No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy

by Jim Proser

  Mattis, on the radio with Kelly, confirms with Dowdy that he will execute a picket line. Dismounted Marines, using tanks and armored vehicles for cover, will walk down the main street of the city, looking for gunfights. And they are going to do it tonight.

  Mattis is hunkered down in his LAV, sweating into the radio handset. His men have broken camp and moved the communications equipment back into the general’s vehicle to protect it from the fierce sandstorm that now rages outside. Effectively blind in the storm, he is trapped inside the overheated vehicle.

  Dowdy drives back from the meeting to a garbage dump, the only available large flat space near the city, where his officers are parked on the shoulder. He orders the attack at midnight. Third Battalion, First Regiment (3/1), will lead the way, setting the picket line. Ferrando’s First Recon will act as a quick-reaction force to rush in and take out wounded as the picket line advances, while 3/1 lines Ambush Alley with their forty-two amtracs and a dozen tanks, then walk down the street with night vision goggles on, locked and loaded, leading the thirty-mile-long line of Marine vehicles toward Baghdad. Every Marine has been briefed on Mattis’s new rules of engagement: anyone with a weapon is going to be shot, and in this war, a cell phone is also a weapon.

  Just after 0200 the picket line has fought through sporadic gunfights and is at the north end of Ambush Alley. Bing West describes the scene:

  As the vehicles drove through the northern end of town, the Marines saw three wrecked Amtracs on the median strip. One trac had been hit and disabled but was largely intact. The other two had been ripped apart, the force of the explosions having torn off the tops and peeled back the sides. The ground was littered with bloody battle dressings, pieces of uniforms, and torn-up individual fighting gear. Several dead Marines were still inside the Amtrac. Lt. Harry Thompson of Lima Company, 3/1, had placed a white cloth over the burned body of a fallen comrade. Each Marine in RCT-1 passing by viewed this gruesome scene, and remembered it.6

  By 0400 the Marines of 3/1 have secured Ambush Alley and stand guard while the rest of Regimental Combat Team 1 moves through the city. At the head of the column, now six miles north of the city, First Battalion, Fourth Regiment (1/4), is ambushed by Saddam’s regular fedayeen forces, which have retreated from the city to prepositioned defenses after stopping Dowdy’s initial advance. They now surround 1/4 and pour fire into the column from several buildings four hundred yards to the east.

  Inside Nasariyah, the entire column once again comes to a dead halt, but now its packed-up artillery battalion with its unarmored ammunition trucks is stopped exactly in the middle of the city—a massive, vulnerable cluster bomb. Even though it’s the middle of the night, dozens of Iraqis have gathered on street corners to watch the Marines pass through. Guns up, the Marines scan the people for any hostile movement, even someone using a cell phone. A forward observer for a mortar team could phone in one mortar round onto one Marine ammunition truck that would ignite the others, destroying the Marine artillery, killing hundreds of Marines and civilians, and halting the advance for days.

  This is the perfect public relations opportunity for Saddam. Support for the unpopular invasion would very likely weaken dramatically at the news of a second and larger defeat in the same city within a week. And if he can also send a few hundred Americans home in body bags, even better. Support could evaporate completely.

  At the head of the column, hundreds of Iraqi fighters attack from positions to the east and northeast. The raging sandstorm now mixes with rain, cutting the Marines’ visibility to almost zero, eliminating the advantage of their night vision. From concealed positions, the Iraqis fire into the prepared kill zone without exposing themselves. On the highway, an Iraqi rocket-propelled grenade blows through a Humvee door, severing a Marine captain’s hand. Other Marines are hit and go down.

  With his headquarters platoon farther back in the column, Dowdy can’t get a clear picture of the situation up ahead; the weather is scrambling even satellite communications. Word comes that one or possibly more gravely wounded Marines are lying in the middle of Highway 7, waiting for a medevac, holding up the entire column. Dowdy, beloved by his men because he values their lives over the mission, does not order the wounded Marines moved. Kelly observes and doesn’t countermand Dowdy’s decision. Dowdy has now gone over forty-eight hours without sleep, all the time under severe and constant pressure.

  The minutes tick by in Mattis’s command vehicle as he monitors the broken radio communications between Dowdy and the 1/4 at the head of Dowdy’s column. In a few hours the sun will come up, exposing the vulnerable part of the column still inside Nasariyah to even more danger. Even with the hellacious sandstorm raging, fifty miles northwest of his position enough aircraft are still flying to report the movement of three Iraqi divisions southwest from Baghdad. Osowski informs Mattis that these are commanded by Saddam’s son Qusay and rattles off their composition, which includes long-range artillery. Mattis now knows that Saddam has taken the bait—Dunford’s advance up Highway 1 to the west is just a feint, intended to draw Saddam’s best forces away from Baghdad. The real attack will come from Dowdy’s RCT-1, coming up Highway 7 to the east. That is, if Dowdy can get it moving again in time.

  Mattis also knows that while he has drawn Saddam toward his trap, Saddam has already sprung his own. With his artillery confined and “combat-ineffective” inside Nasariyah, Mattis’s entire central invasion force is now trapped in the Mesopotamian mud. Nothing—no sacrifice of men or equipment—is too costly to get the column moving again. That is why Mattis placed First Recon, his most aggressive and mobile warfighters, with Dowdy’s RCT-1. Everything now depends on Dowdy’s aggression in continuing to fight his way through and beyond Nasariyah.

  On Highway 7, between the dust and rainstorm, it’s now effectively raining mud. It blows sideways in bursts of icy wind as the ambushed Marines return fire against their attackers. The Marines deploy a company to attack the cement buildings and farmhouses to the east, where most of the Iraqi fire seems to be coming from. Aircraft are overhead again as the storm loses strength. As the sun comes up, it reveals a coat of mud that covers everything. The Marines begin to evacuate their wounded by helicopter as Kelly, who has been keeping his distance from Dowdy, back in the column, drives up to Dowdy’s headquarters Humvee to see what the delay is now. Dowdy is surrounded by his puzzled officers, slouched forward, head down, in the front passenger seat of his vehicle. He has finally, after almost three days without a rest break, fallen asleep.

  The radios near Mattis slowly come to life again, but with bad news. RCT-1 is still not moving.

  “Fucking . . .” The general doesn’t finish the sentence. He orders his platoon to move out in spite of still nearly zero visibility and the exhaustion of his own men, who have spent the last six hours trying to sleep in the seats of their vehicles. Their destination: northeast toward al-Gharaff on Highway 7, where the general will intercept Dowdy’s column. If he has read his history correctly, Saddam will have prepared more defenses there, like those in Nasariyah, or worse, to harass and delay the column’s advance north. Mattis again races ahead into the teeth of Saddam’s best defenses to make sure Dowdy pushes his men forward, at all costs.

  * * *

  A helicopter is waiting for Dowdy when he arrives in Numaniyah. In the week since Nasariyah, his RCT-1 has kicked ass in a hundred-mile running gunfight through the swamps, canals, tar pits, and fortified ambushes of Iraq’s central farmland. They have secured the critical bridges over the Tigris at Al Kut and turned west to assist in crushing what was left of Iraq’s elite Republican Guard forces outside Baghdad. Now, Mattis wants to see him.

  Dowdy and his top aide, Sergeant Major Oscar Leal, are flown to the general’s camp, about thirty miles northwest.

  When they arrive, Mattis welcomes them and takes Leal aside. “How’s your boss doing?”

  “He’s doing fine, sir.”

  “You’re not engaged enough,” Mattis responds. “You’ve got four battal
ions, and you’re not pressing the attack.”

  “Tell me what we need to do, and we’ll do it,” Leal replies. The word is out that Dowdy’s job is on the line. Loyal Sergeant Leal pleads with Mattis, “Don’t fire him.”7

  Mattis doesn’t respond. He turns away and crosses to the forward command post.

  As Dowdy walks across an open field toward the CP, a dog leaps out and attacks him, “which you know kind of seemed symbolic,” he will later say. Outside the CP he meets Kelly, who tells him he’s lost the trust of his superiors.8 Dowdy, still deeply tired after two weeks of ambush and counterattack against Iraqi irregulars and fedayeen fighters along a hundred miles of Highway 7, reels at this. It’s a body blow and his morale plummets. Like a condemned man climbing the last few steps to the gallows, he walks the last few feet to the CP.

  Thomas Ricks describes the meeting:

  He walked inside the command post and saw the division chief of staff. “You’re doing great,” the officer said. “I think I’m being relieved,” Dowdy responded. “Nah, that’s bullshit,” the officer said.

  Dowdy went in to see Gen. Mattis, a quiet but intense officer with a reputation for favoring fiercely aggressive tactics. They were so near the front that artillery shells were passing overhead and tanks were rolling by the tent, creating what Dowdy heard as a whirlwind of noise. Mattis began asking questions that indicated to Dowdy that he would be removed on the grounds of fatigue. Dowdy had not slept for two days and felt that Kelly had just crushed his spirit. “I didn’t give a very good account of myself,” he told the Marine historian when he recounted his relief. “What’s wrong?” Mattis gently and repeatedly asked him. “Why aren’t you pressing in the cities more?” Dowdy, fatigued and confused, said that he was attacking but that “I love my Marines, and I don’t want to waste their lives.” By his own account, he then babbled a bit about his “lack of self-esteem” when he was younger. Even he recognized that such talk was a fatal misstep. At that point, he said, “I knew I was screwed.”

  In a report by Chris Cooper in the Wall Street Journal, Dowdy is quoted as responding “I’ve been fighting my way up this m-f-ing road for the past two weeks.”9

  Either way, Mattis is apparently unmoved by Dowdy’s response. Mattis may have recalled the bulldozer incident at the Hantush airfield. A week earlier, when Mattis caught up with Dowdy and RCT-1 at Hantush, the general drove directly to the main runway. The airfield was critical for the resupply of the column, which had outrun its supply lines. With typical attention to detail, Mattis wanted to see the condition of the runway firsthand. As he feared, the main runway was pockmarked with shell craters. But even worse, a Marine captain, instead of repairing the craters, was sitting on his bulldozer, reading a paperback book. Mattis went ballistic, and Dowdy’s only response was to suggest that perhaps he should have given the captain a written order.

  In the CP, Mattis moves past the Hantush episode. “You worry too much about enemy resistance and that may be your lack of battle experience,”10 he says. Mattis speaks from his own experience as a battalion commander in Operation Desert Storm. He knows very well about the horrible decision faced by every combat commander—whether to risk your men’s lives or risk the success of the mission.

  After babbling about his lack of esteem, Dowdy recovers his composure. “We’ll do better,” he appeals to Mattis. But it’s too little and far too late.

  “No, no, no,” Mattis says, and gets up. He walks out of the CP to think things over.

  Outside, artillery rounds zip overhead and explode down-range. Tanks and trucks rumble past on their way north toward Baghdad. Mattis walks in no particular direction as he weighs his decision. If he relieves Dowdy of command, it will be a blow to troop morale, and to public confidence in the operation. It will be a shitstorm of bad publicity, certain to get underwear in the White House in a twist: the first Marine commander relieved of command during combat in over forty years. It will be a blow to the prestige of the entire Marine Corps. It will crush Dowdy, a good Marine, but with a soft heart.

  But under the extreme pressure, fatigue, and confusion of the coming street fighting in Baghdad, Dowdy might choose the safety of his men over the success of the mission again. Mattis can’t take that chance.

  When Mattis reenters the CP, Dowdy knows he is sunk. Mattis tells him that he is being relieved. John Toolan will be taking command of RCT-1.

  “Think of my family, my unit,” Dowdy pleads.

  Mattis has thought of them, but it’s over. Dowdy accepts the judgment and asks if he can work as a watch officer on the division staff, but Mattis tells him, “We’re going to get you some rest. You need to go away.” Dowdy’s career as a combat commander is over.

  Dowdy leaves the CP heartsick with failure. He and Sergeant Major Leal helicopter south back to the Hantush airfield. Dowdy says goodbye to his loyal friend and aide and climbs out of the helicopter. He boards a Marine C-130 aircraft that flies him back to Camp Commando, the rear base in Kuwait. He takes a shower and calls his wife, Priscilla. She already knows. She just saw the news on CNN.

  June 1968—The Town of Richland, Washington State, USA

  Jim Mattis, the shy, skinny captain of Columbia High School’s varsity basketball team, accepts his high school diploma with typical reserve—a slight smile and nod. He’s a good but unremarkable student known for his quiet style and pleasant personality. He enjoys his classmates and the rambunctious energy of his youth, apparently without any need to distinguish himself. He’s just happy to be one of the team, one of the group. Even as captain of the basketball team and, previously, the junior varsity team manager, his position and title just doesn’t seem to matter.

  At home, his parents encourage Jim and his two brothers toward a life of the mind by providing only a large library for entertainment. They have never owned a TV, a choice that young Jim will carry with him into adulthood. Jim will also adopt the practice of keeping a personal library; as an adult, he will own over seven thousand books. In his parents’ library, Jim is drawn to books on geology and tales of the rugged, moral characters of the American West—the sheriffs and heroes who tamed savagery with courage and righted wrongs with true grit. A book that captivates the three Mattis brothers for months is MacKinlay Kantor’s Follow Me, Boys, the tale of a Boy Scout scoutmaster who molds his troop of troubled boys into strong, self-reliant, and fearless young men. The Mattis boys emulate the heroic scoutmaster and practice Boy Scout survival skills while hiking, camping, and hunting in the high desert and conifer forest wilderness around Richland.

  The Mattis home in Richland is a quiet, orderly place. Jim’s father, John Mattis, is a power-plant operator at the nearby top-secret Hanford Nuclear Facility, and his mother, Lucille, is a homemaker. John and Lucille have both traveled the world, John as a merchant marine during World War II and Lucille as a US Army intelligence officer based in South Africa. In a 2014 interview Jim will recall, “They introduced us to a world of great ideas—not a fearful place—but a place to enjoy.”11

  At that time, nearly everyone in Richland had come to the area from somewhere else. “Nobody had extended families, so the families that you relied on were neighbors,”12 recalled Jim Albaugh, a classmate and childhood friend of young Jim Mattis. Richland became a tight-knit community united by national pride and a common purpose in their important work for America’s military at Hanford, which manufactured the plutonium for Fat Man, the atomic bomb that incinerated seventy thousand Japanese civilians in Nagasaki. The plant was a vital element of America’s nuclear arsenal and a deterrent against Soviet Russia’s well-publicized aggression.

  By the time of Jim’s high school graduation in 1968, at the height of America’s counterculture influence and Vietnam War protests, Hanford was still the lifeblood of the community. Hippies and antiwar protests never took hold in Richland. Jim’s basketball team was called the Bombers, and their emblem was—and remains—a mushroom cloud.

  The military draft was in effect. On their sixtee
nth birthdays, the young men of Richland dutifully registered for the armed forces. Even though Jim was not in the top 10 percent of his high school class academically, he was still eligible for a college deferment to continue his education. The Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) seemed the best option once Jim got to his intended college, Central Washington University. Although both parents had served, young Jim had no thoughts of making a career in the military. More likely, because of his great love of books, he might become a teacher or academic.

  Instead of protesting the Vietnam War, the young men of Richland hung around the Spudnut Shop, which served freshly made potato-flour doughnuts, the Uptown movie theater, and Columbia High School. Of his classmate, Jim Albaugh later said, “I don’t think anyone would have singled him out for greatness.” And although Mattis would never marry, Albaugh said that his friend enjoyed high school social life and “was no straight arrow.”13

  Other classmates, like Lloyd Campbell, recalled a self-assured young man ready to stand up to bullies: “I was bullied a lot, but this was one of the guys who respected me for who I was and what my character was.”14 Jim Mattis was already living the model of his Western heroes, the sheriffs in white cowboy hats who stood up for truth, protected the weak, and never backed down from a fight. His small size and slender build didn’t seem to matter.

  “I owe this town a great deal, because it gave me the values that allowed me to be where I’m at today,” Mattis told the Richland Rotary Club when he returned to Richland in 2011, after being on the front lines of battle with his men in distant parts of the world. “It was this town that formed me.”15

  Years later, employed by a man who many said had bullied and lied his way into the presidency of the United States, Jim Mattis again stood up for truth and protected the weak, in this case America’s prisoners of war. On the subject of waterboarding, on which President-elect Trump had deferred to the wisdom of military commanders, Mattis instructed his new boss, “It doesn’t work as well as offering a detainee cigarettes and a beer.”16