Grunts (75 page)

Gott, Kendall, ed.
Eyewitness to War, Volume I: The U.S. Army in Operation Al Fajr, an Oral History
. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2007.

———.
Eyewitness to War, Volume II: The U.S. Army in Operation Al Fajr, an Oral History
. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2007.

Jadick, Richard.
On Call in Hell: A Doctor’s Iraq War Story
. New York: NAL Caliber, 2007.

Kaplan, Robert.
Imperial Grunts
. New York: Vintage, 2005.

Kasal, Brad, and Nathaniel Helms.
My Men Are My Heroes: The Brad Kasal Story
. Des Moines, IA: Meredith Books, 2007.

Livingston, Gary.
Fallujah with Honor: First Battalion, Eighth Marines in Operation Phantom Fury
. North Topsail Beach, NC: Caisson Press, 2006.

Matthews, Matt.
Operation Al Fajr: A Study in Army and Marine Corps Joint Operations
. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2006.

O’Donnell, Patrick.
We Were One: Shoulder to Shoulder with the Marines Who Took Fallujah
. New York: DaCapo, 2006.

Pantano, Ilario, and Malcolm McConnell.
Warlord: No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy
. New York: Threshold Editions, 2006.

West, Bing.
No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah
. New York: Bantam Books, 2005.

Wright, David, and Timothy Reese.
On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign, the United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, May 2003-January 2005
. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2008.

7th Infantry Counterinsurgency War

Mansoor, Peter.
Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander’s War in Iraq
. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2008.

ENDNOTES

Introduction

1
Captain William Whyte, “Will the Queen Die?”
Marine Corps Gazette
, January 1946, p. 10. In an article arguing for the infantry’s continued importance, Whyte quoted another commentator who claimed that the infantry would soon be “extinct as the dodo bird”; Captain William C. Boehm, letter to the editor,
Infantry Journal
, September 1947.

2
S. L. A. Marshall,
Men Against Fire: The Problem of Command in Future War
(Alexandria, VA: Byrrd Enterprises, Inc., 1947), p. 15; Ralph Peters, “The Counterrevolution in Military Affairs,”
Weekly Standard
, February 6, 2006, p. 18.

3
For more on the American notion of war as a logistical or engineering problem, see Brian Linn,
The Echo of Battle: The Army’s Way of War
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007). Linn trenchantly identifies three major intellectual groups that have dominated the Army’s thinking since the earliest days of American history. The Guardians see war as primarily a science that is subject to natural laws and principles. In the nineteenth century, they favored coastal defense fortifications; in the twentieth, they argued for missile defense. The Managers think of warfare as a question of national mobilization, resource management, and the employment of overwhelming force. The Heroes argue that the human factor is paramount in war. They believe that battles, and wars, are decided by the fighting spirit of soldiers along with the inspirational leadership that motivates them to fight.

4
Department of Defense Web site, Fiscal Year 2007 Budget by Service; Bing West,
The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics and the Endgame in Iraq
(New York: Random House, 2008), pp. 155, 346; August Cole and Yochi Dreazen, “Boots on the Ground or Weapons in the Sky?”
Wall Street Journal
, October 30, 2008, p. A14. The reference to inadequate equipment and weaponry for ground combat soldiers comes from my own Group Combat After Action Interview with Task Force 2-7 Infantry, enlisted soldiers, May 23, 2006. This problem is also general knowledge.

5
I am by no means the first author to make this case about the importance of ground forces. Marshall and Peters have, of course, emphasized these same points, albeit many decades apart. More recently, Daniel Bolger,
Death Ground: Today’s American Infantry in Battle
(Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1999), Frederick Kagan,
Finding the Target: The Transformation of American Military Policy
(New York: Encounter Books, 2006), and Adrian Lewis,
The American Culture of War: The History of U.S. Military Force from World War II to Operation Iraqi Freedom
(New York: Routledge, 2007), all articulated similar arguments.

6
Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Palmer, “Infantry and VT Fires,”
Infantry School Quarterly
, October 1950, p. 8.

7
The numbers on urban population come from a United Nations habitat study at
www.unhabitat.org
. According to the study, over half the world’s population lived in urban areas by 2007. For more on the planning of the Iraq War, see Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor,
Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq
(New York: Vintage, 2007), Bob Woodward,
Plan of Attack
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), and Tom Ricks,
Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
(New York: The Penguin Press, 2006).

8
For an excellent, groundbreaking study on killing in combat and its psychological effects, see Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman,
On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
(New York: Back Bay Books, 1995). Grossman made the salient point that, as a society, we know much about the phenomenon of warfare but very little about actual killing in combat. He equates this to knowing much about relationships but nothing of sex.

9
Alfred Thayer Mahan,
The Influence of Sea Power upon History
(Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 1991); the World War II statistics come from John C. McManus,
The Deadly Brotherhood: The American Combat Soldier in World War II
(New York: Ballantine Books, 2003), p. 154. The other statistics, compiled as of May 14, 2008, are at
www.fas.org
under “American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics.”

10
John Keegan,
The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme
(London: Penguin Books, 1976).

11
The Checkerboard: Newsletter of the 99th Infantry Division Association
, February 1993, p. 11.

Chapter 1

1
Task Force 53, After Action Report (AAR), Record Group (RG) 127, U.S. Marine Corps Records, Guam, Box 49, Folder 3; Lieutenant Colonel W. F. Coleman to Major O. R. Lodge, September 23, 1952, U.S. Marine Corps History and Museums Division, Publication Background Files, “The Recapture of Guam,” RG 127, Box 12, Folder 5; Colonel Edward Craig to Commandant, November 19, 1952, RG 127, Box 12, Folder 5, all at National Archives, College Park, MD; Major O. R. Lodge,
The Recapture of Guam
(Washington, D.C.: Historical Branch, U.S. Marine Corps, 1954), pp. 34-35; Harry Gailey,
The Liberation of Guam, 21 July
-
10 August, 1944
(Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1988), pp. 87-88.

2
3rd Marine Division, Invasion plan and landing diagrams, RG 127, U.S. Marine Corps Records, Guam, Box 65, Folder 7, National Archives; Lieutenant Colonel C. H. Kuhn, “The Guam Operation, 21 July-10 August 1944: The Importance of Planning,” U.S. Marine Corps Amphibious Warfare School Paper, 1947-1948, found at the Gray Research Center (GRC), U.S. Marine Corps History and Museums Division (USMCHMD), Quantico, VA; Cyril O’Brien,
Liberation: Marines in the Recapture of Guam
(Washington, D.C.: Marine Corps Historical Center, 1994), pp. 5-8; Robert Arthur and Kenneth Cohlmia,
The Third Marine Division
(Washington, D.C.: Infantry Journal Press, 1948), pp. 142-46; and Lodge,
Recapture of Guam
, pp. 16-20.

3
3rd Marine Division, Special Report, Medics, Guam Operation, Enclosure I, RG 127, U.S. Marine Corps Records, Guam, Box 50, Folder 10; “Report on Guam Operations,” Box 50, Folder 8, both at National Archives; Staff Sergeant John O’Neill, personal diary, John O’Neill Papers, Box 1, Folder 2, GRC, USMCHMD; William Morgan, oral history, William Morgan Collection, #30140, Veterans History Project (VHP), American Folklife Center (AFC), Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; the spud locker quote is in Louis Metzger, “Guam 1944,”
Marine Corps Gazette
, July 1994, p. 93.

4
Jack Kerins, “The Last Banzai” (self-published, 1992), pp. 76-77. For the bombardment ship order of battle and their placement off the beaches, see appendix chart in Lodge,
Recapture of Guam
.

5
3rd Marine Division, “Report on Guam Operations”; Eugene Peterson, unpublished memoir, pp. 76-77, Eugene Peterson Collection, #477, VHP, AFC, Library of Congress; Philip Johnson, unpublished memoir, p. 1, copy in author’s possession, courtesy of Mr. Johnson. Peterson and his colonel shared the meat loaf that night. Both men agreed that it was the best meal they ate on Guam.

6
3rd Marine Division, D3 (Operations) Comments on Naval Gunfire Support, Annex C, RG 127, U.S. Marine Corps Records, Guam, Box 50, Folder 9; Task Force 53, AAR, both at National Archives; Philip Crowl,
The United States Army in World War II: The War in the Pacific, Campaign in the Marianas
(Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1960), pp. 324-25; William Putney,
Always Faithful: A Memoir of the Marine Dogs of WWII
(Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 2001), pp. 140-41; Lodge,
Recapture of Guam
, pp. 37, 106.

7
3rd Marine Division, D3 Comments on Air Support, Annex D, RG 127, U.S. Marine Corps Records, Guam, Box 50, Folder 9; Lieutenant Colonel J. R. Spooner, close air support officer, to Major O. R. Lodge, August 12, 1952, U.S. Marine Corps History and Museums Division, Publication Background Files, “The Recapture of Guam,” RG 127, Box 12, Folder 8, both at National Archives; Maury T. Williams, unpublished memoir, no pagination, John G. Balas Papers, Box 1, Folder 6, United States Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, PA (hereafter referred to as USAMHI); William Welch, unpublished memoir, in author’s possession, courtesy of Mr. Welch; Crowl,
Campaign in the Marianas
, p. 324.

8
Major L. A. Gilson to Major O. R. Lodge, February 11, 1952, U.S. Marine Corps History and Museums Division, Publication Background Files, “The Recapture of Guam,” RG 127, Box 12, Folder 8; Admiral Richard Conolly to Commandant, November 12, 1952, also in Publication Background Files, RG 127, Box 12, Folder 5; Lieutenant Colonel Hideyuki Takeda to Marine Corps Historical Center, February 20, 1952, U.S. Marine Corps Records, Guam, RG 127, Box 68, Folder 17, all at National Archives; I. E. McMillan, “Naval Gunfire at Guam,”
Marine Corps Gazette
, September 1948, p. 56; Crowl,
Campaign in the Marianas
, pp. 325-26; Lodge,
Recapture of Guam
, pp. 106-07.

9
3rd Marine Division, AAR, RG 127, U.S. Marine Corps Records, Guam, Box 50, Folder 9; “Report on Guam Operations,” both at National Archives;
War Dogs of the Pacific
, documentary by Harris Done, copy in author’s possession, courtesy of Mr. Done; Williams, unpublished memoir, USAMHI; Kerins, “Last Banzai,” p. 79; Bill Conley, interview with the author, March 21, 2008; Henry Shaw, Bernard Nalty, and Edwin Turnbladh,
History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II: Central Pacific Drive
(Washington, D.C.: Historical Branch, 1966), pp. 457-58; for more on the physiological effects of fear in combat, see Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman with Loren W. Christensen,
On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace
(Portland, OR: PPCT Research Publications, 2007), pp. 16-49.

10
1st Provisional Marine Brigade, War Diary, RG 127, Marine Corps Records, Guam, Box 57, Folder 11; Unit Report, July 21, 1944, Box 57, Folder 13; 22nd Marine Regiment, Journal, July 21, 1944, Box 61, Folder 1; Tank Company, Special Action Report (SAR), Box 61, Folder 9; Lieutenant Colonel Robert Shaw to Commandant, September 29, 1952, RG 127, U.S. Marine Corps History and Museums Division, Publication Background Files, “The Recapture of Guam,” Box 12, Folder, all at National Archives; O’Neill, diary, GRC; Shaw et al.,
Central Pacific Drive
, p. 461; O’Brien,
Liberation
, pp. 11-17; Lodge,
Recapture of Guam
, pp. 47-53.

11
9th Marine Regiment, SAR, RG 127, Marine Corps Records, Guam, Box 50, Folder 10; R3 Journal, July 21, 1944, Box 59, Folder 3, both at National Archives; Welch memoir.

12
21st Marine Regiment, SAR, RG 127, Marine Corps Records, Guam, Box 50, Folder 10; Operation Report, Box 51, Folder 2; Anthony Frances, “The Battle of Banzai Ridge,” unpublished manuscript, pp. 4-7, USMCHMD, Reference Branch Files; Frank Hall, interview with the author, March 24, 2008; Frank Goodwin, interview with the author, March 25, 2008; Conley interview; Paul Jones, unpublished memoir, p. 19, Paul Jones Collection, #41436, VHP, AFC, Library of Congress; Lodge,
Recapture of Guam
, pp. 40-42. Jones’s memoir provided firsthand context and description that added to my account of the 21st Marines’ ascent up the cliff.