The Cigar Smoke after a Patrol - Sergio Wallace (part 1 of 2)

Part 1 with Sergio Wallace of Sledgehammer Platoon.  His story tracks a young Marine Corps infantryman who arrives with confidence, friction, and a simple motive, then learns how fast combat erases simplicity, trying to make sense of what Ramadi demanded. He leads us through early patrol optimism, the shock of IEDs and loss, and the lingering moral weight of night raids.  

• joining 2/4 after SOI and clashing with senior Lance Corporals 
• discovering the Marine Corps through JROTC
• pre-deployment training
• first days in Iraq at Camp Victory and relationship fallout downrange 
• Hurricane Point, patrols, and realizing locals are studying patterns 
• Humvee life in Weapons Company, switching roles, and close calls 
• night raids, door kicks, and the uneasy math of bad intel and civilian impact 
• incoming fire moments, rooftops, and the “spidey sense”
• the first big IED experiences
• bridge posts, bug hunts, and the blur of the first exchange of fire 
• dam mission with engineers, searching for drowned Fox Company swimmers, and questioning command intent 

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

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Transcript

Meeting Sergio Wallace

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Introduce you.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Okay, sounds good. Name Sergio Wallace. My rank in 2004. I'm in 2004. Was uh I'm pretty sure I was a PFC E2. Uh I can't remember. I think I got Lance Corp. I can't remember what it was. I got Lance Corporal, but for sure it was E2, E3.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Nice, right? And you I know you're with 81s, but were you with Sledgehammer or Rainmaker?

SPEAKER_01 0:41

I was with um second section. Sledgehammer. So yep. You were with me, Sledgehammer.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Nice. Well, cool, man. Well uh we can start wherever you want. We can start from the beginning. You uh how how long before you joined the unit, before you joined 2-4, did you come in the Marine Corps?

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Um I came in in July 2003. And by graduated School of Infantry in December of 2003, and after coming home from Christmas break, uh is when I was officially um with 2.4. And then I think it was like maybe not even a month before we went to uh March to do their pre-deployment training.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Yeah. Yeah, I I mean to my memory, we did that stuff in January. So yeah, you've that probably was one of the first things you got to do. Any thoughts or any memories from when you first got to the unit and joined uh joined the group of people you were gonna be with?

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Yeah, I remember uh we ended up getting along later, but I think like the first day I was there, um Hodges had tried to say something to me

Joining 2/4 And Early Friction

SPEAKER_01 2:15

about something. And during during my time at SOI, I had kind of learned that there was a difference between like a fresh Lance Corporal and then what that was referred to as the senior Lance Corporal. Yeah, and in my mind, if you had been in the Marine Corps for a certain amount of time and you were still in E3, like I just had a an attitude of like, I'm not gonna give you the same type of respect as I would give an NCO, which is what he wanted. And I was just like, You're not an NCO. You're I'm pretty sure I was a Lance Corporal at the time, but uh I was like, You're the same rank as me. Like, you're not. There's just that you know, I had a different attitude when I first came in. Um and uh I don't know if you guys remember Lankford.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

So he and I had grown close in the school of infantry, and it was one of those like when we got to the platoon, um, you know, he was catching a little bit of heat, also, you know, because of his attitude. So we both kind of felt like it was gonna be me and him like against the platoon in the beginning. So it was just uh it wasn't how I wanted to start my time in the fleet, was by already getting into it with guys that had been there for a while and you know, who I probably could have learned from. Um, because that unfortunately set the tone between he and I forever after that. Like obviously, we're cool now, you know. Um, I'm pretty sure we're friends on Facebook. If he ever needed anything, he could always call me. But that was just again, that was just me being a kid and just uh having a different attitude about things.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Well, there's a certain kind of person who walks into the recruiter's office and is like, you know what I want to be? I want to be in the Marine Corps, but not just the Marine Corps, I want to be in the infantry. Make it the worst possible thing you can do, right? So you gotta have a little bit of confidence as far as that goes.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Well, I I never even knew what a Marine was um until because I grew up in an army household. My uh grandfather was um

Discovering The Marines And Enlisting

SPEAKER_01 4:45

he was command sergeant major, Korean War vet, Vietnam War vet. He was in the infantry and then went to tanks. Um before they did away with it, he was a flamethrower gunner. So like I grew up, he's he has like silver stars on the walls and purple hearts, and so I grew up just looking at his awards, not really understanding what they meant, you know. He would never talk about it. Uh, I would hear him screaming at night, punching holes in walls. Um, but I just I never really connected with, I never understood what it was all about. And uh I just knew that I was gonna be in the army like him. And uh freshman year of high school, I find out there's an ROTC program. And I'm like, what's that all about? And they're like, oh, it's like a pre-kind of prepares you for the military, kind of. And I'm like, okay, that sounds good to me. Then I find out it's a Navy program. So I get disappointed and I'm like, I'm I'm not really, I don't want to join the Navy, you know. And they're like, Well, you go through the program, you can still join whatever service you want. You just have to wear like the Navy uniforms and stuff in the meantime. So I said, okay, I can deal with that. Go to orientation. The Navy guy, the teacher in charge, he's uh he's a little, he's a little doughy, you know. Kind of coming out of coming out of his uniform a little bit. I'm like, oh man, you know, like I don't know about this. And then uh I look and he's kind of like kind of standing around, waving at everybody, smiling, you know, having a good old time. And then standing next to him is this other guy, and he's got on this uniform that I'd never seen before. He's got on blue pants with a red stripe and a you know, the black coat with the gold. And I'm like, what the hell is that? I've never seen anybody in a uniform like that before. And he's standing at the P, he's standing at the POA. Anytime somebody talks to him, he wouldn't even, he would just turn his head and address them and then turn his head back center. And I was like, this dude just looks and acts like a robot. I'm like, what what is the deal with this guy over here? I'm asking all my people, and they're like, Oh, he's a marine. That's the first sergeant. I'm like, a marine. I'm like, what's a marine? And they're like, oh, dude, they're the most badass first to fight like America's shop troops. Like, that's they got the hardest boot camp. That's the hardest thing that you can do. And I was like, huh. Well, I guess I know what I'm doing because I was gonna go to the army, but you're telling me that this is harder than the army and they have a better-looking uniform. Sign me up. So I went to go meet him. He was the first sergeant in the Marine Corps, he was a drill instructor, Italian guy, super intense, uh, knife-handed us all the time. But what he did was anybody who said that they wanted to join the Marine Corps, he took it upon himself to make sure that we were prepared as much as possible so that when we went to boot camp, it wouldn't be a poor showing. So we're doing all the training, he's teaching me the drill and ceremonies manual, making me a drill team commander and all this other kind of stuff, and then 9-11 happens. We're watching it on TV, everything's going down. Um, I don't know what happened. All I'm hearing is that them over there attacked us over here. So I'm like, okay. Well, this solidifies it. I'm definitely going in now. And what I missed out on was when they said we're sending troops to Iraq, I missed the part where uh Iraq didn't have anything to do with 9-11.

SPEAKER_03 8:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

I missed that part completely. So in my mind, I'm like, oh, it's vengeance time, you know. So I'm going through the rest of high school. Uh I take the ASVAB, I get a high score. My recruiter's like, you can do any job you want to. What do you want to do? I said, infantry. He goes, You can live, you do you want to look at the other jobs? You can literally do any job in the Marine Corps you want to do. And I was like, no, infantry. Because in my mind, that's the only way that I'm gonna get to where the fight is so that I can protect my country, you know, from them coming over and doing this to us again. My whole family, the ROTC guy, they were like, Why do you want to be a bullet sponge? Why do you want to go die in someone else's war? Like, and in my mind, the only thing that made sense to me was that we were attacked. I'm able-bodied, I'm motivated. It's my response, like the British are coming, you know what I mean? Like, it's my responsibility to pick up a weapon and you know, go make sure that this doesn't happen to my kids or your kids. So um that was the mentality I had the whole time was just vengeance.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

Makes sense, especially with your uh your story of coming into the fleet and you weren't gonna take any shit.

Post-9/11 Mindset And Choosing Infantry

SPEAKER_02 10:10

So what do you remember of the first training stuff? I mean, obviously your first taste was March Air Force Bach, which was a weird training evolution in and of itself.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Yeah, um I think everyone did the best they could with the limited knowledge that we had, because no one that I was around at least had been to Iraq before. Um, we knew it was gonna be urban, so there's mount tactics, you know, that we built off of. And the rest of it is just gonna be however you react whenever the shit hits the fan. So I thought that what we were doing was gonna be uh sufficient, and I never felt like I'm not trained well enough to go over there.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Nice. That's good. Well, that's good. And you you talked about Langford. Was there anybody else you kind of bonded with early in the platoon? Or anybody else you or anybody else you hated? Yeah, either one.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

No, so the other guy I bonded with was another guy from the Chicago area. You guys remember Gloy, Nathan? Gloy?

SPEAKER_03 11:25

Yeah, yeah, Gloy.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

I I think because he so he had gotten to the fleet like I think maybe two or three weeks before us, but he still, you know, kind of knew what was going on. So when Lankford and I showed up, Gloy kind of took us under his wing and was like, hey, you know, this is how stuff works around here. And he's like, you know, you can't be getting into your last corporals, and you know, he really he tried to, you know, stop me from making waves, and you know, we just kind of clicked. Um and yeah, we stayed friends for a long time after that. But um, I can't say that I had hate for anybody. Um like I said, Hodges and I, we just rubbed each other the wrong way.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Um but you know, I never wished ill of uh of anybody.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

Well, I guess uh hate was a strong word. I was just kind of throwing that out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

So what do you remember of uh I mean you you you're still getting your feet underneath you and that was I I don't know if we did too much training after March, but getting over to uh Iraq, what any uh any initial memories of of uh Camp Victory?

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Uh all I remember climatized. Yeah, I remember boots on the ground finally and feeling like kind of like we were on another planet. Um it just it really felt foreign. And uh it was just a weird feeling, but it was also exciting because um the regardless of the reason of why we go to all the places that we go to, you know, I still got to put boots on the ground on places that are of historical historical significance, you know, places that have been around a long time. Um so that was exciting for me. Again, uh thoughts going into the first deployment were you know not knowing what to expect was a little comforting because I there wasn't really anything that I was worried about.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

That's fair. Did you have anybody that you were dating at the time, like trying to call home to writing letters?

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah, it's funny. My uh my

Pre-Deployment Training And New Bonds

SPEAKER_01 14:05

high school sweetheart. Um so I was uh in basic training when I got a letter from her saying that she was pregnant. So I'm in boot camp and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna be a dad, I'm gonna be a Marine, like this is gonna be fantastic. And then like a paragraph down, I'm reading it, and it says, I had the abortion on this date at this time. So now I'm like, you know, devastated. So get through boot camp, decide to stay together. I'm uh I leave the deployment in the relationship while I'm on the deployment. The same type of stuff that happens in, you know, most of the military happen, and then I have to find out that there was some stuff going on. So uh I broke it off during that deployment. Uh it was a little rough for me. And then uh when I got back, she begged for another chance, and I was like, I don't really trust you anymore, but I'm gonna give it to you, and just couldn't get over it. So I ended up uh she was gonna be my fiance, um, but I ended up ending it because uh, you know, I couldn't get over that betrayal.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Yeah. Given the the gravity and nature of the deployment, that's a fucking hell of a thing to deal with. Did you did you talk to anybody about any of that shit?

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Or did you just kind of gut it? Uh I talked to Gloy and I talked to Langford about it. Um, you know, and they just they were there for me like guys are, you know. And uh they definitely helped. But it it put me in a

First Days In Iraq And Home Stress

SPEAKER_01 15:55

space because you know, part of my motivation is like, you know, I'm doing this for for her and for my family and to keep them safe. And then to have something like that happen had me questioning things for a minute. Um but you know, it wasn't enough to break my focus to the point to where like I was like, I can't afford to be thinking about this, like I need to worry about getting home and getting my guys home first.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Yeah. You answered my next question, was gonna be uh did it mess with your mind any, but it's uh it sounds like you're able to at least keep your focus on uh on the mission.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Yeah, I mean, I was a kid, you know, I had my heart broken, but when you're in a situation like we were, uh you can't really be afford you can't really afford to be thinking about your own feelings when you leave the wire.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Well, our our op tempo was definitely uh high enough where at least you weren't sitting sitting in your fields for too long guard week. I mean, we were we were always on the go, so at least there was that. So how did you end up getting up to Ramadi? Did you were you part of the convoy or did you come up later in the in the flight?

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Let's see. You mean the convoy uh from Kuwait? Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

So there was two convoys that came up from Kuwait where we brought up a lot of our gear and and the vehicles and stuff like that, but there was a group of uh uh

Ramadi Patrols And Hearts And Minds

SPEAKER_00 17:35

81s in particular flew up later.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Um but that I'm pretty sure that was us. I do feel like uh there was a little bit of a late arrival. Because I think by the time we got to hurricane point, uh everything was already set up.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

That's right. Then you probably flew into Alice Island and came down with the crew. Do you have any initial memories of? I mean, if you're talking about you, you are you remembering it being set up? Do you have any initial memories of uh Hurricane Point or any of the first couple missions that you went on?

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Yeah, I mean, I thought it was a beautiful place, you know, palm trees, the river was right there. Um at the time, the weather was nice. I mean, even the first few patrols we went out on, there were times where, you know, we would dismount, walk around, take our helmets off, you know, kind of let our loose sling a little bit and talk to these people and hearts and minds. And, you know, like we're not here to to scare or intimidate these people, we're here to help them. And I will admit that for a little bit, I did in my mind was like, you know what, maybe this isn't gonna be so bad. Like, maybe, you know, maybe this is just gonna be a peaceful, they won't want to mess with us, we don't have to kill any of them, type of situation. And uh, I didn't realize that they were using that time to map our patrol routes and make notes on you know all the stuff that we would be doing if an invasion force showed up in someone's backyard.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Yeah, absolutely. Make notes and mass weapons and figure out who's on your side.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Yep. Do you remember who you got rolled out with mostly? Like, so our our uh as as I found out in these conversations, I didn't fully appreciate that, but the other platoons stuck pretty tight to their gun teams, but we we tended to mix it up quite a bit. Um, but you had some tried and trues. Did you have uh trucks that you drove with most?

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Yep. Um we were part of a section that put the mortar tubes up and

Night Raids And Close Calls

SPEAKER_01 20:05

was just running, you know, the basic O311 ops. Um Gloy was our gunner. I want to say, man, my memory's terrible. So much time has gone by. I know for sure Gloy was the gunner because every time we would leave the water the wire, we would say that line from uh die hard, yippeekay, motherfucker. That was our like good luck leaving the wire. Um there you go. But well, we switched it up.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

I mean, to be honest, we switched it up a lot. I mean, so it we had some pretty dedicated gunners, and there were some dedicated drivers, but that got mixed up a lot. So you maybe had Stadleman, you maybe had Venticia, you maybe had man. I think Winter drove a bit.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Um I drove for a little bit too. Yeah, there is almost wrecked. What happened there?

SPEAKER_02 20:59

I was gonna say I'd love to hear that one.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Uh yeah, it was one of my first times as a driver. We were doing one of those uh, you know, 3 a.m. night raids. And uh you remember how bad the seven bravos were for depth perception. And uh our vehicles were rolling through the you know, the soft pack and throwing up the that little fine dust.

SPEAKER_03 21:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

And uh there was a canal on the right hand side, and uh at the very last second, I'm trying to remember who was in the gunner's seat, but they were yelling at me to make a hard left uh because we were about to slide, about to go off the road and down into the canal. So I busted it hard left, hit the gas, and the rear end kind of like slid down a little bit and then came back up on the road. So that was good, but uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

No better time to learn to drive. Humvee than three in the morning on a raid, yeah. Yeah, in MBGs, yeah, yeah, blacked out MBGs, yeah, perfect.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Definition of on-the-job training, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

We did a lot of that, did a lot of uh on-the-job invention too. But uh, do you remember any other of the raids that we did on the topic of raids?

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Um there's a few ones that I remember. Um, but the one that I think I'm probably most embarrassed about, or that makes me laugh the most, uh, I have a problem, especially in Humvees with the vibration. It's extremely hard for me to stay awake. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, and uh truism. It was um his team leader, his name was um Mongo Mongoloid. You remember uh Hutchison, I think was his last name. Yes. He was he was my vehicle commander, and uh we had gotten a call. We were QRF because I think it was either I think it was golf company or maybe Echo. Um were in contact, and it was in the middle of the night, and I'm already tired. So uh I guess I fall asleep in the back of the Humvee on our way to a troops in contact. And uh I just looked back and he's like, Are you fucking sleeping? Wait the fuck up, we're in a war, and I'm like shit, that's right. Like, I gotta remember, like, I gotta stay awake. But it was a struggle, even you know, on the way to a firefight, like I couldn't stay awake.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

I think that's also a testament to how normal it had gotten at that point. That it was uh we were we were in it so often that it was almost like paperwork to a certain degree. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

That's funny. I haven't thought about Hutch in years either. I forgot, forgot he was with you guys.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Rick, Rick Hutchinson. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Uh the only other thing I remembered about the night raids is uh I really did not enjoy um rousting families at you know three o'clock in the morning.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Uh you know, look looking back on that and thinking, you know, how would I feel if dudes that don't speak my language kick in my door and flipping my bed over and you know, grabbing my kids and me and putting putting us on the ground. It just, you know, again at the time it felt

Door Kicks And Moral Doubt

SPEAKER_01 24:45

like what we were doing was right because we were rooting out the bad guys. Um but uh learning that things were a little weren't exactly as we were being told later on, kind of um I'd made peace with a lot of the things that had happened years and years ago. And then after finding out that things weren't exactly as we've been told, all the peace that I had made with those decisions had kind of come undone. And I've been struggling with it since.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

Yeah, I we've talked with a few different people uh about that, and I've off of a podcast that also me and Blake have talked about that a lot. It I mean, you didn't know any different, right? That was the way it was supposed to be done. You're supposed to go and search the area, and and there were times when that intel was good, and there were plenty of times when some asshole was using the intel line just to call us into places to either see what we would do or to snitch on his neighbor and get his neighbor in trouble because he didn't like him, or or whatever, whatever bullshit they were trying to do. And yeah, I'm with you. Uh, we probably made as many enemies as we made captures, uh, going into people's houses and and yanking them out of their bed in the middle of the night, breaking their shit, knocking down their gates. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

I mean, was it fun running a Humvee through a gate or you know, running a Humvee through the side of someone's stuff because there might be IEDs or you know, there's might be something going on on the inside. Yeah, at the time it was. Um, but I spent a lot of time uh thinking about because, like you said, there were those times where yeah, we'd get in and find something, but to my memory, uh we it was either the wrong info or you know, a mistake made somewhere and there wasn't anything there.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

I did a lot less door kicks than you probably did, but I am curious. Did you did you go into a lot of houses? Were you? I mean, it sounds like you were dismounting you were a dismount.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

So yep. Uh my first deployment, I didn't touch her mortar round once.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Yeah, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Yeah, no, I know, trust me once. Um and somebody I think it was maybe somebody didn't like me, or I don't know what it was, but um, they gave me the breech kit when we would do bug hunts.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

So you know, we'd get on the line and I'd get out, and um the whole every time I would go up to a door um and I'm trying to cut the lock off, I'm just waiting for a bullet to come from somewhere because I'm focused on getting this door open and not a sector of fire, you know. That was always in the back of my mind, but it you know, it really made me trust and appreciate the Marines around me. And that's what made it easier for me to do was knowing that someone's looking out for me while I'm, you know, while I got both hands on these bolt cutters.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

Well, that sounds like you were first or second in on a on a lot of shit then. Uh did you ever catch any contact in a house?

SPEAKER_01 28:01

Um not in the house, um, but there would be times where as we're moving through a house where we'd get up on a rooftop, you know, they'd be shooting from another rooftop or from another building. Right. Um, but usually by the time um, because for weapons company, we did a lot of uh QRF type stuff. And being a um vehicle-mounted force, I feel like we may have gotten engaged uh differently than the guys who were on foot all the time.

unknown 28:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

So definitely. Most of the time when weapons company came through with 50 cals and Mark 19s, that's usually when uh you know they would disperse um, you know, knowing that they were outgunned as soon as we showed up. It was, you know, that's when they started using the IEDs and taking out the trucks. Um, but uh usually once they heard the trucks rolling down the street, there weren't there wasn't too many still left like in rooms or you know inside the house. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 29:13

Not trying to get you to relive any painful memories, but if you remember any stories of uh catching contact from a roof of a house or anything, it'd be interesting to hear. Because I mean, especially for me personally, because I as again you guys did different things, you had way more dismounts than we did. I was mapped to we were the smallest of all of the weapons company platoons, we just didn't have that many dismounts, so we ended up we did kick down some doors, but mostly we were outer cording

Rooftops Under Fire And Spidey Sense

SPEAKER_02 29:40

or like you said, QRF stuff all the time.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Yeah, um, I just remember um I'm pretty sure I'm trying to I think I think it might have been uh Gloyd that was up there with me. I'm not sure, but um we had taken over the house, done the search, and as we were getting ready to move to the next one, I just remember being on the roof, looking around and seeing how exposed it was. And at that second, I had the thought like somebody could just take a shot at you from anywhere. You should probably like get a lower profile. And as soon as I got down on a knee, rounds impacted above my head where I was standing at. And you know, I looked up and couldn't see where it was, had no idea where it came from. Um, couldn't, you know, I didn't have a radio, so I couldn't like call it in and be like, you know, so I just I think maybe 10 more seconds went by, and uh my team leader, I think it was uh it might have been Sergeant Gonzalez at the time. He just told us that we were moving out, so I got down off the roof and went back downstairs and out through the front. But uh there's a couple times posted up uh near a Humvee. Um I don't know, I just think I was really lucky. Um, there was just so many times where I would be somewhere and then I would move, and then the rounds would be impacting where I was like a few seconds later. So, you know, someone's looking out for me.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

I was gonna say, yeah, you either had a psychic intuition or just uh good luck, man. That's uh that's good.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

I call it my spidey sense, it still happens today. Like I'll feel like things are gonna happen. I'll be driving and I'll be like, oh, that car's gonna swerve into my lane, and then I'll move, and sure enough, they come over. It's just I don't know. I'm grateful for it, whatever it is. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Kept you alive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

Well, here, let's go, let's let's bring it back to the early part again. We were um so we had some of those early, you as you mentioned, we were still winning hearts and minds doing a lot of uh dropping off supplies, dropping off generators, going to the schools and stuff like that. Um it wasn't too far in when we got hit for the uh with uh with Worth. Were you uh which truck

IEDs, Loss, And The Pull Of Revenge

SPEAKER_00 32:25

were you in? Were you in any the it was right behind his Worth truck when got hit? Right behind his? Do you have any memories of that day?

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Yeah, um I'd never heard an explosion like that before. Um that was it took a second for my brain to understand first what it was, and then secondly, comprehending that it was intentional. Um that was the first time that I had ever seen an attempt on any of us. Uh we had I'd heard over the radio, I'd heard through passive word that people had taken contact here and there. But as far as my personal experience, that was the first time that anyone had ever tried to hurt one of us. Um that was also the first time I think we all realized the um liability of having that three-quarter armor door with that huge gap that anything could just fly through. Um, it sucks that a Marine has to get injured for them to you know make a decision to upgrade the armor and you know give us better protection. But um that was the first time that I kind of had my eyes opened a little bit and was like, okay, you know, really gotta be careful. But um same thing with the luck. The day that Savage got hit again was right before like I watched it happen. He was right in front of me. And when Lieutenant Dobb came in and said that we lost Savage, that was when everything became real for me. That was when I think something inside of me was like, okay, this is definitely this is not a game. These people are here to kill you. You can die out here. This is not like a game or a vacation or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

Yeah, I mean, did did it fundamentally change the way that you were like leaving the wire and how you were engaging with everybody? Did it change change your posture, I guess?

SPEAKER_01 34:45

Yeah, I definitely became um assumed a more protective posture, but also uh now I really had a reason to be angry and to get revenge. Like you took out one of our guys, so now my mindset's like I'm gonna take as many of you as we can.

SPEAKER_02 35:13

That was definitely the way it went for our platoon as well. When I mean, because we lost Morris. We were the uh we had the the first weapons company KA. And I it seemed, I mean, I I can't speak for everybody in my platoon, but most of the people who were vocalizing something, it was it was revenge. They were ready, everybody was ready to go at that point, and very highly focused on punishment. You mentioned uh Warth being like the first time that you had seen an attempt. I mean, you're not wrong. Uh, as far as my memory goes, that was the third IED that had hit, that had actually hit a weapons company vehicle. Uh the first one I think was map one, if I remember correctly, and uh it didn't didn't hurt anyone. And then the second one was was my platoon, and then the the third one was Worth. Like, so it went, it like got like exponentially worse as we went. And it didn't get better from there, obviously. The IEDs got more frequent and much bigger.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

Uh in between those two events was I mean, because you're talking about Savage was May. Uh you kind of remember anything as far as the intensity of everything ramping up through April?

SPEAKER_01 36:34

I do. Um but that uh I'm pretty sure, if my memory serves correctly, the third, fourth, and fifth.

SPEAKER_02 36:47

Yeah, yeah. Uh specifically, I mean, the the biggest fighting was April 6th and 7th. There was some little stuff on the 8th, and then the 10th was the third biggest day as far as that went.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

So I'm not sure how many of those days, but my section at the

Bridge Posts And First Firefight

SPEAKER_01 37:10

time was on the bridge. Yeah, so um I don't know how many times I went out, but by the time that we had gone out uh where we were, I don't like I said, when we showed up in the vehicles, it always seemed like the fighting was like one block over, or like you know, half a mile that way. Um it wasn't as those that week in general, I don't feel like was as intense for me as it was for mostly everybody else.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

Sure. When you were up on the bridge, did you were you able to see anything?

SPEAKER_01 38:05

Uh just tracers, um, you know, smoke from explosions from you know, rockets from both sides, things like that. Um they didn't make any attempts on the bridge posts while I was up there.

SPEAKER_03 38:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Um, I know the bridge posts had taken contact. Um, obviously, you know, they would mortar us from time to time. So, you know, other than getting incoming fire from the mortars, um, I don't think that week was as kinetic for me as it was for everyone else just by pure circumstance.

unknown 38:50

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

Like I think we we just happened to be on uh on guard that week.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

And and truly it was only again, you guys can correct me because I don't know. I wasn't in your platoon, but uh, I think you guys were only on the bridges the sixth and the seventh, and then we put the HS company guys up on the bridges, and you got pulled and started kicking down doors on the eighth, ninth, and tenth. The tenth, well, the tenth being the first bug hunt.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Yep. Um, I do remember the bug hunt. Uh that was all just a blur, but it like I said, it just seemed it always seemed to be like right out of my reach. I guess everything just seemed to be happening all around me.

SPEAKER_02 39:41

Um, do you again not to pry, but I'm curious. Do you remember the first time you got to exchange fire?

SPEAKER_01 39:56

Yes. Um we were dismounted and they started shooting at us from um the top floor of this building, but uh all I could see at the time were just the muzzle flashes. So, you know, I'm returning fire into a building that someone's hiding in. Like I'm not seeing a face or anything like that. I just know that they're in there because they're shooting from it. Um also there's a lot of times where uh a lot of guys are firing at the same spot.

SPEAKER_03 40:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:35

So you don't necessarily know like if you got the guy, you know, if someone else got the guy, like you know, you just know that those shootings stopped. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

Do you remember the details surrounding that mission at all? Just out of curiosity. And you may not even have known the details surrounding the mission because that that also happened. Uh I'm finding out more and more frequently. People were like, I was riding the back of a truck, and then people were shooting. That's what I remember.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

Yeah, I mean, as the low on the totem pole guy, everything was do what your team leader says, he does what the squad leader says, he does what the platoon sergeant says. Like that's where I was at. You know, I just I was just a gun that went where I was pointing. Um, I remember coming under fire and uh getting caught up in the seatbelt in the Humvee, and Hutch is yelling at me to get the fuck out of the vehicle because we're taking contact and the rounds are hitting the truck, and I'm thinking that I'm gonna die hanging halfway out of a Humvee because my rifle's on the seatbelt. Like it just uh you know, just little funny things that don't seem funny at the time but are funny later.

SPEAKER_02 41:54

Yeah, especially 22 years later. It's nice to be alive to be able to laugh about it.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

Yeah. Um, but yeah, all I remember about the bug hunt is it uh just being hot, being hungry, and just thinking that whatever the next time I go around this corner or as soon as I cross this alley, that's gonna be it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 42:18

Yeah, to my memory, now and you may remember better, I don't know, but you guys were the farther northern, like northwestern edge of that cordon. It was a big cordon because it's a big neighborhood. And a chunk of the enemy were being pushed by the line companies into map three, and so I think they got the heaviest contact on that day. But I I I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I'm pretty sure you guys got at least some contact out of that where they were getting pushed north because we were on the south edge, we got, I mean, very limited engagement on the 10th.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

Yeah, I think uh I just don't also. I'm trying to I'm trying to separate the memories from this deployment and other deployments back to Iraq and ended up in Afghanistan. So there's like a lot of yeah, yeah, some fights that are kind of blending in, but um no, to as far as my experience was most of the time when I dismounted from those vehicles and we were either pushing to contact or just doing the search in general, um there wasn't a ton of fire coming our way because they didn't want anything to do with those Mark 19s and 50 cals. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:44

Well, here I'll uh I'll give you some key moments and we'll see if any of those kind of trigger any memories. So after kind of after April, um the way it was always portrayed to everybody was that you know, we killed them all. Their jihad was over because we we did so much damage, they had to go and retool. Uh may maybe that was true, maybe it wasn't. Uh, but what did happen was on April 28th, um

Dam Security, Drowned Marines, And Closing

SPEAKER_02 44:10

the ob you remember the Abu Ghraib scandal thing where that all the pictures that were out and they were you know whatever they were doing with the prisoners. Well, we had two massive prisoner releases that were basically just right outside of the city, and then everything ramped back up in May. And that was when uh the swimmers from Fox Company had drowned, and Savage was killed on May 12th. And then another big thing that you were definitely a part of, and I don't know if you remember it much, but uh we decided that we had to secure the dam because they were gonna blow the dam. And so we had to go do a sweep with the engineers uh to go do that. Any any memories of that thing where the engineers were up on the dam?

SPEAKER_01 44:52

I do, I remember that. I remember uh looking for those fox company swimmers looking for their bodies, um, you know, going up and down the sides of the river. That was another time that uh, you know, I felt a little conflicted because uh I wanted to be looking for them, but also it was another thing that had us really exposed and had our focus off of you know 100% defense. Um but I understand why we did it. Um holding for the engineers, all I remember was being in the prone, you know, with my rifle and shoulder, just you know, waiting for something, waiting for them to try and stop them.

SPEAKER_02 45:42

Right. Yeah, that was to me, both of those missions, just because they're kind of close together, are like examples of like I didn't I didn't understand the command intent. And uh, you know, why were guys swimming across the Euphrates? That seems like a there's no reason. I I don't think the enemy would be surprised if we had boats. Uh so we could use them. Even rowboats would be fine. You don't have to use motor boats if you want to be quiet. But uh yeah, it was very, very strange.

SPEAKER_00 46:13

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