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Constant Combat
This veteran-led podcast highlights the experiences of Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, starting with their harrowing 2004 deployment to Ramadi; a 9 month combat tour which resulted in the highest casualties in a single deployment - a deployment that most Americans have never heard about. Through candid conversations surrounding these events, the series also explores earlier experiences that shaped the Marines, emphasizing their grit, humor, and humanity while aiming to honor their stories authentically.
Constant Combat
The Real Machine Gun Kelly - Nick Kelly
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Nick Kelly recounts Ramadi in 2004, from the first push, to the government center, to the fight that swallowed Easy Street, and the strange silence of coming home. Nick also paints the story of what lingers. It's the humanizing part: calling a parent from an accidentally open phone center; cleaning carbon off steel because it steadies the mind; reading about Vietnam under desert stars; and deciding how much of the past to carry into the present.
• background as 0331 in a Mobile Assault Platoon
• training gaps versus urban combat reality
• convoy north, first IEDs, arrival in Ramadi
• April 6, government center push and Easy Street fight
• close engagements with Mk-19
• casualties and battlefield triage
• April 7, Route Nova ambush and tree-top fighters
• car bombs, jam clears, alley fights
• night ambushes, tanks, and near misses
• downtime rituals, books, music
• family support and perspective
• meaning, memory, and choosing when to speak
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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
Great. Let's tell everybody who you are.
SPEAKER_03:Uh name's Nick Kelly. Um I was a uh PFC in Ramadi, Iraq in 2004. I got uh meritoriously promoted to uh Lance Corporal. I was there. I was an O331 machine gunner with uh Mobile Assault Platoon 3. Um yeah, that's it.
SPEAKER_01:That's an interesting place to start, actually. I didn't know that you got meritoriously promoted.
SPEAKER_03:You mean combat meritorious, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Nice, nice. What what specific action got you meritoriously promoted? Do you remember?
SPEAKER_03:Uh it was after the Battle of Ramadi the first day, April 6th, uh, after our engagements there. I got merit uh combat meritorious promotion.
SPEAKER_01:Nice. And you're a machine gunner, so you were behind uh 50 or Mark?
SPEAKER_03:Mark 19 the entire time.
SPEAKER_01:Nice. So you probably deserve that meritorious promotion. That was uh I think probably our most valuable weapon.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, it's uh it's devastating and uh urban warfare, as we found out.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. You know, uh most people that are probably listening to this, or most of our guys, so they've been there and they kind of know what it looks like. But there's probably a few people who have never been to Iraq or Ramadi specifically. The walls there are all built out of stones, and so bullets don't penetrate stones, they all just reflect off. But goddamn, that Mark 19 was great. Either it would penetrate, which sometimes it did through those clay walls, but occasionally you could just bounce it off the back, and the shrapnel splash also wounded the enemy, so it was really good as far as that went.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, and I actually also got really good at putting them through windows, so I think a lot of my rounds would land inside of rooms.
SPEAKER_01:Nice, yeah. See, that's perfect. Yeah, and then you get splash damage, that's great.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:All right. Well, uh, I said my piece, please uh start wherever you want. I was just uh waxing poetic about my favorite Mark 19.
SPEAKER_03:Nice. Uh so uh I guess we'll start uh on our way over there. I listened to some of the other uh podcasts by Latham and some of the other guys. Uh he was telling a story about uh traveling over there on the C-130. We were all you know crammed into that uh into that plane like cattle. Uh he was he was telling that story about when they were passing that liquor bottle around and it made me remember I was actually sleeping and someone nudged me and woke me up. I was like kind of like dreamy state. And I looked at that liquor bottle and just shook my head no, and they passed it to the next guy. The last thing I wanted was a drink. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So how how soon did you get to were you one of the group that got dropped like in December, January? Or did you come earlier than that to the unit?
SPEAKER_03:Um, I we got there right uh I'm trying to remember. I think maybe not it wasn't January, it was before the new year. Um maybe October, I'm thinking.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Maybe November.
SPEAKER_00:We had a little bit of time to get to know some of the guys before we jumped over.
SPEAKER_01:I feel like in my head, this is the only thing I remember of our workup together. So I was initially on Camp Guard, but when I came back from Camp Guard, we did a combined op where it was all the 0331s, and we fired the 50s and marks and some 240. And I'm pretty sure you were there for that. And that was either October or November. And it might have been the first, it was just out on like one of the back ranges in between uh San Anafre and San Mateo.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that that whole that whole time frame was rolled like fuzzy in my mind. But yeah, I just remember being a boot and getting you know treated like shit, and yeah, you know, you know, being the new guy and just running around and doing you know all the stuff new guys do.
SPEAKER_01:So do you remember much of the workup? Anything that stands out as either useful or not useful or shitty or any anything.
SPEAKER_03:No, I mean I remember sitting in a lot of like machine gun positions. You know, I think Mount Warfare was still kind of new to us, so I don't think we were doing the things that we actually ended up doing in Ramadi. A lot of it was just setting up machine guns and laying behind the machine gun while the dismounts kind of did their dismount things. It's doing a lot of range cards, setting up uh kind of mapping out where machine gun positions are and stuff like that. Stuff that we actually didn't really even do when we were over there, but I guess nobody knew the better.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we didn't know what we were doing, and we also didn't even know where we were going initially, so that's probably probably part of it.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_01:All right, so you you talked about flying over on the C-141, and then what next?
SPEAKER_03:Uh I just remember landing in Kuwait and uh I think we you know we did our acclimation with the heat and stuff and just kind of doing like uh mock patrols and uh trying to spot IEDs and just trying to get us ready for that. I think I think we're I think we did that for about a month, if I remember correctly.
SPEAKER_01:It was shorter than that. It was only about two weeks. We flew flew over February 16th, and then we crossed the line of departure March 6th. And so yeah, and most most of us anyway.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I remember we were we were on that Air Force base, and I remember I uh I had my birthday while we were there. I think I turned 20 years old while we were there at that Air Force base waiting to fly over. Okay, nice. Yeah, happy birthday.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So did you quasi nice?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:We were we were all slipping in the ice doing uh formation runs, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, you're talking about in in New Jersey, in the our wonderful snowstorm before we landed in the desert at 100 degrees eat. Correct. That's funny. Did anybody get you any birthday presents while you're in New Jersey?
SPEAKER_03:No, I don't even think I told anybody. That's that's smart.
SPEAKER_01:Usually you just get an ass beating.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, correct.
SPEAKER_01:That's good. So when you uh got to Kuwait, did you guys already have ideas of what teams you were gonna be in, or did you like you have you guys separated out in any way?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, we were our we were all already in our squads and everything. It was it was already done. I think the only thing there was confusion on was what weapon systems each platoon would have. So I don't know if you remember, but at the beginning, a lot of people thought the Mark 19 was gonna be kind of a worthless weapon at such close quarters. So a lot of the platoons were trying to get rid of their marks to get you know uh light and medium machine guns. And then obviously that changed after our first engagement. Everybody wanted their Mark 19s back. Uh but I I still had the Mark 19 all the way while we were in Kuwait and everything. But yeah, all the squads and everything were divvied out.
SPEAKER_01:Who were you with?
SPEAKER_03:I was in the Lee vehicle. Uh our driver was Daniels. Uh, we had the platoon commander, which is Gunny Crutcher. Yeah. Uh we had uh uh one of our medics was in the vehicle. Um and I think that was just us up in the front vehicle.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. And I don't know if I remember both of your medics. I know you had Dialka. Who else did you have?
SPEAKER_03:So we we he was the Filipino one, and then we had a uh light-skinned black guy. Uh I can't remember his name. It's I should know his name. I was with him the entire time, but I just can't think of his name right now.
SPEAKER_01:No, that's all right. Yeah, it's you know, 20 years on, sometimes things don't pop back. You just called him Doc. That's the same as I did with all of our trucks. Yeah, they were always Doc. They didn't have a name. Yeah. All right, cool. And did you stay in the lead truck the whole time? Was it all, or did you guys like shift around during the deployment?
SPEAKER_03:So we stayed in the same vehicles, or at least I did up in the front. And I was listening to one of the other podcasts. We were talking about the day that Sergeant Condi was killed. Yeah, uh, and there there was a mix-up in vehicles then. And I I if we get to that part later on, I can kind of clarify why that happened.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, sure. We can talk about it now, or we can wait till afterwards. You can go wherever you want, man.
SPEAKER_03:Uh yeah, so I'll just I'll tell that quick story real quick. So, yeah, that the day that Sergeant Condi was killed. Uh so basically up into that point, a lot of the other machine gunner and driver crews were kind of getting little brakes here and there. Uh, me and my driver up in the front vehicle, we were almost we never got any brakes. So we got to the point, right? Went to my squad there, and I'm like, hey, uh, when are we gonna get a break? Like we're out on every patrol up in the front, you know. It reminds me of that scene from uh from Platoon. Uh anyways, so uh that day they gave us uh they gave us our breaks. We uh we got to sleep in that morning, and that was the uh morning that the uh the convoy got hit with the idea where Sergeant uh Condi was killed.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, so you were you guys are back at Hurricane Point.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, correct. So we were I remember we were we got to sleep in, so to speak. I wasn't really sleeping in, but uh I remember someone from headquarters platoon came into our hooch and basically told us, hey, the platoon got hit, there's injuries, uh Sergeant Condi's been hit. And I remember at the time, and they didn't say he was killed, and they didn't say the severity of his wounds. So we just assumed, oh shit, you know, he got wounded again, he's gonna get another purple heart. If he's lucky, he's gonna get to go home. So we kind of just went back to sleep. We went ate chow that morning. Uh, I think it was me and Daniel as the driver. And then when we got back, we got back that morning is when they kind of brought the platoon together, and we I we were first kind of told how bad the uh the attack was.
SPEAKER_00:Huh. So you guys, I forget if it was Cox with third. Yes, Cox with that third. So so so you yeah, that so this goes back to how you guys left a more or less a firewatch behind.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Correct.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, okay. That's so fascinating. We didn't do that. I at least I don't remember us doing that at all.
SPEAKER_03:I don't even I don't even know if it's real truly a fire watch, I don't even know what we were watching because I know we were sleeping. And if we were on firewatch, we wouldn't have been sleeping. I think it was just kind of like uh uh just a just a little day break. And it just seemed like everybody else was getting it except me and my driver. So I got it, you know, the squad leader. I'm like, what the hell? Like it's our turn. So I guess he listened that day. But yeah, that's why there was a mix up in uh in the order of uh the machine gunners were, you know, obviously somebody else was in the front that day uh that typically wouldn't have been there.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. Well, that fills in a gap, absolutely. So interesting. So before we'll just rewind and and before all that happened, when you guys went up from Kuwait to Iraq, did you drive up or did you fly up?
SPEAKER_03:So we drove up. Uh I remember that night we we all staged at those big huge berms on the Iraq-Kwait border. Yep. And then some sometime in the middle of the night we pushed, you know, across the border. And I remember we just drove all night. That's actually the coldest I've ever been in my entire life. Yeah. Uh I was in the back of a high back, and the you know, uh the wind was brutal and it was just cold all through the night. And I think we drove all the way. Uh and then I think we went to the city of Babylon, is uh, I think where we got hit with our first IED. Not our not us, but the the convoy did I could hear it explode out into the front. Uh so yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And when that hit, did you guys did the convoy stop? Did they pull off? Did you guys were you guys part of a security element or were you just riding?
SPEAKER_03:Um, I I can't remember. It was such a large element. I mean, it it the the IED hit so far up to the front, I didn't even see the explosion. I mean, it was I think it was a large contingent of us that were moving through to Ramadi. Yeah, I've I've tried to.
SPEAKER_01:I've tried to look back at some of the pictures and I saw a few pictures of like the convoy pre-staging. And as by best count, there was like 35 vehicles. That's including like seven tons. So just I mean, that's miles of truck going down. So you you could have been a mile away from the IED, even you know, yeah, no telling. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, eventually I would love to know a little bit more about how that all worked because I you know, like, did we go up in just a long convoy? I don't think that could be right. And so we must have gone in phases, but I can't remember at all how that worked out. I mean, other than the ones that flew up. I mean that there was I think there's different stuff.
SPEAKER_01:I know there were two convoys. I don't know. I couldn't tell you uh exactly anything else, but I know there were two convoys.
SPEAKER_03:I didn't even know guys flew up. I thought we all drove. See, that's how dark I am.
SPEAKER_01:I found out people flew up during this podcast. I didn't have any idea either. That was a surprise to me. Yeah, I remember people I remember people arriving at different times, but I didn't realize they flew in. Right. So, what about uh your first memories of like kind of getting into Ramadi? Any any thoughts when you first got in there or anything that struck you or an um?
SPEAKER_03:I just remember, you know, when we were driving in, I think we were some of the first major Americans of the city, and I remember kind of you know, everyone's out there just staring at us, and we're we're wearing this new digital camouflage. Um, I'm not even sure that they even knew we were American, you know, Marines or soldiers, but um, I just remember this the city being packed and everyone just out on the road just just watching us and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, I remember that too going down through the marketplace.
SPEAKER_03:Right, yeah. Very hectic.
SPEAKER_00:What do you remember the first couple uh times outside the wire for uh for you guys? Do you remember your first uh time that you guys that you engaged?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the first time I actually got an engagement was April 6th. Um I know there was some there was yeah, there was some other, I think there was one other machine gun earlier tune that got into engagement. I think it was a pretty light engagement in hindsight, but uh yeah, I think our everyone's pretty much first major contact was April 6th.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, you want to talk about the show.
SPEAKER_03:I remember doing yeah, well, we'll get into April 6th. So uh that morning, I remember we got woken up and told to get in the vehicles and we're leaving. In hindsight, um, it's kind of funny how a lot of the times we went out and did stuff we weren't even told what we were going to go do. Um I just remember, hey, get in the truck, we're leaving, and then had no idea that we're you know headed in into into hell pretty much. Um so uh we get into the convoy, we take off. I think our platoon was going to the government center. I think there was a casualty, one of the O311s uh was injured. Uh we get to the government center, and I remember there was gunfire around the government center. I didn't really see much. Uh, I know they called up one of the other uh machine gunners to engage a building that had some insurgents in it, and that's when uh Lance Corbel Pepper uh his vehicle went up to the front. He engaged the building with a 50-cal machine gunner. I just remember being really jealous. Like, why did this this guy get to go shoot and I don't get touched by a machine gunner? Little did I know I was gonna be burning through some rounds in about 30 minutes from there. But um, so I'm not sure what they did with that casualty because we didn't take the him with us, whoever it was that was injured, because from there uh we moved to the south side of easy street and we came up that way.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, you you talk a little bit about not knowing what kind of mission you were going on. And I I've heard a few different people say that. I was in a different position where I almost always knew what was going on. How did you deal with that? Did it did you just you're just like, all right, I'm focused, I'm gonna be a machine gunner, or did you was the uncertainty a lot? Did it overwhelm you at times?
SPEAKER_03:No, I it was probably better not knowing what you're about to get into in hindsight, but uh nice. I mean, the the writing was on the wall because uh when we left the government center, I could hear the the battle raging on Easy Street, and it was I don't know how many blocks away it was, but I I can tell you to this day, I'm 41 years old to this day. That is the most uh eerie feeling that I'm getting chills thinking about it. You could hear the uh the machine gun fire, the rockets exploding, and we're basically moving towards that. So, you know, you you're you're getting pumped up in your head, you know, you're you're moving towards this danger, and it was you know, it was like a big storm, and you're getting closer and closer and closer to it. And then yeah, we uh we come up near the soccer stadium on the south side of Easy Street. That's actually where I saw my first two insurgents. I think some of the guys talked about it in the other podcasts, but so I'm in the lead vehicle and we see uh two insurgents bebopping uh across the street. They had no idea where they are, they had their AK-47 slung, and it was it was kind of weird, you know. We stopped and I looked at them and they looked at us. It was kind of like you know, two adversaries, you know, both you know, walking to the woods and getting spooked by each other. So I just remember I uh I leveled my Mark 19 at them and and gave some ammunition, gave some bursts with the grenades, and they took off running into the building, and then the other uh five machine guns in the platoon, we all lit the building up. I'm not sure what happened to those two guys, but uh I just thought it was odd that you know we all kind of stared at each other and was like, all right, here it goes. It's like you know, the old west when that's exactly what that's what I was thinking of.
SPEAKER_01:It's like a cowboy movie.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, who can draw their six-feeter first? So yeah, uh well, we engaged that and then uh the the the fight was raging up the street and Arbleton. We just started trucking up the street and engaging targets.
SPEAKER_01:Nice. You remember any further details after that or anything anything that kind of stands out?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, certainly. Uh so we're going up the street and we we get off a side street and we link up with so what it was is uh golf company third platoon was pinned down in a house in a courtyard, and uh they were taking you know heavy casualties. They had a couple of guys that were KIA, and uh so we pull off on a side street, and I remember uh uh Captain Bronzi at the time was down there with his radio operator and his guys, and there was uh uh an insurgent laying there, and he was like, I guess Captain Bronzi had shot him to the chest, and uh the insurgent was taking like these act this agonal breathing, and I he was saying, you know, something in Arabic, it's over and over. I don't know if he was praying or what, but I remember the flies were would land on his face, and every time he'd take a breath, the flies would fly away and then land back on him. But uh that's kind of a memory that sticks out as this is going on, everyone's you know firing up and down the street. The rocket RPGs are coming down the street. Um and I remember uh basically our whole platoon started moving up easy street, and my Hum V and me and the driver, we were left there on the on the back street. And I remember we were sitting there for like 20 minutes and there's nobody around us. And I'm I looked down at my driver Daniels. I'm like, I think, dude, I think we need to move like we need to link up with the platoon. We're by ourselves. In hindsight, I don't know how me and him weren't overrun by like a squad of insurgents or anything. Yeah, but yeah, we we uh we went back onto the main street and we linked up with uh the rest of the platoon.
SPEAKER_01:It's a weird feeling looking around, not seeing anybody else around, especially when there's bullets flying.
SPEAKER_03:Right, and you know, we're boots, so it's like we we don't do shit until we're told, like you know, no one knowing this is man, this this ain't right. If we get yelled at whatever, and I remember when we were driving off, I told Daniels I'm like, hey, don't run that guy over. He's he's dope, he's next to his dying. I didn't want the Humvee to run over his head or anything. Yeah, so we went around that guy and we linked up with uh the rest of the tune.
SPEAKER_01:You're detailing some very, very vivid memories.
SPEAKER_03:I'm curious if you I've got a lot more.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, no, that's good. And uh I I'm gonna pick your brain a little more because you have it seems like a little bit more episodic memory than some other folks do. So I'm curious uh when you're looking at this battlefield space, how far away is like the farthest you can see? Like, are you looking at uh 500 yards, a half a mile? How big do you think you can see?
SPEAKER_03:Probably a couple hundred yards. Uh, I I I remember a lot of the O through 11s were out on the ground of on Easy Street and they were just firing up and down the street. And I had at this point I hadn't I hadn't engaged, well, I engaged those two insurgents earlier, but I had not like seen an insurgent and then fire my weapon at that insurgent, you know, where I strike him or anything up to this point. I mean that changes in five minutes, but um so we uh were we moved back up the street, and then we I remember we hook a left on another side street, and that's where that uh that golf company thought. Blatoon was pinned down. And I remember we're going up the street, and I think that's where maybe Sergeant Condi was shot, and where our ground elements were advancing on the enemy up those side streets. So we come up that side street, and I remember Latham, I believe, was telling the story where they there was a Kevlar on the ground, and it was filled with blood. And we were picking, and it was it was one of the Marines that was killed, and they were handing the gear up to us. So they this Marine had an uh M16 with an M203, so they hand that up to me. Uh, I think Latham or someone, they take that helmet and they throw it up to me, or maybe it was Cox. Uh, but I the thing was filled with blood, and I remember it it was flying through the air, and I caught it, and the blood spilt out everywhere all over the Humvee. It had a bullet hole through the Kevlar, and so I threw that Kevlar down you know down at the bottom of my feet. Um and then uh right after that happened, we round the corner, and there's this army colonel. I I think he was a colonel, he was a high-ranking army guy. And uh do y'all remember the army being out there? This is the first time I saw them there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that was the first time. I mean, realistically, that was the first time they had come out with everything.
SPEAKER_03:Right, and I remember seeing this army colonel, and I'm like, like, what the fuck is the army doing out here? When did they get out here? I had no idea. Uh and as soon as that happened, um, uh a taxi cab came around the corner, and it was we later learned they were using these taxis to bring in fighters. And uh this taxi came around the corner, and again, he sees us, and we see him, and he hits the brakes, and we're staring at each other. And that army colonel looked up at me, he's like, Engage that vehicle. And I'm like, Okay, sure, yes, sure. I had no, I had no idea why he wanted me to do this, but I'm like, if it's if a colonel's telling me to do it, then uh this PFC is gonna do it. So I let off a burst of that Mark 19, and I I dropped probably half of that full belt, 32-round belt, into that vehicle, and these grenades were hitting the windshield. Hit, I mean, that I I pretty much every one of my rounds impacted that. And I mean, that was a pretty close shot, too, maybe 50 yards or so. But I think there was four guys in there, and uh, they were all smoked, so it's pretty wild.
SPEAKER_01:That's that's a pretty close engagement with a Mart 19 as well. Like that's the tech the technical aspect of firing it that close is is more difficult than people understand because it's not like a bullet, it does fly kind of like a bullet, but it doesn't fly perfectly like a bullet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like like firing water balloons, man. It's uh it's a weird gun.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. So yeah, um, so yeah, I engaged that vehicle and uh they brought out two wounded Marines uh to put inside of our vehicle for us to pull out. And I think this was touched on uh by a couple of the other guys in the other interviews, but uh one of them, I believe his name was Gentilli. Um he was an O311, I believe. He was shot to the face. Yep. Um, I remember a lot, you know, most most of his jaw was was was uh was pretty jacked up. And they had his face bandaged up, and there was another Marine, and I I may be messing the name up. He was a Hispanic Marine, maybe his name was Ortiz, I'm not sure, but I think his his hand was gone. And I don't know if a grenade had gone off in his hand, but uh his hand was bandaged up and he was down below me on the bottom left. And I remember those those two guys, we had pulled them out.
SPEAKER_01:So and from there, did you stay, did you guys stay on the battlefield? Did you guys start doing evacs?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so we we started uh I guess we got all the the people we we rescued them and we got them out. So we went back out to the main street, and I'm not sure where those two guys that were wounded got out. Um, but I remember there was another Marine that was uh he was killed, and I don't know if it was Halal. I don't I'm sorry if I've if I'm getting some of the names mixed up, but he he was he was killed. Uh he was shot through the head. So, and this is where Pepper, I think, was talking about it, how uh they needed some people to lift him up um off the street. I think he had a poncho liner over him, and they needed him put into the high back. So I jumped out of the turret of the mark and ran over there and uh grabbed his uh shoulders. I believe Pepper grabbed him by the legs and we put him up into the high back. And I remember vividly that poncho uh getting moved off of him as we were putting him up, and uh, I remember that Marine's head slumped over, and uh I saw a gunshot wound to his head, and uh a lot of the contents inside of the head uh spilt out all over my boots, and uh it's just the first time I'd ever seen a dead Marine.
SPEAKER_01:So I I I don't want to assume, but uh maybe that was the first time you ever seen a dead body.
SPEAKER_03:Uh that was taken in a violent manner, yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's uh go ahead, but so we're when you say that you were doing some of those evacs, were you guys going as a full platoon element, or were you guys breaking off and going two trucks at a time?
SPEAKER_03:So if my memory serves me correctly, that that high back where we put the KIA uh now okay, my memory's coming back. The the other two Marines that were wounded also, I believe, gotten to that high back. So that high back, I believe, took off with another uh contingent. I'm not sure. They they left and we stayed on easy street for a while longer. I'm not sure how how long, but uh so no, we they they were taking these wounded and uh the killed, they were taking them out of the battlefield pretty quick. Okay, quick quickly, I guess, quick-ish.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So you you guys stuck around and were advancing, my understanding, down easy street to the north. That was again, that's my understanding. You tell me.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. Uh, you know, after that, when we loaded the marine up, I I uh a lot of the rest of my memory of that day kind of goes blank. I I don't know if we if we kept engaging or if if the kind of the battle is coming to an end. Uh, but I do know I think we advanced uh further up north up the street. I just I don't remember a whole lot after that.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Well, what do you remember after that?
SPEAKER_03:Uh well, you know, looking back, what's funny is is I don't know if you guys experienced the same thing, is the the this whole thing felt like it took 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and when you you look at your watch, you realize five hours passed. Yeah, and it's like it's it's the weirdest thing. I can't can't explain it to anybody. It's like time dilation. I don't I don't know, but it's it's it it seemed to happen so quick, but uh we were after for probably what four hours maybe? I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, as far as I know, official timing was yeah, somewhere around six hours.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:And uh at least for my experience of it, and you tell me if this is similar, when you're in it, it's almost like time kind of slows down, like you're a little more noticing of details and you're noticing where things are and you're looking around. But you're right. When you look down at your watch, you're like, Oh, I've only we've been doing this for an hour or whatever, and you're right, it's been all day.
SPEAKER_03:Correct, yeah, yeah. We're very weird.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. So do you remember getting back on April 6th, back to base?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so uh we get back. I remember we get back, and uh they had they had forgot to shut the phone centers down. So me and someone else, we go wander over to the phones and it's not locked up. So we go in there and make our phone calls. I remember I called my dad and we were talking about everything we just talked about, and it's kind of funny. It was like after we after we got off the phone, you know, it was good for him to hear to know that I wasn't killed or hurt, but yeah, uh, but it's funny, you know, they of course they got shut down right after we were leaving the call center, and I think they were shut down for several days, but yeah. Uh I remember doing a lot of vehicle maintenance. So, you know, after the battle on April 6, they they left it to the to the drivers, we were all boots, for them to go out and clean the vehicles up. So I remember I went out there and helped Daniels clean the vehicle. I remember we had to use water bottles to clean all the blood out of the floorboard. I remember there the they had like drainage holes in the floorboard of the Humvees, and I remember we were using water bottles to clean the brain matter and the skull fragments that came out of that helmet. Yeah, you know, kind of washing them down that hole, that drain hole.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, it's uh you know, we're right next to a river. You could have easily had a pump that would have pumped out water and had a hose. We just there was no place to do anything like that. You wanted to wash out if you wanted to wash out gear, it's a fucking one and a half liter water bottle, which is bullshit.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Or if you were if you were lucky, the shower, the shower tank containers were full, and you could maybe use the shower, but couldn't use the shower on a Hum V, so that shit doesn't work. Yeah, it just very weird system that we didn't have any way to to do things like that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:All right, so you did a bunch of vehicle maintenance. I imagine you guys cleaned up weapons and you re-outfitted with ammo.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, yeah. We we did I did I was out there religiously cleaning that Mart 19. It was kind of my you know, my away space to kind of clear my head was sit out there and dismantle the machine gun, clean it, and yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's funny. Everybody found something to do where they could be away from somebody for a minute and and look like you're busy.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Hanging out with your new best friend, the Mart 19, is uh good, good place to be.
SPEAKER_03:Definitely.
SPEAKER_01:Cool, man. And did you sleep that night?
SPEAKER_03:Uh yeah, I don't remember much after the vehicle maintenance. I'm I'm uh I just remember the next day where we were back at it again, and then I remember thinking, like, how long are they gonna keep this shit up? I mean, I guess we're gonna do this every day.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, April 7th comes around and we're back in the thickest shit again.
SPEAKER_01:Anything stand out to you from the 7th that you can remember offhand?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, we got uh, I don't know how we wound up over there. I think we were at doing missions that morning. We had a major ambush on Route Nova. Uh I'm sure you remember Route Nova. It paralleled the Euphrates. So we're going down Route Nova, and there's a village off to the left. And I remember we got ambushed there, and they opened the ambush by shooting an RPG, and they shot it at my Humvee. So they shot the RPG off and it landed and hit the berm right next to my truck. So we hit the brakes, we all rotate left, and uh the the dismounts dismount the Humvees and they assault the village. And uh we're given suppressing suppressing fire with the machine guns. And I remember there was a guy up in the trees of the uh of the palm trees. Um and I remember the the vehicle commander, he's uh he's you know saying, hey, they're up in the trees. So I pretty much uh engaged the top of the palm trees, and I I was just raking the top of those palm trees, and I remember all the palms falling out of the trees, and then this guy falls out of the tree. Uh he must he must have fallen 30 feet uh and he hit the ground, and there he is, you know, he's mortally wounded and he's doing the agonal breathing, and yeah, shot him out of the palm tree.
SPEAKER_01:Uh that's when that's a story I remember, and I remember you guys coming back and saying, there were two motherfuckers belted into the top of the palm tree. And I was like, that's the stupidest tactic ever. There's no it there's no escaping, that's a true suicide mission.
SPEAKER_03:They may have been farmers. I'm pretty sure it was a father-son duo. Uh yeah, it's I don't know why you'd put yourself up there, but yeah, they they quickly were taken down from the tree. Probably not in a way they wanted, but no.
SPEAKER_01:All right, sorry, I interrupted you. Carry on.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, uh, that's so that's when Cummings was shot. Uh uh Cummings, he was a saw gunner. He got shot through the I think through the back, and the bullet, I think, come out underneath his nipple. And uh he dropped he dropped his saw. And you know, at this point we're we're we're advancing backwards to the vehicles. No, I guess they wouldn't be advancing. So they're coming back to the vehicles. I remember the 50 cows were going off, man. They were they were cutting those palm trees in half. Uh so we we get our wounded guy, we get him in the Humvee, and we head up route Nova, and we had uh we're going to get Cummings into surgery. Yeah. So I remember there was uh there was uh we were blocked up by traffic up near the dam where the machine gun position was. And I remember uh we were we were next to a bus, and I remember I pulled my pistol out and I'm pointing it at the people in the bus and I'm like, move this fucking bus. You know, they're passengers, what are they gonna do? But anyways, that that that memory sticks out in my head. I'm yelling at these people. It was uh probably a teenage girl sitting there. I remember her, and I'm pointing the gun at her, and they're probably terrified. Anyways, they move the bus, they move the vehicles, and we got Cummings into surgery.
SPEAKER_00:So that's good. Did you guys roll back out? Is that or did you guys have hurricane point?
SPEAKER_03:I think I my memory is we got to uh we we got to uh think Charlie Med. We dropped Cummings off, and I I I want to say we may have been done for the day. I don't remember much after that that day. Uh I'm probably forgetting a whole bunch, but um yeah, I remember getting Cummings. He got into surgery, and I don't remember much else after that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'm I'm hoping at some point we get to talk to him. I'd like to hear what his journey was from getting evacued if and how much he remembers. But uh I haven't had a chance to reach out to him yet, and he hasn't reached out to me. So hopefully we'll talk to him soon.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I remember he he was gone for like four days, and we thought he was gone like for the rest of the appointment. So I remember we were rat fucking his stuff, like taking his his Game Boy games and his CDs. But I remember like five days later, we wake up and he's laying in his bed, and we're like, You're back already? We had to give him all of his stuff back.
SPEAKER_01:That's awesome. Yeah, I feel like it was longer than four or five days. Wasn't he gone for a couple weeks?
SPEAKER_03:I don't know. Anyway, I I remember being fast, but yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. That's hilarious. You guys are like divvying up his shit, like, well, fuck it. He's gone. He's going home. We're gonna take his shit.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that's great. So then after that, uh after the 7th, there was some little minor shit that we were also a part of. Like April 8th, it was County Fair, which was a small cordon search. And then April 10th was the bigger one. That was what was they called the first bug hunt, and that was up in the north of the city. You remember anything out of there?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, uh, yeah. So um we were doing, we were in some village. I don't know what we were doing. Uh the the the ground elements were doing their thing and were posting up on security. I remember uh we got attacked, and I remember the the dismounts were charging towards this berm, and I think this is I may have been the one that wounded Latham and haven't known for the last 20 years. But the the dismounts are charging, and they're like, hey, Kelly, uh, give suppressing fire. So I'm giving like defilade fire over the top of this berm and looking back on it, like completely dangerous. Like I'm putting these grenades like right over the top of this berm, probably very unnecessary. Well, a couple of my grenades impact the berm where the marines are charging up. And then I remember they hit the they hit the ground, they're yelling back like she's fire, she's fire. So yeah, I remember I remember that. And then uh I remember uh there was a couple insurgents in a field and they were taking pop shots at us at the I I'm assuming the turret gunners, and we're moving, we're basically bounding through this field, and we end up catching up to these two guys that were in the house. They found them, they were all sweaty, and they had uh, I think some bolt action rifles with them.
SPEAKER_01:And yeah. And so did you guys take those guys into custody and take them out, or did you did they shoot them or what what happened from that?
SPEAKER_03:Uh they were taken alive. Uh I'm not sure what what happened to them. They were put in one of the vehicles, and I think we linked back up with the the main element inside of the village, and I'm sure they were handed off to someone there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, April 10th was the first time I remember people getting handed over to what they called human extraction teams, where they were there was the it was Marines that were trained by Intel to do like interrogation. Okay. And then eventually, if they if those guys found anything, they got sent over to like the actual prisons where there were real like federally trained interrogators. But but they were like the the the first line of interrogation, which I always thought was interesting. I I don't know, like I don't know. If you had an insurgent who was especially crafty and just didn't want to tell you anything, I don't know how that that kind of trained Marine was gonna get anything out of him, but I don't know. That was their that was what the first time I had seen them was on the 10th.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I remember also on the 10th, there was uh another, I think I don't know if it was golf or echo, there was an element from another company that was under attack. That's when I saw the the Cobra gunships flying overhead. I believe it was that day. And uh we could we can we could hear the battle raging and we're trying to get through this this ravine or this creek, and I remember it was real muddy, and some kind of projectile landed in the mud right in front of our Humvee. I don't know if it was like a mortar round, but it didn't explode. And I remember smoke coming out of it, and I remember uh Sergeant Lashara ran up and stuck his head over the hole and was looking down in the hole, and I'm thinking it's probably not a smart idea. I don't know if it was like an if an Aaron RPG, something landed vertically down into the mud in front of our truck and didn't blow up, but very strange.
SPEAKER_01:Uh the the number of stories that everybody has, but that I've heard out of you guys from Matt 3 also, especially, uh, is like, you know, I should be dead because this thing happened.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's fucking funny. Like, I mean, now 20 years when people are not dead, it's great.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's cool, man. What do you remember after that? What uh anything after April or in later, like the later weeks of April?
SPEAKER_03:No, I I nothing really sticks out after April 10th, uh, until maybe kind of when the summer hit. It started it seemed like it kind of picked up against some other engagements, I think. In late July, there was a major engagement. That that's that that's where that famous footage where that uh that car bomb goes off on Michigan on our convoy. I think it was on like CNN or something. Yeah, I don't know if it was the 29th or the 21st, somewhere late July. Uh, I guess we get called back. Do you want me to talk about that now?
SPEAKER_01:Sure, if you want to. Yeah, absolutely. It was July 21st was the Saddam's Mosque one, and then July 28th was your platoon and my platoon engaged. And uh the thing that was notable about that is we were in the south of the city and the cobras were supposed to come back us up because we were getting heavy hit from really high rooftops, and it and it was buildings that were not impossible to clear, but really fucking hard to clear. Right. And uh the Cobra um the pilot got shot and they ended up having to go back to TQ Air Base. They we never we never did get air support, and we ended up having to clear those buildings. So that was that was what that was what I remember from the 28th.
SPEAKER_00:Um I don't remember what his real name was or his official name was, but his call sign was Cookie.
SPEAKER_01:Because uh yeah, Colonel David Green.
SPEAKER_00:There you go. That was the pilot?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, shot and shot and killed, and he was by small arms, even it was uh by like a k spray or something. I don't know. Anyway.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, he was he was killed in the in the cobra?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:That's nuts. I I've never heard that before.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the bullet went through the canopy and uh killed him, and the uh co-pilot was uh in control and flying.
SPEAKER_03:Oh geez. Never I haven't even heard that before.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So anyway, you were talking about sorry, I hijacked your story.
SPEAKER_03:Oh no, no. So, yeah, so I remember we're we're we're hauling ass down Route Michigan, and there was I saw a car parked up on the side, and I remember thinking, I wonder if that's a car bomb. And then at this point, it's like, well, fuck it. If it's a car bomb, it's a car bomb. So I just whatever. We went right past it, and I I remember I turned around and looked back, and the next vehicle up passed it, the damn thing explodes. And that's where they had the camera footage with Lachard, and you know, he's in there screaming, and there's dust all inside the, you know. We didn't really do much there. I mean, the car bomb exploded. We, I guess we evaluated everything, nobody was hurt, jumped back in the car and the trucks, and that's when we went up to uh where Saddam's mosque is where that traffic circle's at. I think there's more war footage from the news there. But so yeah, we're we're moving up near the traffic circle, and I remember looking over, and uh this fat insurgent wearing a man dress comes running out and he's got an RPG on his back. And uh he uh aims the RPG and fires it. It hits the wall in front of my vehicle. And I remember I aimed in on him, uh, try to engage, and the Mark 19 jams. So I remember using my fist. I'm like uppercutting the side of the the Mark 19 to get the top uh the feed tray cover open. I got it open. I cleared the malfunction, uh, it got them back up and running and started engaging that it was like a high-rise building right there where that guy had run out from. Uh, and yeah, I just started hitting it with grenades. I was hitting the top of it with grenades, the windows. Um that's where uh Pepper, I believe, shot that 155 artillery shell. They had an ID that was there that didn't that didn't explode. He he shot that thing like danger close. I remember that scared the hell out of me when that thing blew up. But yeah. Um so we uh we moved up the street, uh kind of towards combat outpost. And uh there was an alleyway where this uh insurgent was posted up with a machine gun, and as the dismounts are running past the alley, this guy would light up his machine gun. So they called for a heavy machine gun to come up and give fire. So uh we pull up to the alleyway, I'm looking, and there's like a like a big pile of sand. Like, you know, when they do construction, they pile sand up. So this insurgent's got a uh PK and machine gun he's got set up behind that berm. And so I see see him set up there and I uh let off with the Mark 19, uh get him. Uh we move up the uh we move up that alleyway to kind of assess the damage that my machine gun did. And when we got up there, I remember he had his ammo can, his sandals, he had a bandolier with full of grenades. I remember I jumped out the turret and took all that stuff. I still have that stuff actually at my desk at work, but uh I took his peacan, machine gun ammo can, took his sandals. Uh, you know, I I remember I got back in the Humvee and I'm back up in the turret, and there's all these goats walking around. And I'm taking the shell casings for the mark and I'm like throwing them at the goats. And uh one of the goats walks up and starts chewing on the the bar 19 shell casing. I thought it was kind of funny. Yeah. So I just uh I just remembered another engagement we had um on April 7th. It was uh it kind of slipped my mind a minute ago, but uh I remember we were we were working our way back to the combat outpost and we came to a T intersection and there was uh some insurgents around the T intersection, they were barricaded behind a car. And uh I remember we were looking up and there was a sawgunner, an 0311 with a saw, he was kind of peeping from the corner and he was engaging this these insurgents and they'd fire back their, you know, firing back and forth at each other. And I remember Latham was like, hey, get the bar 19 up here. So I told Daniels, I said, hey, fly into this T intersection and hit the brakes, uh, and just stay and stay still. So we fly up in the intersection, he hits the brakes. And I remember I'm looking at this car that's right, you know, probably danger close, probably 50 yards from us. And Latham's like, hey, engage them. And I was like, I don't see anybody. Where are they? Well, they're all there was four or five of them hiding behind the car. And as soon as I said that, they come up from the top of the car and they start mag dumping with the AK onto the hump under our Humvee, and then they try to take off running. And uh I gave them you know a 32-round burst from that Mar 19, and and uh as all five of them were were running away, uh, you know, they got they got cut down from behind. So it was pretty wild. That was pretty intense.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So yeah. So so coming out of the the 7th and 6th, 7th, 8, all that, uh, do you do you remember some did you as a platoon make any major changes to the way that you deployed, set yourselves up, uh ran your operations or no, not that I not that I'm aware of.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, I was kind of more in line to what to what the machine gunners were doing with the you know, with the machine gun tactical side of things, and we we kind of pretty much uh stayed the course. As far as the dismounts, I'm not sure. I don't remember a whole lot of change up from that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I imagine, and you guys had Staff Sergeant Rapazzo, and so you know, he had been career machine gunner and SOI instructor and all that stuff, and so machine gun, mobile machine gun employment was something he had been doing for years, and so I imagine that was just you just stuck with that. Like you were a mobile machine gun position, right? Did you guys down when you were carrying now? I am curious because you were a Mart 19 gunner, especially. This is something we ran into, and I don't know if you did. We were not carrying enough ammo. We ran out of Mart 19 ammo uh the first day, and then after that, we never did again because we started carrying double and triple ammo. Did you have any did you guys run dry at all?
SPEAKER_03:No, uh my memory uh I always seemed to have plenty of mark ammo. Now I don't know if I was a little more conservative or uh picky with my targets, but I I tried to engage people when I saw them. I'm not saying other people didn't, but I I didn't know I never ran out of ammunition. I we always seemed to have plenty of it, but I I don't know if I was using the the ammunition sparingly or waiting until I saw a good viable target before I engage. I mean there were there was times where I you know I gave uh covering fire, suppressive fire, but no, it I never seemed to run low on any ammunition or anything.
SPEAKER_00:Nice. Did you have a secondary on your turret? I know some of our guys had a um like a saw mounted on the backside so they could flip around if they wanted to use something else.
SPEAKER_03:No, and you know, I would in hindsight I wish I would have. All I had was a was an M9, Breta M9 with a magazine that didn't work. Uh no, we I didn't have any other secondary weapon or anything.
SPEAKER_01:So looking back, we we kind of jumped through uh through May and June. Is there any any nothing really stands out for you for May? There was a few things that happened, but it may be I don't know how much I honestly don't know how much map three was involved because I only we were so fucking busy that you know I couldn't keep track of everything.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it you know, the those major engagements, those are kind of what stand out in my head, you know, 20-something years later. Uh yeah, I'm sure there was a lot of uh smaller, minor, you know, we got attacked when we were up on the the up on the north dam, up on the machine gun position, which was kind of funny. I mean, just smaller engagements really, but nothing nothing really major that I remember.
SPEAKER_01:Well, yeah, you're talking about being up on North Bridge and getting shot at. Sounds like everybody has a story of that. It I never went up there, so I don't have one.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I remember uh me and the guy I was up there with, I can't remember who it was. We were there in the morning and we were arguing, like, hey, if if we get attacked, who's gonna get what weapon? Because there was a an AT4 rocket up there, there was the 240 Golf. The guy that I was with had an M203 grenade launcher, and we what's funny is we're joking about who's gonna shoot what, and then later that morning, that's when the all those rockets came inbound and hit hurricane point and set like the motor pool on fire.
SPEAKER_02:And oh yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Uh so yeah, we uh we saw all these rockets getting fired off from that uh that village, I believe, on the north side of the river. And yeah, we jumped on those guns and we led into the neighborhood. I remember I shot like a hundred-round belt through the 240 golf, and then the other guy was like he wanted to get some on it, so we reloaded the machine gun. I kind of walked him through it all right here. It's it's loaded for you. It's like dealing with your son with a BD gun ready to go. So he gets on that 240 and he's rocking and rolling with it. And I grabbed the the A24 rocket and fire that off into the villa. I mean, if we were just like fuck it, we're gonna dump everything we have, we're shooting the grenades from the 203 into it. I mean, we we could look back over our shoulder and kind of see all the the damage they had done to our base. So we're like, hey, we're gonna give the damage back to them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, that was a a really I mean again, I don't know how much they aimed anything, but that was a damn successful attack. They hit several Humvees and then that connex box. That connex box was full of uh gear and batteries and all kinds of shit that was Yeah, I remember that, yeah. Yeah, that was important and burned like hell for the rest of the day. Well, you talked a little about uh about Condi in July and then your major engagement later in July. Do you remember much out of August as we were sort of winding down?
SPEAKER_03:No, I remember there were some uh there were some ambushes at nighttime where we would get ambushed on Michigan, and it, you know, it's it's at night, you can't see what the hell's going on. I just remember thinking like I've been through all this and I'm gonna get killed on some stupid ass night ambush, and you know, I'm gonna get hit with some stray round and you know not be able to you know live to tell my story. I it would I just remember night some night ambushes going on and uh over there by Saddam's mosque. And any of them seem major.
SPEAKER_01:Any of them memorable or were they just like random, they'd dump a mag and run off into the darkness?
SPEAKER_03:Uh they they would stay and fight. I remember we were I think we were escorting like a Hercules, uh one of those tank recovery tanks, yeah. Army tank, and uh we got we got engaged, and I remember I was engaged in some buildings like danger, danger close with that mark. And I remember it was like fireworks going off. I mean, it was like the 4th of July. I was hitting the top of these buildings. I mean, they they had to have been like at minimal distance for those grenades to arm. Uh I remember that. I think Ortiz, uh, an R platoon grabbed an AT-4. What's funny is he wanted to shoot it. I think the entire deployment when he fires it, it like lands 20 feet in front of him and goes skipping down the road. It's like you had your chance and you didn't make a better shot than that. And then that that damn tank almost run our Humvee over, you know, because it's an army and they're not infantry guys, you know, they're just gonna put it and drive and haul ass. So I'll tell Daniels, hey, let's get back on the fight. So he's Daniels is flying in reverse in the Humvee, and I remember looking back and out of nowhere, I see this huge tank coming towards us, and I'm like, cut left, and he cuts the wheel left. And I'm telling you, that tank barely missed us. I thought that tank would have run our ass over and would have crushed everybody in it, but I remember that happening.
SPEAKER_00:So that's that's what I mean. I don't that was after you guys probably got pulled out, but that's what got us all caught up at the at um the government center at the end, is that is a a tank panicked and backed up over top of another Humvee over two Humvees. Not one Humvee, two Humvees.
SPEAKER_03:I was told because we were we were doing our decompressing over at Blue Diamonds, as you can decompress as you can still hear the battle going on. But I was told that one of those Humvees that was run over was actually one of the Hum was our Humvee that we gave over to 2-5. I don't I don't I obviously I don't know the truth of that, but that's what I was told.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, no, that's a that's 100% accurate. Yeah, and they were it was two Humvees and they were both full of Marines. One was a high back, one was a regular closed Humvee.
SPEAKER_03:I guess the closed one was our Humvee. I guess we we handed it off and would it last two days and we got run over by a tank full.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, yep, and they were uh backing up from a couple of RPG shots and went right over two Humvees, right in the middle of the market.
SPEAKER_03:Was anybody injured in that?
SPEAKER_01:No, no, they they ramped bailed out, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:They just jumped out that that fucking tank tabletoped itself too on that the that the Jersey the Jersey Barrier separated the things. That's why they couldn't pull. So we were we had to stick around for them to try to pull out the two Humvees, plus get the tank down off of the Jersey Barriers. But anyways, I I think I it my memories is that you're given the little bit of generous of uh it was art it was an RPG. I I I had heard that it was a small arms fire that he panicked on.
SPEAKER_03:And you're in the safest vehicle on planet Earth is a fucking tank. Like put me in a tank.
SPEAKER_01:Not just a tank, but an M1 Abrams tank, like the actual most armored thing on the battlefield. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Good lord.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it it well, I the only reason why I say it was an RPG is because the lieutenant from 2-5 that was with us got wounded by an RPG right before that. So I assume the RPG had also shot at the tank, but maybe it didn't. You might also be correct. It might have just been some AK rounds.
SPEAKER_00:That was a messy day, but anyways. That's for a different different day, different story. Uh that's awesome. Actually, what what I remember a lot of and you're talking made me realize how how many of my memories are the day taskable, night taskable. Although the R, you know, QRF, you know, you definitely r ran out for a lot of stuff, but you know, our bread and butter was the uh the taskables just escorting somebody somewhere or making a run. Do you have any memories specifically of uh any of those? I know those were for us, it was always that meant better chow because we'd either be we'd either end or start in uh at a junction city or uh blue diamond.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, I remember a lot of the we're just like some night operations, you know. We like I probably a lot of those bug hunts where we get out there in the middle of the night when the sun's coming up an hour. We're doing like you know, sweeps through villages, and a lot of that for me was just sitting up in the turret, you know, uh doing overhead security for all the dismounts.
SPEAKER_00:Was it hard to keep your head in the game? Since you, I mean it was being dismount, you gotta you gotta change the scenery a little bit more.
SPEAKER_03:But uh well then you're around all the the fucking higher ups when you're in the you can't leave the Humvee and you're around all you know, it's like I just need a fucking break. And not not from warfare, but being around people. You know, like some fur sergeant's walking by and he's pissed because you're having a cigarette, and it's like, you think I'm gonna get fucking lung cancer up here? Like, can you just leave me alone and I'll leave you alone? Like a lot of it was just the annoying shit like that. But uh after April 6th, though, you kind of don't give a shit. It's like, okay, well, you know, NJP me. Right. You know, I'll I'll have another cigarette, thanks. But I remember we drove around a lot, like a lot of the battles, a lot of the patrols, and I remember seeing all the O311s, and you know, a lot of those guys I was friends with through SOI, and those dudes looked exhausted all the time. And I remember how lucky am I to be able to be in a weapons company, being able to be in a Humvee, not having to walk everywhere. Although it was probably more dangerous for us than with IEDs, but I guess if I was gonna die, I wouldn't I wouldn't have died tired.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it was I I I thought the same thing, it was a toss-up because uh I mean, being quick reaction, anytime anytime the line companies got into it, we went out and we were part of that fight, and so we had exponentially more fights. However, as you said, and I thought the same thing at the time was well, at least I'm not hoofing it 10 miles a day.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I could have weighed 300 pounds and I would have been fine.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, very true. Yeah, reading some of those accounts of what the echo kind of echo company guys were doing for patrols was insane. Like they were putting on, I mean, six, seven, eight, ten miles in a day covering those areas, which is I don't know how they didn't burn through the boots, man.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no kidding.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, uh how do you carry enough water to support yourself for you know hundred plus temperature days? Yeah, just brutal.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I remember they they'd be all laid up on the berms on Route Nova, and you could just tell they had like physically, you know, had their asses kicked by all the humping and stuff. And here I am over here, you know, drinking a fucking rippet in the turret, like hey guys. You want a cold water bottle? Yeah, I have an extra one. Do you want it?
SPEAKER_01:Uh you can laugh about it 20 years later, but I'm sure they would still kick you if you did it too.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember that scene from uh the three amigos where I think it's Chevy Chase is like wasting all the water.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you you talked about trying to get away from people. Did you have much downtime? And do you remember anything specifically from like how you kind of killed your time besides cleaning the Mart 19?
SPEAKER_03:Dude, that that my memory is I was out there all the time cleaning that thing. I mean, obviously, I'm I'm listening to music on my CD player, and I it just I always seem to be out there just cleaning that. I mean, just you know, cleaning all the the carbon off of it and putting CLP on it, and a lot of my memory is that. Uh I read a lot of books too. I I would lay in the rack and read books and yeah.
SPEAKER_01:What kind of stuff do you like?
SPEAKER_03:A lot of war books. Yeah, imagine that. That's funny. Uh yeah, a lot of Vietnam, a lot of World War II books. Um I've always been super into that stuff. It's ironic, you know, I'm reading about Vietnam as I'm law laying in Iraq in Iraq, but yeah, it's like fucking weird. But anyway, yeah, I've read a lot of books and stuff.
SPEAKER_01:What kind of music?
SPEAKER_03:Uh I listened to everything. I mean, uh all that crappy music that was popular in the early 2000s, probably what I was listening to over there. But yeah. Uh I yeah, I listen to everything, so yeah. I don't really have a genre that I like more than another.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. What were you gonna say, Blake? Sorry I'm stepped on you a minute.
SPEAKER_00:Oh no, that was uh that was also a little bit of a reader over there, and there that there was a book that got passed around for a while. It was uh the old guard. Did you end up reading that one? No, I didn't. Oh man, that was uh that got passed around early on and got everybody super motivated. It was uh it was about a uh an SS guy that went foreign legion and then went to Vietnam. And I go ahead. Oh, just just just the tactics that he was talking about. It was it's it's supposed to be a true story, but the tactics that they were employing that ripped through us, and I know a I I know a couple of us were like fuck NA, this is how we're gonna start doing it. And we I think we started adopting some of the uh the tactics on that one.
SPEAKER_03:Now that you mentioned that book, I didn't know that was the title, but yeah, I I did read that book. It was the SS, they were, I guess, with the French were they with the French Foreign Legion? Yeah, they were fighting the insurgents.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Well, they the idea is that uh the SS guys uh after World War II needed a new identity, and so they go to the French Foreign Legion, get their new identity, but it they ended up going to Indochina Indochina, and uh and so they uh the the story ends with uh uh the U coming in and him offering up his services, and but they were like, No, that's too aggressive, much like what happened to us where the hand behind us was like, Well, you guys are too aggressive, and well kept us alive. Kept us alive and kept and it had them on the you know in the book I had the Viet Cong on their back heel, much like we had our guys on the back heel. But anyways, yeah, it was uh it was a good book.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I I did I did read that book. I just forgot that was the title, yes.
SPEAKER_01:So you talked about you called home and you talked to your dad a little bit. Did you uh did you keep in contact with a lot of people from back home and get a lot of care packages, or are you just kind of off on your own?
SPEAKER_03:Oh yeah. You know, um uh very supportive family. You know, my dad's a retired lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps. Uh I didn't.
SPEAKER_01:So I got a lot Yeah, I probably knew that back then, but I forgot now.
SPEAKER_03:I think everybody knew that back then. I was like, yeah. Uh so uh yeah, my my twin brother was an O311, my older brother, he was a captain of the Marine Corps, my uncle was a was a major, he was an O three officer. Uh so yeah, I got lots of care packages, lots of beef jerky. Uh they seem to be coming in probably every week. That was probably m you know, one of my dad's probably hobbies was was going and shopping for me and sending me stuff. So very very supportive network back home.
SPEAKER_01:So that's cool, man. That sounds like a family business. Do you guys have you guys talked much about deployment at all?
SPEAKER_03:Uh yeah. I remember when we got home built, you know, telling my dad some of the stories over there and stuff, but yeah. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Nice. And have they now it sounds like your dad is older than you, clearly, but uh your other, your brother, and all that stuff. Everybody, anybody else deploy? And have you guys like you guys have similar experiences?
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, my twin brother, he's an 0311. He deployed once to Iraq and then once to Afghanistan. And then my older brother, he was an officer, he was a captain. Uh he he was an MP. Uh he deployed to Iraq twice. And then we have a uh uh brother-in-law, my sister's husband, he's an AC-130 gunship pilot. He's actually a colonel right now. And uh, you know, they do deployments, you know, all the time. So he he was deployed uh with the AC one gunship to, you know, when they destroyed ISIS and then a bunch of other deployments, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Interesting. Huh.
SPEAKER_00:That is uh did you did you stay in or did you just do the one tour?
SPEAKER_03:No, uh I I did my my four-year enlistment, got out and went straight to college and did uh did four years of college and got a degree.
SPEAKER_00:So well, and then that would have you would have gotten back, you would have had enough time that you then you went on the Oki deployment, right?
SPEAKER_03:And then Yes. I went to Okinawa and then we did our second deployment to Iraq, uh, right when I, you know, the last year I was in, so we went to Haditha, or particularly went to Barwana, which is a small village next to Hadithha. That was our second Iraq deployment.
SPEAKER_00:Rock on.
SPEAKER_01:Nice man. Anything else come to mind that you want to go over specifically? Otherwise, I'll pick your brain a little bit more, but uh, I don't want to no, uh, just anything you want to ask.
SPEAKER_03:Uh I you know, of course, I know when I get off this phone call, I'm gonna everything will start coming to my mind and all the things that I probably forgot to talk about or things I can't talk about. But uh just yeah, any anything else you want to know about?
SPEAKER_01:Just specifically, you know, you you kind of talked about balancing your mission objectives and not doing too much, but you you you have to shoot into buildings. Do you have any close calls with civilians where you felt like you know you had to like check fire or you had to uh sort of balance the mission objectives versus like not tearing the whole place down to the ground? Because we weren't doing that initially.
SPEAKER_03:No, and I I have no it always seemed to me when the when the battle or when the ambush was kicking off, you know, the civilians were nowhere to be found. It was pretty much everyone out there was either you know fighting or helping the fight, so they were they were kind of you know clear game with it, you know. Uh yeah, I don't I don't remember seeing a whole lot of uh civilians around once you know once the fight started kicking off. I'm sure they weren't giving a heads up.
SPEAKER_00:Did you end up getting hurt over there? Did you get wounded?
SPEAKER_03:No, so uh we had a car bomb go off on my Humvee. Uh it was sometime in the summer in front of uh uh it was in the downtown area. I remember seeing a car up front, and I looked out of place, and this this civilian car actually went around our convoy and cut us off. And when they cut in front of my Humvee, this car bomb went off and actually killed these these guys inside of this car, uh, these civilians. And I remember the fireball rolled over the top of the Humvee and it burnt like the front part of my face up on my up on my lips. But that's the only time, so to speak, I guess I was injured. Um yeah, car bomb missed us.
SPEAKER_00:Did you get a purple heart for that?
SPEAKER_03:No, I went to uh they the doc took me to the cormon to document it because it I had like burn marks around my lips. And pretty much the corpsman they documented it in the uh and my my health file or whatever, but no, nothing ever came of it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So as far as coming home, uh, do you remember what it felt like coming home?
SPEAKER_03:It was very, very strange. I was actually going through some old pictures the other day, and there's pictures of me and my family were at the hotel in California, and we were talking about you know Blue Diamond doing the decompressing. I could still hear the the firefights raging in the city and the Humvee get run over by the tank. And you know, it's weird is like two days later, you're sitting in a hot tub in you know, San Clemente, and it's like you're on another planet, and you're just looking at everyone thinking, like you have no idea like the environment I had just come from where you know every day, you know, I I think I'm gonna die or I'm prepared to die. And then now you're having a you know a beer in the hot tub and everyone's having a good time. Very kind of a strange feeling.
SPEAKER_01:Very much so. Yeah. Did it ever get normal or did you feel weird for a long period of time?
SPEAKER_03:Uh probably still feel weird to this day. Uh I guess that's not wrong.
SPEAKER_01:I do, so yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You know, nothing ever nothing ever got normal after that because you you know, you hit that pinnacle of your life at you know the age of 19, or you know, in your when you're young, and then you know, the the rest of your entire life, it's like nothing ever um you know matches that or nothing ever comes close to that the feeling you had when you were out there, which is probably a good thing. And and you know, maybe having kids helps and you you get to raise them and and kind of enjoy you know the things, the happiness that they bring you. But I mean you can't really top you know April 6th, April 7th. It's like you go through that, it's like what else can you do? Like skydive without a parachute? I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You still keep in contact with people from your platoon?
SPEAKER_03:Uh I keep in contact with it's it's so weird. A lot of the guys I went to SOI with, I'm still really good friends with. They a lot of them went to 2-1, so they were in Fallujah. Uh, I keep in contact with a couple guys from map three, a lot of guys from you know the other companies. Uh, but as far as map three, you know, we're we're on a thread and we talk every now and again, check in on each other. But I seem to be a lot closer with my Marine Corps buddies, you know, guys that I was in boot camp with because we also happened to go to SOI together and we all just stayed in contact, you know, throughout the years. Nice.
SPEAKER_01:It's interesting how little pockets pop up like that, but it's kind of the kind of the same with me. Like I've talked to the same five or six people, but again, I haven't talked to you in 20 years. But I used to talk to you every damn near every other day, uh in 2004. So it's it's weird, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_01:Well, speaking of that, 20 years on, what is uh and you you kind of touched on it, but more specifically, what does all this mean to you when you think back on it?
SPEAKER_03:Uh I don't know. I've got mixed feelings about it. Uh, you know, you you kind of look at the the state Iraq is in right now. But uh is it better, is it worse? I don't know. But uh just you know, just trying to move on with your life or for me specifically, uh, you know, getting older, having a family, uh raising kids, and staying busy with work and and hobbies. And you know, it's kind of sad to say maybe that that's a chapter in my life I've you know kind of put behind me. Uh I I don't think about it much. I don't uh I've got a lot of friends at work that were Marines, and it even with them, I don't talk about it a whole lot. They know that I was in Ramadi and they know the history of Ramadi, but we don't ever really get into details or talk about any of the stories or anything. But it's just maybe maybe it's just a past life. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Do you feel like you can't talk to them or do you just avoid it just because you're you're ready to close the close the book, like you said?
SPEAKER_03:Uh no, I I definitely could talk to them about it, but it's like, you know, what I guess at what point what does it matter to you know? I mean, it's like what is it? Well, we always joke, like you got any war stories? You know, we're all just laughing on the campfire or whatever, but uh I mean if they asked, you know, I would I would talk to them about it, but it's it it kind of mushers up some some you know bad feelings and uh some tragic times, but yeah. I mean I if they ever wanted to talk, I I definitely would, but you know, they got their own stories. They those guys were in Afghanistan and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01:But so well, I appreciate you sharing today. Uh it's nice. It's you filled in a lot of details, you filled in a lot of parts that some people will never know, and uh some other stuff that I I don't think I'd ever heard, at least a few things. Anything else you want to cover while we're while we're here and recording, or you want to wrap up?
SPEAKER_03:No, uh uh just you guys are doing a good thing. You guys are you know, you're reaching out to guys and you're you're recording history that you know one day is gonna be lost. And I think you guys are doing a good thing. Uh, you know, documenting everybody's experience. You know, it's one day and you know, 20 years from now, our kids and grandkids might want to hear some of these stories, and you guys are doing a really good job documenting it.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks, man. That's that's the hope, dude.
SPEAKER_00:That's the hope is that uh if you want somebody to hear it, it'll be if you like what you heard, make sure you subscribe for future episodes on your favorite podcast service.