The Fuchsia Feather - Kyle Mader (part 1 of 3)

Kyle Mader kept a detailed journal and recounts his path from late arrival on ship to the workup grind, the convoy through Kuwait and Iraq, and two violent days that defined early Ramadi. Street fighting on Easy Street, shifting rules of engagement, and the game changer of an ACOG in gunfights.

• joining 2/4 Weapons Company and team makeup
• March Air Force Base lanes, MOUT, IED briefs
• flight delays, New Jersey layover, Kuwait staging
• convoy north, Junction City, Hurricane Point setup
• guard on North and South Bridge, spotlight “games”
• first IED hits and rising threat awareness
• April 6 contact
• April 7 urban fight with an RPG near-miss
• ROE shifts under pressure and target ID
• ambulances, taxis, motorbikes used for fighters
• Mark 19 impacts and battlefield aftermath
• ACOG accuracy, NVG lessons
• photos, journals, and sharing the archive

If you like what you've heard, this is a multi part episode. Make sure you listen to the rest of the story.

----------------------------------------------
If you like what you heard, please subscribe on your favorite podcast service or follow our webpage for direct downloads @ https://www.buzzsprout.com/2525088

If you are a member of Weapons Company or someone with a story about Weapons Company 2/4 in 2004, please come tell some stories with us - 20 mins or 20 hours! Help paint the canvas of an archival story for others to know what it was like. Contact us @ RamadiPodcast@gmail.com, or via the podcast website above. 

All music used with permission by soundbay: https://www.youtube.com/@soundbay_RFM 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Nice. All right. Well let's tell everybody who you are and uh what rank you were in 2004.

SPEAKER_04 0:43

Uh I'm Kyle Mater. I was uh Lance Corporal uh at 2 Battalion 4th Marines. I was in Weapons Company, uh 81's platoon, and I was I guess we broke up. I was in Rainmaker, and then to break it down even more. I was in First Squad under Sergeant Garcia, and then my team leader was Corporal Fernandez.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Oh, perfect. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

That's cool. Bernie was one of our earlier uh conversations.

SPEAKER_04 1:06

So yeah, I listened to that one. But uh so I think in our team it was Fernandez was the team leader. Uh Savage was our gunner in the beginning. Then it was me, Luna, Accles. I think that was it. I know at one point we were in a truck with Home was our driver and Hurley was a gunner until they got we got blown up and they left. But yeah, and I joined the battalion near the end of that uh Oki deployment. So I got there on ship. I can't remember where. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

But I remember the ship?

SPEAKER_04 1:40

Yep. Yeah, we came on ship. So that was quite the experience. Oh bad. No one is wearing blouses, so I know no one's rank. I called everyone sergeant until they corrected me. I remember getting yelled at by Gunny Coleman for saying Roger that Gunny, and he started yelling at me about Roger Rabbit or something. I don't know. But yeah, coming on ship was interesting, not knowing anyone.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

How did that happen? Did they were we at Port? I have the vaguest of memory that we did get pick up some people like while while underway, but were you were we out at sea, or did we no?

SPEAKER_04 2:13

I think we were in Sassible.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

That was my I was gonna say we picked up, I think it was you and Holm and a couple other people in Sassible.

SPEAKER_04 2:20

I was I was after Home and Hansen. It was me, Luna, Martinez. Uh I'm trying to think. There was a bunch that came to Weapons Company, like Groves. Uh God, I can't remember half of them, the names anymore. But there was like 20 of us that came to Weapons Company. So we came with uh um oh that's uh Sergeant Um Sergeant N'Corman. My god, I'm brain forking on his name. He came he was in one of the Map Platoons. Uh tall, skinny, lanky guy. Anthony? Anthony, yep. Sergeant Anthony. He was he came over at the same time as us.

Joining The Battalion On Ship

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Yeah, so interesting. That was like the last four months, maybe five months of the deployment? Yeah, something like that. I mean, you still had a lot of a lot of months in Okinawa, but not the full 12.

SPEAKER_04 3:07

No, no, not the full 12, but yeah, that would have been like March, I think, or something like that. Uh yeah, it was March because I remember being in uh on Pendleton just before, and it was Staff Sergeant Baptiste or something, St. Baptiste.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Oh, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_04 3:23

Yeah, he was the stay behind, and he read out like the the the message from Mattis when they crossed into Iraq and then we deployed to you guys right after that. So and that was like March 11 or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:36

So I don't know. I got a decent memory of some of the stuff.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Yeah. I forgot about that guy. That T uh man, what company was anyway, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_03 3:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:48

Well, yeah, so I was there for the whole workup before Iraq and uh March Air Force Base and all that. Um I didn't Gunning Marky I was doing a lot of like advanced shooting packages and stuff like that. That was pretty helpful. And then uh yeah, all this the different trainings that we did.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

So what is what do you remember of any? I mean, other than the advanced shooting pack, did you go to any division schools or anything like that, or were you sticking around?

SPEAKER_04 4:11

I didn't go to any go to any schools, I don't think. Nothing that I can remember actually. I know we went to that mouth town out by Edson Range a few times. Uh we hiked back from there one time too. That was in the middle of the night. That was interesting. Uh-huh. Um, but we did a lot of like room clearance stuff. Uh a little different than what we do things these days now. Yeah, so that was that was kind of cool.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

Tactics advance over 20 years. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:39

And then we did something we like they set up different stations around kind of Camp Pendleton, I remember. And one of them was at like some mount town out by some little smaller mount town out by SOI in like their backyard. I remember doing that one, like going through in trucks. And I remember we were role players for one of them over in it, wasn't it Orno, but somewhere somewhere else when there's another infantry battalion or regiment. But yeah, and then I remember March Air Force Base, that was kind of cool. I remember we were on some patrol doing, I don't remember what exactly we were doing, and we're like watching the enemy, you know, and then everyone's like, where the fuck is everyone going? Well, it was the Super Bowl, and that and they had told everyone but us, like, hey, we're done for the day. So we're still out like sitting in an ambush on this patrol, like nothing's going on. And then finally, Lieutenant Dobb was like, All right, let's get the fuck out of here. That's too funny. But I also remember at March Air Force Base we had the Miles Gear, and it wasn't working right. I remember getting killed a bunch of times, and I look at my Miles gear and it would tell you how you died, and it was killed by uh naval gunfire. I got that one a couple times.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

That was the god gun. That was the instructors would shoot you with the god gun. Yeah.

Workups, MOUT, And March AFB

SPEAKER_04 5:50

Well, they ours were just going nuts, I remember. And there would be no one around. We'd we wouldn't find one of the instructors with the gun for like an hour or two. It's like, hey man, reset me. Uh Naval Gunfire got me. But March Air Force Base is kind of cool. I remember we had uh the rail marines were there, and I'll never forget the guy's name was Major Pritchett. Pritchett. Pritchett? I think uh Hansen kept making fun of the guy's voice uh accent, so it's pretty funny. Memories always like bomb burst out of the firm base, but we never actually did that. Yeah. But but it was good. I mean, like didn't put patrols and pine shit off.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

And I mean, I think we did a lot of that stuff, but I forgot about the bomb burst tactic because again, they were they were sharing all the stuff they learned doing sasso missions with the Irish again against the North Irish. Yeah, and they they were worried about snipers because they had I mean Irish snipers were lethal, uh, especially during all of their troubles that they had. And that was their thing, is when they ran out, everybody just ran in all directions out of the gate. And we so we practiced. I remember practicing. Man, I hadn't thought about that in 20 years either. That was stupid as shit. And we never did that because we were in trucks the whole damn time.

SPEAKER_04 7:06

Yeah. Well, I just one thing that stands out. I remember with that is they had these sweet fucking boots, they were more like sneakers than boots. And I'm like, man, I want those. I want a pair of those. Like the shit we were in is so uncomfortable. Yeah. I'll never forget those boots he wore. But yeah, uh, all right. Yeah, I remember so I remember the flight, the flight over was in the I think it was old C-141s, which became obsolete not too long after we flew in them. But yeah, yeah, I remember getting to March Air Force Base to fly out, and I was like, no fucking way this is what we're flying on. Sure shit it was. And they had us so so packed in the back there. I got lucky and I got I was like on first. So I was right next to Captain Weiler for the flight, all the way over from all the stops, all the way over, I think all the way over. Uh maybe not across the ocean, but maybe I don't remember. So I was sitting next to him the whole time. So I actually had like decent leg room on the the the first couple flights that we had. And I remember when we uh I think it was after Banger Maine, and we were we but right before we turned back to uh McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, one of the Air Force guys came. So I knew what was going on because I was everyone's sleeping, and I feel the plane like make this weird movement, and I'm like, what the fuck was that? And I was like that, and I look around and everyone's sleeping, except for me and Captain Weiler, and uh some Air Force guy comes over talking about the engines, and I'm like, what the fuck is going on? And then fucking Captain Wyler looks at the guy, goes, Well, we're amphibious. And I'm like, You gotta be shitting me. I didn't realize he was fucking around at the time. So then yeah, obviously we turned back because up to the pilots, we turned back and went to New Jersey. But and then in on the thing over the flight overseas, well, hold on, uh, in New Jersey, we we were there for like four or five days, weren't we? It was a while, yeah. I remember they had us in that airport and then they put us in like lodging or because it wasn't barracks, but so I did 16 years in the Air Force Reserves after the Marines, so I've done to some different schools in the Air Force, and there's no barracks you like in the Marine Corps. If you go to like a school, you're staying in barracks. No, the Air Force puts you up in like it kind of reminds you of barracks, but it's it's a hotel kind of. So we stayed in like Air Force lodging over in at Meguiar. And remember going with a commissary in Riesberger, buying pitchers of beer and sneaking around pounding as much beer as he possibly could. I remember sneaking a couple myself too, but that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

See, I see uh my memory is that we only uh I mean, did we even sleep in those bar in those rooms though? Like I feel like we finally got uh issued them, but then like immediately left.

SPEAKER_04 9:52

Yeah, I think we were for one at least one night for sure, maybe maybe two nights, but at least one night for sure. I because I remember that when we were sleeping in the bed. And then I know some guys got to go to the bowling alley, I think, one night. I wasn't 21, so I didn't get to do that.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

So okay. I think I might have been like on some sort of watch or something like that, because I don't remember. Yeah, like I maybe I had to stay with the gear, like was overseeing gear watch or something. Anyway, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_04 10:20

I think like Accles was saying, I think Accles and I think maybe Acres, they're the two newest ones we got. We got them at March Air Force Place. They stayed at the whole the airport the whole time with watching all our gear and shit. I felt bad for those two guys, kind of. I mean, they're boots, so we don't really care about them too much. But but yeah, then eventually we flew over to Germany, and then but then I got packed in the middle, and that was the most uncomfortable flight in the world. That was awful, just horrible. There's no room to the left or right, you're putting your legs between the guy's legs in front of you, like crisscrossing them or over overlapping them. That was miserable. I did not enjoy that at all. But I remember when we finally landed in Kuwait and we got on those buses, we went to like I think it was called Camp Wolverine for like some welcome to the Middle East kind of thing. Yep. But I remember we were riding, and I can't remember if we were riding buses there or afterwards to Camp Victory, but I remember being hot as shit on the bus. Like we're sweating, and I'm like, oh my god, is this what it's gonna be like in Kuwait? This is miserable. Well, the driver had the heat cranked up because we got off the bus, I'm like, oh, it's kind of chilly out. But I thought we were it's gonna be a million degrees like it was on that fucking bus, because that that driver, god, I couldn't stand that guy.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

But he he was probably cold because it was yeah, it was the middle of morning for them, and so it he was probably cold at you know it was 65 degrees out around.

SPEAKER_04 11:49

Yeah, it was perfect for us.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But but to him, he was Kuwaiti or whatever he was, he was Indian, and uh and so he was fucking probably French.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

A lot of those guys were Filipino, yeah, or not Filipino, uh Indonesian. There we go. That's the word I was looking for.

SPEAKER_04 12:04

Yeah, yeah. But remember, we were in because we were a victory for what like what 10 days, two weeks, something like that. Somewhere around there, yeah.

Flights, Delays, And Kuwait Staging

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Uh we left March Air Force Base on February 14th. There's a chunk of time that's missing, however many days we were in New Jersey, and the day or two we spent in Germany or whatever it was while they fixed the plane. Yeah. And oh yeah, Germany.

SPEAKER_04 12:26

I remember we were in some like two-story USO for because we we couldn't leave there. We were just laying on the ground the whole time. Because it was it seemed like it was like right on the flight line almost, some USO thing. They had a bunch of free shit. I remember that.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

And I I never got to get any of that. I ended up just staying in the fucking hangar. Yeah, I I don't remember why. A couple of our guys were sick. We were trying to figure out what to do with them. We were we were actually discussing uh trying to drive them to a local hospital. Like there's a whole bunch of other stuff, but anyway, they got real, real sick.

SPEAKER_04 12:54

Oh shit. Um, yeah, so at Camp Victor, I remember uh God, there was that army dumpster, I don't remember what it was called where we scavenged all their shit for them. I remember going there looking for stuff all all the time in the big dumpsters. But then I think it was me, it was either me and Savage or me, it was me and someone else. We went driving around to like different army tents. We didn't know what half their acronyms meant, like because we would we needed like batteries for the Humvee or something. We just started walking into random tents asking people like where can we find stuff? And then they're like, Oh, if you bring us a battery, we'll give you a battery. So we got new batteries for I think most of the platoon Humvees that way, and then we just went joyriding in the Humvees around the around the base for a little bit. That was kind of fun. I do remember we played uh what was that football game we played? 81s played, Blake. It was like it wasn't two-hand touch, it was like two-hand shove, but it got like out of hand.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

And uh oh man, I forgot.

SPEAKER_04 13:51

It got like really out of hand. It was like first section versus second section, and it got super out of hand. And Staff Sergeant Cook like went to screamed and yelled at us, went to attend. He goes, Hey sir, they got a lot of energy, we're gonna go for a run. Then he ran us forever.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

Oh, he ran us hard dicks into the dirt, and he just like oh shit. I forgot, I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_04 14:15

Yeah, oh, I won't forget that. Oh, yeah, that was that was brutal. But so I was on the convoy. We I think from when we when we left into Indormani, I was on the convoy. It was me and Martinez were in a homeview. He was a driver. And I I think we were attached to it's either Fox or Golf Company. I I can't remember which one.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

If you were in our if you were in the same stick as me, it was golf.

SPEAKER_04 14:41

Yeah. No, uh uh, you know, maybe it was Echo. I think, yeah, because I had a buddy Randy Hale, who was in Echo, and he was with us. So it was Echo Company. And uh I think they took all our armor off the side of our home bee. Well, I mean armor, the quarter-inch steel on the side. And then we we had those three quarter doors still. Yeah. And we I mean, this we didn't know what we were getting into. We had, you know, I'd have a ovary in the world at the time. But uh, we went up to like, I remember it was called like training area alpha or staging area alpha, and we like sat there for like 24 hours like to cool down or something like that. And I remember we just kind of it was like I remember me and it was me and Holm, Martinez, I can't remember who Holmes A driver was. But anyways, we kind of sat there. We were in the middle of nowhere in the desert. We sat there after we were released for like the 24 hour, 20 hour cooldown period. We sat there in like in the evening on these fold-out chairs and just chain smoked cigarettes for like I mean, I chain smoked a whole pack, I'm pretty sure. And then more people started gathering, but we just sat there and just chain smoked cigarettes until we went to bed eventually, until it got too dark out. But yeah, so I remember yeah, then we left we left that place and then went into Iraq, and then we stopped at um God, I think it was called Navistar or Navstar or we still so Navstar was the name of the company.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

The the checkpoint was called Scania, is what the name of it was.

SPEAKER_04 16:08

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I so I kept the journal when I was in Iraq the whole time. So I I was reading I've been reading that the last couple weeks.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

I did not remember the Navstar company, but that it was a private contractor group that like resupplied and refueled shit, and and I they like all the big um I mean they look like semi-trucks, whatever the fuck they're called. They're military semi-trucks, and they would fix those things.

SPEAKER_04 16:32

Oh, okay. Now I remember we stopped for gas once, or like it must have been like underground tanks, and I can't remember if that was before or after we stopped at some I guess you could call it a base that we parked for the night. So I remember there was a PX there, and there was a lot of there was a couple different convoys there. And I remember because I my I didn't have a folding chair at the time. I remember walking over to an army convoy and we stole like five or six folding chairs that they had just sitting on their the hoods of their humbies.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

Tactically acquired, tactically acquired, yeah, yeah, that's yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_04 17:02

I'll reward because it was me and I can't remember who I was walking with, and we're like fucking idiots left a bunch of folding chairs there, like nice ones too. So we took them all.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

I the number of stories of Marines stealing from the army. I always wondered if the army had like a field manual of like how to protect your shit from Marines. Because like if if they left anything out, we wrapped it up.

SPEAKER_04 17:23

Yeah, we took it all. Yeah, yeah. Uh, and then I remember I don't remember exactly too much of the convoy, except for those stops. And then I remember there was an army guy because we, you know, we walk around with a rifle slung all the time. He was walking around with an M60 slung, and I just remember I'll never forget that. Just look, it just was like, that's interesting. But yeah, so then we convoyed and eventually made it to uh Junction City. I don't remember many other stops along the way after that that one night. I do remember Martinez and I chain smoking the whole whole convoy though. We'd there was that like heater little lip between the windshield and the cab and a pack of cigarettes would fit in there snug just perfect.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Yes, it did.

SPEAKER_04 18:05

And we just ripped the top off and we just chain smoke cigarettes to the whole convoy. But uh I remember we meeting Gunny Meraki at Junction City and then we went over to uh uh Hurricane Point.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

We're like I forgot that we went to Junction City first before we went over.

Convoy North And First Impressions

SPEAKER_04 18:23

Yeah. And then uh yeah, I remember getting to Hurricane Point and we're like, what the fuck? Not super impressed. I mean, I knew we weren't gonna be getting anything nice, but I was like, oh shit, the fuck are like canvas roofs on these hooch. But so yeah, we got there we were there a couple days before the rest of the company got there. I don't remember how long. It was at least one or two nights. Because I remember doing firewatch one night and there's only like 10 or 12 of us from there was only like 10 or 12 of us uh from 81s and and we were all in one hooch. But um I remember we went out with uh I remember hearing people talk about like the Florida guard and then the air and the airborne was out there. I we definitely had an airborne guy that we were with when we did a couple I guess you could call it patrols through the city, but driving just fast. Uh yeah, we didn't learn much from that guy. Basically, like don't stop. That's what he said. And then uh yeah, then eventually the rest of the company got there, and that was interesting. I remember we had to dig out the the shitter lines from the hooch because they got all clogged up and that sucked because they're all jam full of toilet papers, and then we couldn't use the shitters in the hooch anymore, and then we had those uh porta potties, but yeah, I don't know. I remember the first big mission we did was some big cordon search. We staged at like combat outposts and then we went out all day long. I remember I found a uh Saddam bill, like the one of their dollar bills with his face on just in a trash pile.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

The Iraqi dinar, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:58

Yeah, I got a couple of those actually. Some kid, I bought one off some kid, and I I found a couple just laying on the ground. That was kind of cool. And I remember we found some lady using a deck cord for a clothesline. Yes. We took that down and gave her 550 cord to put up. Or I think it was a lady, I don't remember. But it was yeah, that remember nothing really happened that on that. That was like our first big one, I think, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 20:20

That mission was on March 18th.

SPEAKER_04 20:23

Yeah, I have it. I took some notes, I haven't written down yet, March 18th. Yeah, exactly. I kept a journal most not every day, but like because some days I'll look at it and be like, hey, this date to this date, sh nothing didn't nothing happen. But like I wrote a lot of shit down in there. It's it's yeah, it's quite long. Nice. Yeah, I wish I was a little more mature when I was writing that shit than I was back then, but whatever.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

I don't know. I bet it's I bet it's funny. And I bet it's uh it is it's probably very telling of the time frame as well.

SPEAKER_04 20:54

Oh yeah, for sure. Because I yeah, I've got dates and everything in there. It's interesting looking back. I haven't read it in ever until just recently, so it's kind of kind of interesting.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

If you ever want to, like take some either uh take some photos of it and uh send it send it over. I would love I would love to read it over, man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:11

I mean, I also I had a digital, I bought a digital camera before we left. And so I took I had it in my cargo pocket, the whole deployment, and I took hundreds of pictures. I got two huge photo albums, probably because I I you know I someone didn't all turn out, but I got like four or five hundred pictures in these photo albums. I I go through those actually quite a bit. So that's cool. Yeah, yeah, I took a lot of lot of pictures. Do you still have the digital copies? No, I you know, I looked around for that and I I couldn't I couldn't find them. I had I I was looking through a box a few weeks ago. I still had the camera, but the sim the SD card or whatever, it's that's long gone. Interesting. I know I know a day where that's I just threw the camera out and I'm like, I don't need this shit anymore.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm I'm I'm sure it is uh one tenth of the capability of any modern cell phone anyway.

SPEAKER_04 21:59

It was like uh three megapixels, woo, you know.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:04

Well yeah, um, so I remember uh I think not too long after we went on that week week at guard, because it was like what was it, day taskable, day q or f night taskable, night q f and then you're on guard and then the resets or whatever. I remember we played a game on the tower.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:29

Is that right? Yeah. The one closest to Junction City. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

North North Bridge and South Bridge. South Bridge would be the the closest one between us and Junction City. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:37

So I did almost all mine. I did a few on the North Bridge, but mainly with South Bridge is what I was always on. Because the army had a a post on the other end of the dam or whatever that was. I remember one night they got hit with a rocket and we went running down there and they were fine. Like, oh shit, we thought you're all dead. You know, but they were up there for 24 hours, they said, where we did like two, four-hour posts, something. But we had these spotlights, I don't know where we got them from. And we'd play a game up on the on the tower, and it was if you at night, because I think curfew was like 11 p.m., wasn't it? Something like that, yes.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

I think it was earlier than that.

SPEAKER_04 23:13

Was it early?

unknown 23:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 23:15

I think it was early. Yeah. There were certain hours on the bridges where we had three Marines instead of just the two. So I that I that I do remember. But anyways, we played a game where if you got a car to stop with the spotlight, you got one point. If you got them to get out of the car, you got two points. And then every everyone got a turn. It's stupid shit like that.

SPEAKER_03 23:32

But it passed the time.

SPEAKER_04 23:35

Well, so I don't remember who we replaced on guard, which which map platoon, but I remember when we got up there, I think it was like me and Bowers or someone, and they had the 240 on the tripod, and they have like tape taped up to that the um that the bar. Like the with if you if you connected the pistol grip to the I don't remember what that shit's called anymore on the tripod, but it you know, it slides it back and forth, sorry, side to side.

SPEAKER_03 23:59

Yeah.

Early Missions, Guard Posts, And Bridges

SPEAKER_04 23:59

Like uh, and I'm like, what's with the tape? And he goes, Oh, it's your left and right lateral limits. I'm like, all right. And so I just move it around. And well, what if someone's shooting at me from over there? He goes, Well, I'm like, well, this is stupid. Like, why so as soon as he left, I cut those t that tape off and it's interesting. There was one day where I think Bowers engaged that build you could see it from both North Bridge and South Bridge. There was that building. I think we we uh they eventually a javelin was fired at it. But I think we engaged that that building is an abandoned building. I think we engaged that with a 240 one day because Bowers and I got shot at up there one of the days we were on guard duty late later on in the in the deployment. But yeah, anyways. Uh I got some looking at my notes. I yeah, I don't I don't have much in my journal or that I can remember up until April 6th. Not we didn't like at least with Rainmaker, we didn't, there wasn't a whole lot that I remember. Like so we hadn't been, I don't think we'd been hit by an IED yet. And so we weren't I remember not being like too concerned about IEDs until we got hit by one. Then it was like the scariest fucking thing ever. And then I think I eventually got hit a total of four or five different times in different Humvees that I was in, which sucked. But uh yeah, I don't know how many concussions I got, but I know at least for sure two. Because I was in the one that when Holman Hurley got hit, I was in the Humvee when Savage got hit. And I know there's a a couple more, but anyways, but yeah, it's it's weird because I remember feeling that way somewhat.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

Uh, you know, we had heard about IEDs, we did that IED training at March Air Force Base. We even did another like two-minute IED training in Kuwait that was very short. But I I didn't have any concept of what it was. But I mean, just to give you like a quick rundown, which uh how ridiculous that kind of is, I mean, we were we got there March 6th. By March 13th, McPherson was had his jaw blown off by an IED. Worth had his eye blown out by an IED on the 20th. Yeah. Uh let's see. Echo Company got hit by a big IED on the 25th. Uh Echo Company's first KIA to an IED was on the 30th.

SPEAKER_03 26:21

Jeez.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Like, yeah, like it but we were getting some pretty heavy casualties to IEDs early. And it's it's funny, I remember having the same thing. The I mean, I got hit early by an IED. I got wounded on the reason why I remember your raid on the 18th is because we were your outer cordon, and I got hit by an IED at uh zero dark thirty on the eighteenth on the way to that raid.

SPEAKER_04 26:45

Oh, I don't remember that.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Yeah, and got and we went and saw the battalion surgeon and got zero sleep and went right out to that raid all bandaged up. So yeah, it it became very real very fast.

SPEAKER_04 26:59

Yeah, yeah. It did because we didn't I think the first time I got hit with an IED was I think it was home and hurley when they got when they got wounded. I think that was the first one like my truck, actual truck got got hit. We may have been hit prior to that, or they just missed or nothing happened. But the first time we got casuals, I think was that one. That's like end of April, right? Yeah, I think I I got it written down here here soon.

SPEAKER_02 27:23

I thought it was like two weeks before Savage.

SPEAKER_04 27:26

Yeah, something like that. It was definitely before him.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

I can't that was my that was my memory, is that it was uh it was right around the same time that we were all getting talked about the prisoner release. That's what I that's what I remember in my brain. So Abu Ghraib happened, and there was all those pictures of all the army people doing the weird shit with the naked dudes. Yeah, and then they were and then they were like, we're gonna open the prisons and let everybody out that we don't have evidence on. And then our all of our contact went up, like all of our IEDs and everything went up exponentially right around that time, and it was at the end of April.

SPEAKER_04 28:01

Makes sense. Yeah, I got I got written down here May 1st is when we got hit. Both home hardly got it.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

Okay. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 28:09

Uh, but yeah, anyways, uh I guess talk about April 6th then. Sure, man. Yeah. Uh that I don't remember exactly how it what time we went out, but I know we went out later on. At least Rainmaker went out later on in in the engagement. And then uh looking at my journal, it was kind of like we were going from one spot to the other. We didn't really get any contact at first, and then we went out to oh man, the the road's brain for it's in the Sophia area, I think. That road on like Raceway? Which one? The racetrack.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

Nova racetrack?

IED Reality And Rising Threat

SPEAKER_04 28:43

Nova, Nova, that's the one. Um we went out there by the tank graveyard. Yep, and I remember seeing some dudes in green camis, I think that was the snipers, and like some of them were like, you know, crying or whatever. And I remember giving a dip to one of the dudes, and uh then we dismounted. Uh that might have been before I can't remember this is before or after. But anyways, at one point we dismounted, and as soon as I got down off the Humvee, it was like I think it was either me and Fernandez or me and Luna, were like maybe three feet apart, and a tracer went right past our heads, right between the two of us. And then I remember then we started taking fire from like the tree line or out in that field. And dude, I'll tell you, it was pretty fucking cool because we had like most of the company online on that road, and like every marine ran to the side, every turret turned that way, and it was just like non-stop firing for I don't remember how long. I think I went through like I didn't even I didn't even see any enemy, I just went through like three megs of shooting into the trees and into the grass. I think I might have saw one guy, and then once he was down, then it was just I just kept shooting until everyone else stopped shooting. I remember looking down, I'm like, oh shit, I got like three empty mags at my feet. I know we pulled some bodies out of the out of the field there. And then we went, I think we so then we went down and we got on we like I don't remember who was with us, but I know at least Rainmaker and I think someone else, we got online and like pushed towards the river and then wagon wheeled. And I was on the far right, and some I saw some dude in a green shirt like pop up not too far from the river. And it's my one of my biggest regrets is not shooting that guy in the fucking face. Because once we I called it out, once we moved over there, laying there was his rifle and his uh mag pouches, and then you followed his footprints to the river, and I was like, God damn it. That that one really pissed me off that I didn't take that shot.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

I'm sure we got him later. Yeah, probably probably probably.

SPEAKER_04 30:40

But then, and I can't remember if this was before or after, but eventually we went, I think, a little further in, still in that same area, but away from the river. And I remember we were we linked up with one of the map platoons, and I don't remember which one, but I remember we were at the end of some road. It was me and Fernandez, and some car, like one of those white and orange taxis or whatever they were, uh opals or something. Yep. Anyways, came like around the corner blasting an AK out the window. And I remember unloading on that car, and then it crashed. I think everyone in there got shot, and me and Fernandez shot that shit out of that car, and uh, then it crashed into a wall, and they're all dead in there. But I remember I had uh oh god, me and Regal earlier on had found the ammo like trailer or something, and we took a shit ton of tracer rounds. So I had like every fifth round of mine was a tracer, and then I had like three or four or five at the bottom of my my Magus tracers. I just remember seeing the just unloading on this car and just seeing every now and then a tracer hit going and hitting that car. And uh I don't know that just like burned into my memory. But yeah, I think we unloaded and Fernandez and I did on that car, and then I think there's two or three dudes in there, but they were dead. And then yeah, we I think that was first, and then we went over by the river. I I can't I can't remember exactly. But I remember we loaded up some bodies in our in our Humvee that we had shot from the field and brought them. I think we just dumped them at some IP station or whatever. I can't remember exactly. But oh yeah. Oh so yeah, that was definitely the the river thing was definitely later because I remember when we were pushing online, we found some Marine from Echo Company laying in the field because he I remember just hearing someone yell out like devil dog, devil dog, devil dog. I'm like, what the fuck? And some dude like pop I saw saw like a Kevlar pop up. We're like, holy shit, I forgot about that. Yeah, uh that I can't remember who that was. Some it was a sergeant, I think. Uh-huh.

April 6: Contact Near The Racetrack

SPEAKER_00 32:35

Um specifically, you linked it was your platoon linked up with my platoon, map two, and we were just at the junction at the end of the road in the Sofia district, wasn't even technically Nova at that point. And we linked up. You guys had I don't I don't know if it sounds like you were in the high back. Yeah, is that right? Yeah, yeah. So and Regelsberger was driving, but and you guys had a couple of I think you had captured them from somewhere. I don't know where the fuck you had them, but there's a couple of enemy in the back here. One was alive, one was dead. That was all I know. And they were in the back of the high back, and I don't remember where you guys went. By the time I got out there, you guys had already ran off. But we linked up and we had mostly squashed the ambush, but we got contact from the rear, which I think is what you were talking about with the tracer going by your head. Uh we had just got you guys, so now we had 40 or 50 people. And there was at least like a good 10 or 15 shooting at those. It wasn't that many people, maybe six, seven dudes that had that counter assault behind us. They got taken down. We moved forward and and we got to where the snipers were pinned down at the pump house, and we all did like like you said, the wagon wheel thing. We went further, and that's where the echo company guys were pinned down on the roof of that building that was a QRF that was all all trapped there. And then there was an IED just a little further down the road, and so we didn't go any further. And the army Bradleys were on the other side of it, and they finally figured out how to get around it, or they shot the IED. I don't know what they did. Anyway, they finally linked up with us.

SPEAKER_04 34:09

I think wasn't there some dude from Echo like held out in a pump house, like those pump houses they had. I vaguely remember some guy in there with like he had spent brass all around him or something like that. Yes. I like vaguely have a memory of that.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

Yeah, spent brass around him and about eight or nine dead buttons. Yeah, yeah. He was he had defin definitely done the Alamo out there by himself.

SPEAKER_04 34:30

Yeah, I think I either gave him a cigarette or a uh a chew. I can't I can't remember. Yeah, because we Sergeant G wouldn't let us smoke when we were outside the outside the base, so everyone who smoked also dipped. So those pockets we had in our shoulders, I had a pack of cigarettes in one and a can of chew in the other. Nice. Well, because in eight in at least in Rainmaker, almost I think everyone in the platoon smoked. I I'm trying to think, I can't think of one person that didn't smoke. I think later on, no, Corporal Minor, he smoked too.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

Because we got minor as Minor smoked probably from birth. Yeah, he always smoked.

SPEAKER_04 35:07

Yeah, yeah. But I think there was there might have been one person that didn't, but I think everyone smoked because we had we took a picture in front of battalion headquarters of all of us sitting there with a cigarette in our mouth. Yep, and so it's it's crazy. A lot of these pictures I see floating around on Facebook and shit. I'm like, that's from my camera because I have the actual physical picture still in my photo album. So I don't some of those I don't know how I don't know how they got out. I must have sent it to someone at some point and just kind of made made the way like that one of Savage holding the big 50 cal thing. Yeah, I took that, I took that picture, I have it in my photo album. Nice, but yeah, anyways.

SPEAKER_02 35:41

Um when when we first got back, there was and I don't I I have I don't remember the exact how we did it, but we all cons like we went over to remember there was like this uh what was it? Uh it was like a it was a pavilion on the back and we're back in San Mateo now. But there's like a pavilion down on like the lower basketball court, it was off to the to the left of there. Yep. We got together and everybody shared their pictures, and so like it was like like there was uh we had it set, it was I can't remember exactly how it was, but like because this was before like really flash drives even. And so like I can't remember how how we did it exactly, but I have I had a digital camera, for example, and then I know because I went down and traded some of mine, and I have like a bunch I I have some of yours, I have some from Groves, I have some from Okay, makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 36:39

So I don't remember that at all. But yeah, so April 6th. Um yeah, I don't I don't remember too much after after all that the the once the shooting died down, it kind of I think we were out there for a while just doing like security or patrols or something. But I remember being off Nova or whatever it was before it was Nova, and we were I was on like pushed pushed out towards kind of closer to the river, and I'm like, it's getting dark out. I don't have my night vision with me because before that, like today patrol, I'm not bringing my night my night vision with me. Uh I'm gonna tell you, after that day, because I'm sitting there in the pit black and I'm like the furthest one out. I never I always brought my night vision with me after that. I had like two little bags. I had one and I clip them in the Humvee. I had my night vision, and they're both night vision bags, those green ones we used to have. Yeah, I had one full of like like with a net gator in it and some like maybe some snacks or whatever, and I had one with my night vision sitting. They always came with me. Every patrol went on after that, whether it was in the morning or or at night. I always brought that night vision. And I had that the PVS 14 Monaco. Oh yeah. So I had an ACOG right off the bat. There was um, yeah, there was only like I think throughout the whole battalion prior to getting deployed, there was only like 20 dudes that got ACOGs.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

You you had to go and shoot that special course and qualify, and you had to hit it was like 95 out of 100 targets or whatever it was, just to be able to get one. Yeah.

The Taxi Ambush And Field Push

April 7: Street Fighting Ignites

SPEAKER_04 38:13

Yeah, we had the um, I think they took they took they started with guys that were like second award expert with the rifle, and then we went through some course with the battalion gunner. And uh, I remember someone from weapons company was too close, and when they fired it, split their the ACOG split their uh eyebrow because they're bleeding all over the place. I can't remember who who that was, but yeah. So I got lucky and I had the ACOG right off the bat, which was nice. I fucking loved that thing. I think it was awesome. Um, so then they gave us all the monocle PVS 14 over the I think everyone at Rainmaker had seven Bravos. Well, I was so glad I had the monocle, it was so much better. But so I always brought that out with me after uh um that foot that April 6th, I was I always had it with me. But yeah, so I think at then at some point we eventually just went back to Hurricane Point, and I think the next day obviously was the seventh, and I think I was outside smoking with Bowers, and we see the lieutenant Lieutenant Dobb come over and we're like, ah shit. Because every time we saw him walking over to our hooch from the company, the company hooch, it's like we knew something was going on, or we're doing something. So we just were like, we going out, he's like, Yeah, because you could hear the gunfire and shit going off in the city. So I think we went out to support golf company, a foot patrol of theirs that was in a firefight. And then uh I know some guys have talked about it, but we got on the way there, we got ambushed by like an RPK or RPD, I don't remember. And I was so I was in the first Humvee with Regal driving. Lieutenant Dobb was the A driver, vehicle commander, Savage on the 240, and he had a shield that he was the only vehicle bars that had the shield in the front. Because I actually have a picture where some rounds hit the shield and he's pointing at him. Uh, and then I was on the left side of the Humvee. It was me. So from cab cab to tailgate, it was Luna, me on the bench, and then Fernandez, I think, and then Accles. And I think Ackles was still a PFC, I'm pretty sure, because he was super new. So as soon as we were about to make like a, I think like a left-hand turn, as soon as right when that ambush kicked off, Regal slammed on the brakes. I flew into that little corner with Luna, and then and after listening to the Ackles interview, it makes a little more sense. I thought Ackles just turned around and just unloaded on burst because that fucker, I yelled at him so much because he'd drive around with his rifle on burst. And I yelled at him a bunch to stop doing that after. Because I thought he just turned around and just unloaded on her armor, because all I hear is rounds that I think are coming through the armor, and I'm like, this armor's shit. I'm gonna fucking die. And Luna and I are all tangled up in that deep corner, and I can hear Savages blasting away with the 240. So I'm stuck, like I can't get up because I'm my legs are tangled up with Luna. So I put my my rifle over the armor and just unloaded a full mag as quick as possible. And I got myself off, untangled from Luna, slapped in a new mag, went around like the edge of the at the back of the Humvee, around the oh, still in the back, but went around the armor, and I looked into that little yard, and there was some dude in a gray mandress like crawling into the bushes. I remember I was like, that can't be good. And I just put three rounds in his back really, really quick, and then he like he was still crawling in and then just stopped, and his legs were sticking out of the bushes, and I uh I burned in my memory. And then uh I think from the further down the platoon Humvees, Sergeant G and a couple dudes ran in, and then we we stayed in the first Humvee. I don't remember if we dismounted or not. I know we were shooting the shit out of everything. So once we engaged, I think Marines went into that yard, and then we were focused more on the intersection and the and the streets. I remember Fernandez either shot or shot at some guy that was running towards us. I can't remember if he shot him or just or shot at him to stop him, or I don't remember. Savage was shooting every single car on the street, whether it was moving or parked. He I think he shot every single one. That was actually kind of cool. And then so we did security there, and then the other Marines from the platoon went in and did whatever they did in there. And I just remember before we pulled out, um, we were all loading up, and then Sergeant G ran back to like the there was like a fence blocking that yard where the ambush came from, and he put his rifle over the fence and just fired a whole bunch of rounds at something. I don't know what. Then we loaded up and met up with we were linked up with golf company. And those guys, I think, they were pretty low on ammo. Because we were hucking bandoliers of ammo to them, and they were just like sitting down reloading mags right off the because we carried a ton of extra ammo in our humbies and like bandolier form. And uh yeah, they just kept on loading it, loading mags right when we got there. Um trying to think. Uh I think uh around I you know, we were engaged for so long that day, it some of it kind of is a little hate. I'm I don't remember what the actual like chronological order, but I know I think golf had some wounded guy, and we were gonna bring him back to combat opos, and I think we were escorting the seven tons. I remember we loaded him in the back of a seven-ton, and I'm like, and then we were about to load up, but I remember we're just gonna leave this wounded dude in the Humvee. And then Lieutenant Dobb went to Doc Contreras, like, you want to be in the back of that Humvee? And he's like, Yes, sir. And I I swear I jumped in the back with Doc C to do security for him, but I honestly can't remember. I think I did, but I I I don't I don't remember. Uh and then we went back to Combat Outpost and dropped him off. And then yeah, we just I mean we just kept going back and back and forth, getting wounded brains or getting more ammo. Funny thing I do remember is that Steve Le Long had eaten some like chicken or some meat on a foot patrol like a few days earlier, and he had the shits. So he every time we went back to combat outpost, he was jumping off the back of the Humvee before they had stopped, running to the shit. And I'm pretty sure he told me one of the at some point during the day, he was on a roof, like laying on the side, spraying diarrhea during the middle of the firefight because he had the shits.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

Dude, that's those days would be the worst days to have the shits. My God. That was bad that day. I was busy.

RPGs, Near Misses, And ACOG Shots

SPEAKER_04 44:32

Yeah. Um there was I think we were on the racetrack at some point. And I got pictures of this because it's I'll never forget. But we dismounted and we were taken, oh, before that. We're moving up the road uh towards contact. And Lieutenant Dobb, I found this out later on. He sees a guy come around the corner with an RPG. He yells out, and we're going real slow. He yells, get down. I thought he yelled, get out. So I jumped out of the back of the hump. And I look, and the Humvee behind us is still slow rolling. And I turn and look at our Humvee. And I just see the guys like waving to come back. And this fucking RPG hits the ground like a few feet away from me and it didn't blow up. And I was like, holy shit. I remember just running back to the Humvee, jumping in the air, and they caught me and pulled me into the back of the Humvee. I couldn't believe that. I thought I was a goddess for sure. So eventually we moved up. I think it was the racetrack. I can't remember. Might have been near Easy Street, too. But whatever, we dismounted and we're taking rounds from all over the place. So I ran over by the in the front right tire of the of our Humvee, and I was taking an E and uh, you know, engaging targets. And then Sergeant G yelled out, like, hey, get in the prone. And I'll never forget, there was like a little, like a blue reflector right next to my face on the corner of that Humvee. I just remember seeing it out of my peripherals. So I lay down and I get in the prone. And then it like a split second later, the reflector glass is like falling in front of me. And it wasn't until later that I looked up and a round had come through the corner of the Humvee and went right out through that reflector. And if I had not taken a knee, it would have got me right in the face. And I so I got I got pictures of that on the from the Humvee. It's like I it wasn't until later on that I realized how close to getting killed I I actually was. Because I remember once that when that reflector came down in front of me, or like the glass or whatever from it, Sergeant G jumped back. And I didn't realize what had happened at the time. Uh but yeah, anyway, so I'm laying in the prone, and oh my god, I was dropped with the ACOG, I was dropping dudes left and right down that street, and they had those tick marks on it for a different uh distance. I remember setting there's a dude way out there, and he was blasting with an AK, and I'm like, that looks like it's about 400 yards or feet, or I think it was feet or yards, wasn't it? It was in yards, yeah. Yards, okay. I mean, that looks like 400 yards, so I lined up the 400 perfectly on the dude and hit him twice right in the gut, and then I shot him again when he went down. I was like, holy shit, I couldn't believe that. They actually uh wrote an article about that in I think the Marine Corps Times, because we had those two combat correspondent females come out like a week or two later, and uh they wanted to do an article on the ACOG, so they actually interviewed me for that. They changed it to 800 yards, but whatever he was at 400 yards. That's right. But uh yeah, so we shot it up there for a while, and then at some point we I think we linked up with uh some more dudes. Oh, um, before that, after I shot that guy, because Sergeant G was kind of spotting for me, and he when I shot that dude way out there, he was like, Fuck yeah. And uh Lieutenant Dobbs was like, Who's shooting at us? And he's like, Fucking no one made her fucking smoked them. I was like, fuck that, that's pretty cool. But yeah, eventually I think we found our way over to Easy Street, and I remember dude, there was so much going on because and there was now there's quite a few you know battalion resources out there. We had our Humvee and another Humvee like wedged down this road, or it might have been an alley. I just remember being on the armored door was open, and I was just sitting there with my rifle, and we there was dudes coming out of these like alleyways and windows and doors, and I because I was at the time, you know, granted, I was only 19 years old then, and uh a little more maybe morbid, but I was keeping track of how many people I shot, and uh I lost count down that alley. It was so many people were popping out or running across, and one dude came out with an RPG, took a knee in the middle of the street. Remember, we I don't know how many people shot him, but I definitely popped a couple rounds at him, and his RPG went off into like a wall and blew up or whatever. I thought we were dead. Uh yeah, but um yeah, so I remember so I was running low on ammo because I only had the six magazines that they gave us. And for I remember Fernandez was sitting in the Humvee, and as I'm going through Megs, he's taking them and reloading mags for me and putting them back in my uh in my mag pouches. Nice. But um, yeah, I remember there was two kids that like popped out of a doorway or alley or whatever. So I remember yelling up at Savage, like there's two kids on the left down there, like, don't shoot them. And he's like, Yeah, yeah, I see them. They probably early teens and not much more older than that. Well, those fucking kids popped out again now. They got AKs and they're blasting at us. I was like, fuck. So it was, and this one kind of messed me up for a little bit until I like talked to someone about it. But like when they popped out again, I shot them. And I was like, because they popped out with the AK. I gave them like a second, third chance, so like don't come out again. And finally they did. And I was like, Well, they're shooting at me, so so I I shot, I think, one or two of them. They they both got shot, and I definitely shot one for sure. I don't know if I got the other or if someone else did. But that one kind of fucked me up for a little bit, and then uh until I went and talked to someone about it, and then it was like, eh, whatever, they're shooting at me, so gotta shoot at them. But so we were there for a little bit shooting down that quite a while shooting down that alley, and then I don't remember too much what I think we were in that area for a while shooting it out, and I don't remember too much after that about uh so I'm curious, just again, you seem to have a really good memory.

SPEAKER_00 50:42

Uh how much distance do you think you were covering, just approximately? Were you covering like uh you know six, seven blocks? Were you how how far did you guys move forward once you took contact?

SPEAKER_04 50:54

Well, well, which time, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 50:56

Well, uh, kind of like what you're describing right now. Were you moving down this, like down this alley?

SPEAKER_04 51:00

Either way, we never moved the alley where we had the two um Humvees parked on, we never went down the alley. We just stayed there, shot it out, and then eventually we we moved on. But there was shooting going on all around us. Yeah, and it was that one road that was like two lanes with almost like a median. So I remember seeing those big palm tree husks laying in the in the road a couple times.

SPEAKER_00 51:22

If it was the palm tree road, that was easy street. There was another street. There's another road at the very south of the city. I don't remember the name of that road offhand, but it it also looked that same way with a median in the middle.

SPEAKER_04 51:33

Yeah, I'm almost positive. Okay, yeah. So I got in my notes here, Easy Street, so that must have been on easy street.

SPEAKER_03 51:39

There.

SPEAKER_04 51:39

Um we didn't move a whole that I can remember too. And I could be completely wrong, but I don't remember moving too much during that.

SPEAKER_00 51:48

Well, you I mean, it doesn't sound like you needed to. Sounds like the enemy's doing too.

SPEAKER_04 51:52

Yeah, for sure they were. Uh, and I don't remember at what point during the day, it could have been before or after, but I remember we because we went back to combat outpost a couple times doing uh either dropping off wounded marines or getting more ammo. And it was like I remember at one point we were driving back, and I'm in the first Humvee, and we had four or five highbacks. I remember like as I'm reloading a magazine, I'm I look around at all the Humvees, and literally every gunner is shooting in some direction. Every Marine in the back of the Humvees is shooting in some direction. I'm like, this is fucking insane. Then I upload my magazine and went back to shooting at targets because the rules of engagement, it like how I remember it, they changed like throughout the day. It was like only shot if shot at. Only shoot at, you know, and you can see the person shooting at you. Then it was like, okay, if they if it's a male with the AK, you can shoot at them. Then it was like any male dressed in black you can shoot at. Then it was any male dressed, any male shoot at. And then later on it was like, anyone in the city is fair game. That that's I could be wrong, but that's kind of how I I remember it, at least on that day. And that was that was insane. Because we'd be driving back and forth from Commodore Post just going through oh firing so much all the time. It was nuts.

SPEAKER_00 53:09

I imagine I imagine you can't estimate, but if you were to estimate about how many enemies you think you could see and engage, about how many do you think you saw on the like the between the sixth and the seventh?

SPEAKER_04 53:21

I think I because I I estimate on between the sixth and the seventh, because I lost count at 10 people I shot. I know I saw way more than that, but I was a lot of them I wasn't able to engage or someone else was engaging.

SPEAKER_00 53:35

Right, or you see them for a split second, and then it's yeah, yeah.

Easy Street: Sustained Urban Combat

SPEAKER_04 53:38

I I think I shot in the between the sixth and the seventh, uh, and I might be including the tenth on this too, because that was the other big fire. Yeah, yeah. I think I shot around 30 or 40 people in those in those three days. It was a lot. I remember the seventh was the majority of them. We shot so many people that day. It was insane. I remember lighting up one of the um God, what they were dropping, oh, an ambulance. They were dropping fighters off. I remember lighting up one of those.

SPEAKER_00 54:05

The Red Crescent ambulances that they were using as reinforcement. Dudes would come piling out with big ammo cans and AKs and everything else.

SPEAKER_04 54:14

Yeah, that was yeah. Cause I remember someone got on the radio and was saying we're shooting ambulances now. They were like, what the fuck? Like, well, they're dropping off fighters. Like, oh, good enough for me, you know.

SPEAKER_00 54:25

Yeah, they're using little motorcycles to reinforce, they're using ambulances. The motorcycles, yep. I remember the more and a lot of taxis.

SPEAKER_04 54:32

Yeah, the taxis for sure. Well, I remember one day, or it was on the 7th. There was like an Iraqi police officer, but I mean, he was masked up with shooting at us. I remember shooting him, and I think it was down that alley. We had the home beast uh herring boned or whatever. I remember shooting that guy, but I'm like, it's fucking IP right there shooting at us. But I mean could have expected that, but I think there was a couple of the what were uh what were they called? ICDC, the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, like in the camouflage. Yep. I know there was a couple of them out there. I know because they got issued, they were all issued AKs and they had a big white letter painted on the stock of their rifles. I remember picking up a couple of those out there on the uh one of the days we were shooting, I think it was the seventh, but I remember picking up their their rifles a couple times. It's like those motherfuckers. Because they were like right across the river from us from at Hurricane Point, weren't they? Like kind of they had a little base by uh Snake Pit.

SPEAKER_00 55:28

There was two different, but yes, that was one of them. That was one of their bases.

SPEAKER_04 55:32

I remember I remember being on the bridges watching them like train drill. It was hilarious. But anyways, not to go too far off the seventh. Um, yeah, I remember at some point we went back to Combat Op. Uh we went to Combat Oppo so many times, I can't remember which time was which. But uh at the I think at the end of the day, because I got a pretty decent picture of everyone from our Humvee at the at the very end. It was like it was like me, Lieutenant Dobb, Regal, and then Luna Savage, or yeah, Luna Savage, Ackles, and um um Bernanus. We had a pretty good like truck picture or whatever. Uh I'd seen that one um online a couple of times, and then there was some random guy from Fox Company stand on there. But because we eventually brought back a bunch of Fox Company Marines from Combat Outpost back to uh ThinkPit. And I think that was the end of the day. I couldn't tell you what time it was at at all. But I know we had uh a bunch of captured weapons in the Humvee too that we uh dumped out later on at Combat Outpost. But yeah. I just remember it was like firefight all day long. It was nuts.

SPEAKER_00 56:47

Yeah, I I always found that interesting because looking at your account and then my own personal experience and talking to some people from map three and some of the dudes from golf company and echo company, they put they ended up putting our official casualty numbers at like somewhere between 500 to 600 and and uh of enemy ka. And I was like, I I find that hard to believe. I'm not saying it's impossible. I only I just find it hard to believe because there's numerous stories just like yours where I know for sure we're talking about a Marine who took 20, 30, 40, 50 more higher than that. It probably is. I don't know if you noticed as much as the uh the enemy TTPs of they were dragging the bodies off and hiding them. And like I you if you did bound forward, you didn't find the body. You found evidence of death. Sometimes there were body parts there, but there were not bodies, like they were gone.

SPEAKER_04 57:49

Yeah. Well, I remember on one, I can't remember the sixth or the seventh, but we were driving around, and oh man, who was that dude? He was a Mark 19 gunner who he used to spray paint cars on on his turret, on the shield on his turret.

SPEAKER_00 58:04

Oh, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 58:04

Um, I can see brown. Was it brown?

SPEAKER_00 58:07

Oh yeah, that sounds like brown.

SPEAKER_04 58:09

Yeah, brown, because eventually someone made him spray paint over it. But I remember linking up with whatever map platoon he was in, and uh, dude, there was a dude he hit with a Mark 19 around that was like blown apart. Like that was like that's gnarly. Like, holy shit. And some houses on fire that he lit up with the Mark 19. I can't remember if that was a sixth or the seventh, but I'll I'll never forget that. I mean, it was like you could see the destruction from the Mark 19 all over the place. I'm like, we're in it now, man. I was like, holy shit. But um, I remember getting back to Hurricane Point that evening and he oh man, was it Forky in was Forky his name in uh Sledgehammer? Yeah, yeah. He was like outside tanning, reading a book, and he's like, fuck's going on out there today. Like, all here is explosions and gunfire. I was like, dude, I don't even know what to tell you. I was like, it's fucking nuts out there.

SPEAKER_02 59:01

No, we were on camp guard that way during all of that.

Rules Of Engagement Shift

SPEAKER_04 59:04

And so there is, yeah. So I I I got lucky having that ACOT where I got a lot of like distance shots on on dudes that that day that probably thought they were maybe safe or or whatever, but like I'd see him poke out of a window or something, and I just set up on that window, and they you know, they didn't have the greatest tactics, so they'd come out the exact same window and then I'd pop him in the face or or center mass or or wherever. Um but Gunny Maraki gave me a nickname later on on the seventh when we were back at uh we were in the smoke pit that we built, and uh he came up and called me the fuchsia feather. Yeah, a nod to Carlos Hascock, who was the white feather. So I thought that was I thought that was pretty funny because he had heard a couple stories of me shooting dudes at distance.

SPEAKER_02 59:51

But so as as a side note on that topic with the ACOGs, um, and you may or not may or may not know the story, but um Marines being issued ACOGs in that time frame actually in created a uh an investigation on the Marines in the lar our larger a our larger AO because when we gave you, like you, the ACOG, we had so many more headshots that they thought we were executing people. And it was just it was just that we had become so lethal because we had all learned off of iron sites, right? And so now you give us modern optics, we were just fucking canoeing people all over the place. And it was actually Fallujah that specifically got investigated, but it it wasn't that we were executing people, it was just that like it went from like you know, 10% headshots to like 90.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:56

Anyways, so I mean that ACO was a game changer for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:59

Well, I eventually got one and it was very appreciated. It was very appreciated.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:04

Yeah, I think everyone had one at some point. I think Sergeant Garcia was the only one that didn't want one because he I think he kept his iron side so whole deployment.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:12

If you like what you've heard, this is a multi part episode. Make sure you listen to the rest of the story.