Echo in Ramadi

by Scott A. Huesing

  Libby politely struck up a conversation as I approached his room. Like British royalty asking me to sit down for tea, he had a beer at the ready and asked if I would care for one. I didn’t decline.

  It was times like those that my relationship with Libby developed. From then on, I always counted on his honesty, opinions, and loyalty to the Marines he led. His force of personality was something that made Libby indispensable to the men of his squad and made his leaders depend on him. When rounds are flying, they don’t distinguish between rank, age, color, or religion—Libby understood this intrinsically. We were all brothers thrust into the chasm, and we took care of each other better than anyone else we’ve ever known.

  On that fateful night, Lance Corporals Jonathan Neris, Christopher Muscle, Jonathan Yenglin, and Hospitalman Nate “Doc” Dicks, sat with Corporal Libby in their room at Entry Control Point (ECP) 8, their battle position in the heart of central Ramadi. They were bullshitting and cracking jokes at each other’s expense like most Marines do to kill time. Libby regaled his men with excerpts and quotes from his favorite movies, Hang ‘Em High and The Boondock Saints. They were interrupted when gunfire snapped against the walls. Their adrenaline surged.

  Fourth Platoon was completely engaged in one of the most complex attacks we’d faced to date. They raced to the rooftop. A blaze of intense small arms fire lit the air. Deafening bursts from machine guns made it impossible to communicate. The battle raged on, and the Marines fought side by side. Neris caught Libby out of the corner of his eye. He heard Libby say, “I’m reloading my M-203.” But then Libby didn’t come back up. He looked down and saw that Libby had fallen.

  With rounds still smacking the walls of ECP 8, Neris took a knee in the middle of the roof. Tears came down his face, his chest heaved, and he tried to stifle the short audible gasps. He didn’t want his squad to see him cry.

  As the firefight wound down in the early morning hours, every Marine in 4th Platoon found out about the loss of Libby and began to feel it. The next day, I carried their pain and mine, and I moved about numb and willing myself to not break down. I couldn’t because my Marines were looking to me for strength.

  There is a formal process in the Marine Corps called the Casualty Assistance Calls Program (CACP). Select Marines—Casualty Assistance Calls Officers (CACOs)—have the unenviable job and the immense responsibility of being the first to officially notify family members of Marines killed in action (KIA). They arrive in formal blue dress uniforms and knock on front doors of family members, bearing the worst news anyone could ever get—or ever give. The CACO process had already been completed for Corporal Libby when I began to put pen to paper and started writing my letters of condolence to his mother, Geni, and his father, Judd.

  Marine Corps officers get a minuscule amount of training on how to properly approach family members about the loss of their son or daughter. Normally, “training” involves a class or two with a homework assignment of writing a fictional letter. I’ve got a news flash—no class can teach the right protocol. To find the right words in real life is near impossible. Emotions run rampant at the death of a Marine who, hours before, stood next to you, fought beside you, was someone you knew at a personal level—someone who became your brother—someone who would have died for you.

  But I knew I couldn’t just write Libby’s parents a canned letter of condolence.

  He deserved better. His parents deserved a phone call.

  In terms of time, Ramadi is eight hours ahead of Castle Hill, Maine, so it wasn’t until late that night that I was able to call Libby’s family via an Iridium satellite cell phone.

  Everyone from the Echo Company headquarters staff was in the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) in our little corner of the battalion command center planning space. I told First Sergeant Thom Foster that I had to step out to make a phone call.

  He looked at me with a face lined with deep wrinkles. Those around his mouth were set and grim. In a quiet voice, he said, “Take all the time you need, sir. I have everything covered for a while.”

  Outside the TOC, darkness engulfed the area. Within the confines of Camp Corregidor, AM General High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs—also known as Humvees), generators, and pallets of supplies were laid out in no particular fashion. The M1-A1 tanks, however, were lined up in a nice neat row, twenty deep.

  I found a place out of view from the soldiers and Marines. A Humvee sat parked in the shadows behind the TOC, so I set my helmet on the hood then placed my satellite phone next to it. Despite the cool night air, when I ripped open the Velcro closure on my body armor, musty steam instantly escaped. I rifled through my breast pocket. The dialing instructions for the phone and my CACO sheet with family notification phone numbers sat tucked inside.

  I turned on the small red-lens Petzl helmet light strapped to my Kevlar so I could read the information. The papers were damp from my sweat, and I pushed the tiny power button of the phone on. The keypad and screen lit up with a greenish glow. My stomach began to knot tight as I dialed the number for Libby’s mom.

  As the phone rang, my throat tightened from nerves as a hundred thoughts of how this speech was going to sound ran through my head. I thought for sure she wouldn’t even want to talk to me. I had no idea what to say to a mother who had lost her son. I thought that surely everything I had to say would sound so canned and insincere as if I was reading off a pre-written government script.

  On the fifth ring, a frail-sounding, sweet voice came on the line.

  “Hello.”

  Geni Libby. Corporal Dustin Libby’s mother.

  I introduced myself. “Mrs. Libby, this is Captain Scott Huesing, your son’s company commander and . . . ”

  My voice began to crack. I had to take a moment and find the words.

  “ . . . I can’t tell you how truly sorry I am at the loss of Dustin.”

  Tears came quickly to my eyes, and a lump rose in my throat as I uttered that first sentence. I had not felt that afraid to speak since I was a child and endured that uncontrollable terror of having to tell the truth after something bad happened—I struggled with it.

  I tried to imagine what Geni looked like as I spoke. I wondered what she was doing and if her family was around her at the time. I didn’t expect it to be so hard, and I tried to hold back the pain, but I couldn’t seem to get a grasp of my emotions. I knew she could hear it in my voice.

  As the conversation continued, I tried evading some of her questions, but she pressed me for specific details about that night. She already knew that he had died from a single gunshot wound to the neck, having been told this by the CACO.

  I gently tried to explain the events, including how I was in the Tactical Operations Center at Camp Corregidor when the call for the casualty evacuation (CASEVAC) came across the radio as we raced to her son’s aid.

  I told her that Dustin had fought bravely in the face of a tough, well-organized enemy, and that his actions saved the lives of countless Marines in his platoon before he was wounded. I told her how we rushed Dustin to the battalion aid station at the Combat Outpost in my Humvee.

  “Thank you for telling me the truth,” she said.

  “Dustin meant a lot to me,” I said. “He was truly one of my favorites in Echo Company. I know there isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for his Marines.”

  Geni was silent for a moment. “Dustin loved being a Marine more than anything. I’ll pray for your continued safety. Please continue fighting.”

  I told her we’d stay safe and that Dustin would be with us in spirit as we continued our mission. “He won’t be forgotten. He didn’t give his life in vain.”

  We spoke for several minutes more, and she kept telling me how proud she was of all of us and they’d be thinking of us and praying for us.

  She thanked me for calling.

  She was thanking me?

  Tears spilled freely down my face, through the layers of dust, as I listened to Geni’s soothing voice speak to me not as a Marine or Co
mmander, but as a mother would to any son. It was humbling beyond words. I felt cared for so much by this lady whom I’d never even met. A sense of relief, compassion, and forgiveness came over me all at once. My breath began to come back to me as I felt the love she had for her son and for all of us fighting in that miserable place.

  She passed the phone to Chris, Dustin’s older brother. I told him that his brother was a warrior who took it to the enemy that night and how all of the Marines in Echo Company were proud at how fiercely Dustin fought.

  After we spoke, Geni came back to the phone. “If there’s anything that you and the boys need, you just let us know. We love all of you, and we’re proud of all of you back here.”

  Geni, in all of her pain, and as only a mother can, knew how hard it was for me to make that phone call. In her compassionate way, she thanked me again.

  Where do people like this come from?

  They’re not ordinary people—they’re extraordinary.

  They lose so much, yet can still care so deeply for others like me and the hundreds of others that Libby died protecting that night. I was—and remain—in awe of the strength she possessed.

  It wasn’t any easier when I spoke to his father who lived apart from Libby’s mother. When I finished, I pressed the red button on the Iridium and the phone shut off.

  I felt as if someone had rammed a stake through the middle of my chest. My heart was straining to beat. I took short, painful breaths, exhaling through my nose as I folded up the papers and shoved them back into my left breast pocket.

  As I fastened my body armor back together, I scanned the area to make sure no one had been watching or eavesdropping on my conversation during my brief moment of weakness. I always wanted to be emotionally steady in front of the Marines.

  I wiped my hands down the front of my cargo pants to clean them off and then pressed the heels of both palms hard into my eyes to repress the swelling from the tears that had been pooling there for the past half hour.

  As I gathered myself back up, I walked back toward the entrance of the TOC, to the Echo Company office. It was almost pitch black. Only a few streams of artificial light peeked out of the buildings around me to illuminate the area. Even though I carefully navigated the darkened pathway, I tripped and ripped open my shin on a sharp metal tent stake jammed into the ground for no apparent reason.

  “Great! Being fucked up like this isn’t enough; this is just what I need!” I wanted to yell. At least, for an instant, the bleeding gash in my leg took my mind off the emotional hole in my heart.

  I walked back into the Company Operations Center and put the satellite phone into its case and tucked it away. As I did, the eyes of every soldier and Marine in the TOC were on me. Everyone in that room knew where I had been. No one wished they had been in my boots.

  I told Foster the call was the toughest thing I ever had to do. He pursed his lips and nodded—silently expressing a sober understanding of what I had just endured. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the last time I’d go through that experience during our deployment.

  19 December 2006

  Geni mailed me a letter. It wasn’t until late January 2007 that I received it. The words she wrote eased my heavy heart and at the same time reaffirmed my resolve to keep fighting. To keep the boys together. To win.

  CHAPTER 2

  Lieutenants

  The story of Echo Company in Ramadi is a series of instances of collective discipline, life-saving vigilance, ceaseless patience, depthless love, and steady resolve demonstrated daily by young men of the strongest character.

  Among those young men were the lieutenants in my company. It was their leadership that was the difference between life and death on most days. They were lucky, though. They had some of the best and most seasoned senior enlisted Marines by their sides to guide them along the way.

  Within the Marine Corps—and across all branches of the military—the Infantry Officer Course in Quantico, Virginia, is acknowledged as one of the toughest schools.

  It is a grueling thirteen weeks of patrolling, offensive and defensive tactics, marksmanship, hiking, and drilling designed to push students past their physical and mental limits. The lieutenants going through IOC will never be as hot or as cold, as tired or as hungry, or as fatigued in combat as they are in training. Only select few make it into IOC, and not everyone makes it out. That is by design. The Marine Corps entrusts only the very best to command our nation’s finest.

  I was a captain in Twentynine Palms, California, when I got the first chance to meet the lieutenants who had orders to Echo Company—they’d been flown to Twentynine Palms to conduct desert training. My good friend, Major Martin “Crawdad” Wetterauer, was the director of the Infantry Officer’s Course. I called him up to let him know that I’d be stopping by the training area—our old stomping grounds—to meet them.

  Marty was a “mustang,” like me—we’d been enlisted Marines before receiving our commissions. I served as his company executive officer in Lima Company, 3d Battalion, 4th Marines, in 2001 at the Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center in the high desert. Marty taught me a lot about leadership, even though I had to decipher his teachings through his thick, Louisiana drawl—his relentless methods shaped how I led and pushed my lieutenants.

  My lieutenants were in their final stages of IOC when I was introduced to them. Their squad advisor, Captain Brian Chontosh, escorted John McLaughlin, Jay Grillo, Pete Somerville, and Seth Nicholson over and introduced them to me. They looked beat up. From the looks of their tired, gaunt, sweaty, and begrimed faces as they stood in front of me, the Infantry Officer Course was obviously still the unrelenting bastion it had always been.

  But behind the grime and sweat that covered their faces, there was excitement in their eyes. They had that fire that all new lieutenants have. They were ready to lead. They had spent a year of their lives in Quantico, preparing for the chance to step in front of a rifle platoon as its commander.

  During IOC or under my command, I made them train as if it were the last day.

  They undoubtedly had heard a lot about being an officer at The Basic School—that training period that all Marine officers go through at the start of their careers—and IOC. But I was their commander; I had my own philosophy, and I made them listen.

  I told them, “There is no such thing as combat leadership—just leadership.”

  I never subscribed to the idea that because one had been in combat, shot at, or injured it made them a better leader. Leaders lead in any condition, although some shine a little brighter under chaotic conditions—real leaders control the situation even in the absence of chaos. Training for restlessness and boredom is not a mission-essential task, but something a good leader has to deal with to keep Marines sharp when the madness begins.

  All infantry lieutenants have received phenomenal training and gone through rigorous mental preparation before they enter the operational forces. What they tend to lack is a fundamental understanding of the magnitude of their responsibilities that only combat can prove to cure.

  My lieutenants were keenly aware they lacked experience, but tried to make up for it by bulldozing through the friction when presented with tough decisions. I doubt any of them would admit it, but this amateurish mindset was wholly absent from the essence of what it meant to lead Marines. It is a lesson that I like to think I set by example.

  My lieutenants were young, around twenty-four years old when they came to Echo Company. It was evident to them that I had a passion for the Marine Corps. I had a visceral excitement about being a Marine and I never tried to mask my enthusiasm, and it probably intimidated them a bit.

  I required more of my lieutenants than anyone else because that is what’s needed to be a Marine officer. I never let them forget that. Like most young Marines, they enjoyed their time off. But I infringed on it on occasion. They would have rather been on the beach in southern California, or out romancing the girls, or spending time with their families. Yet they knew that it was a necessi
ty within our shared vocation.

  Like most things in the Marine Corps, our timeline was very compressed, especially within a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU). It wasn’t uncommon for me to call my lieutenants on their days off to talk about the Marines, or have them come in on a Sunday to work on our standard operating procedures as a helicopter-borne company.

  I insisted they visit the Marines at the barracks on the weekends to see how they lived—those who stayed around and who didn’t go on liberty—and try to connect with them. As a former enlisted Marine, I knew that officers who really cared, or at least made an effort to care, were the ones you could trust.

  During their training period, I impressed upon them the importance of what good officers do. There were a few bad examples of what “wrong” looked like throughout my career insofar as leadership went. I never wanted to be “that guy” to my lieutenants or my Marines.

  It was always the little things that mattered the most, and I wanted my officers to understand what a difference they could make. Never intending to portray myself in the image of a Marine poster boy, I’m the first to admit that I was no Boy Scout, but I tried to lead by example.

  I was usually at the barracks on the weekends and at night (probably much to the chagrin of the boys at times) to check on them. In training or combat, I was always right there with them. If there were sandbags to fill, I had a shovel in my hand. If there was shit to move, I moved it, and shoveled it on occasion, right alongside the Marines.

  If there was a patrol, I was on it.

  If there was a firefight, I was in it.

  I never subscribed to the notion or adage that, “Officers need to know their place,” suggesting that officers shouldn’t be seen doing menial tasks only enlisted Marines would have to do. I was part of a team—my place was always with my Marines doing what they were doing.