2004 3/1 was an awesome force of 1,245 Marines primed and cocked for battle. In its ranks were Grunts, combat engineers to destroy roadblocks and fortifications, and chemical experts to neutralize potential chemical weapons and biological agents thought to still be in the city. Amphibious assault vehicles (AAVs) from a Marine reserve battalion and two Iraqi National Guard (ING) companies with paper strength of 450 men each were also under Lieutenant Colonel Buhl's tactical control.

When the invasion started Kasal was still First Sergeant Kasal, the senior noncommissioned officer in 3/1's Weapons Co. That was a 170-strong team of superbly trained infantrymen who specialized in deploying the Corps' heaviest infantry weapons—mortars, rocket launchers, and automatic grenade launchers.
Buhl called the Weapons Co. the “power behind the punch.”

And “punch” is a euphemism: The Thundering Third's only reason for being is to locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire and close combat. Before the sun would set on November 7 the Iraqis who dared stay behind in Fallujah would experience the mighty Thundering Third.

In the days immediately preceding the battle, in Baghdad and Fallujah proper, the antagonists rattled their sabers and postured for the media one final time, spouting rhetoric for the attentive press. On the Coalition side, sniper teams and specially trained reconnaissance units probed the insurgent defenses and performed so-called “demonstrations”—small limited-duration attacks—to confuse the enemy as to where the main attack would originate. In turn the insurgents set up IED ambushes, sniped at the Marines, and moved small units around the city for essentially the same reasons.

Then on November 7 a brigade from the Army's famed 1st Cavalry Division set up a cordon of interlocking fighting positions around the southern and western boundaries of the city to catch anyone fleeing the city there. To the north and east of Fallujah were Marines and soldiers doing the same thing. At the same time the Coalition announced that anyone staying behind in Fallujah after November 8 would be considered the enemy. The plan was to make sure the insurgents had nothing but a Hobson's choice: Surrender and face 30 years in prison or fight and die.

The Coalition had already identified most of the hard targets inside the city using UAVs and other sources. The 3/1 and everyone else in the attacking force knew generally where many of the suspected fighting positions were, as well as where the insurgents stored their weapons and supplies and where they assembled. It was time to take these targets out.

Soon Air Force and Marine Corps aviators zoomed overhead, shaping the battlefield with laser-guided bombs and Hellfire missiles. “Shaping” is a relatively new word in military vernacular. Its innocuous name disguises its terrible implications. Shaping means destroying every identifiable hard target inside the combat arena. To do it the Coalition used Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs), a type of deadly accurate GPS-guided bomb dropped from Marine, Air Force, and Navy fighter-bombers; Hellfire and TOW missiles from orbiting attack helicopters; aerial-launched unguided missiles of several varieties; and conventional 500- to 2,000-pound dumb bombs. They also used 30mm cannon fire from Air Force A-10 “Warthog” ground-attack aircraft and aerial artillery from AC-130H “Spectre” gunships—the heavily armed night-fighting version of the lumbering four-engine turboprop C-130 Hercules transport in service since the late 1950s. The Warthog's tank-busting cannon used depleted uranium-cored bullets to consume targets, and the Spectre used a battery of 105mm cannon as well as 40mm and 25mm automatic cannon.

Each aerial display brought home the sound of secondary explosions when the insurgents' ammo dumps, explosive-filled vehicles, and daisy chains of IED-laden buildings went up in huge, smoky fireballs. Adding insult to injury the Coalition aircraft destroyed all the vehicles that had been parked in the same location for more than three days on the assumption they were car bombs. Hundreds of insurgents died and plenty more lost their will to fight before the ground campaign had even begun. All in all it was a hectic day for Iraqi automobile owners. Even Kasal's Marines were impressed.

Meanwhile 3/1 wasn't just watching; its assignment involved taking out a huge train station. The ING would then follow behind the main force and seek out the hidden weapons and desperate insurgents left behind after the main attack. Leading them were
two cobbled-together 20-man platoons from 3/1 charged with training their newfound Iraqi brothers.

The Thundering Third got busy at 3:00 a.m. on November 8, which was called “D+1,” when it moved into its attack positions on the north edge of the city. The 3/1's first mission was to exploit a breach in the fortified line separating the combatants that Marine and Army engineers intended to blow the next morning.

In front of them all were Army M1A1 Abrams heavy tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles (BAFVs) from the 2d of the 7th Cavalry, better known as the “Ghost Battalion.” The proud 2/7 Cav within the 1st Cavalry Division dates to the Indian Wars in the 1870s. The Ghosts were assigned to provide an armored shield for the Marines to maneuver behind when they entered the fortified city. The 62-ton M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks and 25-ton M2A3 Armored Fighting Vehicles filled with Army cavalrymen were both far more powerful than anything the Marines had within the battalion. The Abrams 120mm main gun was an irresistible force and the Bradley 25mm chain gun devoured soft targets as though they were cotton candy. Initially the armored vehicles staged behind 3/1's position where they set up their Tactical Operations Center (TOC). Until the fight commenced they were encamped about a mile north of Fallujah proper. They would move ahead of the Marines November 9 when the main attack commenced.

3/1's long-anticipated attack began on the ninth, a few hours after Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi gave the green light and the Marines and soldiers were finally unleashed. At the first sound of the guns the insurgents seemed eager to fight. They used the unexpected six-month political respite to turn Fallujah's 140,000 or so stout concrete buildings into death-filled
fortresses. Armed with time and emboldened by the false peace, the insurgents were laying the fiercest battleground United States Marines would struggle over since their epic fight for Hue.

For once the weather was not a factor, although at night the Marines were putting on everything they could wear to keep warm. Temperatures were hovering between the upper 30s and low 40s after the sun went down. In the daytime temperatures rose into the 80s. For the encumbered Marines it was hot enough but not as stultifying as it would have been at the height of summer. Luckily the sky was clear and visibility was generally good. At night the stars brightened the sky and allowed the men using night vision goggles to clearly see when the enemy moved. As the battle progressed smoke, clouds, and billowing dust would become a problem, but that was still in the future.

The Marines and soldiers in Fallujah fought 24 hours a day clearing the insurgents from the city house by house and hole by hole. When they took heavy fire from a house or strongpoint, the Marines would call for tank support. The tankers in the 7th Cav were glad to oblige, opening up on the house with their 120mm main gun or their .50-caliber machine guns, literally knocking it to the ground. After a few minutes of suppressive fire the Marines would go into the problem building and clear it. There was rarely anyone left alive at that point. Unfortunately there weren't enough tanks to go around and the Marines were often forced to dig the enemy out with their personal weapons and guts. The fight would last until December 6 when the last insurgent had either died or, rarely, surrendered.