Tom Sileo

by Brothers Forever

  All,

  My job is definitely going well. After all the horror stories we heard about the Iraqi Army and their unwillingness to work with the MiTTs (us), they have been very open and willing to listen to advice. Creating an initial relationship with my counterparts was the right move and it has allowed me to really help them start shaping operations. There are many dedicated men in this Army and it’s been an eye-opening experience so far. The best IA’s are definitely dedicated to their cause and have a warrior mentality that rivals some Americans. However, there are still those enemies out there that wish us to fail.

  There is a lot of work left to do, but the city is definitely at a different place than it was last year. I really feel that it is at a critical point where if the situation continues to progress it could have a huge positive impact in the area. Also, I have found a good balance between my logistics job and my company advisor role. Although going on operations definitely requires a good amount of time, I am able to work with the battalion logistics officer on a fairly regular basis.

  I also appreciate all the good food and gear that has been sent. Workouts and your support have definitely helped keep me going. As I said before, we’re pretty busy, but I wanted to take a minute to thank you guys for everything and keep you updated.

  Please continue to write-I enjoy your updates as well. Take care and I’ll talk to you soon.

  Semper Fi,

  Travis

  In Fallujah, where Travis had spent the majority of the previous eighteen months, the Marine could feel the tide beginning to turn. He was a part of history, not only because he was one of the few Americans there to see it, but because he was helping make it happen.

  As Travis patrolled some of the most volatile sections of Fallujah’s eight square miles, in which every house represented a possible IED factory or sniper hideout, it was obvious to everyone on the MiTT team that he had been to the city before. The calm, composed Marine exhibited the exact blend of experience and toughness the team needed to weather almost daily threats and what seemed like constant explosions and firefights. Travis was also eager to respond when someone needed help.

  Eleven days before the massive chlorine attack, on March 17, 2007, Sergeant Justin Bales, a US Marine reservist and New York City firefighter, found himself pinned down behind a bulldozer. He was holding a bleeding Iraqi soldier who had been wounded by artillery shrapnel and a sniper’s bullet. After Bales and Lieutenant JG Jared Tracy pulled the Iraqi out of the street, only a bulldozer bucket separated them from a hail of enemy fire.

  As a firefighter and Marine, Bales was accustomed to dicey situations. But with insurgents bearing down, it was only a matter of time before Bales, Tracy, and the wounded Iraqi would be killed. Bales had already tried radioing for help, but to his knowledge, nobody was volunteering for the risky rescue assignment.

  Suddenly the direction of the enemy machine gun fire changed. A few seconds later, it was clear that the insurgents were firing at someone else.

  Sure enough, their target was Travis and Kubicki. If anyone was bold enough to volunteer for what some might have considered a suicide mission, it was Travis and 3-2-1 MiTT. Knowing that a quick reaction force had finally arrived, Bales and Tracy could redirect their attention to caring for the wounded Iraqi soldier.

  As the American force strengthened, the enemy began to retreat. The insurgents were simply no match for the increased US firepower, and after a few minutes the battle was over.

  “Hey, Lieutenant,” Bales later told Travis. “I appreciate you coming out here, sir.”

  “Anytime, Sarge,” Travis said. “That’s what we’re here for.”

  The next morning Travis and his teammates awoke around 5:30 a.m. to a huge explosion. A few minutes later, they learned that Observation Post Baghdad—a new makeshift base they had been working to set up in Fallujah—was a pile of rubble.

  “We were scheduled to be there today at 0800,” Petty said upon hearing the news. “I guess that makes us all pretty fucking lucky.”

  “Let’s get over there now,” Travis said. “We need to cordon off the area and see if anyone is still alive.”

  The Marines took two Humvees to the explosion site, having no idea what they would encounter. Travis, Kubicki, Kim, Petty, Alexander, Sergeant Matthew Hill, Navy Hospital Corpsman Second Class Edwin “Doc” Albino, and others arrived to find a scary scene, which resembled Oklahoma City or even 9/11. A building had been partially destroyed after barrels full of explosives were placed inside a shop at the lowest level of the multistory complex. Iraqis inside the chaotic blast zone were fleeing to escape being crushed by rubble or caught in another attack. To make matters even worse, insurgents were peppering a then-shaky perimeter with small arms fire.

  “Let’s get this area secure!” Kubicki shouted, pointing toward the rubble, where people were almost certainly trapped.

  “Roger that, I’m already on it,” Travis said as Kim, Petty, and others tackled security. “Doc, let’s go.”

  With gunfire initially surrounding them before a secure perimeter was established, Travis, Albino, and others spent the next eight hours entering and reentering the rubble while their team members controlled the crowd outside. For all they knew, the rest of the bombed-out complex could have crumbled, or there could have been another bomb timed to go off when the quick reaction force team arrived. They went into the ruins anyway.

  Carrying a large flashlight, Travis crawled into the rubble. Sweating profusely due to the heat, which was exacerbated by small fires burning throughout the compound, Travis dug through dirt, sand, and remnants of brick, searching for trapped Iraqis.

  “I think I see someone down there,” Travis told Albino after eyeballing some movement in a dark area under the first floor’s collapsed ceiling.

  “I’ll check it out,” said Albino, who had barely taken a sip of water in four hours. “Keep looking for others.”

  “Doc, Travis, anyone else, do you need a break?” Petty asked over the radio from his Humvee. It was about 90 degrees outside, which wasn’t as hot as usual, but still daunting considering the amount of gear Travis and Albino were carrying.

  “Negative,” Travis and Albino answered virtually simultaneously.

  About twenty minutes later, Albino and a US Army reservist helped carry an Iraqi soldier out of the debris. The crowd, which would normally have been hostile to the Americans, was mostly supportive as the Navy corpsman and Army reservist carried their injured Iraqi partner out of the devastated structure’s ruins. Cut and bleeding, the Iraqi soldier’s leg had been all but shattered by falling concrete.

  “I think this might need to be amputated,” said Albino, the MiTT team’s medic.

  “I’ve got an ambulance right over there,” Travis told him. “Do you think there’s time to get him to a hospital?”

  “Yes, sir,” Albino replied.

  Soldiers from the 1st Iraqi Army Division, which 3-2-1 MiTT was training, watched as Travis, covered in dust, dirt, and blood, helped the badly wounded Iraqi to the ambulance and continued coordinating with Petty, Albino, and others. After several hours of being on the scene with Travis, Lieutenant Jalal turned to a fellow Iraqi officer.

  “Here is an American who really cares,” he said.

  Travis stopped to wipe his face with a towel and take a quick sip of water before returning to the ruins. After a few minutes of crawling, he found another Iraqi soldier pinned down, by twisted metal piping that Superman would have struggled to lift.

  “I am going to help you,” Travis said to the Iraqi. “You’re going to be okay.”

  Mixing in some broken Arabic, Travis tried to comfort the scared, thirsty Iraqi, who could barely understand what the US Marine was saying but could tell he was there to help. After giving him the water that was left in his canteen, Travis got on the radio and began asking someone to bring an industrial saw to cut through the metal piping and free the trapped Iraqi.

  “Umm . . . we don’t have one of those here, Lieu
tenant,” a Marine told Travis.

  “Well then, we need to find out who does,” Travis responded. “This guy is being crushed.”

  With simultaneous insurgent attacks all around them, finding the necessary equipment, even to save lives, was difficult. But after many more radio calls from the persistent Marine officer, who wouldn’t take no for an answer, a unit found the saw and rushed to the scene to free the wounded Iraqi. He survived.

  Travis, Albino, and their teammates recovered two injured Iraqis and two dead bodies from the attack site. Their selfless actions had an enduring impact on many of the Iraqis who bore witness.

  Less than twenty-four hours later, Travis’s ears were ringing after an IED blew up beneath his vehicle. The blast’s jarring, pounding force loudly and abruptly halted his vehicle’s patrol through the city’s volatile eastern industrial sector.

  Travis had encountered IEDs during his first deployment and as recently as nine days earlier. After ensuring that fellow Americans and Iraqis were uninjured, Travis looked down at the sandy street, where the crude explosive device was buried.

  “See that wire?” Travis said to another Iraqi lieutenant. “That’s a command wire, and it’s stretching toward that building.”

  “Gather your men and follow me,” he said to the Iraqi before turning to his Marines. “You and the other guys cover us in case there are snipers.”

  “Lieutenant, why don’t we just leave?” the Iraqi said to Travis.

  “Because they’ll keep planting bombs around here and kill more of my men, more of your men, and probably some kids,” Travis said. “So respectfully, Lieutenant, I’m going over there to find who’s responsible, with or without you.”

  After a brief pause, the Iraqi lieutenant got three of his men and followed Travis as he traced the command wire’s origin.

  Rounding a corner, Travis saw a man in civilian clothes kneeling over what appeared to be a pile of grenades, which along with the attached wires, appeared to be some sort of booby trap. Without hesitation, Travis squared up to confront the threat.

  The Marines out on the street heard the pop of Travis’s M-203 grenade launcher and the subsequent explosion. Several ran toward the sound, while others stayed to keep watch over the exterior.

  The tall, sweaty insurgent took off running, now being chased by a fearless, determined Marine. Travis had a bad guy in his sights, and he wasn’t going to let him get away.

  “Stop,” Travis shouted in Arabic while pursuing the suspect.

  By the time the US and Iraqi reinforcements arrived, Travis was dragging the frightened suspect down off a wall he had tried to scale in an unsuccessful attempt to escape. After body-slamming him to the ground, Travis put the insurgent’s hands behind his back, then made sure he was taken in for questioning.

  The suspect eventually led the MiTT team to a room not far from the booby trap, which contained grenades and many more bomb-making materials. Without losing any lives or ruffling more feathers in the Sunni enclave, Travis had helped remove deadly weapons and another terrorist from Fallujah’s streets.

  Half a world away in California, about three hours from the desert where Travis had trained for his two Iraq deployments, Brendan was about to embark on his most difficult challenge since 9/11: BUD/S training. While his cross-country drive and Travis’s daily combat missions made it difficult for the close friends to communicate, the focused Navy SEAL candidate put his feelings on paper in a March 22, 2007, journal entry:

  So tomorrow is the big day. Checking into BUD/S. Kind of crazy to think I was in South Korea this time last year. I feel like I should be more nervous than I am. This is kind of like a big game, but I have played in plenty of those situations before so maybe my body is used to it. (My brother) Steve and I drove out here almost two weeks ago with stops in Nashville and Austin. Austin was by far the best and we were able to see [a good friend]. Good times. Nashville was not too bad either though.

  I am living in IB (Imperial Beach), pretty low key. It is no Coronado, but it will work. I am living with Rob Sarver also. Together he and I will crush BUD/S. Up first is the big inspection. We will see what it has to bring. Other than that, it is just some other check in stuff. I am looking forward to the challenge and plan to excel.

  Back in Fallujah, the MiTT team’s morale was surprisingly high as April began, especially considering that they had already been in a miserable, violent place for three months.

  “We’re fucking invincible right now,” one Marine said.

  Travis didn’t respond. He felt fortunate not to have lost any MiTT team members so far in the deployment, yet he knew the cruel randomness of war could leave several Marines—or even him—dead in a split second. Still, 3-2-1 MiTT seemed to be defying the Iraq war’s steep odds.

  He took things one day at a time, waking up every morning with another quote from 300 in the back of his mind: “Today, no Spartan dies.”

  After speaking with Lieutenant Jalal one morning about the coming day’s mission, Travis turned to Nick, the interpreter who helped him communicate with Iraqi troops.

  “What do you think of all the crazy things we’re seeing here?” Travis asked the Iraqi.

  “I don’t know,” Nick said. “But thanks to you, I know what Saddam used to say about all Americans being bad isn’t true.”

  After nodding to acknowledge his kind words, Travis asked Nick where he hoped to end up after the war was over.

  “I want to go to your country,” Nick said. “I want to go to school and start a new life.”

  “That’s good,” Travis said. “America would be lucky to have you.

  “Listen,” he continued. “If there is anything I can do to help you, like a recommendation or getting your paperwork to the right people, make sure to let me know.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Nick said.

  After his conversation with the interpreter, Travis briefed his team on what would be another full day of danger in Fallujah’s narrow, treacherous alleys.

  “Spartans, prepare for glory,” Travis announced, to laughter from Petty and others. The Marines had already heard him quote enough 300 lines to feel like they’d seen the entire movie.

  While helping turn the tide in Fallujah, First Lieutenant Travis Manion wrote a letter to The Intelligencer, one of his hometown newspapers in Bucks County, Pennsylvania:

  There are many views on our mission here; however, all I can say with certainty is that there are thousands of Americans over here working hard towards a positive outcome in Iraq. Every day I am here I see great things being accomplished under harsh circumstances from young Americans. I am truly honored to serve beside these Marines, Sailors, Soldiers, and Airmen. I am not sure the average American sees the positives these servicemen and women accomplish or even understands the sacrifices of their efforts, however, whatever course of action our leadership decides upon, there are those in waiting ready to carry out the mission in support of our country and in defense of its people and their freedoms.

  Respectfully,

  Travis Manion

  1stLt USMC

  On April 22, 2007, Travis’s dad was enjoying a sunny Sunday afternoon on his porch when his cell phone rang. A special code appeared on the screen, which indicated that his son was calling from Iraq. Though their connection was marred by more static than usual, Tom was thrilled to be hearing from Travis for the first time in over a week.

  After they greeted each other, Travis told Tom that he had been following updates on the April 16, 2007, mass shooting at Virginia Tech. The Marine said he was heartbroken for the thirty-two victims and their families, and he discussed the shocking tragedy with his dad. The images being beamed around the world from the Blacksburg, Virginia, campus were horrifying, even to someone experiencing the hell of war.

  Travis then spoke about the terror he had seen on the faces of countless civilians, including children, in Fallujah. He explained that like the Spartan warriors portrayed in 300, his Marines and the Iraqi soldiers were prot
ecting those who could not protect themselves.

  “Dad, for the Spartans, there was no greater honor than to fight and defend your country and its freedoms,” Travis said.

  As their conversation wrapped up, Tom, who was deeply moved by his son’s resolve, told Travis he was proud of him.

  “I love you, buddy,” he said.

  The poor cell phone connection cut out before Travis heard his father’s words. Though Tom was disappointed, he didn’t fret. He knew he would talk to his son again soon.

  On the next day, April 23, 2007, Travis was involved in a chaotic firefight, during which he braved enemy gunfire and helped save the lives of two Marines. During daily street fights in Fallujah, Travis wasn’t imitating a Spartan warrior. He was one.

  6

  THE PIZZA SLICE

  The morning of April 29, 2007, in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, couldn’t have been more glorious. Spring was finally upon the Philadelphia suburb, and the start of this particular Sunday, with its bright sunshine and barely noticeable chill, may have been the most beautiful morning yet.

  Tom and Janet Manion were engaged in their normal Sunday morning routine: having coffee on stools in their large second-floor kitchen, which opens up onto a deck overlooking a big, green backyard and tall trees. They had sat out on the patio earlier that morning, but now they were back inside reading sections of the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer.

  On the living room television, visible from the island in the center of the kitchen where the couple were sitting, Tim Russert was interviewing Senator Joe Biden—a Democratic candidate for the upcoming 2008 presidential election—on NBC’s Meet the Press. Both parents looked up when Russert asked a particularly pointed question about the Iraq war.

  “Do you believe the war is lost?” the host inquired, paraphrasing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who had made the controversial proclamation a little over a week earlier on the Senate floor.

  “This is not a game show, where you know . . . a football game. What this is about is we have lost 3,300 dead, we have 24,000 wounded . . . and we still have an opportunity to deal with the possibility of not trading a dictator for chaos . . . but it will not happen unless we have a serious change in our operating strategic premise,” the future vice president said.