House to House

by David Bellavia

  Brown reaches the edge of the danger area, a big open field to our northwest. Suddenly, the track disappears in a swirling brown-gray cloud of dust and smoke. Something big just exploded.

  Gonzales, Brown’s driver, shifts into reverse. Slowly, the track reappears out of the dirt and smoke. He backs up toward us just as Meno gets on the radio and tells Brown to go help Ellis out. Ellis is in danger at the intersection behind us. If he gets taken out, our whole southern flank will be in trouble.

  The Brad creeps in reverse, still taking fire. From out of the dust at the edge of the danger area, Fitts and I see insurgents running through the street. They think they’ve got a crippled Brad, and they’re pushing their luck trying to bag it.

  Fitts tells everyone: “Hold fire! Don’t fucking shoot! Forty millimeter, then everyone else, got it?”

  Santos nods. He’s our best grenadier.

  As Brown’s Bradley continues its reverse crawl toward us, Fitts shouts, “Now!”

  Santos launches a grenade. It arcs dangerously close over Brown’s track and lands harmlessly over a group of seven insurgents. Slinking up the street, they spread out in an effort to surround Brown’s Bradley. As the dust settles, the rest of the platoon rips into them with everything we’ve got. They die in the street or flee for cover.

  As Brown pulls back, we see an insurgent team break cover on a roof down the street. They set up an RPG launcher beside a gigantic metal cistern and pull the trigger. The rocket streaks into the street and explodes near the Brad. They’ve made a terrible mistake. Not only did they miss, but Gossard and Brown have seen them.

  Brown raises his TOW missile box. If there’s one weapon the insurgents don’t want to face in this fight, it is this antitank missile launcher. Accurate, powerful, and deadly, it is the biggest weapon in our platoon’s arsenal. Some say the big wire-guided missiles went out of fashion after we stopped confronting enemies equipped with heavy mechanized armor. I say otherwise: when it comes to urban fighting, a TOW is a gift from the Pentagon gods.

  The missile rushes out of the launcher like a flaming comet. The insurgents have a couple of seconds to appreciate its monstrous size hurtling down the street. A few break cover and try to get away, but it’s too late. The missile explodes, blowing the cistern to fragments.

  Seconds later, the few survivors make a run for it. Our guns cut down seven of them. I see Ruiz drop another with his M4. The insurgent runs out of his sandals before Ruiz shoots him in the belly. Our men cheer wildly and shout taunts.

  Yet even as we celebrate, a new danger arises behind us.

  From out of the industrial district on the other side of Highway 10, insurgent reinforcements rush north. Sensing they’ve got a cripple, they race for Ellis’s Bradley. At four hundred meters, they hunker down behind some reinforced concrete barriers and start lobbing RPGs at Ellis. The rockets run to the end of their range and burst in the air around the track. Other insurgents start moving up the street in buddy teams, under the cover of the RPG barrage.

  We’ve got to help Ellis out. Our north is quieting down. The two massacres we just accomplished seem to have driven most of our attackers off. We can afford to pull guys off the wall and move them to the other side of the roof. But we don’t have a very good field of fire on the insurgents to the south. The taller house next to us to the east does, however. We need to grab that rooftop, but it isn’t connected to our house. There’s a body-length gap between the two buildings with a fifteen-foot drop to the concrete walk.

  We’ve gotta get to Ellis.

  I shout to Fitts, “If you have a scoped weapon, I need you on this other rooftop now. Give me a 240 and a SAW. We gotta get those dicks shooting at Ellis.”

  Fitts guffaws, “Whoaaaa, Bell. That is a dangerous jump—it’s over five feet across, dude. Get some furniture to get across that first.”

  There isn’t anything that will work. Then I remember the breach ladder strapped to Brown’s Bradley. Before we left for Fallujah, I insisted that we bring it along. The damn thing is built out of titanium alloy and weighs sixty-five pounds. The rest of the platoon thought I was nuts for bringing it, but now we’ve actually got a use for it.

  “Sucholas…Ruiz…go down and get the breach ladder!”

  The two men scamper down the stairs. A second later, they appear in the street behind Brown’s track. Just as they reach it, insurgents hiding in the compound that houses the white truck suddenly hose the street with automatic weapons. Bullets ricochet off the Bradley. Tracers zip past both my men. Ellis forgotten, Brown reacts to the fire by charging forward into it. The Brad speeds north as Gossard’s Bushmaster spouts flame.

  Ruiz and Sucholas are left behind, standing in the open in the middle of the street. Their cover has abandoned them.

  We lay down suppressing fire. Gossard’s gun tears up the truck again. He flays the compound and buildings around it. Ruiz and Sucholas start running after the Brad. It is a morbid Keystone Kops moment. The white truck finally explodes, and a greasy coil of smoke rises up from its garage. Gonzales eases off the gas and the track crawls to a halt.

  Sucholas and Ruiz reach the Brad. Ruiz takes a knee and puts down fire as Sucholas jumps onto the Brad’s back deck. He quickly cuts the ladder free. Together, they haul ass back to us, carrying the ladder as AK rounds snap around them and gouge the asphalt at their feet. They reach our house and throw themselves inside. A moment later, they come through the pillbox door and deliver the ladder to me.

  “This is the wrong ladder, assholes. I wanted the BREACH ladder!” Pause. I start laughing at the absurdity of my own joke. They glare up at me, panting for air. To make them feel better, I toss them a couple of cigarettes. Ruiz and Sucholas deserve a short smoke break after what they just did.

  We throw the breach ladder across the gulf between rooftops. It serves as a bridge to our new fighting position. McDaniel, Santos, Ruiz, Lawson, and Knapp move over to the new roof while somebody fires an RPG from a window a few doors down from the mosque. It sails past and explodes on the other side of the house. Some of the other guys reposition to the south of our first rooftop. Soon, we’ve got Hall, Pulley, Pratt, Meno, and me covering from our old building. Michael Ware looks on and films the action.

  The insurgents continue their rocket barrage on Ellis. They’re at least four hundred meters away from us, a stretch for our M4s with laser-dot sights. Our scoped weapons should handle the range better. The SAWs go to work. Ruiz sets up next to Knapp. He’s got his M68 laser sight and he does an aggressive scan of the road in front of Ellis’s Brad. An insurgent breaks cover next to a Texas barrier. He charges laterally across the street and fires an RPG. Ruiz bangs away at him. The insurgent ducks back behind the barrier, reloads, and comes back for more. It’s a tough deflection shot, but Ruiz almost gets him this time, putting rounds on either side of his hip. The insurgent stumbles, but keeps going. He launches another RPG, then dives behind the Texas barrier again.

  RPG on his shoulder, the insurgent breaks cover again. This guy has brass balls, I’ll give him that. The M4 snaps, rounds crease the air inches from the guy. It looks like Ruiz has him cold now.

  Clank! He runs out of ammunition.

  “Goddamnit! I had that asshole!”

  Just to see what would happen, Santos tries to launch a 40mm grenade to the Texas barrier. It doesn’t cover the distance. Lawson and our M240 guns are our only hope of hitting these guys.

  Meanwhile, to the east, an insurgent sharpshooter steps into the street. He takes aim at Private Brett Pulley, who is standing on the first rooftop, seemingly oblivious to everything going on around him. The sharpshooter’s AK cracks. The bullet whines past Pulley, who doesn’t react. He fires again and just misses. Pulley is a statue.

  Lieutenant Meno happens to be nearby. He hears the incoming rounds, looks over to the east, and sees Pulley still unresponsive. Meno reaches over and pulls him down to the rooftop just as bullets skip off the rim of the wall right where Pulley had been standing.

&nbs
p; Hugh Hall sees the sharpshooter, “He’s right behind there!”

  Before anyone else can shoot, the big sergeant drills the shooter in the sternum. The sharpshooter dies, but his buddies open fire from nearby windows and doorways. More bullets sing overhead.

  Meno swings back up and unloads his rifle to the east. He hammers every window, doorway, and corner he can see. More rounds strike around him, all coming from this new direction. Our lieutenant is giving them hell. He drops his mag out, reloads, and goes back to work.

  “Pulley! Launch a grenade at ’em,” Meno orders.

  Pulley stands back up, braces his left elbow on the wall, and lets fly with a pair of 40mm rounds. The grenades explode in quick succession. There is no more incoming from the east. Pulley’s lucky to be alive. Now he’s pulled his A game out of his ass.

  Ellis is still in trouble. We’re not having much luck reaching the insurgent rocket teams to the south behind those Texas barriers. Our guns work them over, but their RPGs continue to airburst around our Brad. Brown and his crew are still engaged on the other side of us and are unable to get to Ellis.

  Finally, Sergeant First Class Cantrell arrives in his Bradley. Our platoon sergeant has been busy elsewhere, throwing his ferocity and his weight into the fight to save First Platoon. We’re glad to have him back. He rolls around the corner, passes Ellis, and lets fly with a TOW. A small corner window in a building halfway down the road vanishes in smoke. The explosion of the missile and then a big secondary explosion rock the street. Cantrell and his gunner, Sergeant Brad Unterseher, have just killed an insurgent who must have had a stockpile of RPG reloads. Close behind Cantrell comes Staff Sergeant Jim, driving that glorious Abrams. First Platoon has no doubt benefited from their service. That battle’s under control. Now they’ve come to bail us out.

  Jim’s gunner blows the Texas barriers apart with HEAT (high-explosive antitank) rounds. Cantrell’s 25 mike-mike stitches the street where a scattered squad or two of insurgent fighters are rallying. Their attack broken, they fall back across Highway 10 and disappear into the industrial district.

  All morning long, Stuckert has been babysitting his alleyway as the other guys pinch his ammo. He has yet to take a shot. Frustrated, he stayed in his sector of fire while the firefight raged around him.

  Suddenly a man pops into Stuckert’s alleyway. He’s wearing an American Kevlar helmet and body armor. Stuckert doesn’t hesitate. He trains his gun on the man and rips off a long burst. He stays on the trigger and whipsaws the barrel back and forth, raking his target. Any human being, armored or not, simply cannot take the absurd volume of lead spewing from Stuckert’s SAW. The man disappears in the fusillade.

  Stuckert is finally in the game. He turns to the other guys, smiles and nods, then reloads. He looks at Flannery and laughs.

  “Hey Flan-tastic. You like that shit? You like that, huh?”

  Stuckert is calmly pleased with things now. Not me. Stuckert’s victim was wearing our gear. While we did get intel that this would be happening, I fear we’ve killed one of our own. I do a quick head count. Fitts notices it and says, “Hey, Sarge, he did good. Stuckert did good. We’re all here.”

  I nod. Fitts addresses the platoon, “Hey, this fucking enemy of ours is wearing our shit, men.”

  Well, at least we know two hundred rounds from a SAW will negate Kevlar helmets and body armor.

  We’ve stopped the enemy cold. His counterattack failed, thanks to the timely arrival of the Brads. Had it not been for our tracks and Sergeant Jim’s tank, we would have been in real trouble.

  As it is, I’m concerned that the first thrust came from our rear to the north. How’d they get behind us? We had cleared that entire neighborhood and didn’t see a soul while dismounted. Yet they managed to work their way behind us in force.

  We know we face a crafty, skilled enemy. We’ve seen them bound in two-man buddy teams. They move with fire elements covering their advance. These guys aren’t the raw Mahdi militiamen we killed in Muqdadiyah. They are a military force.

  Yet we’ve scored a significant victory this morning. We suffered only one slight wound and killed many, many bad guys. More importantly, we withstood a multidirectional attack for over three and a half hours. I’m proud of my men, and my confidence in them is cemented by their actions today.

  My own confidence grows. This morning, I was a leader. I walked the firing line, encouraging and directing the men. When we needed to expand our fields of fire, we were flexible and figured out a way onto the other rooftop. I never triggered my own weapon; I was too busy managing my boys. Fallujah is turning me into a real squad leader. I take pride in that.

  The last AK fire drains away. Our guns fall silent, their barrels smoking in the cold morning air. Bucket loads of 5.56mm brass click and tinkle underfoot.

  It is time for us to continue the advance. Although there is more mopping up to do, securing Highway 10 is crucial to cutting Fallujah’s resistance in half.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Stay Puft Marshmallow Cock

  They’re following us.

  Not five minutes after we leave the house to mount up in our Brads, the muj flow around into the alleys and side streets. From a safe standoff distance, they watch our convoy, they pace our southern advance on parallel roads, they nip at our coattails just out of our reach. Sergeant Jim’s tank leads the way while the rest of us follow inside our Brads. My track, Staff Sergeant Brown’s, is a mess. The strafing runs Brown executed in the fight left our Brad severely bullet-scarred. Two of the dismount viewports are destroyed, and all the gear on the exterior has been punctured. Nevertheless, he has ample fuel and plenty of ammo for the Bushmaster. Brown and his crew are more than ready for another fight.

  In column formation, we drive down the southern road past the ruins of the Texas barriers Jim destroyed with his 120mm. We’ve moved four hundred meters from our rooftop redoubt. Around us, insurgents dart from corner to corner, always just out of our vision and range. It is an Escape from New York scene that leaves us tense and adrenaline-filled.

  We reach a three-way intersection with a frontage road that stretches out east-west parallel to Highway 10. Highway 10 has been designated “Phase Line Fran.” It is our main objective in Fallujah. We’ve reached it less than twelve hours after breaching the city’s northern berm.

  Gossard and the other Bradley gunners rake the buildings around us, prepping the area with high-explosive rounds fired into windows and doors.

  We dismount into the silent street and enter a beautiful house right on the edge of the highway. It is three stories tall, and the second floor opens onto a rooftop balcony that covers at least a thousand square feet. An exterior stairwell gives us access to the roof over the third floor, providing an excellent view of the area around us.

  We get word that First Platoon has reached Highway 10 as well. They set up in a building about five hundred meters to our west. Captain Sims establishes his command post between us. Again, we form a solid front, but our position lacks depth. And this time we know the enemy is swarming around our rear and flanks. We can’t stop them. Where the Marine battalion on our western flank is, we have no idea. Fortunately, the muj stay at arm’s length and refuse to expose themselves. They seem content to be shadows.

  Lieutenant Meno sets up on the roof of the second floor. Pratt takes McDaniel and a 240 Bravo machine gun up to the third-floor roof. Part of my squad heads up there with them. Fitts and I set up 360-degree security as Michael Ware pulls out his satellite phone and tries to hook up to CNN for a live broadcast. Fitts and I have no interest in CNN, so we duck into the house and plop into a couple of plastic chairs. We might as well take advantage of the stillness of the moment. I pull out a precious cigarette and light it. Fitts pulls out a Black & Mild cigar Sergeant Hall gave him. For the moment, we sit and inhale in relative tranquility.

  The walls around us are ripped from shrapnel strikes. Aside from these two chairs, not a piece of furniture is intact. Cabinets look like Swiss
cheese. Glass litters the floor, and every dish and decoration is in pieces.

  These are the telltale signs of Gossard’s work on the Bushmaster. He prepped this house before we dismounted and did a superb job, placing each high-explosive round in the corners of the rooms he targeted. By hitting the corners, he maximized the blast effect. He made every shot count and saved ammo.

  Outside on the second-floor roof, Michael Ware makes contact with CNN. He starts his first on-the-scene report for the network. Yuri sits beside him. The quiet around us enhances the clarity of Ware’s transmission.

  That is, until a lone gunman appears on the frontage road. He walks into the open, weapon at the ready. The insurgents are reconning by sacrifice again. The platoon doesn’t hesitate. The rooftops explode with machine-gun fire and the sharp crack of our rifles. The muj runs for it, bullets chasing him all the way. A hundred and fifty rounds later, he’s facedown on the asphalt, his body peppered and torn.

  Tracers zing into us from a position to the northeast. Our men on the third floor return fire. More fire opens up from the northwest, near the mosque we’ve just cleared. As we moved south, the insurgents must have moved back into that area. This is not a good sign. We didn’t have the time to destroy all the supplies and equipment we found there.

  An insurgent dashes from an alleyway toward the mosque. He’s got an M16 slung over one shoulder, a Kevlar helmet on his head, and an olive drab chest protector. He even has neck and groin protectors attached to his body armor.

  The men hesitate, unsure if he’s an Iraqi soldier or an insurgent. Nobody has seen an enemy fighter with an M16 before. He sprints for a building across the road and to our north. As he runs, our men see he’s wearing U.S. Army–issued boots and an American desert camouflage shirt under his body armor.