My Men are My Heroes (18 page)

Buhl's telescopic view from inside the tank brought the entire city into precise focus. What he could see was eerily medieval—a ponderous, lurking fortress of thick-walled buildings and tall, menacing minarets surrounded by ancient walls. From the minarets at the corners of the fortress city, its defenders could see the attackers long before they arrived at the gates.

“Someone could easily signal across the city via the mosque minarets just as they had done since medieval times,” Buhl says. “In effect, with observers in these mosque minarets, there was no way to approach Fallujah without somebody seeing us, particularly enemy FOs.”

As Buhl was peering through his scope Captain Bodisch directed his Fire Support Team (FiST) to suppress and, he hoped, destroy the insurgent positions while pulling back from the main line of resistance. Bodisch ordered his tanks to open up with their turret-mounted coaxial machine guns and suppress or kill as many of the insurgents attacking them as they could.

After the RCT1 engineer officer determined which enemy obstacles needed to be destroyed by his engineers, and Buhl and Malay had adequately studied their lines of approach, Bodisch ordered Team Comanche to beat feet.

Getting the order to leave didn't break Buhl's heart. As an infantryman he wasn't comfortable being inside a tank taking fire. Buhl later remarked, however, that a redeeming part of the experience was getting to load a round into the main gun and let it rip. He even saved the ejected cartridge for a souvenir.

It wasn't as if Buhl and his infantrymen didn't appreciate the Abrams' 120mm main gun, its magnificent array of optical wizardry, or its deadly coaxial machine guns. But infantrymen have understandably mixed feelings about tanks because tanks
often draw fire. Marines call them “mortar magnets” for good reason. Every time tanks came in their area they received incoming mortar and rocket fire. It didn't bother the tanks too much, but it could be really tough on the mud Marines.

The insurgents hated tanks and they expended huge amounts of ammunition at great risk trying to wound or destroy one. Mortar magnets or not, tanks in Fallujah were worth their weight in gold to the Marines, and the men in Bodisch's C Co. earned the respect and admiration of every member of the Thundering Third.

Shupp later deemed the mission a success for identifying the key objectives and breach lanes that were ultimately used. Additionally the tankers killed seven insurgents and destroyed four fortified positions without getting bogged down in a slugging match. Shupp credited the mission with setting the conditions for penetration of Fallujah from the north two weeks later.

“The best thing about the mission was that we got a good look at the train station and the approaches to it,” Buhl agrees.

By late October the battle plan was complete. The Third was given the all-important task of taking the Fallujah train station the night before the battle began in earnest. Success would depend on two untested Iraqi National Guard (ING) companies performing as advertised. Both were being trained by Marines from the Weapons Co., 3/1, former mortar platoon members out of work in al-Anbar province because of the ROE. India was the ING company led by Lieutenant Zachary Iscol and his ad hoc advisory team.

If the Iraqis were successful the Thundering Third would plunge headlong into the killing ground where unprepared insurgents would die. If they weren't successful things would get a lot messier. Weapons Co.'s newly minted advisors had a month to get ready.

Part of Kasal's job as first sergeant of Weapons Co. before the big fight for Fallujah was to keep it all communicating so that each element of the company meshed with the next. He had sections of TOWs and Mark-19 automatic grenade launchers perched on turrets in Humvees, and man-portable Javelins, and good ol' Ma Deuce, that big hunk of copper-spitting, twin-handled precision steel that had been sending the enemy to death for almost a century In addition he had three platoons of 81mm mortars, a poor man's artillery that can be devastating. All of it was tied together with computers, radios, and satellite pictures. Above them were fixed-wing attack jets dubbed “fast movers” and attack helicopters on call. To make sure Weapons Co. was in the right place at the right time the chain of command went like this: The company commander issued the orders he received from the battalion commander. Kasal's NCOs led the squads, sections, and platoons to make sure the men were ready. Finally Kasal made sure they were all where they were supposed to be.

Kasal was also a confidant of Sergeant Major E. T. “Ed” Sax. Together with the other officers and senior NCOs, they were charged with leading mostly teenagers—18-, 19-, and 20-year-old Marine Corps riflemen—who were fighting as much for each other as for any other cause. The most experienced of them had fought with Kasal during OIF 1; the least experienced among them were barely out of high school. But to a man they were all Marines.

In the final days and hours before the looming battle, the young Marines privately took inventory of their leaders. They willingly followed Kasal and the other professionals in Weapons Co. because they knew they were tough, hard, unrelenting officers and noncommissioned officers. They did it out of respect and even a bit of awe. However there were always plenty of young Marines trying to buck the system.

Sometimes good field Marines don't fare so well in the rear
where peace tends to reign and mayhem of any sort is frowned upon. Like Animal Mother, the fierce Marine in the movie
Full Metal Jacket,
they need somebody throwing grenades at them occasionally to feel engaged. Kasal didn't mind coming around to explode in their faces when he deemed it necessary.

Corporal R.J. Mitchell knew something about Kasal's explosive capability, although he says it never arrived undeserved. “First Sergeant could really chew some ass,” he remembers. “He could go crazy. Then he would tell you what you needed to do to correct it. First Sergeant could chew ass with the best of them.”

Under their leadership the proven warriors of 3/1 had fought the good fight for more than five long months and were ready for more. A rare few of them didn't want to fight and more of them faced the realities of concentrated combat with a terrible dread. They all knew that the professionals among them had gladly chosen the unforgiving life of a field Marine so they could lead them into battle. No matter what their personal feelings, the younger men had no intentions of letting their leaders down.

Some who have experienced combat say there is no prouder action a man can take. Some who have witnessed combat leaders plying their craft say there is no more noble a profession. To a man, the officers and noncoms of 3/1 stood proud and straight and walked with a particular certainty that is almost chilling to the uninitiated. Even the young leaders, the first-term corporals and sergeants who had earned their stripes in training, were all about being professionals. Like all the Marines who have passed before them, the Third's leaders at Fallujah remembered that duty and honor were never far away.

Kasal considers his service with the Thundering Third at Fallujah the most rewarding of his career. “It was an outstanding battalion,” he says. “We had the best men, NCOs, and officers in the Marine Corps. Lieutenant Colonel Buhl was a great officer and every man in Weapons Co. was outstanding. We had trained
together for a long time. All the first sergeants were excellent, and Sergeant Major Sax was a fine sergeant major. We knew each other and knew our mission.”

Buhl, a former NCO and Force Recon Marine who was no combat slouch himself, describes Kasal as “mentally and physically the toughest staff NCO I have ever served with.

“Kasal is larger than life with the young Marines. He praises them and kicks them in the butt when required,” Buhl says. “He is everywhere all the time, and that becomes apparent to the young PFC—that First Sergeant Kasal, now Sergeant Major Kasal, is there for the young Marines all the time.”

Buhl says Kasal always knows what he is talking about before he opens his mouth, an important asset when seconds count. And he says the rugged Marine had an uncanny ability to be wherever he was needed the most. Whatever the situation, the first sergeant of Weapons Co. would be part of the action.

Kasal says he was simply checking on his men just like any other first sergeant would do. The fact he always found himself in the thick of things was coincidental.

“Weapons Co. Marines supported all the companies,” he says. “I would hear something on the radio, or Major [at the time Captain R. H.] Belknap or maybe even Colonel Buhl would require something and I would head that way. The sergeant major was out there and so were the other first sergeants. 3/1 was always that way. We all talked to each other.”

Buhl says Kasal had been on the firing line in every fight Weapons Co. was engaged in since they landed in Iraq. On his first combat deployment he performed exactly the same way while leading Kilo Co. Every one of the officers and men who spoke about Kasal described him as a tough, tenacious fighter and a merciless hunter. His men stood in awe of him then and now. Even today, long after some of them have left the Corps, they still call him “First Sergeant” in a familiar way that sounds like
“Firs Sar'ent.” Far from being a slight, it is the manner in which Marines show unmitigated respect to their noncoms. NCOs that didn't add up were quickly forgotten. In the lexicon of their lives “First Sergeant” is First Sergeant Kasal.

Mitchell, who would play a huge role in Kasal's future, says Kasal was one of the biggest influences in his Marine Corps career. “In Fallujah First Sergeant Kasal was in Weapons Co., not even in my company. He would just show up and fall in like a lance corporal,” Mitchell recalls. “I would tell him what to do and he would go off and do it. He was awesome. If we had to take down a house he would do it. He had the TOWs and Javelins.

“One time some dude with an AK or something was firing out of this house in Fallujah—maybe the second or third day—and we couldn't see him because he was backed up into the room or something. I was going to take it out with a team until the first sergeant had a Marine fire a TOW missile into it. I was talking to him on the radio. It imploded the whole fucking house on this dude. Then several of us ran up to shoot him to be sure. Me, Kasal, Nicoll, and another Marine moved forward, but we couldn't find the guy because the whole house was a big rubble pile.”

Kasal's leadership impressed Mitchell, especially his style of correcting an error or instructing a subordinate to improve his performance. “If I screwed something up or did something he thought was wrong, he didn't start yelling or correcting me in front of the other Marines,” Mitchell explains. “Later he would say something and see if I agreed. You could tell him why you did something, and if he thought you were correct he would say so. I was a corporal then and there weren't too many first sergeants who would do that. He could chew some ass; he could go crazy, but never in front of anyone.”

Mitchell adds with a tone of admiration: “I never minded when Kasal showed up. He could kick some serious ass. He was just a bad dude.”

The campaign to retake Fallujah officially began November 1, 2004, and would capture the world's attention for nearly a month. That day Marine Corps Forward Operating Base (FOB) Delta took two rounds of incoming mortar fire from insurgents. Delta was located in the city of Al Kharma, 30 miles west of Baghdad, near Fallujah in the middle of the desert.

One result of the pinprick attack was that somebody far higher up the food chain than 3/1's Marines decided enough was enough. The Marines were finally going to put a stop to the insurgent activity bedeviling al-Anbar province. Fallujah was the viper's nest; insurgents had been operating there with impunity for six months.

First, though, there was much work to be done to prepare for an attack. 3/1 contributed on several fronts: Scout-snipers probed the insurgents in small deadly teams to determine their whereabouts, response times, communication methods, and strongholds. Snoopers of various kinds infiltrated the city, listened in on cell phone and two-way radio transmissions, and
flew unmanned missions over the city, taking pictures. Finally Marine leadership endeavored to sell the idea of the occupation to the local leadership—sometimes the very people who were trying to kill the occupiers.

In the weeks before the battle for Fallujah the scout-snipers were used to deceive the enemy about where the Marines intended to strike. Their job was part of a larger deception plan to confuse the insurgents about the location of the main attack.