July 21st - 2004

Started as a day like any other in a war zone. I woke up, had breakfast, hit the head and went about making sure that all the morning working parties were done in a timely fashion. Some time around 1200, we got a call that the Battalion S-3 (Operations Officer), or just 3, had come under ambush just east of the Saddam Mosque, about a kilometer west of the Outpost. That fell smack in the middle of Golf Company’s AO (Area of Operation.) It was a typical insurgent ambush; IED followed by small arms and automatic weapons. The QRF platoon mounted up and got rolling. Civilian traffic had already stopped so we had a strait shot to the ambush site. However, we decided that we should detour to the street directly south of the MSR and come out to the west of the 3’s convoy. We diverted from the MSR and started down the side street. I guess we surprised a group of insurgents posted at the other end of the street that were probably waiting for us to move directly to the convoy and then move south. They recovered quickly enough though, and opened up on the lead truck with an automatic weapon and fired an RPG. I was in the third vehicle in line with the CO and watched from my turret as the rocket missed the lead truck by scant inches and slammed into the side of the second vehicle. I will never forget how that truck looked on the moment of impact. The HMMWV, with 4 Marines in the back and 2 in the cab, appeared to fold in half as the driver’s side hopped off the ground a foot. Amazingly, only one Marine sustained minor injuries and another had been given a concussion. All vehicles immediately got out of the kill zone and Marines jumped to the ground and sought cover. The machine gun that had initiated the attack was still launching rounds at us and I heard Gunny bellow, “GET SOME SUPPRESSION DOWN THAT STREET!” Upon hearing this, I tapped my driver on the shoulder and asked him if he was ready. “Let’s do it,” came his reply. He gunned the truck over the curb and I opened up with a solid 60 round burst, keeping true to Machine Gun Dictum #1: Gain fire superiority in the initial burst. I then set into a rapid rhythm of 8 round bursts with a 2 second pause. I had also noticed that there was a car parked about 50 meters to my front with it’s trunk open. Finding this rather odd, I pumped a burst into it and one of the tracers set the fuel tank on fire. Before I knew it, I was down to less than 300 rounds of ammo having begun the engagement with over 1200. Taking a quick break, I turned to the nearest Marine on the ground and yelled, “Get me more ammo, NOW!” As it turned out, I didn’t immediately need the ammunition. The insurgents were using the car I had lit up as some kind of ammo dump. The rockets, explosives and other munitions started cooking off and I told my driver to get the hell out of there. We pulled back around the corner of a building and waited for the blazing, exploding car to die down. In the initial attack, the lead vehicle had taken several rounds in the engine compartment and was only able to move far enough to get behind a wall before the engine quit. The recovery team had already shown up to tow the RPGed truck back to base and decided to just take both back. Seeing as how the Mk-19 was mounted in it’s turret, the CO ordered me to take the Mk-19 off the disabled truck and mount it in my turret. We had to switch the mounting posts, the ammo cradles and the shields since the mounts for the M240 and the Mk-19 do not match up. Back in the hangar bay this would take half an hour. Doing it in full gear and trying to stay out of the way of bullets while doing it just adds a little flavor. Between 4 of us, we managed the job in just under 25 minutes. There was a building directly to our north that stood 5 stories and was believed to contain 3-5 insurgents. Before clearing it out, we were to saturate it with lead and HE (High Explosives). Two Army Bradley Fighting Vehicles had shown up and were to assist in this endeavor. Unfortunately for me, I had somehow kinked my rounds when I loaded the Mk-19 and was having trouble getting them out and so did not get to participate in pounding the building, the honor going to another Marine from Weapons Company. Regardless, it was truly a sight to behold, 25mm cannon shells and 40mm grenades slammed into the face of the building for a solid 15 seconds. Now, these rounds are designed to defeat light armor and as such, had no problem with the shoddy version of concrete used in the area. Overkill? Maybe. But it served the purpose. The door was blown in with an AT-4 and a squad cleared the building, finding the insurgents, unsurprisingly, dead. We then went on to sweep the area house to house. In one of the first houses we searched, the one with the burned out car in front, we pulled out 8 Iraqis. They were in possession of 10 AKs, 3 RPG launchers with rockets and an RPK and one of them turned out to be serving in the local Iraqi Police force. He actually tried to get out of being arrested by flashing his ID. I guess he thought we would just forgive him for trying to kill us and let him go. There were no more major incidents that day, but we did take a few more captives, one of which, it turned out, had been hit in the throat by one of my bullets. He had been dumped in the courtyard of a nearby house when his comrades bolted. I don’t delight in killing, but I am glad I got him before he got me or one of my Marines. Of the two trucks that were disabled, the lead truck was back in service the next day. The second, on the other hand, was stripped and sent back to Battalion Headquarters. The sun goes down on another day in Ramadi.

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