Let's Roll !!
Posted on 04/12/2004 7:22:45 PM PDT by 11th_VA
FALLUJAH, Iraq ---- Attacking with mortars and machine guns as men chanted prayers on loudspeakers from neighborhood mosques, rebels broke a two-day cease-fire in northwest Fallujah at about 8 p.m. Monday.
At least five U.S. Marines from Camp Pendleton received minor wounds in the first few seconds of fighting when a mortar round struck the roof of a house that they were occupying.
"I guess it's safe to say that the cease-fire is over," said Sgt. Warren Hardy yelled into a radio as Marines scrambled to positions on rooftops to get better shots down alleyways and across intersections.
At least three infantry companies from the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment were engaged in fighting that waxed and waned for an hour Monday night.
Marine leaders said the troops would defend themselves and hold their ground but would not let the attack escalate into the sort of fierce street fighting that involved air strikes and tanks last week.
"They are poking at us to see what we will do," said Capt. Kyle Stoddard, commander of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. "They want us to come out with bigger and bigger weapons systems so they can say, 'Look what the Americans are doing.' They just want to escalate this."
Stoddard added that the five casualties were minor shrapnel wounds.
While ongoing negotiations between insurgent factions and tribal sheiks kept a lid on fighting for most of Monday in Fallujah, U.S. Marines occupying battle-scarred buildings at the edge of town said they were ready to resume the fight if they had to.
"We're really in limbo now. We're waiting to see how the Iraqis are going to resolve this," said Stoddard early in the day.
The captain's company of infantrymen was the first to heavily engage insurgents in northwest Fallujah when the Marines in the early morning of April 5 tried to establish a cordon around the city.
One Marine from Fox Company was killed that first day and two were wounded on April 6 when heavy fighting drew Stoddard and his men further into the city. There they fought for a foothold in several blocks on the northwest corner of town near the Euphrates River.
Monday, with few insurgents willing to risk all and take a shot at his men, Stoddard said he believed the insurgents and townspeople who tolerated or supported them were having second thoughts about resisting U.S. forces.
"Now that they've seen a portion of the lethality that we are capable of, they don't want us to go in (to take the city)," Stoddard said. "We'd have to level Fallujah to save Fallujah, and then we'd have to stay to rebuild. So now it's up to them. We're ready either way, but the ball's in the Iraqis' court now."
There was little confidence among the Marines that a cease-fire would hold, or that peace was even a good thing in the short run.
Rooftops provide city view
After watching the sun rise Monday from an Iraqi family's rooftop looking south over the north side of the city, Sgt. James Hollon spat tobacco spittle and checked the scope on his rifle.
Hollon, 24, of Deer Park, Texas, was just about to complete his two-hour guard shift while most of the other 20 or so Marines from a squad in 2nd Platoon were fast asleep.
"Well what's going on here?" Hollon asked rhetorically, scanning with his rifle and listening to AC-DC's "Hell's Bells" over his inter-squad radio.
He leaned against a wall that, like most in the neighborhood, was pocked and burned from the bullets and grenades that were hurled back and forth for days last week.
The skyline beyond was a monotonous beige expanse of right angles from rectangular buildings.
The sea of rooftops, which were cluttered with stuff, was punctuated by cellular towers and date palms, satellite dishes and the tall colorful minarets of the dozens of mosques that rise above each neighborhood in the city.
Hollon spat more brown tobacco slobber.
"It's gettin' kinda borin' around here," he said. "I think this cease-fire bullshit is just giving them a chance to regroup. They took some serious hits in the last few days."
Hollon said he believed the chanting broadcast from the mosque the night before was probably a signal to the insurgents and information about the cease-fire rather than the customary calls to prayer.
"Ain't nobody but bad guys out there now," he said.
He added with some satisfaction that he thought the Marines at least had the insurgents on the run.
"I hope they feel like they ain't got nowhere to go," Hollon said. "That would be nice."
Reporting for duty
The guy whose job it was to make sure the insurgents feel like they've got nowhere to hide in Fox Company's sector was Stoddard, the company commander.
Just after 8 a.m. Monday, Stoddard showed up for work, climbing the last step on the concrete staircase to the roof.
Sitting down to his post, which consisted of a chair and small worktable along a wall with a view south over the city, Stoddard set out his gear: maps, some pens, a radio, notebooks and a shiny red apple. Know one knew where the apple came from.
After he made his first few radio checks, ordered a resupply of chow and water, and asked the machine gunners on his right and left how they were doing, Stoddard said the cease-fire only tied his men to their location, but did not limit their ability to fight back.
"We just have to be more picky," said Stoddard, a short, strong New Yorker who always manages to remain composed, polite and cheery even in Fallujah, in the heat in battle or the boredom of a cease fire. He has been known to address his men as "gentlemen" on the battlefield.
As Monday's relative peace wore on and bore down on the troops who were inside the houses and manning the rooftops, bright spots consisted of news from home and enemy attacks with rocket-propelled grenades.
"I guess they didn't get the memo about the cease-fire," cracked 1st Lt. Eric Thorliefson after rebels fired several grenades and automatic rifles at one of the homes occupied by the Marines.
Monday's was an uneasy peace, with violations from both sides that might have seemed like war without the violence of last week to be compared to.
Shots rang out every few minutes from spots all across the two-mile-by-three-mile city along the Euphrates River.
Bombs rocked distant quarters. Ambulances raced back and forth. Snipers sniped.
When someone ducked at a distant shot and admitted to being "a little jumpy," Cpl. Kevin Keeley, 21, of Blackduck, Minn., just nodded his head.
"That's good," he said, peering out of binoculars scanning for movement in the city. "That's the way you need to be around here."
Quarters in Fallujah
Inside the main house occupied by Fox Company's 2nd Platoon Monday, the men were mostly downstairs out of harm's way and starting to feel just how tired, dirty and homesick they were.
The lounged on carpeted floors airing out their feet.
Some griped about not being able to shoot anything or that they were running precariously low on smokes and chewing tobacco.
They swatted away waves of flies, cracked wise about how bad the others' feet smelled, and wondered aloud what their wives and parents thought about them being in Fallujah.
"My parents are probably flipping out," said Keeley after he left the others and began his shift on guard. "My mom will probably be gray by the time I get back."
Others got the chance to find out themselves how their families were doing, handing the enlisted men a satellite phone to use for a minute or two just to check in.
Sgt. Hardy, whose wife is expecting a baby during his tour in Iraq, took the first turn, and returned smiling and laughing after finding that one of his buddies had made the front page of his community newspaper.
He had more good news, with an ominous twist: Mail had arrived.
"You know what this is?" he asked, pointing at a large orange bag on the floor that most Marines easily recognize.
"You know that this means?" he asked again. "We're going to be here for awhile. If they're sending mail, it means we're here for awhile."
Staff writer Darrin Mortenson and staff photographer Hayne Palmour are reporting from Iraq, where they are with Camp Pendleton Marines. Their coverage is collected at www.nctimes.com/military/iraq
Let's Roll !!
Three of them were on J Fn Kerry who announced that he was going home. :)
But then again in Macedonia the Muslim rebels won.
That won't happen here will it?
I keep hoping we're gonna kick butt on this one ... We've got to set an example ...
In Kosovo the US claimed a batallion of Yugoslav troops was caught in the open by B-52s and 800 were killed. Later it was known that the Yugoslav troops withdrew in time and Albanians moved in forward and caught the full blast of the B-52.
It is very difficult to have body count unless you are in control of the ground.
However historically a guerilla fighter has 6-10 times more casualties than the profesional armies fighting them.
Now that's some good ass kicking music.
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=416532004
82nd Airborne soldiers re-enlisting in high numbers - Division has already met '04 goals
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