My Men are My Heroes

by Nathaniel R. Helms

  Pruitt, the 3d Platoon guide, was the mission commander at the firefight Mitchell was racing toward. He had attached himself to Corporal Ryan Weemer’s fire team along with Sergeant James Eldridge, a machine gunner off one of the company Humvees looking for some action. Weemer was carrying an M16 with an M203 grenade launcher; the two others on his team were Lance Corporal Cory Carlisle, armed with an M16, and Lance Corporal James Prentice, carrying a SAW.

  ENCOUNTERING THE HOUSE OF HELL

  At first the Marines were merely curious about Pruitt’s find. Behind the modest home’s gated courtyard wall, the house seemed to be an ordinary Iraqi dwelling with a rooftop patio. The patio was surrounded by a wall. Near the front gate was an outhouse common to many Iraqi homes. Ten or 15 feet in front of the outhouse was the main entrance to the home.

  Pruitt’s five-man patrol was about 100 meters beyond the rest of 3d Platoon’s position when they encountered the house for the first time. The team began their search by unsuccessfully trying to break into the back of the house. Despite their best efforts they couldn’t batter their way through the steel back door. And until they got a door open they couldn’t throw a grenade or satchel charge inside to clear the room.

  Pruitt walked around to the front of the house to see if they could get in there. Immediately he noticed the gate was open. Pruitt ran back to Weemer’s fire team and reported his find. He had already seen plenty of signs that insurgents were somewhere in the neighborhood, and the house on the corner looked like it might be the place. Pruitt couldn’t put his finger on why he knew, but his instincts were telling him it was so. He told the Marines to saddle up and get prepared.

  “I could see holes knocked out in the walls where they can egress,” he says. “Somebody had knocked those holes out to move around. Every few houses we would find fresh water. We found training gas masks, plywood boards with instructions on how to use gas masks, all kinds of weapons. We had found drugs—adrenaline or amphetamines, I am not sure which—and syringes. We also found 55-gallon drums of oil where the insurgents were hiding weapons. When we poured the oil out of the barrels, inside would be all kinds of guns—AKs, old grease guns, you name it. They were around us.”

  Weemer, 23, from Hindboro, Illinois, was smoking a cigarette on the curb outside the back door when Pruitt ordered him to bring his team around to the front. “Pruitt looks around the corner and tells me to grab my guys, get my team,” he says. “He said there was an open gate and a door he thought we could get through. He thought there were insurgents in the building. Pruitt said that from the very beginning.”

  The insurgents who chose the nondescript light yellow house on the corner knew exactly what they were doing. Because of the wall around the rooftop patio and a circular skylight built into the roof, a crafty shooter could stay on the roof all day covering the approaches to the house and the interior of the house (through the skylight) at the same time. Later a scout-sniper would apologize to Mitchell for never taking a shot at the insurgents on the roof covering the stairs and central room in the house. He never had a target.

  Inside, the house was as much a fortress as a dwelling. In the main room was a stairway leading to a small vestibule. The vestibule had a catwalk that marched around the inside walls. The catwalk gave the defenders an unobstructed field of fire into the room below. Anyone topside had space to fire from cover without exposing himself to immediate danger—an almost perfect field of fire. Anyone entering the main room was at the mercy of the jihadists unless he could bring his weapon to bear before the jihadists got off a burst. Behind the main room was a rear doorway leading to still more rooms, including a kitchen. Off to the left of the main room was a small room—perhaps a crude bathroom.

  The smell of fresh feces was the first thing to alert Pruitt. He followed his nose into the outhouse and saw a fresh pile of crap on the floor by the hole that passed for a toilet. “After I seen the shit I told Weemer there were insurgents in the house,” he says.

  After formulating a brief plan they moved in to clear them out. Pruitt told Eldridge, armed with an M16, to cover the right flank. Weemer told Prentice to cover the left flank with his SAW. In the back of Pruitt’s mind was the current ROE. He didn’t want his men simply shooting up everything and everybody in sight.

  “The ROE was given to us as a guideline,” Pruitt would say later. “We used our best judgment. I trained these Marines for a long time. I told them they had to know when to turn on their kill switch, they had to know how to turn it on and turn it off.” They turned the switch on.

  It took only a few seconds to reach the front door after they passed the outhouse. When they got there Pruitt, Weemer, and Carlisle took a deep breath and got ready to move inside. Pruitt was bringing up the rear of their three-man stack. To make the stack the three men closed together into a bristling porcupine of pressed bodies with weapons pointing out in every direction.

  “I am standing in front of the house. It’s Weemer, Carlisle, and me,” Pruitt remembers. “We got into a combat stack and went up to the door. Weemer pushed open the door and we saw the first motherfucker inside the house, squatting down in the front room with his weapon. He was probably high on something because he didn’t shoot.”

  Weemer said he went to the door with his M16 hanging on its sling as he preferred his pistol in a close fight. He had come to 3/1 from Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Team (FAST) company where he had endlessly trained, dropping his rifle to go to his pistol when the circumstances called for it.

  “I started off with my pistol pulled,” he says. “The house had saloon-style doors that opened inward. They were like saloon doors except they were full length doors. I pushed in the one on the left and went through the door.

  “I was sweeping left with my pistol when I saw the insurgent. The guy froze up; he was down in the far left corner on one knee. He didn’t shoot. I started shooting. As I was shooting Carlisle was coming in. He saw the guy and froze. That is when Pruitt pushed him [Carlisle] and he engaged, shot several rounds, and then stopped and then fired several more rounds,” Weemer says.

  “I gave him three rounds in the chest. Carlisle was still shooting. I had to yell at him and tell him the guy was dead,” Weemer adds.

  Pruitt says the jihadist who died must have been too high on drugs to react to the sight of three Marines busting through the door—too drugged or too scared. Either way he never got off a shot. He died where he squatted. The stack continued forward into the next room.

  AMBUSHED!

  “Then we moved through the next doorway that was directly in front of us,” Pruitt says. “I saw a guy directly to my front. An insurgent came out from the left side of the room and started shooting at Weemer and Carlisle. He fired 10 or 15 rounds and missed. The guy in front of me was on my right side. I fired at him and he opened up on me. He had an AK. He was a big guy with a full beard. He wasn’t an Iraqi. I don’t know what he was, maybe a Chechen, but he wasn’t an Iraqi. He shot me through my right leg and right wrist. The fire that hit me all came from the right side. I don’t know if I hit the guy shooting at me; I can’t say if I did or didn’t. I spun around and dropped my weapon. As soon as that happened I knew we were in a shit sandwich.”

  Unarmed and incapable of fighting, Pruitt decided to go back out and bring in Eldridge and Prentice. Both Marines were still outside guarding the flanks.

  Inside Weemer and Carlisle were still engaged. Weemer couldn’t believe the guy he was shooting at wouldn’t go down.

  “Carlisle was stacked to the left. Prentice was covering the front door facing outboard. That is where he stayed. I didn’t know what happened to Pruitt. I never saw him again until we got medevac’d.

  “While that is all going on we were still in the second room in contact with the enemy. I unloaded a whole pistol mag into the guy. He was just spraying. The only reason I could see him was his muzzle flash; it lit up his face. I shot him so many times his gear was on fire.

  “Somehow neither one of us gets hit
by this guy. By then I am real low on ammo for my pistol. I pushed Carlisle back through that door; now we are back in the first room reloading. I haven’t seen anyone shooting; as far as we know there is one guy. As we reload I put my pistol away and pull out my M16 again. The pistol wasn’t doing the job.

  “When we go back I see [another] insurgent. He looks hurt but he is still coming toward us. We’re almost positive he was drugged up on adrenaline. He was a Chechen; he had on a colored beanie. I shot him in the legs and when he went down in the doorway—dropped his weapon when he fell—I shot him in the face. His chest rig was still on fire so I could see his face.”

  In the time it took Weemer to kill the second insurgent Pruitt made it outside. He was reeling from the wound to his hand. It was hurting now and his hand was turning blue. All Pruitt was thinking about was bringing Eldridge and Prentice into the fight.

  TAKING IT OUTSIDE

  “Eldridge got shot while he was still outside,” Pruitt says. “The guy on the roof got him. Eldridge got shot from behind or above. The bullet hit the back of his shoulder. It missed the SAPI [small arms protective insert] plate and went into his shoulder or back. He still tried to come in after being shot. He came in the house and was shot again.

  “My sole intent before he got hit was to grab him and Prentice and go back in. I knew somebody was shot. I thought it was Carlisle. I later found out he was shot in the leg and it was fractured from his hip to his knee. I couldn’t hold a weapon but I could still do something to help. Prentice had the SAW so I figured we could use him inside. When I went outside I could see he was covered by an overhang. Then the son of a bitch started shooting at me from the roof. I got to the gate and then I guess I fell again, or that is when I got shot in the back. When I fell I was hit in the back of my SAPI plate. I didn’t feel it then. I got two big bruises on my back. That was in addition to the one that hit me in the wrist. That bullet broke the bone, hit the ligaments; my hand was just hanging down. I didn’t want to look at it. I didn’t look at it until I was in the hospital. I also was hit in the leg.”

  REINFORCEMENTS ARRIVE

  “I remember being outside the wall low-crawling; and then I saw Kasal coming,” Pruitt says. “When I saw Kasal I headed straight to him. I got up and started jogging down the street. He was walking security next to the CAAT vehicle. Kasal said I was walking. I didn’t want to talk to anyone else.”

  Kasal and the other approaching Marines still didn’t know what was going on when Pruitt suddenly staggered into the street in front of them. Kasal and Mitchell both saw Pruitt at the same time and headed toward him.

  “He was wounded in the arm and leg,” Mitchell says. “I think he got shot in the leg when he came stumbling out of the house.”

  Pruitt remembers seeing Nicoll first. “I could see Nicoll 60 or 80 yards away from me—he was point. His eyes were all big. He was trying to figure out what was going on. Mitchell, Chandler, Severtsgard, and the other Marines were behind him. I got to Kasal first. He moved me out of the fire.

  “He said, ‘Come here, Sergeant Pruitt. Come over here and sit down.’ We moved maybe two or three times before I sat down. I think we were behind a wall. I knew exactly what was going on. I was pissed I couldn’t do anything about it.” Mitchell came up, and both men started giving first aid. Kasal was putting a bandage on Pruitt’s wrist as Mitchell was working on his leg.

  Inside the house Weemer and Carlisle took a break. They still didn’t know there were more insurgents in the house. They didn’t know where Pruitt had gone, and Weemer didn’t know Eldridge was even part of the plan.

  “I told Carlisle to hold the door to the main room and went outside. I saw guys coming up. It was Severtsgard and Chandler. They were the first two in. They were on the street with Mitchell’s squad,” Weemer says. “Prentice was still outside providing security. He apparently wasn’t sure what had happened. I pulled them to me and got Prentice. Prentice didn’t tell me Eldridge was shot and that Pruitt was wounded.

  The initial burst of fire that wounded Pruitt and Eldridge was drawing Marines to the yellow house like moths to a flame. Within a few minutes more 3d Platoon Marines showed up, including Chandler, Corporals Tyler Farmer and Jose Sanchez, and Lance Corporal Morgan McCowan. Still more Marines were pounding down the street toward them.

  Two blocks away Lopez and his team were still idling on the street, relaxed but alert to any changes in the electrified air. The Weapons Co. Marines spent long hours waiting to be needed. It was especially true for the TOW gunners because their weapons were so powerful and expensive, Lopez said. He didn’t just shoot it because somebody started firing. The same was true for the Mk-19 grenade launchers and Ma Deuce. The big .50 cal Browning machine gun can eat concrete walls and light up enemy vehicles with its incendiary bullets. But it wasn’t something a gunner just let fly. Sitting and waiting in a firefight takes a tremendous amount of discipline.

  In the meantime the CAAT sections had to stay alert and ready to turn a weapon in the right direction and start laying down fire instantly.

  “My Weapons Co. Marines were essential to the mission,” Kasal recalls. “Even though I was with Kilo the sections were spread out all over the city fighting. I had to depend on my NCOs to do the right job. I wasn’t there but I knew their training would kick in. They were perfectly capable of doing their jobs. Gunny Wade was always around trouble, and I knew I could count absolutely on my other sergeants and young Marines because we had trained together. Weapons Co. was as well trained a unit as I had ever served in.”

  The riflemen were almost completely dependent of the CAAT sections for heavy firepower inside Fallujah, Buhl says. The steel wall the 2/7 Cav provided the first days of Fallujah had dissipated by the fifth straight day of combat and the Marines’ tanks were spread all over the city. The Army was still around in their Bradleys and tanks, Kasal says, but they stayed buttoned up. The CAAT Marines always kept one eye peeled for the Army cavalrymen because of their fighting methods, Kasal says.

  At one point, the Marines placed a sniper team on the top floor of a building to provide security for a group of men resting downstairs. When Army Bradleys saw movement at the top of the building, they presumed it was an insurgent stronghold and cut loose with a TOW missile and cannon fire. “Luckily,” Kasal recalls, “the TOW was a dud and the cannon fire missed.

  “The Army idea of clearing buildings was driving along in their buttoned-up tanks and Bradleys, shooting at the buildings and then driving on.” In contrast, he says, “the Marines cleared each building on foot, house by house and street by street, by the individual riflemen and supported by firepower from Weapons Company CAAT and mortar teams.

  “Weapons Co. was always with the riflemen. They had to know where the other Marines were. A TOW can go through two or three buildings and do a lot of damage. A lot of times my Marines would get off [their vehicles] and help clear buildings, or put out security on the buildings being cleared. It wasn’t like they were just waiting for some insurgent to start shooting at them. Marines are always engaged. We train to take the fight to the enemy.”

  STACKAND STORM

  Inside the house of Hell, Marines were doing exactly that:

  “We stacked up again,” Weemer says. “Severtsgard pulls out a grenade. The stack was Carlisle, me, and Chandler. Severtsgard is to the side of me. Behind us are Tyler, Farmer, and Sanchez. We go back through the door and Severtsgard steps up and throws the grenade. I couldn’t hear shit after that grenade went off.

  “Chandler, Farmer, Sanchez, and Prentice were in the first room. I thought Prentice was with us. I didn’t know until later that Chandler had told him to stop. I go left this time and Carlisle goes right. I had to push Carlisle over the body. I had my hand on his back pushing him forward.

  “My mindset was ‘just go.’ We had no one shooting at us from up. I told Severtsgard to throw the grenade. It was pitch black; the air is full of dust smoke and lead from the grenade. I literally ran into the set of stairs
that go to the second story. I could hardly see it.

  “As the smoke clears I am moving my weapons with my eyes. In my mind things were going very slowly. Once I could see up on top, I could see a guy up there and he shot down at me. I shot four or five rounds when I felt something hit me in the leg and then I felt something hit me in the forehead.

  “I remember seeing a guy with his head almost gone. The day before my squad leader had shot a guy twice in the forehead and the whole back of his head was gone. I thought that had happened to me, that the bullet had severed the nerves in my head and I couldn’t feel it.”

  Carlisle had been shot as well although Weemer didn’t know it at the time. The insurgent who wounded Weemer probably hit Carlisle in the same exchange of fire. For a long time Carlisle lay on the floor screaming. The jihadists left him alive for bait. Carlisle couldn’t move out of the line of fire because his leg was fractured from his hip to his knee. Weemer staggered out without realizing how badly he was hit.

  “I turned around to go back into that first room,” Weemer says. “Then I went back outside and sat down. Prentice is sitting next to me. He was supposed to be going with Chandler. I remembered putting him in the stack. I didn’t find out until way after the fact that Chandler had stopped Prentice at the door.

  “I had been shot three times in my right leg. Two rounds lodged below my knee in the bone. One had gone around the major tendon in my knee. I was more worried about my head. When I went outside I asked Prentice what was wrong with my face. He said it was just a scratch.”