Phantom Fury: L 3/1, 1st Plt, 3rd Squad in Fallujah. D-Day.

November 9th, 2004: The AMTRACK’s rolled in and the ramps dropped. There we stood on the streets of Fallujah. The city was a mess; buildings were crumbled, power lines dangled, and the smell of cordite and dust filled the air. Up ahead we could hear our brothers from India and Kilo Companies exchanging gun fire with the insurgents. Lima Company was bringing up the rear for the battalion, 1st platoon was leading Lima Company, and 3rd squad, my squad, was on point for Lima Company.

We mustered on the street behind my AMTRACK and Lt. Sommers briefed the squad leaders the order of movement. And we began to walk. We were a little annoyed to be bringing up the rear; the idea that our brothers up ahead were eliminating all the bad guys before we had a chance did not sit well with the men. It would not be long before we learned the enemy’s tactic of leaving “sleepers” behind to hit us from the rear.

As we turned a corner we had to take a halt while the other companies cleared their sectors up ahead. We pushed our snipers forward and into an elevated position. A couple of my men went with them to provide security. There we stood on a street corner of Fallujah pissing and moaning about the lack of action when suddenly a burst of gunfire rang out, followed by the haunting screams of “CORPSMAN UP!”

While clearing a structure on our right flank, and a little behind us, Sergeant William James fell victim to a sleeper cell of insurgents. We could not understand how this happened since we had cleared every building on the way to our current position. My platoon sergeant, Gunnery Sergeant Matt Hackett came up to me and asked, “We cleared those, right?” “Yea, I cleared them myself.” I replied, meaning my men had cleared them. “Ok, lets hold up here and do a back clear to make sure we didn’t miss anything.” Gunny Hackett instructed me to have my guys re-clear the intersection we were standing at. It was hot and we had already walked a few miles. Mike Hanks had gone back to the AMTRACK's to get water for everybody as I moved the men around and we began to kick in doors and clear houses.

I entered a court yard with the men from my 2d fire team. We came upon a house with a door on the right and a door on the left. With the men stacked up behind me I kicked in the door on the right, turned to the side, and the men flowed in, M-16’s at the ready. It was only one room and the men called it clear. They piled out of that room and stacked up behind me as I took up a position on the other door. I kicked the door open and in what seemed like slow motion I saw the barrel of an AK-47 pointed at my head and heard the click of a trigger being pulled but without discharge. The fact that the AK-47 almost never fails did not register in my brain until many years later, but someone had determined it was not my time yet. As I turned my body out the way to clear the door way, LCpl Nicholas Larson, the number one man in the stack, did as he had been trained to do and began to make entry into the room. I could not stop him before the staccato sound of automatic gunfire rang out. The stack scattered as Nick fell back into the arms of LCpl Jacob Deleagarza (Garza). Garza, with Nick’s body found refuge in the first room we cleared. It became apparent there were multiple shooters inside the room and no matter how hard we tried to gain entry, they fought us off.

Our medium machine gun section, led by Sergeant Jack Grantham attempted to suppress the shooters so we could get closer and toss some grenades into the room. The rate of enemy gunfire increased and Grantham was hit in the leg. During the chaos I noticed a pair of US boots sticking out of the door way. “Who the fuck is that?” I yelled. At some point during the chaos, LCpl Nathan Wood, doing as he was trained to do, had attempted to make entry into the room following a grenade. He was immediately struck down. It became clear we were not going to get into this room and these insurgents were not coming out peacefully. I sent everyone out of the courtyard and then dove into the room where Delagarza and Nick’s lifeless body were holed up.

”Ok, I’m going to put down some suppressive fire on that door. You get the fuck out of here.” I gave Delagarza his instructions as we both looked at Nick’s body which now rested in the middle of 8 pints of spilled blood. I laid down in the doorway of the clear room and began shooting blindly at the rapid rate into the other room while Garza ran towards the security of the rest of the unit. I shouted out the door for the machine guns to engage the uncleared room while I made a dash out of the court yard. When I jumped up the first time I slipped in the blood of my fallen man and immediately my trousers became saturated with blood. Finally I made it out of there and found LCpl Randal Marler, our SMAW attachment gunner. “Put a fucking rocket into that building!” I told him. Marler, as cool as could be, stood in the middle of the road, puffed on his cigarette, and aimed in, while I acted as his a-gunner.

“BACK BLAST AREA ALL CLEAR! FIRE!” I shouted. Marler fired his rocket into the building and we watched it crumble. By now the HQ element of our company had moved to our position to assess the situation and collect the casualties. A few of us moved in to check the debris and recover our men. Shots rang out again. The insurgents were not dead. Lt Carin Calvin and I tried to move up and eliminate the enemy but truth is we could not see them under the wreckage. The enemy was shooting blindly but we didn’t know where those rounds were going to impact so we were forced to back out of the court yard again. I Grabbed Marler for a second time and had him fire another rocket into the pile of debris. After the second shot we moved in again and the enemy was still moving. I moved in and put them to rest. Mike Hanks took this event hard since the two men we lost were from his fire team. He had gone to get water for everyone and felt he should have been the one to get hit, not his men. As we went in to recover the bodies of Nick and Nate, I turned around and saw a bunch of antennae at my position asking a lot of questions.

“Hey! This fucking area is not secure! Spread the fuck out!” I barked.

“Gents, he’s right, spread the fuck out.” Dave Wilson, our company gunny acknowledged my assessment of the situation and had the leadership disperse the area until we deemed this intersection secure. I began to dig through the rubble trying to get to Nate’s body when sergeant’s Cam Weatherford and Jeremy Wilton came up to help me. Cam was a big man and literally put his shoulders under what was left of the building, stood up, and raised the entire structure as we snatched Nate’s body from the debris. Cam sweated and his leg shook as he held what was easily 1500 pounds of Arab concrete on his shoulders.

I’ll never forget the look on Nate’s face; when Cam lifted the roof exposing Nate for the first time he looked like a young boy taking a nap. There were no visible bullet holes in him, he didn’t even look dirty, he just looked like he was sleeping. I passed his body off to someone else and they placed him in a body bag and loaded him on to the MEDEVAC vehicle. Then we went through the same routine with Nick. When it was all over Hanks was pissed, as were the rest of the men of 3d squad, 1st platoon, Lima Company 3/1. We had just lost our first two men within the first hours of setting foot in the city. We knew right then it was going to be a long battle. Gunny Hackett walked up to me to make sure I had not been injured or lost my mind, handed me a cold Gatorade, and offered me a pinch of Copenhagen.

When I gathered up my squad to let them know Nick and Nate had been lost, the men were mad and sad – their brothers were gone. “We’ll morn for them later, right now you guys need to stay alert and watch your fucking asses!” Probably one of the shittiest things I’ve had to tell my Marines but it was true. It was D-Day and not the time to let our guard down.