Rage 6 then went over to the battalion net and tried to get in contact with Tarheel 3, 1/6’s operations officer. I stuck around to see what word was getting passed. I had to wait until Captain Smith was off the net to ask him about the conversation. The radio he was using wasn’t hooked up to a speaker box. I positioned myself between him and the door. When he finished, he walked right up to me and said, “It’s Christmas in Qatana!” then left the COC.
I stood next to the blank television monitor for a moment, my questions unanswered. I headed upstairs to the third floor and sat down on my cot. Trying to sleep was impossible. It was the first time I had ever wanted Christmas to simply come and go. I had no thoughts of gifts, only death. The pressing questions mingled in my mind. There was one that would not go away. How long was Operation Hue City going to take? Over the last few days, Gunny Bishop had convoyed all of our gear, including some comfort items, out to COP Firecracker. Every Marine was keenly aware that January 11, 2007, was the scheduled last day of combat operations for Rage Company. In order to make it back to the ships by the end of January, we would have to start packing by that date.
I made up my mind that our deployment would be extended. Operation Squeeze Play was already behind schedule, and there was no way we were going home until it was completed.
Albin came into the room. He had picked up an antenna for the Wasp UAV so that we could control it from our own position while out in sector. The excited Marine showed me what looked like a PlayStation portable but was actually the video screen for the UAV. From the comfort of an Iraqi’s home, we would be able to watch the UAV’s live feed. I felt like a kid with a new toy. It was Christmas after all. Tired, I jokingly asked Albin whether he would scratch my back. He said no.
After Albin left, I started to think about 1/6 and their collective indecisive nature. There wasn’t a single part of the operation they had planned that I was impressed with. The missions and the routes we used were predictable. For the first time, I seriously thought about how my wife’s life would change if I was killed in Qatana. An indescribable fear gripped my mind. It became an internal demon I had to wrestle with, then and there. I closed my eyes and let the fear consume me.
That entire night I dreamed about my own death. I must have watched myself die a hundred times. There were IED blasts, sniper shots, friendly fire, machine guns, improvised rockets, mortar rounds, and vehicles running me over. Sometimes I died alone; on other occasions, my friends joined me. I slept through the entire night. When I awoke, my misery was over. This visual reference for the unspeakable had dulled the edge of fear’s blade. While fear was still there, I had accepted that death might be my destiny. In doing so, anxiety had become a part of my being.
Now, with a new sense of purpose, I was ready to celebrate Christmas.
7
THE BATTLE OF CHRISTMAS DAY
December 21, 2006
First Sergeant Carlson was furious. He looked at the significant action report, then held it up in the air. The piece of paper crumpled in his hand.
“Sir, this is bullshit,” he declared. “Look at this: the bastards claim 1/6 found the cache! There isn’t a single mention of Rage Company in this damn report. Why would they do that? Taking credit for what we found! Lejeune pricks.” He left the room, vowing to change the official wording in the report.
I picked up the wrinkled paper off his cot and read it:
G3WNCO—At 190215C DEC 06, 1/6 discovered a weapons cache IVO (38S LC———), in N Ramadi. 1/6 searched Bldg # Sect. H-# IVO (38S LC———) and the surrounding areas and discovered the following items: (1) IRL, (7) grenades (1: 36mm MK-1 and 1: F1 Russian), (20) 60mm mortars, (2) 82mm mortars, (3) 105mm mortars, (5) 120mm mortars, (160) 160 mm mortars, (12) arty fuses, (1) M17 US Arty round, (18) RPG rockets (2x-PG9, 14x PG7, 2x PG 7S-3), (1) hollowed out missile, (2) video cameras, (30) cassette tapes, Misc propaganda, (1) IED pressure plate IED, IED making materials, (10) barrels of Iraqi currency, (15) acetylene tanks, (1) canister of propellant, (8) RPG, (2) RPG sights, (14) masks, (4) Draganovs, (1) GS 31 rifle, (1) MI Garand, (2) 60mm mortar systems w/ sights, (4) PKMs, (1) H&K G3, (4) chest harnesses, (2) level IV bullet proof vests with plates and POLICE on the front, (37) AK Mags, (3) sniper rifle mags, (3) black outfits, (2) license plates (Al Anbar), (1) handcuffs, (51) rounds of 5.56mm US linked ammo, (6500) rounds of 7.62mm, (2) Senao base stations, 300ft of copper wire, (4) 14 ga. Shotgun shells, (10) 60mm shotgun shells, (8) propellant sticks, (19) AK-47s, (8) PKCs, Misc 9v, 12v, and 24v batteries, IRL material, (30) electrical caps, Remote firing devices, 10 ft of Det cord, 20lbs of various explosives, 25 lbs of various propellants, (2) 2.5in launcher, (2) rifle grenades, (3) 85mm APHET, (1) AT mine (type 72), (1) 122mm projectile and (3) 130 mm projectiles. The items and munitions were removed to Hurricane Point for inventory, exploitation, and disposal by EOD. No casualties or damages reported.
Operation Hue City II: The area to be cleared during the second half of Operation Hue City.
The Battle of Christmas Day: Significant locations during the fighting on Christmas Day, 2006.
The fact that Rage Company had been left out of the opening line was deliberate. All significant action reports state the company that was involved in the event. This was the first one I had seen that left the company out. Gunnery Sergeant Bishop leaned up in his cot, yawning and stretching his extremities in his usual morning routine. “Who would be responsible for that, sir?”
It was a good question. There was only one group that filled out the reports: the battalion operations section. “Tarheel S3 Gunny, the OPSO,” I said. “It was probably the S3 officer himself who typed it up. I couldn’t see a lance corporal doing something like that.”
I lay back down on my cot in COP Firecracker. I wasn’t really concerned that we’d been left out of the report; my mind was wrapped around what I was going to be doing that night.
Half an hour later, the company was in the chow hall. Captain Smith was briefing the follow-up to our original push into Qatana.
The battalion was still unsure of what building to use as the new COP Qatana. To buy themselves time, as well as move the focus of the fighting away from the Give Me-Racetrack intersection, we were going to clear the southeastern side of Qatana. It was essentially finishing the clear that had originally been scheduled to take one night.
Following the brief, which went rather quickly, seeing that we were continuing an already planned mission, a few unexpected visitors came into the room. The commanding officers of the 15th MEU and the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, were both in town to visit Rage Company. Sort of a morale and welfare check during the Christmas season. I was surprised that both men would leave their own areas of operation to come visit us (the MEU was a few hundred miles west in Rutbah, and 2/4 was just as far, only north in Haditha).
The battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Jim Glynn, gave the first pep talk. It was pretty good. When he turned it over to the MEU commander, I was relieved. Every so often, Lieutenant Colonel Glynn spoke too long or said something the Marines did not understand. This time, though, it was the usually impeccable MEU commander who said something that went over the Marines’ heads.
The colonel started off well, but as he wrapped it up, he mentioned something that would stick in my mind for the next few days. “Gentlemen, you have worked hard and you deserve some time off. Multi-National Forces-West has mandated that all units do the bare minimum on Christmas. That is, no patrols, no missions. The Corps does not want to be informing families of tragedy around this holiday. As we are in AO Bull-Rush [15th MEU] and AO Bastard [2/4], I am sure the brigade leadership will comply with the order,” he said, continuing on with the MEU’s accomplishments to date.
The faces of two hundred puzzled Marines revealed that for the first time, lance corporals and sergeants knew something that a colonel did not: we would be fighting on Christmas. The result of such knowledge ensured that morale remained low. The realization that we would be the only unit fighting in all
of Al Anbar Province during the holiday season sank in. Whether it was true didn’t matter; it was the perception that entered each Marine’s mind.
The insertion to southeast Qatana was a dismounted movement along Racetrack all the way to the eastern side of Qatana. We walked through the five-way, Fire Station-Racetrack, and Give Me-Racetrack intersections. Our shadows passed Jamie, Starr, and the VBIED factory on the left. We headed toward the Abd-al Sala’am mosque and then turned off on the road south of it.
Passing the mosque, I scanned its minaret and windows for a few seconds too long. When I turned back to spot Captain Smith and ensure proper dispersion, I saw that he had halted. Through my NVGs, it appeared that he was looking at his boots, and I assumed he was going to tie his bootlaces. I scanned a few more buildings and continued to follow Lance Corporal Albin, the headquarters point man. Then I turned around and saw that Captain Smith was not moving. Instead, he was kicking around at an object in the street’s dusty, broken asphalt.
I flashed the IR strobe in my NVGs to try to get him to keep moving. It was the wrong thing to do. I should have told Albin to halt. When I rotated around seconds later, Albin was gone. He had turned the corner after the mosque’s compound wall and entered the clearing lane for Rage 2.
I sprinted after him and negotiated the turn’s sharp angle with the path of a wide arc. I stopped in my tracks. I was staring at a Y-intersection. The compound walls surrounding the homes prevented me from seeing more than ten feet down each road.
Albin was gone. I slowly crept out into the intersection, gripping my M4 rifle, the power of which inspires men to do just about anything. I looked down the left fork in the road first; it was the direction Albin was not supposed to go. The street was empty.
I spun around and saw Albin staring at me from a few feet away. “It’s about time, sir. I thought you left me,” he said. Albin remained kneeling on the corner while I ran the 50 meters back to Racetrack and directed Captain Smith to our position. Then we moved to the first house and began to follow Rage 2 while they cleared their lane.
The first home was the nicest I had ever entered in Ramadi. Vaulted twenty-foot ceilings complemented each room. A center portion of the house had even higher ceilings and was finished off with its own small dome. A mahogany desk and bookcases were expertly paired with beautiful rugs. The house did have one drawback, however. The owner was recklessly selling boxes of toy rifles at the local market, the same market where Rage 1 found their massive cache and the insurgents practiced their marksmanship. The toys weren’t your usual cap-gun or red-capped rifles. They were life-size depictions of actual weapons, something that could easily result in the deaths of innocent children.
The Marines destroyed the plastic weapons and carried on the clear.
After about three blocks, as the clear proceeded south and closer to Michigan, the company began to enter an area where all of the residences were empty. The families had moved out long ago, most likely due to the violence that had plagued Michigan for the last three years.
Lieutenant Shearburn and Rage 1 immediately made a startling find in the area. The walls surrounding the houses were laced with graffiti. Marlo, our interpreter, was with Rage 1 and identified what could only be described as directions. He informed us that the walls literally stated, “To avoid American sniper at cemetery go.”
As their movement progressed, the interpreter found more and more of the directions, each of which provided the follower with safe passage away from the fighting positions of OP Horea, a Marine observation post 200 to 300 meters south on Michigan, located next to Ramadi’s downtown cemetery.
The formation of three platoons clearing abreast continued toward Fire Station Road. Two hours of clearing empty houses became hours of clearing empty commercial buildings. The three- and four-story office buildings were barren, just as empty as the homes we had cleared.
While searching the bottom floor of a large structure, Holloway’s squad, which I was with, couldn’t find any stairs leading to the upper floors. We headed back out to the street and found a boarded-up door. Sheets of plywood were nailed across the frame in an obvious attempt to prevent entry. We ripped them down. The men awkwardly climbed over the shattered pieces of wood and up the narrow stairs. The two thousand square feet of office space was utterly empty, nothing but dust. We took the opportunity to take a break, sitting on the dirty floor.
“Rage 6, this is Rage 1, I have a controlled det in two minutes, over,” said Lieutenant Shearburn over the radio.
Captain Smith was upset. “I never approved that,” he said to Shearburn.
After the blast, Captain Smith ordered Shearburn to leave his platoon and come to our position. We all knew what it meant: Shearburn was going to get scolded. Captain Smith waited for him on the stairs. When Shearburn showed up, Rage 6 berated him for all of Ramadi to hear. It was an awkward scenario; Captain Smith stood at the top of the stairs screaming down at his lieutenant. Broken chunks of plywood separated the two men. After the yelling, Shearburn went back to his platoon, and the company continued with its mission.
We moved quickly and were ahead of schedule. Instead of heading back to COP Firecracker early, we crossed over Fire Station Road and continued clearing. Holloway’s squad finally entered a commercial building with something in it. Well, in at least one of the rooms, anyway.
The ten-foot-by-ten-foot space was filled with cardboard boxes. They were stacked all along the walls, reaching about six or seven feet high. I pulled on the one closest to me and started to pry it open. Holloway was doing the same, only his were no longer taped shut. Someone had already opened them.
“I got lamps over here, sir,” he said.
I tugged harder, ripping the piece of cardboard completely off the box. “Interesting. Lamp shades for me,” I said.
There were dozens of boxes exactly like mine, while only a few were similar to Holloway’s. I looked back out into the hallway and recognized what could pass as a storefront. This was probably once a legitimate business, but the lack of parity in numbers of similar boxes was a trademark of the insurgency. The white electrical cords from lamps were among the cords of choice for detonating IEDs in the area. This was most likely where it all came from. Somewhere in the vast Ramadi sprawl, there was a house full of nothing but lamps, all of which were missing their power cords. If anyone ever found that building, they would have been standing inside an IED factory.
The squad was setting up in a defensive posture in the building, clearing the rest of the structure’s rooms. The other rooms in the building were like most of those around it, completely empty. Eakin sat on the floor, listening to the radio.
“Rage 3, controlled det in ten seconds!” shouted Eakin. Holloway directed his squad to get away from the door and the windows. Rage 3 was across the street from us.
Eakin began to count down the seconds.
When he got to one, a thunderous explosion ripped into our building. The walls shook. Glass shattered. Looking into the hallway, the entrance to the building, I watched a cloud of dust carrying shattered glass from the door blow over a kneeling Marine. Shouts of profanity came from every room. I ran over to the Marine in the hallway, expecting to find chunks of glass stuck in his arms or legs.
As I got to him, the Marine stood up, said, “That was cool,” and walked over to the door to check out the aftermath of the explosion. He was fine, and so was everyone else in the squad. We finished clearing the structure and staged outside.
The squad from Rage 3 that had just blown us up was in the street as well. The Marines exchanged insults, and I noticed that an entire wall was missing from the first floor of the building that Rage 3 had destroyed. It was a three-story structure, and I couldn’t help but think that it was now going to fall on me.
The squad moved down Fire Station Road and eventually hit Michigan, the main supply route through Ramadi. All elements of the company were now moving toward this historic IED hot spot. It was the most dangerous part of the night.
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The closer our double-column formation got to the intersection, the more gaping holes and pockmarks the buildings contained.
At the intersection Lieutenant Thomas was rummaging through four-foot-tall weeds in a ditch, cutting away the double and triple strands of concertina wire that prevented civilians from entering the road. His boots sloshed around in a few inches of stagnant water. Once the wire was cut, Rage 2 moved onto Michigan. Headquarters followed behind them.
We drew closer to the government center. It was cold enough outside that I could see my own breath. I was petrified. The four- and five-story buildings on either side of the road towered over the dismounted column of Marines in front of me. My mind was struck in a serious dilemma. If I took my eyes away from the ground, I might step on an IED. If I didn’t scan the windows above, I risked being engaged by an enemy combatant.
I resigned myself to doing the opposite of the Marine in front.
The street was covered in a small layer of mud and dust. The resulting picture in my NVGs was a textured surface. Clean asphalt looked like gaping holes, while the mud was wavy lines. Everything was suspicious, and each step was painful. Fifty meters could have been 500. Ten seconds was a lifetime.
We drew closer and closer to the government center until we finally entered its serpentine, a maze of concrete barriers erected to prevent vehicles from driving through at a high rate of speed. Once through the serpentine, we stayed on the exterior side of the compound’s defensive barriers. The squad was exposed only on the right flank. I scanned the city blocks of rubble that made up the area north of the government center.
Rage Company Page 15
