My Men are My Heroes (22 page)

The next part of the plan was for Marine engineer breach teams from RCT1 and from 3/1's engineer platoon to blow three lanes through the berm immediately to 3/1's south. Each lane was to be wide enough for vehicles to pass through, allowing the invasion to begin en masse.

Unfortunately the exercise didn't begin too well, Buhl recalls. Regimental engineers were a late addition to the plan and their inclusion caused some coordination problems and delays.

But at roughly 3 a.m. the engineers finally got underway. On the way to their breach positions one engineer AAV overturned in a quarry, injuring several Marines and causing another brief delay. Buhl was already getting worked up and the effort had just begun.

“The clock was ticking,” Buhl says. “Even with the regimental engineers helping we were barely able to get the work done.”

The engineers used mine-clearing line charges, explosives, bulldozers, strong backs, and big balls to break through the insurgents' defense line. During the operation they encountered light small arms fire from the edge of Fallujah, fire that they generally ignored. The incoming fire was suppressed by Weapons Co. gunners, snipers, and Army 120mm mortars—called “Maniac Mortars”—that quickly identified the targets and smothered them with fire.

As soon as the lanes were carved out the Marine engineers and Lima Co. riflemen raced across the railroad yard to take out a high curb that was bad for the tracks and wheeled vehicles scheduled to follow their mad dash to the edge of the city.

On the insurgent side radio and telephone chatter increased tenfold while the jihadists discussed what to do. No doubt some of them wondered which way they were going to die. Would death come on an invisible angel's wings from an almost impervious Abrams tank? From missiles or rockets? Or was death waiting with the Marines who would attack their fortresses with little regard for their fanatical efforts? It would still be a few hours before they found out.

 

 

 

The horrible dangers Kasal and his Marines would soon face still seemed remote when the 1st Marine Division lined up across the northern edge of Fallujah in a mobile wall of brute strength.

Since 3/1 had arrived on the start line the previous morning, targets all over the city were being slammed by the fast movers—aerial artillery spewn from orbiting Air Force AC-130Hs “Spectre” gunships, plus heavy 155mm artillery firing from fixed positions and 81mm mortars.

Huge explosions rocked the night and tracers flashed across the city. It was dangerously beautiful, almost mesmerizing. The big guns would fire, the automatic weapons would rap out a tattoo, and Spectres would rain down automatic cannon and 105mm howitzer fire on what the military calls “targets of opportunity.”

Corporal Mitchell remembers November 8 as the day Fallujah came under attack from every heavy weapon in the American arsenal. “They were firing 120mm Army mortars, 155mm guns,
81s, everything. They fired for 24 hours straight,” Mitchell says. “They fired a lot of red phosphorous; it looked like red sparklers falling from the sky. The stuff would hit the ground and turn everything red.”

Red phosphorus, a variation of the ubiquitous white phosphorus used in other modern conflicts, was used at Fallujah both to create smoke screens and to flush defenders from fortified positions.

Running the air operations at 3/1 was Captain Pat C. Gallogly. “PUC,” as he was universally known, was a Huey pilot who had flown more than 100 missions during OIF 1. He volunteered to become a forward air controller (FAC) after his first deployment so he could get some experience with the mud Marines. FACs guide available aviation assets to targets designated by the Grunts. Essentially they are the pilots' eyes on the ground. Marines have championed close air support directed by radio-equipped FACs since its days in the banana republics.

PUC's first conversation with Kasal was a few months before the Fallujah fight when Kasal turned up at the Forward Operations Center (FOC). As usual Kasal was in all his gear—absolutely regulation in every detail. PUC wasn't as well turned out.

“One night a bunch of Marines got hurt by an IED,” PUC says. “A Marine comes knocking down my door at about 3 a.m. and says, ‘Sir, we got urgent casualties.'

“I put on my pistol over my blue boxers. Other than that I had on my T-shirt and sneakers. I come in, the radios are going, people are all over, and Kasal is in there. He takes a hard look at me and comes up to the side of me and says very quietly, ‘Captain. Hey, sir, you better lose those blue shorts.'

“Brad Kasal was a very strict Marine, very formal; he didn't bullshit with officers. He's the kind of Marine that you don't have
credibility with until you work with him months and months. He didn't care about your rank. He cared how you did your job.”

And in Kasal's Marine Corps officers don't report for duty in their boxers.

Kasal remembers the incident well: “I had just got back off a patrol, and I heard an air medevac come over the radio in the COC [Command Operations Center], so I went there to see who it was and find out what the details were. Captain Gallogly, who was down in his rack sleeping, also got the word, so he came up to direct the helo. He had just woken up and was in a hurry, and he came running up there with just a pair of boxer shorts, a green T-shirt, and combat boots on, and that was it. I think I told him he ought to at least get some shorts on.”

The 33-year-old Citadel graduate says he frequently arrived in the COC in his underwear as the nights grew longer and more and more Marines came in requiring urgent care. It was his job to coordinate all the aerial Casualty Evacuations (CASEVACs) for Marines in need of urgent medical care. It was a demanding job that required him to talk every arriving mercy flight into the landing zone (LZ).

PUC had other jobs as well. His primary concern was approving the missions and coordinating the efforts of three other FACs spread out among the line companies. He also advised Buhl on the best use of the air assets flying over the city 24 hours a day. A helo pilot himself, PUC had a special affinity for the Huey pilots and the crews of the venerable CH-46 “Sea Knight” helicopters—called “Frogs” by the Marines—who came in low and slow to pick up desperately wounded Marines. Sometimes PUC would recognize the pilot's voices and they would exchange a pleasantry or two, but usually it was all business.

Under the air officer's nominal supervision the pilots and
FACs out with the line companies coordinated air strikes that always changed the momentum of an attack when 500- or 1,000-pound guided bombs arrived through a roof or even a window of a contested structure. The FAC on the ground and the pilot in the sky would share laconic messages in their best ChuckYeager voices, then buildings would suddenly explode. Each company in 3/1 had its own FAC. That was a departure from the usual three per battalion. Buhl recalls it paid off in spades.

A modern air strike is an awesome display of precision firepower in which a 500-pound bomb can turn a perfectly fine building into a smoking hole in the blink of an eye. For those providing the magic show it was an intense, no-nonsense experience that required close coordination and far more than a modicum of trust between the FACs and aviators flying in lazy circles high over the battlefield. In a lawn chair back home with a can of beer in hand the sights and sounds of D+2 would have been highly entertaining, but not from where PUC stood.

“3/1 was in more serious combat than the other battalions,” he says. “They were out there fighting for 12 days. 3/1 had 108 urgents [urgent evacuations] and 276 close support missions during Fallujah. Every bomb that was dropped was a laser or GPS [global positioning satellite] guided bomb. At first I was really worried about the GPS bombs' accuracy. Then we got used to talking them in. The FAC would give the aircraft the coordinates, I would check them, and the pilot would have them. When they were off, they were only 20 meters off. It was a beautiful thing.”

At 7 a.m. the Thundering Third slipped its restraints. On their right, at the eastern edge of the city, were the 3/5 Marines; next was Kasal's battalion, 3/1, led by Buhl. Tied on their left flank
were the 2/7, 1/8, 1/3, and 2/2 Marines in succession.

In front of them was the heavy armor from the U.S. Army's 2d Squadron, 7th Cavalry, with a tradition almost as long as the Marines' and just as proud. The cavalrymen were riding M1A1 Abrams heavy tanks sporting 120mm main guns and Bradley armored fighting vehicles (AFVs) armed with 25mm chain guns that literally eat things up. The Cav's job was to bust through the lines and defeat any expected hard points and IEDs laid out for ambushes along the tightly packed roads. It was a highly mobile force trained to scout and move.

Army doctrine dictates “fire and maneuver,” but tanks can't maneuver safely inside cities because of narrow streets and alleys. So the Cav's orders were to smash a path through the city to clear the way for 3/1's rifle companies. Even the Marines had to grant that Cav was brute force's Pro Bowl team at Fallujah.

The first day of al-Fajr, when Weapons Co. was still set up in its firing positions just outside the city, Kasal moved between his sections. When it was time to move out Kasal stayed with Staff Sergeant Lopez's 1st Section, assigned to Kilo Co., a decision that would have far-reaching implications in days to come. Gunnery Sergeant Francis Hurd was his vehicle commander and Lance Corporal Jensen was on the .50-cal in the turret.

“Once the train station was taken we moved into the city through the breach,” Kasal says. “As soon as we got into the city I got out of the vehicle and spent pretty much all of my time on foot. We were constantly worried about IEDs and ambushes and things like that.

“As Kilo would clear the buildings our CAAT vehicles would be right up front with them providing overwatch and fire support. I was usually out in the street providing help to whoever needed help, whether it be the Kilo Marines or our own vehicles.”

In addition to the frontline punch of Weapons Co. Buhl had been assigned 10 Abrams tanks from C Co., 2d Tank Battalion,
the same bunch that had driven Buhl to the train station in late October. This time all the Marines were thrilled to see them.

Still led by Captain Bodisch the Marine tankers' mission was to provide close support to the Marines after the Cav's juggernaut broke through the insurgents' defenses. The Marine tankers' role in the fight was exceptionally perilous because they stayed in the ruins of Fallujah with the mud Marines. Without maneuvering room they had to sit tight while the riflemen dug out the jihadists who hid from the Cav's onslaught. It left the Marines in the Abrams tanks vulnerable to swarming hordes, to shaped charges that could penetrate armor, and to a variety of weapons that could strip off their tanks' external optics and communications, or even kill the men.

Initially 3/1 was assigned a north-to-south axis of attack that followed the Cavalry wrecking ball. The soldiers and Marines expected to achieve early tactical success with that kind of firepower. If the insurgents fought it out they would certainly die. If they ran away they would be seen, and if they hunkered down they would be found.

Weapons Co. was locked and cocked and waiting to go when the order finally came. The plan was for the Marines to follow the Cav “in trace,” taking advantage of available cover while letting the Army tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs) take care of the heavy work. Cavalrymen call the tactic “ass raping.”

Kasal was with his CAAT Section providing overwatch and clearing buildings as they crept forward. He felt like he was on a movie set. “When we were entering the city we had Army Psyops [Psychological Operations] with big loudspeakers on their Humvee,” he explains. “They were playing the Marine Corps Hymn, Queen's ‘We Are the Champions,' things like that. Here we are in combat, kind of like
Apocalypse Now
where they are going into combat with songs playing, you know what I mean? It motivated everybody. Obviously we were already focused on
the job on hand, but just the fact that it was typical Marine Corps bravado made us feel more motivated.

“When we saw the enemy we would use all available firepower first. But boots on the ground still have to finish the job with the individual infantryman clearing the area house by house while charge songs are playing.”