In the spring of 2007, everyone in Washington had strong opinions and/or talking points about Iraq, especially after President Bush’s recent troop surge and the dawn of the 2008 campaign. But almost no politician had the insight of Tom’s son, who was in his second combat tour in the volatile Al Anbar province, where thousands of Marines were executing the new surge strategy. As Senator Biden spoke to Russert, all Tom heard was Travis’s impassioned words during that recent satellite phone call.
“We’re close to getting the job done, Dad,” Travis had said.
Janet was also thinking about her son, but in different terms. As Biden spoke, she put her elbows on the kitchen island, bowed her head, and thought about what Travis might be doing in Fallujah at that very moment.
“Lord, please keep him safe,” she prayed while looking at her watch, which was set to Baghdad time.
With their son in combat, every day was a struggle. But fortunately for the Manions, they were surrounded by family and friends throughout the Delaware Valley.
“Let’s have some people over today,” Janet said, turning to Tom, who knew that having family around would comfort his wife.
At the front of the house, just a few steps from the kitchen, an American flag waved ever so slightly in the gentle spring breeze. In a few hours the Manion house would be filled with familiar faces for a Sunday afternoon barbeque.
About six thousand miles away, the Marines of 3-2-1 MiTT had an early afternoon barbeque of their own on a small FOB in eastern Fallujah. As smoke—for once from something other than an explosion—filled the tiny, makeshift base, the Marines smiled and joked despite the depressing, predictable landscape around them. The sand beneath their boots was almost the same color as the wooden panels that surrounded the FOB, and the sky seemed to always look the same: hazy and unforgiving.
Still, the MiTT team, including Travis, who was quickly becoming its heart and soul, tried to make the most of this relaxing barbeque, which was an extremely rare occurrence and also a welcome change from their usual diet of MREs (meals ready to eat). Four months into a deployment marked by bloody street fights with a relentless, ruthless enemy, moments of levity were the antidote to insanity.
“One day we’re out and someone thought they heard a gunshot, and the Iraqi soldiers start shooting in every direction,” said Marine Lance Corporal Chuck Segel. His listeners laughed. “It’s like they’re shooting in a giant circle instead of at a target.”
Travis hadn’t known Segel very long, but he liked him, especially since he, like Travis, had served in Fallujah about a year earlier.
“I totally get what you’re saying,” Travis said. “And remember, that’s why we’re here . . . to train the Iraqis.”
“Roger that,” Segel said with a nod.
As the Marines talked about their girlfriends back home and argued about the still-young baseball season, there was an unusual sense of calm. Except for the 113 degree heat and pungent stench of trash and raw sewage nearly overwhelming the smell of their hot dogs and hamburgers, it almost felt like home.
Then, amid a temporarily jovial atmosphere, one Marine remembered he was still in Fallujah.
“Today is going to be fucking terrible,” First Lieutenant Chris Kim, the brawny Asian American officer from California, said to a fellow MiTT team member. He had had a bad feeling about that Sunday ever since waking up and smelling the awful stench of garbage on the streets of Fallujah.
The MiTT team, still more confident than ever while leading and advising the Iraqis, had been preparing for a huge mission in the city that day, called Operation Steel Resolve. But as was often the case in such a volatile, unpredictable area, the mission had been delayed until later that week, which meant Marines on the MiTT team weren’t sure how they would spend the rest of this hot, wretched day.
As the MiTT team mulled around the tiny wooden base, eating their lunches before the outside odor turned their stomachs, Major Adam Kubicki, the senior officer, was discussing alternative missions with First Lieutenant Jon Marang.
For weeks an enemy sniper had been stalking an area of western Fallujah known as the “Pizza Slice,” a distinctively shaped section of narrow, crowded alleyways between two main arteries that fed off two bridges crossing the Euphrates River. The northern, much older bridge—the “Blackwater Bridge,” which drivers crossed while driving west on “Route Elizabeth,” as the Marines had nicknamed it—was already infamous as the site where terrorists had strung up the bodies of murdered American civilian contractors working for Blackwater in March 2004, when Travis and Brendan were still at the Naval Academy. The atrocity had ignited the US-led Operation Vigilant Resolve, otherwise known as the bloody First Battle of Fallujah. There had already been a great deal of bloodshed—American and Iraqi—inside the pizza-shaped enclave formed by the two main roads.
Using armor-piercing bullets, the sniper had wounded several Americans and Iraqis, and every Marine on the MiTT team wanted to bring him down. Armed with intelligence about a neighborhood in which he might be hiding, this particular Sunday afternoon seemed to the Marines like a perfect time to end the threat.
The problem Marine officers were wrestling with was that in the spring of 2007, US troops almost never ran daytime missions inside the Pizza Slice. The marketplaces were overwhelmingly crowded, which made it extremely difficult to maneuver and nearly impossible to distinguish civilians from insurgents. With the Blackwater Bridge as an ominous backdrop, it was a volatile sector in which Americans were obviously not welcome.
Travis was far from reckless, but he also had a reputation for being the first to run toward the chaos of a Fallujah firefight. In fact, he had recently told “Doc” Albino, the Navy hospital corpsman who was eating a hot dog while getting mustard stuck in his thick mustache, exactly how he felt about serving in a war zone.
“Someday, I want to be able to look back on these years and know I did my part,” Travis told Albino.
After discussing the idea with several fellow officers, including Travis, Major Kubicki announced that a team would head into the Pizza Slice to follow up on new intelligence about the sniper’s whereabouts. Hopefully they could finally find the terrorist who was shooting at US Marines, Iraqi soldiers, and civilians. Two American Humvees would accompany two vehicles full of Iraqi Army troops. In one Humvee would be Kubicki, Albino, and Kim. They would be joined by the driver, Staff Sergeant Paul Petty, and the turret gunner, Staff Sergeant Josh Wilson.
Marang and Segel would ride in the second Humvee. The driver would be Staff Sergeant Chad Marquette, turret gunner Corporal Zebulin Bryner, and Mohammed, an Iraqi interpreter.
Travis and Second Lieutenant Scott Alexander, a friend and fellow MiTT team member, were supposed to go to a nearby school with Iraqi soldiers and hand out candy, crayons, and coloring books to local kids. Travis was excited about the mission because he cared about the Iraqis and loved to see the smiles of their children.
As the MiTT team members finished their lunches, packed up their gear, and prepared to head their separate ways, Travis was approached by First Lieutenant Kim, another close buddy. Manion, Kim, and Alexander, who often hung out together, had been nicknamed the “three amigos” by Major Joel Poudrier, the battalion-level Marine officer who was wounded in the chlorine bomb attack.
Kim, who had smelled ugliness in the air when he woke up that morning and had reiterated his uneasiness just minutes earlier, told Travis that the smiles of Iraqi schoolchildren would be a welcome sight. Kim was a brave Marine who repeatedly distinguished himself on the battlefield, but on this day he felt worn down. Fortunately he and Travis were close enough that he felt confident asking his friend to take his place on Major Kubicki’s Pizza Slice patrol team.
“Is it cool if I head over to the school instead?” Kim asked.
“No problem,” Travis replied, his eyes lighting up because he knew this meant he could go help find the sniper.
“Are you sure?” Kim insisted.
“Go ahead with Scott
to the school,” Travis said. “We’re all good.”
“Thanks, Travis,” Kim said. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
“See you back here,” Travis said with a nod.
Off the battlefield, Travis was a true friend. On it, he had already earned from the Iraqis the nickname “asad,” one of many Arabic words for “lion.”
Travis knew Kim, who would certainly return the favor later in the deployment, needed a break. In addition, Travis wanted to confront the sniper. Just as in his wrestling days at Navy, he was eager to fight against the opposition’s most skilled, intimidating opponent. Yet as Travis packed up his gear, including his M-4 rifle and its attached M-203 grenade launcher, it was impossible not to remember a recent conversation with his mother, which had left him so shaken that he had discussed it with Kim one night when they both couldn’t sleep.
Like any loving, caring military mom, Janet was in anguish knowing that her son was in combat on the volatile streets of Fallujah.
“I understand you have to do your duty,” Janet had said emotionally to Travis via satellite phone a few nights earlier. “But please make sure to be careful.”
Brendan Looney and Travis Manion met as midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
After starting his collegiate sports career as a Navy football player, Brendan played three seasons of lacrosse. Travis attended several of Brendan’s games, after which Brendan would often join the postgame tailgate celebration.
Travis had an illustrious collegiate wrestling career at Navy, where he defeated many of the nation’s top wrestlers in tournaments around the country. After being nationally ranked during his junior year, Travis’s senior season was derailed by a shoulder injury.
Brendan, a defensive midfielder, was a crucial part of the Navy Midshipmen men’s lacrosse team that made an improbable run to the 2004 NCAA Final Four and National Championship game at M & T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. Courtesy of the US Naval Academy
Brendan Looney and Amy Hastings met on Memorial Day weekend 2003 and quickly fell in love. While dating, the couple would endure Brendan’s two overseas deployments as a US Navy intelligence officer.
Brendan, Amy, Travis, and Enza Cestone—future wife of Andrew Hemminger, a Naval Academy classmate of Brendan and Travis—enjoy a fun evening on the town in Annapolis.
Travis’s father, Colonel Tom Manion, and mother, Janet Manion, pin the bars signifying their son’s commissioning as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps.
US Marine Second Lieutenant Travis Manion and US Navy Ensign Brendan Looney stand shoulder to shoulder at their Naval Academy graduation on May 28, 2004, in Annapolis. At the ceremony, US Air Force General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the 990 graduates that they would play a key role in fighting the nation’s post-9/11 conflicts.
Amy, Brendan, and Travis enjoy a friend’s wedding shortly after graduating college.
Tom, Ryan, Travis, and Janet Manion join family and friends to celebrate Travis’s graduation from the Naval Academy.
Travis opens his arms to the world during his 2005–06 deployment to Iraq.
As the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion’s maintenance management officer at Camp Fallujah, Travis went on numerous patrols in and around the city to uncover weapons caches and provide operational security.
Travis and his fellow Marines played a key role in overseeing security for Iraq’s October 15, 2005, constitutional referendum and December 15, 2005, national election.
Travis holds his niece and godchild, Maggie Rose Borek, shortly before his second deployment to Iraq.
Travis was a Philadelphia Eagles fan, while Brendan rooted for his hometown Washington Redskins. But when they attended NFL games together, one friend would often wear the other’s jersey as an inside joke.
Travis receives a kiss from his mom at a Pennsylvania restaurant on the night before heading to the West Coast to leave for his second deployment to Iraq. The December 2006 dinner with Janet, Tom, Ryan, and Dave, along with friends Ben and Sarah Mathews, would mark the last time Travis saw his family.
US Marine Sergeant Justin Bales, a reservist and New York City firefighter, discusses a 2007 mission with US Marine First Lieutenant Travis Manion in Fallujah, who he often joined on combat patrols. During Travis’s second Iraq deployment, he and a fellow Marine helped Bales and two others escape an enemy ambush.
After exchanging gunfire with enemy forces, Travis—an officer for 3rd Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 1st Iraqi Army Division Military Transition Team (3-2-1 MiTT)— leads the response to a March 18, 2007, terrorist attack in Fallujah. The heroic actions of Travis and his teammates resulted in the recovery of Iraqis killed in the blast, as well as the rescue of two injured Iraqis from the rubble.
“I know what I’m doing, mom,” Travis had replied. “I have an obligation to help these Marines and Iraqi soldiers.”
Janet was enormously proud of her son, but that didn’t make knowing he was in danger any easier. Similarly, Travis knew his mom fully supported him, yet it was still extremely difficult to hear her anguish from thousands of miles away.
As the MiTT Marines got into two Humvees and began their journey to a another FOB in the western part of the city, where they would pick up supplies and meet up with the Iraqi soldiers before heading into the heart of the Pizza Slice, Travis put on his headphones to help drown out the haunting memory of his mom’s aching voice.
Fallujah in 2007, and particularly the Pizza Slice, was similar to the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia, portrayed in Ridley Scott’s film Black Hawk Down and the book by Mark Bowden that it was based on. Everything was narrow, crowded, run down, and inherently suspect. For American troops, picking out an Iraqi insurgent in Fallujah was akin to police searching Yankee Stadium for a suspect wearing a dark blue hat with an interlocking “NY.”
As the two Humvees headed west toward the FOB, with horns blaring and lights flashing, Iraqi civilians parted like the Red Sea and reluctantly let the Americans through. Anyone in the crowd could have had a gun or bomb strapped to his chest, but this was standard operating procedure for Travis and his fellow Marines in Fallujah. The only difference was that some of Travis’s teammates had never been inside the Pizza Slice during the day.
As Staff Sergeant Petty drove the Humvee, with Major Kubicki in the passenger seat, Staff Sergeant Wilson up in the turret, and both Travis and “Doc” Albino in the back, Kubicki was conversing by radio with battalion leadership at Camp Fallujah. Though two helicopters would be provided for their mission to find the sniper, they only had another ninety minutes before the choppers would have to refuel and leave for a previously scheduled operation in a different part of the city.
“We better hurry,” Kubicki said to Petty as the Humvee hit one of many huge potholes. “We lose air cover at 1500 [3:00 p.m.].”
It was already 1:15 p.m., and the two American Humvees were just arriving at the second FOB. Fortunately the two Iraqi Army vehicles were already there, and the Americans rushed inside to grab some gear before heading into the Pizza Slice. They had also planned to take some extra water, until Marang realized that there wasn’t nearly as much water at the FOB as the Marines needed. Segel had asked him for another bottle, but there simply wasn’t enough to go around.
The four-vehicle combat patrol started out with the two Iraqi vehicles in the front and back, the American Humvees sandwiched in between. Travis and Kubicki’s Humvee followed Marang and Segel’s. Every American on the patrol knew this was the most dangerous part of their day, and they sat quietly in the vehicle, scanning the huge crowds surrounding their vehicles on Route Elizabeth, the marketplace-filled artery that feeds off the infamous Blackwater Bridge.
It was getting hotter and hotter, and knowing the enemy was almost certainly lurking amid the unfriendly Fallujah civilian population caused extra sweat to form on several foreheads. Yet the Humvees continued to make their way through the crowds, with some Iraqis pounding on the sides of t
he vehicles as the Americans passed. The Marines and their Iraqi counterparts pressed westward, determined to pinpoint the sniper and complete their mission.
The Marines were headed to a building where they believed the sniper could be hiding. Travis was familiar with the suspected safe house, but from experience he was also concerned about false intelligence.
In the backseat of the other Humvee, Segel looked out the window at a large cemetery as the patrol took a circular route to the target building. Taking the shortest way would have been too predictable, in case an enemy ambush was being planned. Segel hated coming to this area just as much as he had last year, and having to look at a huge cemetery didn’t make things any easier while struggling with the emotions of war.
“Let’s go get this fucking guy, sir,” Segel said to Marang, who was riding up front.
“Roger that, Lance Corporal,” Marang responded.
As both Humvees pulled up at the intersection of two narrow side streets, the Marines and their Iraqi counterparts jumped out to set up a perimeter and quickly perform a search of the building in question. There were a few civilians in the area, but it seemed less crowded than normal.
Travis dismounted and took charge on the ground, with Kubicki, who was standing with the interpreter, chiming in when he felt it was necessary. Petty and Marquette stayed in their respective vehicles along with the turret gunners, while Segel and Albino kept watch over the area and the officers, including Marang, established a perimeter. As Travis led a few Iraqi soldiers into the building, it became clear to everyone that something was off.
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