« Family Day with the 6th ESB | Main | New MilBlog »

June 10, 2004

Five Days in Fallujah

If you haven't picked up the July/August edition of The Atlantic Monthly, add it to your shopping list. And, pick up a few extra copies to send to deployed Marines - there is an excellent article by correspondent Robert Kaplan who describes the courage of the 1/5 Marines who went into Fallujah under the command of LtCol. Brennan Byrne, following the horrific ambush and murder of the civilian contractors. Here are a few excerpts from the article.

The briefing on April 2 at Abu Ghraib's Combat Operations Center was low-key and terrifically businesslike. The taking of a middle-sized city of 285,000 is an amazingly complex affair. Was there enough barbed wire on hand to create makeshift detention facilities? "We need wire, wire, and more wire", Byrne said, "and that means we needs lots of stakes and pile drivers." Were there enough interpreters, MREs, mineral-water bottles, ammo, power amps, blue force trackers, and so on?

This would be an incredibly complex operation without the complications of enemy combatants. But the Marines were up to the task.

The process was like writing and performing a symphony; its complexity demanded that the main briefings be "fragged" out into smaller ones dealing with different aspects of the task. . . . All the elements came together fast, owing to a factor largely missing from civilian life: the incontestability of command. Meetings quickly resulted in priorities that in turn quickly led to decisions. As soon as the ranking officer decided on something, the debate moved on to the next point.

The strategy was clear to Kaplan.

One officer told me, "This is a flash-bang strategy. Stun the bad guys with aggressive fire, then Psy-ops the shit out of them, always coming back to the theme of the inevitability of the superior tribe."

And the Marines were clearly the superior tribe.

"Gents, let me tell you what this is really about," Byrne said. "It's about killing shitheads." He made reference to the Commanding General, or CG, of the 1st Marine Division, Major General James N. Mattis. Mattis, who constantly drilled humanitarian concerns into his men, nevertheless knew when the time had come for pure aggression. "The CG", Byrne went on, "has changed the Op Order from 'capture or kill' the enemy to 'kill or capture. He wants the emphasis on 'kill'".

At 1:00 a.m. on April 5, the Marines stepped off. A few hours later, Kaplan wrote:

At dawn, coughing and freezing, I walked over to Byrne's Humvee. He was sitting in the backseat, his head half hidden inside a balaclava, shivering and coated with dust like the rest of us, and listening and talking to three different radio nets at once. Military command is about making split-second executive decisions, the consequences of which might psychologically immobilize your average CEO - and making those decisions during periods of extreme physical discomfort.

Leadership lessons learned in the Corps translate well to the outside world. I've lost count of the times that, upon seeing my Proud USMC MOM sweatshirt or pin that proclaims My son is a U.S. Marine, that a CEO or industry executive has come up to me and quietly said, "Semper Fi".

Kaplan was preparing a MRE when the Marines he was with came under RPG and small-arms fire.

The fire directed at us did not let up. Over the ICOM, Smith learned that it was coming from a mosque on Michigan, about 300 yards away. The mosque was promptly targeted for a possible air strike and everyone began a fast march towards it.

Smith did not have to order his Marines straight into the direction of the fire; it was a collective impulse - a phenomenon I would see again and again over the coming days. The idea that Marines are trained to break down doors, to seize beachheads and other territory, was an abstraction until I was there to experience it. Running into fire rather than seeking cover from it goes counter to every human survival instinct - trust me, I was sweating as much from fear as from the layers of clothing I still had on from the night before, to the degree that it felt as if pure salt was running into my eyes from my forehead. As the weeks had rolled on and I had gotten to know the 1/5 Marines as the individuals they were, I had started deluding myself that they weren't much different than me. They had soft spots, they got sick, they complained. But in one flash, as we charged across Michigan amid whistling incoming shots, I realized they were not like me; they were Marines.

Later, a large Iraqi family was ordered to leave their apartment so that Marines could search the building. Through his interepreter, Captain Jason Smith explained why to the head of the family:

"Sir, we are truly sorry that we had to ask your family to leave the building. You can all go back in now. We will compensate your for the inconvenience. We are United States Marines, a different breed than you are used to. We do not take kindly to people shooting at us. If you have any information on the Ali Babas, please share it with us. If you know any of the Ali Babas personally, please tell them to attack us as quickly as possible so that we may kill them and start repairing sewers, electricity, and other services in your city."

That's part of the first day. Buy the magazine and read the rest.

Posted by Deb at June 10, 2004 10:56 AM

Comments

It was a great article and i thoroughly enjoyed it, maybe one day i can live up to the standards set by the men and women of the marine corps.

Posted by: Ryan at August 2, 2004 06:43 PM