* * *
• • •
At 2330 on 11 November, the company attacked south to the next battalion phase line. Lieutenant Ackerman’s platoon reached their objectives on the assigned phase line under the cover of darkness with minimal enemy resistance. (. . . one of our sister platoons fends off an attack. They fight all morning and into the afternoon. We find a torture house—hooks from the ceiling, steel cages, car batteries—much like the one I’ll visit years later with Colonel Jamad. We wander through it while spending the rest of the day in reserve . . .) Despite the mental and physical fatigue he and his men were experiencing, Lieutenant Ackerman ensured his Marines were resupplied, briefed, and in a strong security posture. His ability to instill motivation among his men set the stage for the next day’s fighting. (. . . I once read an account by a German officer in the First World War who said that after each assault through the trenches, he would make sure to have his men eat afterward; that way they knew they were alive. I try to make sure everyone is eating . . .)
* * *
• • •
As the sun came up on 12 November, the company was once again subject to small-arms, sniper, and RPG fire. During the course of the day, he directed precision direct fires and indirect fires on a shadowy enemy that had quickly learned not to show themselves to the Marines. (. . . we had also learned not to show ourselves to them. Instead we stand back, try to figure out where they are, and then fight from a distance . . .) At 1900 on the night of 12 November, the company pushed to the next battalion phase line and went firm in a row of houses just north of an open field. (. . . for the first time, we sleep a few hours, in shifts . . .) As the sun came up on 13 November, the company again attacked south to the next battalion phase line.
* * *
• • •
As Lieutenant Ackerman’s platoon occupied a house along the phase line, they came under intense small-arms, sniper, machine-gun, and RPG fire. (. . . my first platoon sergeant has been replaced by Seabass. He’s behind a low wall rimming the roof. I’m next to him. He’s searching for a sniper with his scope. His rifle gets shot out of his hands. We duck down. When he picks up his rifle, the scope is shattered. The round had nicked its front and then passed over his left shoulder and right between us, just missing our heads . . .) Throughout the day the enemy repeatedly attacked his position. As the company had been tasked to hold along the phase line, Lieutenant Ackerman used the opportunity to let the enemy expose themselves and be cut down by his fires as they attacked. During the course of the day, he destroyed numerous enemy personnel by adjusting indirect fires and employing accurate direct fires. (. . . I sit on the roof with the radio. The sky is very blue. I’m so tired that I struggle to stay awake as I feel the sun on my face . . .) He rallied his Marines for a daylong gunfight by moving from position to position and pointing out targets, instilling motivation, and leading by example.
* * *
• • •
During the day, Lieutenant Ackerman recommended to his company commander that if he pushed south approximately 150 meters, he would essentially be in an ambush position as the sun rose the following day. Under the cover of darkness on the early morning of 14 November, his platoon quietly moved 150 meters forward of the company position and set up a strong point with good fields of fire. (. . . we snuck forward of the lines at around two a.m., the idea being that we’d set up like we did at the candy store. When I explained it to the platoon nobody said anything. The last time we did this, we wound up surrounded . . .) As the sun came up his intuition paid off. As soon as it was light enough to see, a group of 25 enemy personnel were seen trying to get into a flank position to attack the company. (. . . they were just standing at a bend in the road. They were all wearing black. I took my time calling in the mortars, but because they were at a bend in the road, I knew exactly where they were. I whispered the grid coordinates into the radio and then I waited . . .) He expertly called for and adjusted indirect fires and engaged with direct fires to devastating effect. (. . . they just disappeared when the rounds impacted. After a couple of minutes a gentle breeze cleared up the smoke. It looked like someone had dumped a pile of wet black rags in the road . . .) As this initial firefight was happening, ISR assets reported multiple enemy formations moving toward his position. Over the next two hours he called for and adjusted approximately 250 81 mm mortar rounds and provided targeting direction for multiple close air support missions. The majority of the indirect fires were expertly adjusted to within 100 meters of his position. In addition to orchestrating the indirect and his organic direct fires, he was pushed a section of tanks that he used to devastating effect. From his exposed position on the roof, he worked the tank section like an extension of himself, directing main gun and heavy-caliber rounds into the enemy formations and positions from as close as 20 meters. The enemy continued to try and close with and flank his position and was repeatedly cut down by his fires. (. . . when I come home, more often than you might expect, a stranger will ask me if I ever killed anyone . . .) His actions that morning dealt a tremendous blow to the enemy in both the sheer number of enemy personnel killed as well as demonstrating to them that massing for an attack would prove deadly. (. . . for a long time, I didn’t know how to answer that question. A friend of mine took to saying, “If I did, you paid me to,” which eventually I also took to saying, but the first person who asks me is my cousin, and she is six years old . . .)
* * *
• • •
At 1300 on 14 November, the company was once again ordered to continue the attack south to the next battalion phase line. Lieutenant Ackerman’s platoon was the company’s western flank and was adjacent to a company from Third Battalion, First Marines. As he attacked south he systematically attacked to clear for 350 meters of dense, urban terrain. (. . . we would come up to a house, and the Marines would kick the door in and then toss a grenade inside . . .) In addition to coordinating his platoon in the attack, he had the situational awareness to coordinate with the unit on his western flank to ensure both units could maximize fires and mutually support each other. (. . . if someone started shooting at us from the house, we’d learned to back off and call up a tank or a D9 armored bulldozer to level the walls instead of sending more Marines inside . . .) During the attack south, his platoon came across numerous pockets of enemy resistance that had to be deliberately cleared with a combination of tank and infantry attacks. (. . . but they soon learned that this is what we’d do. So they’d put a machine gun in the corner and two people hiding by the door. When the first Marine came inside, they’d stitch him up with the machine gun, and when he fell the two guys by the door would drag him inside. Is that Marine alive? Is he dead? You don’t know, and now you have to go into that house and clear room-to-room . . .) As his platoon reached the battalion phase line, he attacked to clear a building to serve as a strong point.
* * *
• • •
Once his building was secure and he was setting up security, he came under heavy fire from the houses directly adjacent to the one he occupied. (. . . we are on the roof, setting in our security, when they start shooting at us from next door . . .) As his platoon was the first one to reach the phase line, he had a responsibility to ensure the adjacent houses were cleared for the arrival of the remainder of the company. Due to the geometry of fires, he was unable to use tanks to assist in clearing the enemy-occupied buildings. (. . . Seabass takes a shoulder-fired rocket and shoots it through the opposite window, but we are so close that it doesn’t arm and so skids without exploding into their house . . .) He planned and launched a fierce attack into the buildings using a combination of satchel charges, machine guns, grenades, and small arms. (. . . Seabass leads six Marines downstairs. He’s going to clear out the house next door while the rest of us keep fighting from the rooftop, hoping to keep the insurgents’ heads down while Seabass presses the assault . . .) The battle space for this fight consisted of front yards and courtyards. It was
so constricted that the two elements were literally throwing grenades at each other from over the courtyard wall. Recognizing that the buildings had to be cleared prior to the advancing company’s rapid arrival, he took the situation into his own hands. Lieutenant Ackerman led a handful of Marines in a final attack to clear the buildings. (. . . I’m calling for Seabass over the radio, but he isn’t answering. I don’t know what’s going on next door, so I run downstairs and into the other house. The ground floor is on fire. Langrebe, one of the younger Marines, a twenty-year-old lance corporal, has been shot through both legs, and he’s dragging himself toward the front door. A can of gasoline sits in a corner and someone has lit a bunch of blankets and mattresses on fire, as if the insurgents want to burn down the house with themselves and us inside. I’m coughing on the smoke. I find Seabass in the corner . . .) Throwing hand grenades and firing pistols at point-blank range, his small band of warriors went toe to toe with the determined enemy. During the close-quarters fight, Lieutenant Ackerman was wounded after taking shrapnel to his back. Two Marines from his team were also wounded. (. . . the medevac shows up, and we’re trying to load Langrebe and Seabass in the back. Seabass is loopy, hopped up on morphine and adrenaline, and he is shouting, “I’ll be back, LT. I’ll be back,” as the doors to the amtrack slowly close. A silhouette on the rooftop leans out into the street. He flings a grenade, aiming for the open top hatch of the amtrack. The grenade sails through the air. I lose it in the sun. Then it hits the edge of the amtrack and bounces into the street right next to me. I run in the opposite direction, getting maybe three or four steps away, and I wince and feel its fragments hit me in the back right beneath my body armor . . .) Lieutenant Ackerman never wavered and his team did not stop until the enemy was killed and the houses secure. One of his Marines was shot in the ankle and wrist while in the process of throwing a grenade. With the pin already pulled, the Marine quickly regained his composure and put the grenade on target as a wounded Lieutenant Ackerman supported with point-blank pistol fires. (. . . back inside, we’re lobbing grenades around the corners, there’s dust everywhere, I unload my pistol into the next room because I’m too scared to step into it with my rifle. I can hear them inside, speaking in gasps, shuffling through the debris, as slowly—grenade by grenade and bullet by bullet—we kill them . . .) His contagious combat leadership and ability to instill this type of dedication is the stuff of legends. The houses were declared cleared, and Lieutenant Ackerman coordinated a medical evacuation for his wounded Marines while he performed self-aid on himself and set his platoon into a strong-point security position for future operations. (. . . for the next few weeks little pieces of steel work their way out of my skin. Our platoon corpsman, who still has acne, picks them out for me at night like he’s popping pimples . . .)
* * *
• • •
On the morning of 15 November, the company pushed the final 400 meters to the regimental limit of advance, which was where the south side of the city met the open desert. Lieutenant Ackerman had successfully led his platoon through house-to-house combat covering three and one-half kilometers of built-up urban terrain. Upon reaching the limit of advance, his platoon was set into the company firm base, and he prepared to conduct detailed clearing operations in the assigned company sector. (. . . in our rush to get through the city, we’d bypassed hundreds of fighters. When we got to the end, all of the Marines kept asking whether we would have to turn around to go back and reclear everything we’d been through, which we did . . .)
* * *
• • •
Over the course of the next two weeks, his platoon would conduct detailed clearing operations in his assigned sector. This particularly dangerous task consisted of entering every house to destroy remaining enemy and reducing numerous caches. On multiple occasions, his platoon entered houses only to be met with intense small-arms fire and grenades. (. . . I’ve been asked what was the most courageous thing I saw someone do during the battle. It was what nearly every Marine did during those weeks of going house to house, never knowing what was waiting behind each closed door, a month-long game of Russian roulette . . .) Each time, he expertly isolated the house, then called in tanks, AAVs, or D9 bulldozers to physically reduce the house with fires or blades prior to entering. He helped perfect this emerging tactic that allowed a determined and suicidal enemy to be destroyed without throwing Marines into the house as fodder. (. . . the battalion opposite ours decided after a few days that no Marine’s life was worth a house, so their commander stopped ordering his Marines to clear out buildings. Instead, they bulldozed their entire sector . . .)
* * *
• • •
Over the course of the battle for Fallujah, Lieutenant Ackerman performed heroically. The example he set with his combat endurance, leadership, and aggressiveness is the standard that instructors at The Basic School and Infantry Officers Course strive to impress upon their students. His Marines follow him with a sense of awe and are truly inspired by his leadership. Lieutenant Ackerman is enthusiastically recommended for the Silver Star.
* * *
After a month in Fallujah, we are taken out of the city and to a base where we get a hot meal, a shower, and fresh uniforms. When I take mine off, there are holes in the back and bloodstains there as well as on the shoulders and the knees. Some guys throw their old uniforms away.
I can’t.
I tie mine up in a plastic bag and put it in my pack. Two months later, when our tour is up, I worry that some customs officer at the airport might confiscate the uniform, declaring it a sanitary hazard. But that doesn’t happen.
When I get home, I put it in my basement, hidden, where it has sat for the last fifteen years. My medals, I imagine, I will someday give to my daughter. The watch I wore in the war and still wear now I plan to give to my son. But this uniform—who is it for?
Sometimes I think about throwing it out. I don’t need it.
Sometimes I think that maybe I should still keep it, but just wash it instead. What would it be like to see it clean?
But I haven’t done that either.
So it just sits there. And from time to time, I take it out, look at it, press my fingers in the holes, trace out the blotchy stains, and wonder what’s to be done with it, that bundle of clothes that, despite all the memories, is nothing more than an old, bloody, and tattered rag.
What sit we then projecting peace and war?
War hath determined us. . . .
—Paradise Lost, Book II
John Milton
Acknowledgments
My gratitude to the editorial staffs at Esquire, The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Atlantic, and The Daily Beast, with particular thanks to Lucas Wittmann, Nicholas Thompson, Chloe Schama, Bobby Baird, Michael Hainey, and Jay Fielden, all of whom believed in the many stories that make up this one story. To Scott Moyers, who encouraged me to take the writing deeper; the part of the book I’m the most proud of would not exist if it weren’t for you. To PJ Mark, who has not only been there since the beginning but who was the beginning. To my mother, father, and brother, for giving me a place to come home to. To my children for giving me a reason to come home. And to Lea Carpenter, Chui, who told me to write it.
About the Author
Elliot Ackerman is the author of several novels including Dark at the Crossing, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and most recently Waiting for Eden. His writings appear in Esquire, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The New York Times Magazine, among other publications, and his stories have been included in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Travel Writing. He is both a former White House Fellow and Marine, and served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. He divides his time between New York City and Washington, D.C.
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Places and Names Page 19
