Constant Combat

Everybody Wanted to Fight - Jose Miranda (Part 1 of 2)

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Jose Miranda’s deep account includes a handover in Ramadi that felt hollow,  and the platoon building their own picture from scratch. From there, it’s a street-level view of the Sofia district fights, rockets fired at a suspected Vehicle born explosive, and the hard call to his mother. Before part 2 starts, Jose recalls what it meant to carry a fallen Marine’s story back to his family.

• joining the Marine Corps
• Okinawa miles that built grit
• thin handoff in Ramadi and designing the guard
• first IEDs and a fast escalation
• the day PFC Geoff Morris was hit
• triage under fire and the medevac sprint
• grief turning to resolve and the Sofia district fight
• TOWs, 203 breaching, and AT4 shots
• reloading by hand, rationing ammo, holding ground
• loudspeakers, shows of force, and blue on blue risk
• why the unit became a family in combat

This is a multi part episode, make sure you listen to the rest of the story. 


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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. 

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Joining The Marines

SPEAKER_01

Alright, man. Tell everybody uh your name and what platoon you were with and what rank you were in 2004.

SPEAKER_05

Uh my name is Jose Miranda Jr. I was in uh weapons company in Map 2. Um I was sergeant and uh when we deployed to Romati.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Alright, man. Well, before I pushed record, you said you wanted to start from the beginning, so let's go from there.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, so um, you know, you know, when I when I joined when I was in uh 2-4, like I barely uh barely spoke any English, right? Yeah, so yeah, so when I um so my sister, uh she she was also in the Marine Corps.

SPEAKER_01

And I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was in the Marine Corps too. Uh like she was like two years ahead of

Boot Camp Language Barriers

SPEAKER_05

me. So when I was 15, you know, she was telling me about the Marine Corps, and and then I kind of had that in the back of my mind, right? That I wanted to join the Marine Corps. And then what did it for me was one day we're watching a movie Con Air. You know which one I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, the Nicolas Cage movie.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05

So yeah, so we're watching that movie. The first couple minutes, he gets into a fight outside of the bar. He kills a guy, right? Yeah, and then she's like, Did you know the Marines can kill a person with their own hands? I'm like, really? I'm like, that's what I want to do. But yeah, that movie, you know, guiding me towards the marine corps, I guess. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00

Nicholas Cage was your recruiter, more or less, yeah.

SPEAKER_05

And then when I got to recruiting office, they asked me what do you want to do? I looked at a poster, I'm like, I want to do that. And yeah, that's pretty much how I got in. Um I went I went through boot camp. I didn't know fucking English at all, dude. I didn't like well, it kind of, you know, I understood a lot of stuff, but I couldn't talk too much. Yeah, and then one one day we were um they were issuing our camis, and they were asking for sizes, right? And the guy right next to me, he said uh ML. I'm like, the fuck is that? And then they got to me and they're like, What's your size? I'm like, ML. So the whole time in boot camp, I was wearing like this baggy ass camis, large trousers. Oh yeah, dude. I was like, it was bad, but you know, so yeah, man. Um like I joined in uh February 2001.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_05

Uh I went to Paris Island. Um then uh you know I went to um uh SY and uh Campbell June. Um, you know, when I got to uh 2-4, you know at the beginning when we got there, it wasn't it wasn't that bad. We thought we were gonna go somewhere else on a meal or whatever, and then 9-11 happened, and I remember that day we were well, I don't know about you guys, but I was uh working party at the crack houses. Yeah, remember the crack houses?

SPEAKER_00

Oh yeah, no, I was on that working party too.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, we were tearing that stuff down. Uh we were doing a lot of stuff in there, and and then they called us in, it was like early in the morning, and we went to uh I guess the wreck room, and uh you know that's when they told us two planes hit the um the towers, and we might be going to war. That's what they said, and like we were like excited. I don't

9/11 And Early Assignments

SPEAKER_05

know why, but we were excited. But then you know it kind of it kind of sucked after that because we were uh stuck in the like QRF. Yeah, you know, I don't know if you remember that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, Operation Noble Eagle is what they called it, where we were supposed to be the response force for the western portion of the United States. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05

I I remember our senior Marines were fucking with us, they were telling us we were going to Disneyland, and we're like, I'm like, really? Like, yeah, you gotta protect Disneyland. I'm like, okay, sure. That was that was funny, dude. That stuff like afterwards, I'm like, this fuckers were fucking with us. So yeah, man. Um, you know, and then uh we went on the Mew, we were stuck in Okinawa for a year, and um I mean it was it was a good time, you know. Um Okinawa, like I didn't really mind it that much. Um we had uh Ghani Maraki as our platoon sergeant uh when we got there. I remember I remember uh like we we were at the first our platoon the first up in the mornings. He would always take us for runs. And it was not it was not just like like a one mile run, it was like three, five miles a day, and five at 5 30 in the morning we're outside information. And then probably you know, back then we're like bitching and complaining about it, but I don't know, like I think that kind of built some uh character, you know. For sure, like heart, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So, you know, we got back and I mean they told us we're going to Iraq, and um kind of you know, yeah, you're kind of leading up to it, but uh do you remember much about the workup? Like, because we only had a short period of time. We had maybe let's see, we got

Okinawa And Hard Training

SPEAKER_01

back August-ish time frame. So we had September, October, November, December, January, so five months really. And then we left to Ramadi February 16th, most of us, not everybody. Some people left earlier, some people left later, but the biggest part of the battalion element left on the 16th.

SPEAKER_05

Um, you know, to tell you the truth, I don't remember much about the no, that's okay.

SPEAKER_01

It was a weird time because a lot of people separated from the platoon. Some people went to camp guard, some people went on temporary assignments, some people went to division schools. Like, for example, Blake went to multiple division schools. Oh, uh, and so he wasn't with the platoon. He came back Christmas time and then we deployed. Like it was like instant.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it was it was back-to-back schools, and then I basically had enough time to get pack my sea bag to head off to uh Oh really? Yeah, it was like I it was actually quite disjointed for me, but whatever. No, what what it was was I got sent to like let's see here. Um I went to the McMah uh McMahon training, you know, to be an instructor. Then I went to I think I went to Hearst and then I went to um boy, all of it just fell out of my head. I went to the Arabic school, I went to and so it was just back-to-back stuff. Like I was going to the Arabic school when you all went to March Air Force Base, for example, to that mount training uh package. And but that was in January,

Compressed Workup To Ramadi

SPEAKER_00

and then I got back in enough time to get dropped to the unit. Um, but I didn't train at all with the with the unit um prior to getting over to Ramadi. But but as we all know, you uh you you learn quick what what needs to happen.

SPEAKER_05

So well then I think you know, going to Iraq, I don't think uh you um you knew everything that was expected, you know, um going up there. You know, our mission wasn't to we were not uh the main force at the beginning, uh right. We're just there to you know with uh hearts and minds and all that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so it was something new for the Marine Corps. It was we were part of you know the Marine Corps as a whole was part of the push and took Baghdad and took all the outlying areas, and then different units went out to different sectors. And when we showed up, we relieved an army national guard unit. And you're right, we were supposed to be doing security and stability operations. We weren't supposed to be doing we didn't think we were going into house-to-house fighting. We were supposed to be handing out handing out soccer balls and making sure the hospital was working.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, well, at least that was the the plan, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, so I don't know, you you you asked people that if they drove, you know, to Iraq, and yeah, yeah. I mean, uh, we I I was the driver, uh it was uh myself, the lieutenant uh Cohen and uh Morris.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, okay. That's right. I actually have that I have a picture of that somewhere. Uh it was Morris was up in the gun.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah. So you know, we drove to Iraq

Arrival And A Thin Handoff

SPEAKER_05

as soon as we got there. I think some of you guys went on the left seat, right seat.

SPEAKER_01

We did, yeah. We did the relief in place with the National Guard unit, and we rode with them for a couple of days, and then we started bringing more and more people, and then their key leaders rode with us for one patrol, and then they left.

SPEAKER_05

Oh, yeah. Yep, yeah. When you guys were out, I was back in the camp, and my uh I had to set up the the security for the camp. Oh that was my so that was my my job, but that was like one day, and one day I had to I had to come up with the range cards, I had to come up with uh uh calm, everything that uh people needed up there. Like pretty much everything. Um you know, I set up pretty much that because the first week we had our guys uh up on the bridges and yeah, uh one post in the back. And yeah, man, the army they didn't know anything, man. They they didn't pass any information to me. Uh right. They're just like, okay, so we're up here, north bridge, south bridge, and that bridge, and we have two people here, and two people, you know, it was just basic stuff, but they didn't have anything, any uh targets, anything uh mapped out, they didn't have anything. So basically, I took my guys up there and they started drawing the range cards. I took those to to our CP and we started from there, you know.

SPEAKER_01

I had no idea that you did that. I obviously I was riding around in Humvees with people who also weren't telling me anything, they were just they were driving as fast as possible, and they'd be like, Oh yeah, that's the police station, and it was go one second, it was gone by like they they they didn't tell us a lot, unfortunately. I did not know I don't think they knew.

SPEAKER_00

I didn't I mean uh yeah Miranda, you yeah, you you you commented like they didn't pass along the information. I don't think they had the information, I don't think they made range cards. I I think they just stood up there and were like, Well, there are maybe there might be bad guys out there, yeah.

SPEAKER_05

I don't know. Yeah, they

Money, Power, And Quiet Streets

SPEAKER_05

were winging it they really were.

SPEAKER_01

But uh I don't I can't remember before us, were they beginning engaged too much or no, not really, no uh according to the very limited information that they did pass, they had been having regular meetings with the chief of police. They were disseminating a huge amount of money, and I don't know where I don't I don't know how much they just said it was a lot of money. They were delivering large boxes of money to the local chiefs of the different tribes that were that lived in the area. The major, I don't I don't know, they have names for them, but I don't know what the names are. The local chiefs and then the the chief of police and the the mayor of Vermont, who ended up not even being a mayor or uh in any part of governance, he just called himself the mayor. He accepted a lot of money. Anyway, they did not get significant engagements because of that.

SPEAKER_00

So I can actually add just slightly to that. Um, and I don't remember where I was reading this, but um my understanding is that that National Guard unit actually was uh made up of a lot of police officers and that they had and they were actually uh narco guys. And so they were they were um treating Ramadi like they treated gangs in their areas in Florida that were running drugs. Okay, and so the that only coincides to what you're saying, Nylandis is that there was a lot of like we're gonna work with the bosses to make sure that the underlings don't do what they need to do. Instead of trying to remove them out, um, they were trying to like disassemble this the situation, and so we were tactically doing it very differently, like we tactically inter interacted differently.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

I mean, number one, we didn't have money to hand out, so we just didn't um what's funny about this is that um one of the you know there were people at the bridges right at the bottom. Um uh some Iraqi guy they were in charge of uh whatever they had to do at the bridges, right? And there was like a small steel door to the outside, and it was like we were out there, you know. Like as soon as you you cross the the door, you're like you were out there. One time one of them, uh one of those uh this people told

First IEDs And Rising Contact

SPEAKER_05

us that basically that the army was not getting attacked because of that, because of the money. And we're like, really? Like, yeah, they they pay enough so they don't get attacked, or you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That was wild.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, so let's see what else. Um you know, uh at the beginning uh of our deployment to Iraq, I don't think it was it was too bad. I mean, we had some uh casualties and but I don't think we're getting engaged a lot, correct?

SPEAKER_01

It depends on how you look at it. Uh we since you drove in, we drove in on March 6th, uh was when we left. That was when we left Kuwait was March 6th. Uh within seven days was the first IED that caused a major casualty. That was McPherson. McPherson got hit and had his jaw blown off. And then from our company, one week after that, was the bike IED that wounded Worth. And our first KIA, as far as I can remember, and as far as my notes go, was from Fox Company. It was uh Lance Corporal Dang. He got killed by an RPG on a patrol. So we were there 14, 14, 16 days before somebody got killed. Uh, as far as gunfights, the first gunfight that I remember being reported was on March 25th. And you may remember because on March 18th, uh right before Worth got wounded, is when we did that, we drove out to that tiny town between Ramadi and Havania, and it was half of our company went out in the middle of the night, and we took some elements of the local Marine Recon unit with us, and we searched that whole town, and they found one roll of deck cord and one like two or three blocks of C4. We were out all night for that. Uh several of us got wounded on that night because that was the IED that hit my truck. Uh, there was another IED that was another ID. Yeah, then there was another IED that hit a different platoon um on that same night.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And so it I feel like it ramped up pretty quick. The first gunfight that I can remember was the 25th, and it was when Echo Company got into uh a short skirmish and shot some guys and recovered. They had mortar gear. They were leaving a mortar position, and Echo got into a shootout with them and killed them and found the mortar gear uh on them.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, I I guess my comparison was more of uh what we experienced after that, you know. Like sure. Please tell it.

SPEAKER_01

I I've been running my mouth a little bit too much. Please tell your part.

SPEAKER_05

No, no, I'm just saying, like at the beginning, it I probably didn't seem as bad as you know, as how it got after Line August was much more, yeah, for sure. Yeah, so I mean, like as you know, our uh I think Morris was the first casualty of our uh company, correct?

SPEAKER_01

He was the first KIA from weapons company on uh heap you you know as well as anybody else. He was wounded on the fourth and he died on the morning of the fifth.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, that day. I mean, that's one of those days I will never uh forget, you know. Um I think I think that day our mission was just to interact with the uh IP to uh with the Iraqi police. We went out there to the

The Day Morris Was Hit

SPEAKER_05

by the Saddam mosque. And you know, the guys the uh I guess the company commanders and and some of the dismounts, they went out there with uh with the IP. You know, I stayed behind with the drivers and the gunners. It was three three vehicles, three vehicles with us that day. And I think before that we dropped off uh Jesse Jordan somewhere. We dropped him off somewhere. I I do remember him getting off and us driving off like really fast. And you know, so we were there for a little bit, you know, probably a little bit too long. And our vehicles, since I was there with uh gunners and uh drivers, um and I was man in the radio. So that day there were a lot of kids, like a lot of kids that went to our vehicles and they were you know, just wanting a bowl, chocolate, whatever. And then um um something happened. Well, Morris, you know, he's he tells me, like, hey sergeant, can I I need to take a piss? I'm like, okay, you know, just switch off with uh Cohen. So he switched off. Morris went down, uh he was taking a piss. And then he started talking to some of the kids and he started exchanging money because he wanted money for his dad, you know, to kind of like send to his dad or whatever. And then I saw this guy uh in a bicycle. He was basically telling all the kids to go away. And you know, I kind of you know that was kind of suspicious to me, you know. I saw because he was like telling the kids, he was kind of mad, like go away.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah. And so I looked at the other vehicles. These guys, they had like 20 kids by them, right? So I walked over there, you know, I was basically gonna tell them, like, hey, go back to to your positions. I mean, we had the gunners and the guns and stuff like that, but the drivers they were like with the kids. And I go over there, and these guys were showing porn to the kids. That's why there were so many kids. That's why there were so many kids there. Uh-huh. They were showing porn, and I'm like, hey guys, fucking let's, you know, let's go back to our positions. And then uh, I think I took the magazine, I'm not sure. But I started walking towards my vehicle and Morris, he was um in front of in front of the vehicle, right? He was um there was like one kid there, one kid, and then this uh this guy came over and it's like he was telling the kid to go away. And then I started walking towards Morris. And as soon as the kid left, that's when he got hit. He actually got hit on the on his right side, like on his uh flank, right? Right here. So the first thing the the thing I remember was like I was looking at him and then all of a sudden I saw this cloud of smoke, and I got knocked down. Um I don't know if I wasn't conscious or enough for like a second or two, but I got up and and I didn't see Morris anymore because uh smoke, right? So I started running towards him and he was just kind of laying on the ground with his hands up, kind of like like that, like um and you know, I saw him and you know, he had a big open wound, you know, on his right side, and I could see the inside his intestines and maybe his liver. I'm not not sure what you know, I'm not sure what it was. And he had a bunch of injuries in his head, and his elbow was pretty much gone. His arm was just hanging by a little thread. It might have been muscle fiber tendons or whatever, you know, but he was just hanging there. When I saw that, I ran to the middle of the road and I was calling for a duck. You know, I I know I knew we had a bonding with us. Yeah, and um, you know, I was just basically yelling, I need a duck over here right now, like but yelling, you know, really hard. And then we started getting uh shot at and then uh went back to Morris and Cohen. I don't know if Cohen was knocked down for a little bit, like uh conscious for a little bit, but then he started yelling at me, just telling me like Sergeant, I'm hit, I'm hit. And I'm like, Cohen, get the fuck back on the gun and start shooting. And he's like, I'm hit. He didn't have this his helmet blew up, it blew off, you know? And then uh I started shooting back. Um and then uh Cohen gets down, he sees Morris, he gets like you know, he's like, What the fuck? What happened? It's hardened, and I'm like, go on, get back in the gun. But then uh Cohen picked up uh Morris gun and he just started shooting, same direction was shooting. And then we saw this uh like a little white truck uh driving away. So we're like that might have been it, you know. So we started shooting at it. And uh, you know, I go back in the middle of the road, start calling for Bundy. And I think when they were coming over to us, Randall he got caught up in uh some sea wire. I don't know if you remember that.

SPEAKER_01

I remember hearing about it, yeah. I I was not there when that happened, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05

He was stuck on it, and then Bundy came to us, and you know, I mean, when you first see this stuff, you know, it's it's pretty shocking, but then you know, we started working on them. Um and you know, we kind of knew that there was not a lot that could be done, you know, just by the injuries and you know, everything that happened. So, you know, he was working on it, and then everybody came. Uh, Lieutenant called for uh uh reinforcements for the QRF, and you know, we got uh we got Morris out of there. But yeah, I mean that day

Chaos, Evac, And Aftermath

SPEAKER_05

was um it was pretty bad. I don't know. Were you there when we went on that patrol right afterwards?

SPEAKER_01

So our platoon was split. You had three trucks where you were at with the IPs. We had taken my three trucks and gone north. We were at almost at the Euphrates River, uh observing a house where there was, I don't know, supposed to be mortar activity. It ended up being a meeting place. Uh we were gathering intelligence for how many people were going in and out of this house. When we heard you guys got hit, we broke down our observation and hauled ass down the road and met you at by the time we had got there, uh we went straight to combat outpost because they had already evacked Morris to combat outpost.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Uh me and Swede uh Harden went in and spoke directly to Krickard, which was our uh battalion surgeon, and he was basically finishing patching up Morris and they're wrapping him tightly for the flight. And he said the major bleeding has long been stopped. And if he he specifically said if he makes it through the night, maybe he'll make it. He's like the he said the human body's amazing. He just said like this, you know, random. I don't know, I think it was the worst thing he had seen to that point because it was pretty early. And he just he was trying to be nice, I think, and he said uh if he makes it through the night, uh the human body's amazing, maybe he'll maybe he'll make it. As we were coming out, me and Swede were moving people out of the way, and uh Doc Barrigo was there at Combat Outpost and was helping us clear people out to run him to the bird. And we ran into uh David Swanson, that photographer who took all the pictures of all kinds of shit around Ramadi, and he was trying to take a picture of Morris up close, his face and his injuries. And Swede moved him back, picked him up and moved him back physically. And we both got in his face and said, if you take a picture of his face, we'll fucking kill you. Um we uh then carried uh Morris over to the bird, got him loaded. He was just kind of moaning, he wasn't really moving much, and uh that finished. Uh I remember being pretty fucking upset, uh, pretty mad yelling, and Swede yelling and throwing shit. And then we jumped on the trucks and uh they told us we couldn't leave, and I said, fuck you, we're leaving, and we left anyway. And they pulled the gate and we drove out from combat outpost and we met up with you guys, and that's when I met up with you. Uh I remember specifically, this isn't funny given the situation, but it's funny in retrospect. I did not see you, I saw Cohen, and Cohen was bleeding and bandaged up but bleeding, and I remember like, holy shit, are you okay? And he was like, I'm okay, you know, whatever. He's like, I just you know got hit by some shrapnel, whatever. And you were like, hey fucker, I'm hit too. I looked up and I was like, dude, I'm fucking sorry. I just I was so hyper fixated on what had just happened, and like, what the fuck are we gonna do? And then we had to tow that vehicle back, we had to tow the vehicle out of there, and then uh you you can tell the rest of the story from there. You said we were going, we went on patrol.

SPEAKER_05

Oh, yeah. So we kind of had a feeling of where we were getting shot at, where he got shot from, you know, the RPG. Yep. Uh, you know, we got a little uh couple guys ready to go. Uh the dog was telling me to stay back, and I'm like, I gotta go. So he I think he pulled my pants down and he patched me up real quick because I had an injury on my left leg, and so basically my left leg was like soaked in blood, you know?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

And he patched it up. I'm like, I wanna go, you know. So we I don't know if you remember uh like a small uh police

Grief Turning Into Resolve

SPEAKER_05

station like close by. We went there and you know they were acting weird, man. Like they were acting weird, and we saw a lot of uh spanned uh shells and on the ground close by, and you know, we just kinda uh we just kinda had the bad feeling that they might have known more than um than what they were saying, you know?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

Um one another thing, you don't I don't know if you remember, we had uh a translator with us. It was not Koon, it was an Iraqi translator. Yes, it was this uh skinny guy, very shy, not that tall. He was sitting on the rear passenger seat. And when the RPG went off, he was there and he didn't get any shrap, but his ears got blown up. He was like bleeding from the ears. I don't know if you remember any of that.

SPEAKER_01

I did not remember, I knew he left us for a medical reason, but I did not remember what exactly had happened to him.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, he we never saw him again after that. Yeah, he never came back, so after that it was just us, you know. I don't think we had any translators attached to us after that, right?

SPEAKER_01

We occasionally borrowed Rocco. Uh, we did not use anybody else. I know we had some guy named Mike at one point, we had Wilbur. Um, we had a few different translators. We never had him in our platoon ever again. Yeah, uh, we just had Rocco a few times, and that was specifically when either the battalion CO was with us or when the company CO was with us, and they rode with them.

SPEAKER_00

Well, and that was early on when we lost we we we went through several terps before I would say it was like May time frame, if my memory serves me right, when that's the terp situation stabilized. But we had we lost that one to a medical reason, then we killed another one because he was out

The Sofia District Fight

SPEAKER_00

on an ambush against us.

SPEAKER_01

He slipped away in the night and joined the enemy, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and then and then we lost two more, and then they sent us some guys that were like that were Moroccan that spoke that didn't speak Arabic, they spoke Moroccan, and that was a disaster. And so, anyways, yeah.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, so you know, um we we came back to uh uh to our camp. What was the name of the camp? I forgot. Hurricane point. Oh yeah, yeah. So we're back to uh we got back over there, and you know, as soon as we got there, I think well, like an hour after we got there, that's when we we got the news, you know, the bad news. Uh he had passed away, you know.

SPEAKER_01

I felt like it was a couple hours, but you might be right. It may have been an hour.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, I mean it wasn't right away, but we were just waiting. I don't know. I know we got back and we're just waiting, and I know everybody was it was there were everybody was pretty upset after that, you know?

SPEAKER_02

Yep.

SPEAKER_05

And you know, I think um if Morris if he wouldn't have been there, like probably more people would have died, you know? And you know, I I I can say honestly, like Morris saved our lives, you know, of a bunch of us. You know? And uh I have I met up with his dad in 2009 because when we came back from Iraq, we had that memorial and he was there, but uh I I don't know, I didn't want to look at him. I didn't feel like like strong enough to look at him or introduce myself and be and tell him like hey, I'm so and so Morris was with me. I don't know. So I I avoided him, you know. So when I got out in 2009, I looked for him. Uh his name is Kirk. Kirk Morris. Yes, I looked for him and I contacted him and I told him, like, um, I told him I I was uh Morris um vehicle commander, so you know I was in charge of Morris. I was right next to him when this happened. I would like to meet you, to give you some stuff. You know, I had probably like a cover, something like that, you know, that was Morris. And I'm like, I want to show you some pictures too. If you're you know you wanna meet me. So he was like happy. He was told he told me, yeah, come over to my house. I went there. And I'm like, look, you can ask me anything you want, you know. I will tell you how things happened. And he wanted details, you know, no matter how graphic they were. And I basically told him, you know, what I saw, what happened. He didn't know a bunch of that stuff, you know? Yeah, he didn't he didn't know that other people got hurt, he didn't know the situation. So I don't know, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01

The the Marine Corps, they kind of just give him uh what like a basic rundown of what happened, or so to my understanding, and this is um I got this information from another Marine who stayed back. There were Marines from our battalion who had injuries, medical reasons, personal reasons, legal reasons why they couldn't deploy at the time. And so they stayed back, although they were technically still part of our battalion. And they got the

House-To-House And Heavy Weapons

SPEAKER_01

task of contacting families when people were injured. They didn't have any information, they didn't know anything. Uh, they would simply say, they would call and be like, You are the next of kin for, well, just use me as an example, you are the next of kin for Shane Nylon. Yes, no. Uh just to inform you, he's been wounded in combat. Uh, he will be in contact as soon as he can. That's it. In the case of someone who was killed, they didn't even do that. It went so they would call the uh teams that would go and show up at the house. And it would be a chaplain and uh usually a staff NCO or an officer who would show up at the house and deliver the news in person. And I don't they they never got any information, and so I don't know I don't know what happened after that. We were so damn busy after that. I I would imagine in some cases you would get a a letter or something from probably our chain of command, but uh our chain of command was I mean, literally the next day we went out on patrol on the night of the fifth, and then we didn't even go to sleep because we got back, we ate chow, and then the sixth kicked off and we fought all day. Yeah, so there was no chance to to do anything.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, so I mean, I'm I'm glad that I reached out to him. Me too, too. You know, maybe that gave him I don't know, man, not closure, but you know, something more than what they told him. I you know, I showed him pictures and then he he has like a room, kind of like a trophy room with uh Morris stuff, and you know, he was showing me around his property where Morris played, you know. Um so basically like everything, he's uh I don't know if you ever talked to him, but he's a really good guy, man. Like he really looks out for for veterans, you know, and he actually fought with the city of uh Gurney, Illinois, because they wouldn't let him stand a memorial for for his son. Yeah, and he even ran uh he ran for mayor or something like that. Mayor, yeah, mayor or something like that. Good for him. So he could do that, you know. So yeah. And um I mean that was that's pretty bad, you know, pretty bad time. Um not one of the worst things we saw. No, actually, that was the worst thing we saw, but we we saw other things, you know, um when we were there. So after Morris, I I don't know what happened with us after that, but I felt like that gave us a lot of um like a lot of will to to fight. You know? Yeah. I would say probably revenge or whatever, but I know after that, like no Nobody was afraid of anything. Like honestly, every time we went out, there was nobody saying, like, I don't want to go out, I don't wanna die. Nobody everybody was like ready for whatever. You know? Yep. And I I kind of like that about our platoon. Um like none of the guys posted about it, like everybody wanted to fight, everybody wanted and you know, I think because of Morris we fought even harder, you know, because we had a a bigger purpose, you know. We wanted to get back at this guys, you know,

AT4s, 203s, And Close Calls

SPEAKER_05

honestly.

SPEAKER_01

I agree. Uh it went from there were a couple of tears shed on on the morning of the fifth, right when we got the news, and it turned to anger real fast. And when the call came out on the sixth, everybody was like, Oh hell fucking yes, now I'm ready. And it it it was a lot of aggression, and uh very much so.

SPEAKER_05

Remind me the sixth. Uh, where where were we?

SPEAKER_01

So the official title of uh where we ended up would be the Sophia district. It is up by the Euphrates River, uh, after the big major bend, uh, after the farm fields near Racetrack and Nova, if that makes any sense. It is larger houses and larger yards. And there was a couple of smaller mosques out that way. On the 6th, specifically, we were called out because the sniper team that was in the North Sofia district had gotten pinned down and had no longer made any comm checks. They did not know exactly where they were. And the Echo Company QRF that went to go back them up was in heavy contact and unable to move forward in order to rescue the sniper team. So we were coming up from Echo had come from the north and east, we were coming from the south and west, and then we hit a heavy ambush basically in a neighborhood. Uh and and the what we were told afterwards was that the main effort of fighting moved off of them and came to us so that way they could link up a little bit and it relieved some of the pressure.

SPEAKER_05

Was that the day uh big boy got hit with an RPG? That was the day, yeah. Same day that we had to withdraw them because we were running out of ammo, right?

SPEAKER_01

By the end of it, yes.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, uh man, uh that day. I think you even shot a tow missile that day.

SPEAKER_01

We fired two tow missiles that day. Uh, I fired one into a large wall and uh killed a guy who was firing RPGs at us, and Mosell fired one into the roof of a house that was reinforced with a medium machine gun and collapsed the top of the house.

SPEAKER_05

Oh nice. Yeah, that day we were uh you know, after Morris passed away, pretty much my team, I guess we became uh dismounts. Yes, you know. So when we got into that firefight, we were just going from building to building, uh breaking doors, trying to get a vantage point. So that's what we were doing while you guys were down there shooting. Um we were like breaking doors, uh going from house to house. It was it was pretty exhausting, you know. Um but we were out there for a while, dude. Yeah, like it seemed like hours and hours.

SPEAKER_01

And uh if I remember correctly, the first day it was about seven hours before we finally made it to the sniper teams. Rainmaker came and reinforced us and gave us a little bit of ammo because they had some. And we loaded up the snipers, I believe it was the snipers. It may have been some of the Echo QRF casualties, but I'm pretty sure we loaded up two of the snipers into Rainmaker's high back, and we evacuated the casualties uh as many as we could, as fast as we could. And then I went back to Hurricane Point and met with the rest of the platoon there, and we reloaded uh ammo.

Telling Families The Truth

SPEAKER_01

And we did not go back out again um until the next day.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, that the first day I remember coming back, it was probably already getting dark, and you know, we were hungry, tired, you know. So we went to the the Chajo there. And I remember everybody was pumped, everybody was you know saying what they did. And and then uh I remember like probably uh I I think asking you, like, what the fuck were you shooting at with a two missile? It's like oh there was a guy, there was a guy behind the wall. I'm like, I'm like, did you see him? Like, oh yeah, I split him in half. I'm like, all right. Yeah, that's accurate. Yeah, yeah, and everybody was just you know talking about like excited, like about what what they saw, what they did, and yeah, I mean, uh, you know, it was a good time because we were like that, like uh it felt like uh like a unit. Yep, you know, it felt like uh like unity, like we were in the same like sync. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I don't know, I don't know, Monster. Did you sorry uh I don't need to take over your your podcast, but it's exactly it.

SPEAKER_03

We're here for you, yeah.

SPEAKER_05

I'm sure you like you guys also went through something like that, right? Like I know you guys got a lot of combat too.

SPEAKER_00

Oh yeah, no, we uh I I I uh totally was picking up what you were putting down with that. There is the uh that baptism by fire is a real thing, you know. Once uh once you're once your unit, once you get hit with that first major um no, this is it, this is it, this is for real. Um and you come through on the other side and everybody does what they're supposed to do. It's a there's no better feeling. It's a it's a it's a definitely a little bit of a dragon that you trace the rest of your life for sure. Yeah because you never you never really can quite find that kind of connection again. Because it's and it's and because it's wild, because you'll have, you know, you have you have your really good friends, you know, in the military, and then there's then there's always a handful of people that aren't necessarily uh people that you thoroughly enjoy. But it's but it's a family, and so it's uh and so you still you still love and support them and still uh want to go out and fight the next day with them. So definitely know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_05

Um I remember one time during those three days, there was something going on. The they they were calling for help, you know, for a QRF. And our platoon, like map two, we suit up, we're ready to go. We were over there by the loading area, and we're like, let's go, we're ready. And then we call from we got a call from the CP uh from R CP that uh QRF had to go, but we were ready. We were ready to go, and and we're getting mad because we were not going, you know, because we had to wait for the QRF to go first. And uh I mean that I don't know, man, that's kind of amazing, you know, that you're ready to get back into the fight, and you know one of my biggest fears in Iraq it wasn't to die by getting shot or blown up, it was by getting captured. That was my biggest fear. You know, I always said to myself, if I ever get captured, I'm gonna kill myself. I'm not gonna let those fuckers like do something to me. So that was the whole deployment, that was my biggest fear. Getting captured. You know, I don't know if you guys ever experienced anything like that, but for me that was that was it, you know. Um you know, uh I can't remember what day we went out. We were also uh we getting shot at. Uh

Bug Hunt And Shows Of Force

SPEAKER_05

that was the day the Randall shot the the house, the door, the front door, the 203 thing.

SPEAKER_01

Oh yeah, yeah. He was the only one carrying a 203. He always he he breached a lot of things with the 203. Uh he shot everything with the 203. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah. So uh that day we're we're getting shot at, you know, that was the the first time I had to reload magazines. Like I actually reload each magazine with new rounds because I was running so low. Yep. And uh and I remember we're getting shot at, I was running low. I had to reload my all my magazines, I had to reload them. And then uh I was uh, you know, at this month we're with uh Harden. And then I went up to him, I got my ammo because he was carrying all of our shit, I think. And then he called in that he saw like a vivid on the middle of the road. And then uh the lieutenant told him, Well, take it out, take it off. And I know we're carrying uh AT4 with us. I'm like, I'll I'll do it, dude. I'll do it. So I went to grab the AT4, I went to grab the AT4, and we're right there, he was sitting in his uh seat, and then I had the AT4, and we're both reading the directions, but I ran away, it goes like that was funny, like you know, because that's something you don't practice every day, so no, because if you're lucky, you fired one, yeah. Yeah, so we like reading the directions, and and I'm like, okay, I think I'm ready, I think I'm ready. So I'm pointing at the vehicle, and then Harding had a camera, and he was like recording the whole thing. I'd never seen the video, but I know he took a video of that. And then when I shot it, it hit right in the grill, right in the center. So it was it was pretty cool, you know. And then uh and then the yeah, and then Harding, he was like, he was telling everybody like, oh yeah, we hit the the the vivid right in the middle of the grill and went up, but you know, it just I don't know. I don't I don't think we believed it was a real vivid. Yeah, we just wanted to destroy shit. Yeah, that was it. That was probably it. But yeah, man, um you know one thing I was talking to uh uh Shane about a couple weeks ago. The you know, after all this stuff happened 6, 7, and 8, like before that, before Morris got killed, every time I talked to my parents, you know, they were worried about it, they saw news or whatever. But I'm like, oh no, that's not that's not going on. It's you know, we're doing we're doing something else, we're just like the police, you know, uh nothing's going on. You know, so that's what they knew before that. And then uh like I was telling Shane after all this stuff happened 6, 7, 8, I was um I was told to go to the CP and they told me you have to call your parents and you have to tell them what happened because they're gonna get a letter from the Marine Corps and they need to know what it's for. So that day I probably the first time I broke down, uh I told my mom, Mom, you're gonna get this letter. This is what happened, and things are not okay over here. I mean, I just told her, you know, it was not a safe place. Um and I I I told her that I believed there was a pretty big chance that I might not make it, you know. So that was that was pretty tough, you know, telling her.

SPEAKER_01

But that's a hard thing to tell your mother.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

If it wasn't if the if it wasn't for that letter that they sent everybody that got hurt, I probably would have never would have never told my mom anything, you know? Because I just wanted to keep her like out of it, like yeah, you don't want them to worry, man. Yeah. So um what what what happened after this? What happened after the 6th, 7th?

SPEAKER_01

Um well, let's see. The next big one that you might remember is uh probably the 10th. That's usually what most people consider the last day of the officially of the Battle of Ramadi. And on the 10th, we were on the uh westernmost corridor of a what was considered the first official bug hunt. We were exhausted. We we had gone out every single day. Uh we had been in a gunfight every single day. The first two days for extended amount of hours. Uh on the 8th, a little less, and on the ninth, just pop shots, nothing big. But on the 10th, we were on uh the westernmost quarter, uh Sledgehammer Platoon, which was Blake's platoon, was just north of us. And we were basically all covering the whole west side of a square of the Sophia district where they planned to drag everybody out, and they were going up and down, uh up and down the streets with the loudspeakers, uh yelling, you know, come out here, you pussies, and yelling all kinds of stuff, yelling stuff in Arabic and playing uh loud music. They played Let the Bodies Hit the Floor, they played Slare. Yeah, you remember that?

SPEAKER_05

Oh, yeah, man. You know what was scary was uh our planes going by like really close to us, right? You know what I'm talking about?

SPEAKER_01

So on the 10th, they did not do flybys, but that was in June specifically when we were doing some of those cordons. They started doing what they called shows of force and bringing down uh fast mover aircraft from the air force and flying them over our heads, they they weren't gonna shoot, but the sonic boom was insane.

SPEAKER_05

And we I I didn't know that that was gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01

No, they never told us, yeah. We didn't find that until afterwards.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, but when that happened, it was like, what the fuck? And I knew it wasn't them, I knew it was us, but even knowing it was us, it was like, Man, that's scary, man. Yeah, are they gonna drop a bomb on us? What the fuck is going on? Yeah, yeah, man. Now I can imagine this.

SPEAKER_00

This fuckers at that point we'd already had two blue on blues. Right, yeah. Um, this is a multi part episode. Make sure you listen to the rest of the story.