Task Force Fallujah - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

crash9 · #1 12-01-2004, 10:42 AM

Does anyone know if the letter below is circulating everywhere. It was sent to me by my uber Christian buddy. I have no reason to doubt it’s truthfulness, but it seems prepaired or written better than I would expect coming from the field. Nothing on Snopes.com

Dear Dad -

Just came out of the city and I honestly do not know where to start. I am afraid that whatever I send you will not do sufficient honor to the men who fought and took Fallujah.

Shortly before the attack, Task Force Fallujah was built. It consisted of Regimental Combat Team 1 built around 1st Marine Regiment and Regimental Combat Team 7 built around 7th Marine Regiment. Each Regiment consisted of two Marine Rifle Battalions reinforced and one Army mechanized infantry battalion.

Regimental Combat Team 1 (RCT-1) consisted of 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (3rd LAR), 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines (3/5); 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines (3/1)and 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry (2/7). RCT-7 was slightly less weighted but still a formidable force. Cutting a swath around the city was an Army Brigade known as Blackjack. The Marine RCT's were to assault the city while Blackjack kept the enemy off of the backs of the assault force.

The night prior to the actual invasion, we all moved out into the desert just north of the city. It was something to see. You could just feel the intensity in the Marines and Soldiers. It was all business. As the day cleared, the Task Force began striking targets and moving into final attack positions. As the invasion force commenced its movement into attack positions, 3rd LAR led off RCT-1's offensive with an attack up a peninsula formed by the Euphrates River on the west side of the city. Their mission was to secure the Fallujah Hospital and the two bridges leading out of the city. They executed there tasks like clockwork and smashed the enemy resistance holding the bridges. Simultaneous to all of this, Blackjack sealed the escape routes to the south of the city. As invasion day dawned, the net was around the city and the Marines and Soldiers knew that the enemy that failed to escape was now sealed.

3/5 began the actual attack on the city by taking an apartment complex on the northwest corner of the city. It was key terrain as the elevated positions allowed the command to look down into the attack lanes. The Marines took the apartments quickly and moved to the rooftops and began engaging enemy that were trying to move into their fighting positions. The scene on the rooftop was surreal. Machine gun teams were running boxes of ammo up 8 flights of stairs in full body armor and carrying up machine guns while snipers engaged enemy shooters. The whole time the enemy was firing mortars and rockets at the apartments. Honest to God, I don't think I saw a single Marine even distracted by the enemy fire. Their squad leaders, and platoon commanders had them prepared and they were executing their assigned tasks.

As mentioned, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry joined the Regiment just prior to the fight. .................................it's too long to post it all...................
The enemy is willing to die and is literally waiting until they see the whites of the eyes of the Marines before they open up. Just two days ago, as a firefight raged in close quarters, one of the interpreters yelled for the enemy in the house to surrender. The enemy yelled back that it was better to die and go to heaven than to surrender to infidels. This exchange is a graphic window into the world that the Marines and Soldiers have been fighting in these last 10 days.

I could go on and on about how the city was taken but one of the most amazing aspects to the fighting was that we saw virtually no civilians during the battle. Only after the fighting had passed did a few come out of their homes. They were provided food and water and most were evacuated out of the city. At least 90-95% of the people were gone from the city when we attacked.

I will end with a couple of stories of individual heroism that you may not have heard yet. I was told about both of these incidents shortly after they occurred. No doubt some of the facts will change slightly but I am confident that the meat is correct.

The first is a Marine from 3/5. His name is Corporal Yeager (Chuck Yeager's grandson). As the Marines cleared and apartment building, they got to the top floor and the point man kicked in the door. As he did so, an enemy grenade and a burst of gunfire came out. The explosion and enemy fire took off the point man's leg. He was then immediately shot in the arm as he lay in the doorway. Corporal Yeager tossed a grenade in the room and ran into the doorway and into the enemy fire in order to pull his buddy back to cover. As he was dragging the wounded Marine to cover, his own grenade came back through the doorway. Without pausing, he reached down and threw the grenade back through the door while he heaved his buddy to safety. The grenade went off inside the room and Cpl Yeager threw another in. He immediately entered the room following the second explosion. He gunned down three enemy all within three feet of where he stood and then let fly a third grenade as he backed out of the room to complete the evacuation of the wounded Marine. You have to understand that a grenade goes off within 5 seconds of having the pin pulled. Marines usually let them "cook off" for a second or two before tossing them in. Therefore, this entire episode took place in less than 30 seconds.

The second example comes from 3/1. Cpl Mitchell is a squad leader. He was wounded as his squad was clearing a house when some enemy threw pineapple grenades down on top of them. As he was getting triaged, the doctor told him that he had been shot through the arm. Cpl Mitchell told the doctor that he had actually been shot "a couple of days ago" and had given himself self aide on the wound. When the doctor got on him about not coming off the line, he firmly told the doctor that he was a squad leader and did not have time to get treated as his men were still fighting. There are a number of Marines who have been wounded multiple times but refuse to leave their fellow Marines.

It is incredibly humbling to walk among such men. They fought as hard as any Marines in history and deserve to be remembered as such. The enemy they fought burrowed into houses and fired through mouse holes cut in walls, lured them into houses rigged with explosives and detonated the houses on pursuing Marines, and actually hid behind surrender flags only to engage the Marines with small arms fire once they perceived that the Marines had let their guard down. I know of several instances where near dead enemy rolled grenades out on Marines who were preparing to render them aid. It was a fight to the finish in every sense and the Marines delivered.

I have called the enemy cowards many times in the past because they have never really held their ground and fought but these guys in the city did. We can call them many things but they were not cowards.

My whole life I have read about the greatest generation and sat in wonder at their accomplishments. For the first time, as I watch these Marines and Soldiers, I am eager for the future as this is just the beginning for them. Perhaps the most amazing characteristic of all is that the morale of the men is sky high. They hurt for the wounded and the dead but they are eager to continue to attack. Further, not one of them would be comfortable with being called a hero even though they clearly are.

By now the Marines and Soldiers have killed well over a thousand enemy. These were not peasants or rabble. They were reasonably well trained and entirely fanatical. Most of the enemy we have seen have chest rigs full of ammunition and are well armed are willing to fight to the death. The Marines and Soldiers are eager to close with them and the fighting at the end is inevitably close.

I will write you more the next time I come in about what we have found inside the city. All I can say is that even with everything that I knew and expected from the last nine months, the brutality and fanaticism of the enemy surprised me. The beheadings were even more common place than we thought but so were torture and summary executions. Even though it is an exaggeration, it seems as though every block in the northern part of the city has a torture chamber or execution site. There are hundreds of tons of munitions and tens of thousands of weapons that our Regiment alone has recovered. The Marines and Soldiers of the Regiment have also found over 400 IEDs already wired and ready to detonate. No doubt these numbers will grow in the days ahead.

In closing, I want to share with you a vignette about when the Marines secured the Old Bridge (the one where the Americans were mutilated and hung on March 31) this week. After the Marines had done all the work and secured the bridge, we walked across to meet up with 3rd LAR on the other side. On the Fallujah side of the bridge where the Americans were hung there is some Arabic writing on the bridge. An interpreter translated it for me as we walked through. It read: "Long Live the Mujahadeen. Fallujah is the Graveyard for Americans and the end of the Marine Corps."

As I came back across the bridge there was a squad sitting in their Amtrac smoking and watching the show. The Marines had written their own message below the enemy's. It is not something that Mom would appreciate but it fit the moment to a T. Not far from the vehicle were two dead enemy laying where they died. The Marines were sick of watching the "Dog and Pony show" and wanted to get back to work.

Dave

KirkVining · #2 12-01-2004, 03:27 PM

After watching the film "Control Room" and reading another of other sources about how the Pentagon propaganda appartus is now targeting the American people instead of the enemy, I have become extremely skeptical of all military documents claiming to relay information to the American people. The proof that it is now obvious that the Saddam statute-toppling was a rigged media event, along with their admission they dessiminated false news reports to the American press makes anything coming out of there suspect.

Altho the stories of military heroism are obviously true, the piece seems to be part of a concerted propaganda effort by the US military to portray civilian casualties as low in the battle for Fallajah, and there is good evidence this was planned in advance. The first thing the Marines did was to capture the hospitals, so civilian casuality figures could not be reported by doctors and civilian authorities, shutting down an info leak that had just hurt them when the Iraqi Health Ministry had released hospital casualty figures the week before, for Iraq as a whole, showing that the US was responsible for more civilian dead than the terrorists. In addition, they barred the Red Cross and the Red Crescent from entering the city. Fallujah is not a small village. It was, and I do mean was, a city of 300,000 people, and we flattened place. The civilian casualities must have been horrendous. There are numerous reports in the international press, including the British press, that we used napalm, a weapon currently prohibited by international treaties, and a barbaric act if used on areas where civilians are known to be. Just to get the other side:

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F0A47D67-7D17-4140-A992-2AEC1CF0624A.htm

boneheaddoctor · #3 12-01-2004, 03:50 PM

This coming from a guy who believed every word John Kerry, and Bill Clinton uttered.

Its the DNC that no longer grasps what "Truth" means.

And the Government doesn't need propaganda to make it look like we are appreciated there. I know 4 guys there now and 2 who came back.

#4 12-01-2004, 03:55 PM

"The US took napalm out of service in the 1970's. We completed the destruction of our last batch of napalm on April 4, 2001, and no longer maintain any stocks of napalm," Commander Davis told smh online. He was apparently referring to Vietnam-era Napalm-B, which consisted of inflammable fuel thickened with polystyrene and benzene.

The inflammable fuel in Mark-77 fire bombs is thickened with slightly different chemicals, and is believed to contain oxidizers, which make it harder to extinguish than Napalm-B.

Neither weapon technically contains napalm. The chemical mixture that became known as 'napalm' - a combination of naphthalene and palmitate - was used only in the earliest versions of the weapon.

Napalm was banned by United Nations convention in 1980, but the US never signed the agreement. Use of Mark-77 fire bombs is considered legal by the US military.

Ms. Toni McNeal, a spokesperson for Rock Island Arsenal, in Illinois, said the facility is currently producing a further 500 Mark-77s for the US Marine Corps.

She said she did not consider the Mark-77s to be napalm bombs.

But Mark-77s are referred to as 'napalm' in some current US inventories and public affairs documents.

A US Navy public affairs document dated 22/10/99 says that the US Navy no longer uses napalm but "the US Marine Corps has a requirement and uses it at ranges at Yuma and Twenty-Nine Palms."

Twenty-Nine Palms, in California, is the home base of some of the Marine Corps units that took part in the attack on Safwan Hill in Iraq.

Captain Robert Crum, USMC, Public Affairs spokesman for Twenty-Nine Palms, said: "Mk 77s are not routinely used in training at 29 Palms. Yet it would be inappropriate to say that they are never - or never would be - used in training here.

"The average young Marine may be unfamiliar with the technical nomenclature, and probably does refer to this munition by the vernacular 'napalm'."

boneheaddoctor · #5 12-01-2004, 04:02 PM

what a "source" ..............................

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F0A47D67-7D17-4140-A992-2AEC1CF0624A.htm

OH, yes...they have every reason to be objective and have a record of being fair and balanced. Bwaaaaahahahahahahaha.

Those guys are incapible of being truthfull much less factual.

KirkVining · #6 12-01-2004, 04:14 PM

I'm sure the technical jaragon is important to those who have just had their flesh sprayed with whatever the current nomenclature is for jellied gasoline, which is then ignited, burning anyone who is in its vapor cloud to death in horrendous cruelty. It is a barbaric weapon, and when used in civilian population centers, no different than nerve gas used on Kurds. Just another sign that in Iraq, we are no better than Saddam.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/21/32937/834

http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=14920109&method=full&siteid=106694&headline=fallujah-napalmed-name_page.html

http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=5875

KirkVining · #7 12-01-2004, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by boneheaddoctor

what a "source" ..............................

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F0A47D67-7D17-4140-A992-2AEC1CF0624A.htm

OH, yes...they have every reason to be objective and have a record of being fair and balanced. Bwaaaaahahahahahahaha.

Those guys are incapible of being truthfull much less factual.

From what I've seen, they appear to run a news source about as credible as Fox News, with the opposite slant. After what I have seen in the documentary "Control Room", I think it is now important to get some international viewpoints on current events rather than just purely US media, which is giving us the Pentagon's talking point papers instead of the news. Perhaps by viewing all sides objectively we can find the truth somewhere and get a glimpse of how the rest of the world views us.

boneheaddoctor · #8 12-01-2004, 04:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KirkVining

From what I've seen, they appear to run a news source about as credible as Fox News, with the opposite slant. After what I have seen in the documentary "Control Room", I think it is now important to get some international viewpoints on current events rather than just purely US media, which is giving us the Pentagon's talking point papers instead of the news. Perhaps by viewing all sides objectively we can find the truth somewhere and get a glimpse of how the rest of the world views us.

Bull.......

All that is , is pure anti-american propaganda with NO bassis in fact.

You must have believed Dan Rather too......

Hell NPR is more grounded in fact than Aljazeera is........and NPR is pretty full of DNC propaganda, The DNC propaganda outlet so to say.

Fox is way more truthfull than any of the other news.

Nobody is less fatual than Aljazeera...........Hell MAD TV is more truthfull with facts.

shane · #9 12-01-2004, 04:36 PM

I respectfully present Bonehead as the most unpatriotic/unamerican point of view I have heard in over a week. A shame really. The american education system failed him.

Old300D · #10 12-01-2004, 05:52 PM

Yes, we are using incendiary weapons against Iraqis. Call it what you want, napalm, Mark 77, phosphorus whatever. This has been reported first hand, unfiltered by mass media, untouched by Pentagon propaganda. It's absolutely disgusting that we have stooped to Saddam's own methods -- by adopting tactics of the enemy we become the enemy.

boneheaddoctor · #11 12-01-2004, 06:07 PM

Hey, if I was calling the shots we would have dropped a few MOAB's before we went in..................

Botnst · #12 12-01-2004, 08:02 PM

Its more humane to blow folks to smithereens then to incinerate them.

Its like that silliness of Jimmy Carter over the neutron bomb. Its okay to annhilate a city and kill all the people but it is wrong to just kill all the people.

Or its okay to drop 155mm artillery on houses when you don't know who is inside but if you kill a wounded perp with a bullet to the head, you're a criminal.

This all makes perfect sense to me.

jjl · #13 12-01-2004, 09:06 PM

It's wrong to organise the death of millions in concentration camps but right to carpet bomb Dresden or Berlin or Hamburg.

Easy to play this game.

Botnst · #14 12-01-2004, 09:13 PM

..or Tokyo.

Also, incinerating tens of thousands with nuclear weapon is immoral, but its okay with conventional firebombing.

Its perfectly clear.

KirkVining · #15 12-01-2004, 09:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Botnst

Its more humane to blow folks to smithereens then to incinerate them.

Its like that silliness of Jimmy Carter over the neutron bomb. Its okay to annhilate a city and kill all the people but it is wrong to just kill all the people.

Or its okay to drop 155mm artillery on houses when you don't know who is inside but if you kill a wounded perp with a bullet to the head, you're a criminal.

This all makes perfect sense to me.

Using phosporous and napalm against guerilla operating in areas populated by civilians is a war crime. You are also walking two sides of the fence. Saddam is bad for gassing Kurdish rebels, because it caused the needless deaths of women and children. The US is good for gassing the Sunni's, even tho it caused the needless deaths of women and children. It all makes perfect sense to me - y'all are hypocrites. I roll over laughing whenever I hear you guys talk about moral absolutes.