Constant Combat

Inspiration and Marching Orders from Major General Paul Kennedy - Start here!

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This is our introduction and setting the stage. There are very few show notes, as Major General Kennedy’s speech grounds the story in raw detail. Please listen closely. 

This conversation sets our mission forward: to record Weapons Company stories with fidelity. Every story is vital to paint the picture, and we hope every Marine from Weapons company, and any associated observers of Weapons company will help us in this archive.

If you are interested in further reading, there are a few private books that have captured some pieces of the story. The most complete is mentioned in this episode and listed here first:
"Unremitting" by Gregg Zoroya

"The Magnificent Bastards in Ramadi & a Father's Journey There" by Gregory Janney

"Joker One" by Donovan Campbell

"No True Glory" by Bing West

"First Fights in Ramadi" by David Kelly

"War Stories" by Oliver North, and also the TV series of the same name. 

Numerous Army and Marine Corps leadership publications available from military command libraries and archives. 




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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

SPEAKER_02:

This is the Constant Combat Podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

So in the last 18 months or so, uh, we've had a couple bigger things happen with our the history of 2nd Battalion 4th Marines, weapons company in particular, going back to Ramadi 2004. Uh the biggest one last year was our 20th anniversary. Of the biggest battle that we fought in the first battle of Ramadi. And while out there, uh now Major General Kennedy, um, but then our battalion commander gave a great speech, which we'll have you listen to in a little bit. But the more recent thing that happened was the book Unremitting came out and was a great writing recount of two of the companies in particular, which is Echo Company and Golf Company, and a phenomenal job. But and as uh as we've discussed before and as we have over the last 20 years of our friendship, uh trying to capture some of these things has been something that's been on our mind. Um and we kind of have this little bit of a we get we have a little bit of a call to action from uh General Kennedy, and uh we're setting ourselves up to kick something off to talk to our brothers.

SPEAKER_02:

I think it's very important that we capture the stories of weapons company. Uh, while unremitting did really a good job, like you said, capturing golf and echo company, and even to a limited degree, Fox Company, and touched on weapons experience. Our individual Marines experience between the companies was so unique and the difference in mission was so high that by capturing these stories directly from the Marines themselves, really will add something to it. But let's listen to General Kennedy's speech.

SPEAKER_01:

The warriors that we don't talk a lot about, and history is fickle about who they write the stories about. In the 20 years since we've gotten back uh from Ramadi, there has been no official history to record the exploits of the people that are assembled here today, which I think is a crime. And you've seen other units in other cities telling their story to the news, and there are books that have been written, and somehow to date, the magnificent bastards of Vermont have still not had their story told. And so, what I wanted to do is just tell you a couple things that maybe you didn't know about this magnificent group of men. That 21 years ago, today, the 1st Marine Division was standing outside the gates of Baghdad, waiting to knock out the dictator. 21 years ago today, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines was stuck with the 31st Meal in Okinawa for almost a year. And the minute those poor souls came home, they made a feline for the exits because of stop loss, and they thought that they had missed the war, their generation. 21 years ago today, 230 young men were in high school or had just recently graduated, and they'd seen the news, and they had either enlisted or they were about to enlist, and they had no idea what history had in store for them. 21 years ago today. As the division came back from Iraq and we started losing the folks that didn't want to uh stick around to the next deployment of Okinawa, uh our numbers get went down to about 450 soldiers, which is small. And by the end of October, we were at the lowest uh point of of our uh of our manning strike. And we were attending the Marine Corps ball in in November, and General Mattis tapped me on the shoulder and he said, Hey partner, your battalion is gonna be the first to go back to Iraq next year. You're not gonna go to Okinawa, which I breathe, you know, every good fighting person wants to uh go to an adventure. I asked him, sir, how much time do we have to get ready? He says, You're leaving in January. Mind you, this is the 10th of November. And so over the course of the next two and a half months, because we didn't actually leave until uh February, every single graduating class from the School of Infantry on both coasts were vectored to this parade deck. And Sergeant Major Booker and the first sergeants were joining people virtually in an ended cycle of new of new joints showing up. We joined the last people to this battalion two weeks before we deployed. And my guess is that they never fired the weapons that they were assigned until they were firing them at the enemy a few months later. That is not the way you wish that you'd go to war. In many cases, we were virtual strangers, and we were sent to a fight that back then they called stability and support operations. And we thought we were gonna be building schools and handing out soccer balls and running Medcap and doing all the things that you would see after a conflict. And the day that we took over Ramadi on 13th March 2004, we took our first casualties. In fact, the casualties were so horrible that I had never actually seen anything. Um that survived those wounds. And Cather even pulled me aside uh with some grim news. And that did not look like the picture that had been painted for us. It did not look like we were out helping a nation to recover. And over the course of the next several weeks, we had increasing violence to build and build and build until the top 20 years ago today. And we lost our first Marines on patrols, and we took some wounds, but it was still of a manageable level. But on the 6th of April, everything changed uh for in our world. Uh many of you lost your units on the 6th of April. The the blush of of what is possible made it seem no longer possible. And as the patrols went out that morning, the companies executing their missions as they were assigned, like any other day that they went out, they didn't imagine that history would deal them a fate that few had expected. Sergeant Major Booker and I were back at the command post, and the calls started coming in of Marines that were wounded. And it wasn't in one location like you normally would see, or a single event. Uh this was the entire city seemed to be attacking the battalion at once. And we had Marines pinned down in the cemetery along Route Michigan. We had Marines pinned down at the tank graveyard uh over watching that locale. They were at the fish hook under fire. And the QRF's quick reaction forces were sent out to try to figure out what was going on and get it get our people back uh to safety. And as the day snowballed, we had the unfortunate reports of Marines that had lost their lives. And by the end of that evening, a makeshift morgue was created out of combat outposts. And I remember seeing Sergeant Major Booker under a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling and seeing um my worst nightmare of Marines that we were gonna have to send home to their parents. And as you can imagine, the Marines were angry, they were bewildered, everything that they thought that they were deployed for was no longer valid, and that this enemy was not here to welcome us, but we were gonna have to fight them to the bitter round. The next day the patrols went back out on the 7th of April, and within about an hour the call started coming in again that they were Marines were receiving contact. But unlike the 6th of April, on the 7th of April, these were no longer Marines that could be fooled by the treachery of the residents in Ramadi. But this time, you had men that overnight became pardoned veterans, and they took the fight to the enemy, and they fought in some of the same neighborhoods that they had the day previous, and they continued out to the Sofia district uh pursuing these terrorists. And I got a call the next day from the division commander that 200 enemy bodies were stacked up at the morgue in Ramadi. And that's in addition to the bodies that had already been claimed by their families. And so never again would the magnificent basses be fooled by the treachery of people that smile at you when you're passing and plant a bomb under the road when they think they they got you unawares. That we were gonna fight them. General Madison said, no better friend and no worst enemy. These are their worst enemies, these Marines of 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines. On the 8th of April, all the uh platoons filed up to their line, their respective lines of departure to take the fight back on the third day. And they line up in the dark, and the guidons are snapping in the breeze, and they cross on time, so that's what our leaders insisted upon, and they went hunting for the enemy. And all day long on the 8th of April, they looked for these bad men. By the end of the day, we had no contact, we had no idea where the enemy had gone to, and we finally got a report back that night that the planned three-day jihad that they had they had meticulously laid out that they were going to eject 2-4 from the city had suspended itself after two days. You killed the people because we had a mono that you kick a man once he's down. On the 10th, we figured out where they had gone to lick their wounds, and Echo Company and Weapons Company went out there uh Operation Bug Hunt and killed a whole bunch more. And we know it was effective because when you look at our combat reports, we really didn't have any uh significant firefights for over a month after the 10th of April. The city heated back up over the course of the summer, more people filtered in to try to get rid of the nuisance that was 2-4, and they just couldn't do it. Meanwhile, other cities along the Euphrates were blowing up. Fallujah boiled over, Al Kaim boiled over, heat boiled over. And General Mattis summarized it in a book later that he said as the division was fighting across the entirety of Al Anabar province, he didn't have to worry about what was going on at Aromati because the Marines of 2-4 held. It means you never broke. It means you never let the enemy breathe again after their treachery on the 6th of April. It meant that they will tell tales to their children as they write their histories of how terrible an enemy we were, chasing them to their chasing them to the end when we departed in September of that year. Most of you don't know because you'd already gone to Alasada and we were flying back to Southern California, that we left small um groups of NCOs in the fogs to turn over to 2-5 that replaced us um for their six-month deployment. And somehow the enemy foolishly uh underestimated Fox Company who was sitting out in the snake pit, weapons platoon fox company sitting out in the snake pit. And I didn't see Gunnar Dunham here yet. Maybe he maybe he's out there lurking. He counted 50 Iraqi bodies in the street after they foolishly tried to take the snake pit on the last day that we were in that city. I hear a voice. Ladies and gentlemen, it it's tough, it's tough to make those sacrifices to bond with people within your squad and the company and the battalion. We don't do it for medals, but we would have we wouldn't mind a little recognition that these Marines did what they were asked to do, and they did it in a fashion that virtually no other battalion has done before or since in this war. And I'm hoping that this newest generation of 2-4 Marines understands the honor and legacy of those that went before them. And even though this looks like a motorcycle reunion, uh these were the finest infantry marines and support Marines that this country has produced in this generation. And they have written a chapter that I hope is developed, it is retold, that ought to serve as a marker for generations to come. Ladies and gentlemen, those that did not serve with the magnificent bass in Ramadi in 2004, I would ask you to give them a round of applause.

SPEAKER_02:

About the events surrounding, and directly from the mouths of the people who were in Ramadi, two thousand four.