The Last 600 Meters (2025) Movie Script

1
ANNOUNCER: This program
contains mature content,
including graphic
imagery of war.
Viewer discretion is advised.
(soldier voices on radio)
MAST. SGT. ERICKSON:
Straight up combat,
unconventional combat,
we will always win that.
Foreign policy, I don't make it,
I just deliver the
last 600 meters of it.

(helicopter flies overhead)
(rioting in the streets)
(car alarm blares)
(shouting)
(car horn sounds)
(shouting)
(shouting and chanting
in a foreign language)
(car horn sounds)
BRIG. GEN. TOOLAN:
I had gotten wind
that there were
three contractors
from Blackwater who had,
attempted to ent-
enter Fallujah.
There was a large crowd there.
They knew that these
folks were coming in
and they stopped them
and killed the-the
Blackwater contractors
and dismembered their bodies.
When that happened, when
we recovered the bodies,
there was discussion now about
what are we going to do.
And, as you might suspect,
there was an awful lot of
furor and anger about
the way Americans
had been treated. Not
only outside our-my-
my organization, but, I think
back in the United States
there was thoughts of,
you know, Somalia and
other incidents and just
wasn't something that was
going to be tolerated.
(shouting)
WEST: Major General Mattis said,
"I have pictures of the
people who did this.
"They were foolish
enough to pose
"in front of the cameras.
"I will track down
each of them with our
"Special Forces and we
will arrest or kill
each person responsible."
And there were about 24 names.
But instead he was told,
"No, you don't understand.
"At the top level of our
government the order is
seize the city."
(tank rumbles)

(soldiers talking)
SOLDIER: Alright,
everybody got it?
"SOLDIER 2: First,
second, third squad."

LT. COL. MCCOY: We got the order
on about 8 April to
move down there.
We moved the battalion
inside of 24 hours,
pulled them in,
turned over our battle space,
road marched about 100
miles down into Fallujah,
spent a couple hours
refitting, rearming,
and then the morning
of 10 April,
we launched into the
attack with everybody else.
(rumbling)
(gunfire, artillery fire)
(airplanes flying)
(helicopters flying)
(soldiers talking)
LT. COL. OLSON: If
you're gonna fight
a city fight, be prepared
to go house to house,
and be prepared to start
at one end of the city
and fight your way
through to the other end.
It became evident that if
we just took a position
and sat there and dug in that
we'd leave the
initiative to the enemy.
(artillery gunfire)
LT. COL. MCCOY: It was
obvious that the enemy
was caught by surprise.
They were making
incredibly stupid errors,
costly errors,
driving right into our-
our fields of fire,
trying to reinforce.
They didn't know where we were,
and-and when you
see that happening,
then- and-and we're
knocking them down
like it's going out of style,
you know that you have 'em
at a complete disadvantage.
(gunfire)
(sirens blare)
MAJ. STEVENSON: To add
additional chaos to it was
we had the Fallujah
hospital, which was
smack dab in the middle
of my perimeter.
And the hospital
administrator, what I
found out later was that
he claimed that we were
denying medical attention,
denying medical supplies,
etc., all of which were
blatantly untrue, and
no one ever came to ask me
were any of these things
true, they just sort of got
printed and/or televised.
(baby crying)
(indistinct conversations)
BRIG. GEN. TOOLAN: Al Jazeera
was right in the city,
and they were used as a
very effective tool by the
insurgents to display
a humanitarian crisis.
(indistinct conversations)
(indistinct conversations)
(man smacks top of car)
WEST: Ambassador Bremer
had been so concerned in
Baghdad by all the
complaints of the Iraqis
about the images they were
seeing on Al Jazeera, that
Ambassador Bremer called to
General Abizaid who was in
charge of all our troops
in the cent-
in the central area
and he said, "You and
I have to meet with the
senior Iraqis whom
I have appointed,"
whom Bremer had appointed.
And when they did the
senior Iraqis said,
"You must stop this, you
absolutely must stop this.
You're breaking Iraq apart."
And so Bremer and Abizaid agreed
to a temporary ceasefire.
(dog barking)
(dog barking)
BRIG. GEN. TOOLAN: The hard part
and the thing that we as
commanders are responsible
for is to be able to relay
the reasons for what
we're doing to our
Marines and sailors
and-and it was hard...
it was hard for me to do that.
It was hard for me to try
and explain to them why
we were pulling out
of the city yet
when we knew that we
were probably 30 hours,
36 hours from securing the
objectives in the city that
we wanted and then begin
operations inside the city.
WEST: The operations
officer when I was there
turned to Col.
McCoy and he said,
"We're getting phone calls,"
in other words they were
listening to the other side
and they're saying,
"They're from the south,
they're from the west,
they're from the east."
He said, "They have
lost cohesion."
They being the insurgents.
"We can roll them up and
finish this in a day."
And when McCoy called
that back he was told,
"No you are to stop
right where you are.
"You don't have permission
to carry this battle
any farther."
LT. COL. MCCOY: And we sat
there for the next 30 days.
Even though it was a ceasefire,
combat continued throughout-
throughout those 30
days at a pretty good clip,
particularly in
those first two weeks.
BRIG. GEN. TOOLAN:
The insurgents
kept pressing us.
And it became a back-
and-forth thing.
SOLDIER: Hey, there's
people getting out
of a car.
BRIG. GEN. TOOLAN: Every night,
every-every night
they would move a
little bit closer and
the next morning,
lo and behold,
they'd be a lot closer
to my-my position
fire on 'em and we'd
have a firefight.
This went on from-all the
way really through April.
SOLDIER: Yeah, they're
right down here.
They're to our east.
(gunfire)
MAJ. STEVENSON: We were having
a real tough time
at some points,
battling, the-what we
called the three-block war.
We're decisively
engaging the enemy,
and then at the other
end of the-our position
we might be, ya know,
talking with a seven-
year-old kid about
whatever, handing him
candy, ya know,
he's teaching us basic Arabic
or we're teaching him
basic English skills.
It's just, you know, the
Marines had to know which
way the switch was.
Was it decisively engaging
the enemy or was it,
ya know, helping a-a old lady
carry a water bucket from
the Euphrates River
back to her house.
(tank rumbles)
(soldiers talking)
LT. COL. OLSON: There
was an element of-
surreality to it,
where the negotiations did
not necessarily match the
events that I had
seen minutes before
on the ground.
Or to leave a-leave a
meeting where an agreement
had been struck to
have the-the bad guys
lay down their arms,
turn the city control
back over to its elected
representatives and to its
Iraqi Security Forces
and then on the way to
put that word
out to my battalion,
to be hit in an ambush or
to come up on a company
that was in contact
with a platoon-sized
force of bad guys
who evidently had
not gotten the word.
(fighters talking)
(car honks)
BRIG. GEN. TOOLAN:
Bottom line is
is that now
there was no security
for the city and so
something had to be done,
somebody had to restore order.
And the negotiators on the
Iraqi side brought up a
recommendation that they
take responsibility,
and for the next 30, 45
days they formed this
organization which became known
as the Fallujah Brigade
which was really led by
former Iraqi officers,
former soldiers put
the uniform back on.
(indistinct)
LT. COL. MCCOY: I
thought a lot of them
were the guys that we had
been fighting, already.
But what's a few
RPGs between friends?
And if this is going to
be the political solution,
then-then we're going to
do our-our dead-level best
to make it succeed.
(vehicle sounds)
Part of the deal,
as we turned over
the battle space, if you will,
to the Fallujah Brigade,
was to conduct a meeting.
General Mattis was going
to conduct a meeting at the
mayor complex in
downtown Fallujah.
We went in, we did our
job, came back out.
There was, I think,
hope at that moment,
but in the Iraqi minds,
I think they saw that
as-as our capitulation,
just from the cheers
and-and taunts
as we drove out of the city.
Cheers that they had-
that we were leaving,
and taunts that they
had turned away the
United States Marine Corps.
(car honks)
(cheering)
RICKS: I was in Baghdad at
the time and watched that
and as I said I'd listen to-
you could hear the
sermons on the-on-
coming out of the
mosque and so on.
It was an extraordinary
time in Baghdad.
It was the first time,
I think, that a lot of
American officials really
realized this thing was
going very badly.
That, despite the happy talk
out of the Bush administration
and out of Ambassador Bremer,
that Iraq was a much
more troubled place
than they realized.
I remember thinking, "I
thought this was bad.
I hadn't thought it
was gonna be this bad."
BOOT: You have to remember,
we were fighting-
Marines and soldiers were
fighting in Fallujah
at the same time that this
uprising was occurring
in central and southern Iraq.
So all of a sudden, it
seemed like there was a
Tet Offensive going on
or worries about
another Tet Offensive
with the entire country
rising up against us.
Muqtada al-Sadr and some of
the other insurgent leaders
were able to block key highways,
these main supply routes,
running into Baghdad
and so our troops
were on the verge of
running out of water
and ammunition and food
and basic supplies.
So this was in-in-in many ways,
one of the hairiest moments
that we faced in the
entire war in Iraq.

1ST LT. MOULTON: The
terrain was just
unbelievable.
It was-it was unlike anything
that I ever would
have anticipated.
I mean the tombs were
all above ground
and below ground, but
they were big structures.
It's not like an American
cemetery where you just
have a-a wide-open flat
space with-with gravestones,
no, these are,
these are very elaborately
constructed tombs.
And they were
practically all built
on top of each other.
(gunfire)
CAPT. MORAN: It's
just a huge cemetery.
I think it's 15
square kilometers,
and people describe it as a-
as a New Orleans-style
cemetery on-on steroids.
(gunfire and explosions)
1ST LT. MOULTON:
It also provided
an incredible
defensive position for
the militia because they
could hide anywhere.
I mean they could
hide underground;
they could hide above us
in these little minarets,
in these mini-mosques and,
they could pop out
from behind these tombs,
you know, a mere five
or ten feet in front of us
without our knowing that
they were there beforehand.

MAST. SGT. ERICKSON: As
soon as I got there,
told their commander,
"Sir, we're-we want to
start, we want to start-
"we want to start
"conducting sniper
operations tonight.
We want to infill as soon
as the sun goes down."
And, I told him that I
wanted to go all the way up
to within about 400
meters of the Old City.
I told him I wanted to go
down the other end of the
grave site-graveyard
basically and he looked at
me and said, "Sergeant,
you're going to die."
And I said, "Sir, what
are you talking about?"
And he got this thousand-
yard stare and he
told me about how an M1
Abrams tank with a Bradley
behind it had gone down
one of these small,
funeral roads that
runs north to south.
Very narrow road, no room
for vehicles to maneuver.
And as it drove down a
Mahdi Militia man had
jumped from behind a grave
onto the top of the tank,
had shot the commander
and the loader,
the two Americans on
the top of the tank,
and had jumped off
the other side of the tank
before the Bradley fighting
vehicle behind it
could engage them
and had disappeared.
And, because of that it was
almost as though there was
a boogeyman out there.
They knew during the day
watching them with unmanned
aerial vehicles that there
were small groups of bad
guys out in the city, but
they knew that there were
more at night.
They were hiding down
in the catacombs.
(gunfire)
1ST LT. MOULTON: Definitely,
we definitely got the impression
that we were being surrounded.
And that night when we set
in for the defense was-
was very nerve-wracking.
For a while we had a
Spectre Gunship above us,
circling around overhead
and-and sporadically
firing into the
cemetery just around us.
And that was an
incredible feeling,
that was a very
comforting feeling.
(artillery fire and explosions)
And then a few laters they
were gone, and there was
this-this awful silence
and, you know, you really
knew then that you were
alone and that you had to
absolutely rely on that
Marine ten feet away from
you in the dark to stay
awake and be looking
through his night vision
goggles to make sure that
no one snuck up on us cause
it would have been so easy,
it would have been so easy.

LT. COL. MAYER: 120, 130
degrees, fighting there.
So you're in this-this
cemetery made out of-
completely out of mortar
and construction,
it just bakes down
there, like an oven.
And the-the tankers-
it was so hot;
the Marine tanks are
not air-conditioned.
And so, because of the
heat inside of the tanks,
we'd have to rotate
them out every hour.
And the Marines were
rotated every hour,
and the battle lasted
for three hours,
that they ended up putting the
I- IV sleeves in their arms
and leavin' them there,
where they'd be revived.
And then the Marines
would, you know,
wake up after 45 minutes,
after being refreshed,
jump back in the tanks,
and go right back
into the front lines.
(explosions)
1ST LT. MOULTON:
When I was standing
right alongside
Lieutenant Sellars,
I mean our platoons
were right together and-
and I guess so some
Marines from his platoon
it turned out, were-were
shouting and I went up to
see what was-what was wrong and,
one of the Marines
had been shot.
He'd been shot through
the neck and had bled out.

I guess maybe one of the
toughest things was that
the Marines that couldn't
have been more than 10 feet
or 10 or 20 feet to
either side of him
hadn't seen that he'd been shot.
And so, you know, I guess
in those last few moments
he died alone and that was-
I think that was tough for
all of us to see,
especially tough.

1ST LT. CUOMO: When I
got back on the 5th,
my platoon picked me up
the morning of the 5th.
New lieutenant was rotating in.
And I pulled back into our base,
battalion XO came
running to my hooch.
Said, "Scott get your boys,
get in your Humvees and get
to Najaf, a Huey
just got shot down."
"Roger that sir."
And I turned.
As I was quickly moving
towards my vehicle I said,
"Sir, do I know what I'm doing,
where are we fighting?"
He said, "Just get on
the road and drive there."
"You'll figure it
out on the way.
Drive until you run into Tiger,"
who was our tank platoon.
And that'd be almost the
equivalent of driving from
Quantico to Nor-you
know, Southern Maryland.
Just get on 95, there are
some bad guys in between.
Find Tiger. Deal with it.
(road noises)
CAPT. MORAN: Very quickly
we were reinforced by an Army-
two Army cavalry squadrons.
We also received an Apache
helicopter squadron.
So all-all of a sudden
within a period of a few days
the MEU became this-
this joint task force.
Army helicopter squadron,
two cavalry battalions,
our battalion landing team,
all on the battlefield,
all working, sort of, in
this now joint environment
which was-which was interesting.
(artillery fire)
MASKED INSURGENT SPEAKING:
I am from Najaf city.
OK.
I like Ali.
I believe God.
Also you believe God.
If you all believe God,
not kill Muslim.
You are not believe God...
(insurgents chanting)
CAPT. MORAN: The
Mahdi Militia is the-
the armed military wing of-of
Muqtada al-Sadr's movement.
And when-when-
when we were there
he was trying to control,
the mosque in the city
of Najaf because of its
religious importance and
that I think in turn
gave him some political power.
(crowd shouting)
LT. COL. MAYER: Muqtada al-Sadr
is the son of the Imam Sadr,
his father, who was
killed by Saddam Hussein.
Sadr-Muqtada al-Sadr
has a large following,
largely due to his
father's influence.
Muqtada also has a large
following of young,
military-age Shia who
follow his kind of
hot brand rhetoric
that he puts out against
the coalition efforts
and against the
current Iraqi government.
SOLDIERS: Said there's four
people in the house...
(explosion)
OK, back it up, back it up...
LT. COL. KELLEY: We were told
you can target anybody in that
organization except Sadr
and so what happened is,
as it normally happens
with Special Forces,
our intelligence does
not normally come from
some spy satellite or
something like that,
it-it comes from ground level.
The teams who are out there
living throughout Iraq
in different areas,
they have ground truth,
they work with the
Iraqis in that area
and they-they develop
most of the targets.
(commotion)
I was able to tell
the battalion,
"Go after Sadr's lieutenants,"
and their scouts
developed the targets.
(crashing sounds)
(soldiers shouting) (gunfire)
SOLDIER: Hey, is
that room locked?
SOLDIER 2: Yeah.
LT. COL. KELLEY:
That gave a signal
to the other lieutenants,
"Okay, we're fair game"
and they went on the run.
They went in hiding and Shibani,
who was Sadr's number two man,
worked his way down to Najaf and
was working on getting
out of the country,
working on escaping to Iran
when 512, Captain
Tarlavsky's team,
developed very good information
using their scouts on
where Shibani was,
where other Sadr
lieutenants were
and put together a raid with
Iraqi Special Forces
led by Americans
to take down those lieutenants.
And the result of
that was Shibani
and 43 other senior
Sadr lieutenants
and about 50 tons of weapons.
(soldiers shouting)
(explosions and gunfire)
CAPT. MORAN: During
the middle phase
of the battle when
were doing these-
these many raids into Kufa and
parts of Najaf to sort of
keep the enemy off balance,
one of the raid
targets on August 15th
was Sadr's house
and if he was there,
we-we were pretty
sure he wasn't,
but just gain intelligence,
or-or see-see what was in there.
As we went in, we finally
got into his house
and up to his bedroom were
amused to see these iconic
American tough-guy actors
framed on his dresser.
So there was the Arnold
Schwarzenegger photograph,
the Clint Eastwood photograph,
the Sylvester
Stallone photograph,
the Indiana Jones photograph.
All these were his,
I assume, kind of his
personal heroes that
he had adopted from
American culture.
(Sadr speaking) (chanting)
(Sadr speaking)
LT. COL. MAYER: Here
you have a site,
the Imam Ali Shrine,
that's being held hostage
by Muqtada al-Sadr
and his Mahdi Militia.
You want to get rid of the-
the terrorists, so to speak,
but you don't want
to harm the hostage.
In this case, it's a shrine
that's important to the
Islam faith.
And so, it puts the Marines
in a very tough situation.
How do you get rid
of the bad guys
without destroying the hostage?
1ST LT. CUOMO: Colonel
Mayer will tell you,
he-he emphasized very strongly
and it paid huge dividends,
not just for the MEU and BLbut for, I would argue,
our entire strategic
mission, in the long war,
not just Iraq.
He came down,
"Scott, your platoon
will not shoot the mosque."
"Yes sir."
"Do not shoot the mosque."
"Yes, sir."
"Scott, do not
shoot the mosque."
"Yes, sir."
OFFICER: (indistinct)
speed of departure
since we wish not to die
in this man's company.
We will return safely
tomorrow morning.
Who will rouse himself
every year on that day.
Show his neighbors his scars
and tell him
(indistinct) stories
of all their great
feats of battle.
And these stories you
will teach your son.
And from this day,
until the end of time,
we shall be remembered.
ALL IN UNISON: We few,
we happy few,
we band of brothers.
Whoever sheds his blood with me
shall forever be my brother.
OFFICER: And those
men too afraid to go,
will think themselves
lesser men,
as they have heard
how we have fought
and died together.
OFFICER: Alpha!
MARINES: Radiers!
SOLDIER: Go, go, go, go, go.
Move, move, move, move.
(gunfire and explosions)
SOLDIER: Okay, roger,
Basher, gimme a-
you got a visual
on those tanks right there?
Yeah, roger, I saw that,
too, just to the...
1ST LT. MOULTON: The
gunship came in and,
I don't know, I guess
I expected to see it
shoot a little farther away
and it, you know, no
kidding, I mean they were,
they were dropping those rounds
about 50 yards ahead of us.
SOLDIER: Looking a little
east of those tanks though,
Basher...
(gunfire)
BASH ER: We knew that we
weren't to hit the mosque
and also we weren't to hit
within a certain distance
of the mosque, to make sure
that our weapons effects
didn't hit the mosque.
That's one of the-the great
aspects of the gunship is
we do fly at an altitude,
and our weapons are such
that it does engage us to
allow precision engagement,
I mean, we have the awesome
capability that we're
flying over, and we
can look at it;
we see the target
and we can say,
"We'll shoot that car,
and not that car."
(gunfire)
We can shoot close to
friendly troops and say,
"We're shooting within 40
meters of your position.
"We won't hit you,
"but we'll kill
the guys that are
trying to kill you."
(explosion)

LT. GEN. METZ: We very
quickly were beginning
to put together a plan
that would force
the militia out of
the Imam Ali Shrine.
Because by that time
the-the fights in the-
in the cemetery were-
were pretty well over
and we-we controlled
everything outside of
the Old City of Najaf.
But essentially we were
going to have to deliver
the 36th Commandos,
Iraqis to go in the
Imam Ali Shrine.
So the rehearsals and
the-the tactical part of
working with the 36th Commandos
was the focus of the-
of most of the days as we
developed that plan.

CAPT. MORAN: The Old
City which was a-
a small circular city that
surrounded the mosque.
And that circle was
only a kilometer across.
So any-any modern weapon
on-on the battlefield,
and we had many, we
had three battalions
worth of heavily armed
soldiers and Marines.
Any-any weapon could shoot
across that kilometer
easily.
So the-the-just the geometry
of converging three units
on a circle, if you think
about it, they're all-
end up shooting at each other,
became just a-a
geometric nightmare.
(loudspeaker voice calling
people to prayer)
(explosions and gunfire)
LT. COL. KELLEY:
This was some of
the most compartmented,
complex, urban terrain that
I have-I have ever seen.
So what was worked out,
what was proposed and what
was accepted is that our
snipers could take the shot
as long as they were not-
the enemy was not standing
in front of or on the
Imam Ali Shrine
and what-what that did is
that very quickly changed
the complexion of
the battlefield because
you went from enemy who had
complete freedom of
movement anywhere they'd
want to go with weapons to
enemy who knew that if I'm
in the street with a weapon
or if I'm standing on a
rooftop with a cell phone
and binoculars adjusting
mortar fire on the Americans,
that there's a good chance
that I will be killed.

(gunfire)
MAST. SGT. ERICKSON:
The plan was to use
my snipers in a
overwatch position
to cover the Iraqi
counter terrorist force
and the Iraqi 36th
Commandos as they did the
final assault on the mosque.
The hard-line fighters, the
more experienced ones were
going to be right there
around the mosque.
That was going to be
the final showdown,
and we recognized that
they outnumbered
our Iraqi Commandos a lot.

LT. COL. MAYER: We pretty
much did what we called
squeezing, not a tactical
term, not a military term,
but we all understood it.
And it was, gradually
shrink this exclusion zone
around the-around the mosque,
so we squeeze 'em-we
squeezed the Mahdi Militia
further and further
inside the shrine.
And once they were completely
boxed up in the shrine,
we-we would drive and
get it so that the
Iraqi security forces could
then go and clear it
of the Mahdi Militia.
And so, only Iraqis
would go into the shrine
to clear it.
1ST LT. CUOMO: The
rules of engagement,
if you call it a giant
box around the mosque,
as it went day 1,
day 2, day 3, it
kept getting smaller.
Smaller and smaller and
smaller until it was,
"Just don't hit the mosque."

LT. COL. MAYER: On the
night of the 25th,
we moved them in towards
the mosque in the Old City.
We got to about 500 meters
away from the actual gates
of the mosque, and there
was this line of hotels.
Each hotel was
four stories high.
There was four on
each side of the road.
That road was the main
avenue of approach to bring
the Iraqi army up to
the-up to the shrine.
That was how we were
going to get 'em there.

(gunshot)
MAST. SGT. ERICKSON:
And it turns out the Seals
had been playing tag with a
enemy sniper team that-
obviously very well skilled and-
they knew which building
the sniper was in,
but the sniper also
knew which building the
Coalition was in and he
would shoot holes through
the walls to try to hit
Coalition soldiers inside
this building.
So the-the Seal snipers and the-
the Cavalry snipers
were actually having
to knock holes through
multiple walls and get two
or three rooms back inside
of the building
to keep this guy
from shooting at 'em.

LT. COL. MAYER: The
fighting's intense
in there.
And the Marines
cleared each floor,
but down in the basement,
the fighters were
all pushed down
in the basement.
And down there, it became
a hand-to-hand fight and it
was so close.

1ST LT. MOULTON: We were
clearing out these rooms
and-and Lieutenant
Schickling's platoon
just next to mine,
they ran into a bunch of
insurgents in the basement.
And PFC Cullenward was
at the head of a stack,
and-and just at that moment
in complete darkness an
insurgent just burst out
of the room and essentially
ran into him and he
couldn't get his weapon off
so he grabbed his-his bayonet
and-and stabbed this
guy in the face.
You know, but that's
what it came down to.
So you can have all this
fancy technology in the world.
I mean you can have 50
yards away a Spectre
Gunship shooting 40-milli-
millimeter cannon shells
to take out in-
insurgents that we
couldn't see and yet
right there and then it
came down to, you know,
being able to fight a guy
to the ground with a knife.
(distant gunfire)
LT. COL. KELLEY:
The enemy was in
very large buildings, very
compartmented terrain.
And ultimately over time
we were able to build a
convincing enough picture
of what was going on there
that you can get permission
to drop precision-guided
munitions on sites like
building three and four
across the street from
the Imam Ali Shrine.
(explosion)
Big risk, but our guys had
been in there and they knew
that the enemy was in
those buildings,
was in the subterranean levels
under those buildings.
KOTECKI: RPG we recovered
during a hotel raid...
Charlie Company...
fighting hole...
possible tunnel...
(soldiers talking)
Notice the ladder going
up to the ground level...
(soldiers talking)
(traffic sounds, honking)
(sirens blaring)
1ST LT. CUOMO: Somehow the
Ayatollah Sistani comes
from down south, some
convoy with thousands of
Shia Muslims and we get,
"Hey, the fighting's over."
You know, the Marines said,
"What do you mean
the fighting's over?
We've been fighting
for the last-"
"Fighting's done.
"Sadr handed the keys
over to Sistani.
We've killed many of his
guys, and he's done."
(indistinct sounds)
CAPT. MORAN: Sistani
is the Grand Ayatollah
of-of Shia Islam so
the closest that they have
to a pope or-or a unified,
unitary-type figure
in their religion.
(people chanting)
And he arrives with this-
this huge procession of
people to end the fight.
And he- and he inserts
himself between the
Coalition and the Mahdi Militia,
negotiates with Muqtada al-Sadr,
and secures the keys to
the Imam Ali Shrine.
So now it is in control
of the Grand Ayatollah.

1ST LT. MOULTON: The next day
we woke up and it was a
really eerie silence.
I mean this was the center of
the-the battle that we had
essentially been fighting
for the past month
and it was just totally silent.
And it was a strange
feeling because I think,
you know, we had built up
to this moment so much that
we really wanted to finish
the job and we wanted to-
to-root-to just
take out this militia
and be done with it.
And so we weren't happy
when the settlement
came through.
You know, Najaf got worse
quickly thereafter
and the militia started
coming back into town.
They knew the Marines had left.
And they knew that as much
success as we had had in
those sh-few short months
in building up the Iraqi
Security Forces,
they weren't ready, they
weren't ready yet.
And, and I think
we left too soon.

MAJ. GEN. SCALES: We
didn't have the forces
in place to fight against
two enemies simultaneously.
We saw our cen-the enemy's
center of gravity as being
the Sunni insurgency,
not the Shias.
And the main thing we
needed to do at the time
was to quell the Shia
insurgency and put them
back in the box so that we
could turn the majority
of our firepower and our
attention on the Sunnis.
Because clearly the Sunnis
were the greater threat
and they needed to be
dealt with first.
(engine rumbles)
1ST LT. GRAPES:
Basically, I think
that we all thought and felt
that it was the worst
place in the world.
You know, pretty much the
center of all insurgency,
corruption, evil
plotting and scheming,
in all of Iraq.
Every nay-every day
all we got was bad news
coming out of Fallujah.
We knew that we couldn't
go anywhere near it.
All the, you know, enemy's
logistics and planning and
coordination for their
attacks across the country
was being conducted
in that city.
We wanted to go,
I mean, for-for four
or five months
we were just waiting on
the edge of a knife,
"When are we gonna get to go
and take care of
business there?"
(metal clanking)
CPL. BENDER: After
the first Fallujah,
they knew we were coming back.
They knew the Marine Corps
would not take a slap in
the face like that.
They were coming back, and
that's-they used that time.
They dug trenches.
They fortified houses.
They were ready.
I mean, they were building...
a labyrinth of death, basically,
for-for the Marines
to flow through.
(fighter jet sounds)
(singing)
(explosion)
(singing)
(speaking a foreign language)
(speaking a foreign language)
BRIG. GEN. TOOLAN: He
really came out in pre-
in living color around June.
And it was almost like, the
first fight in Fallujah was
like a siren song for the-
all insurgents to sort
of muster in-in Fallujah.
LT. GEN. METZ: The insurgents,
Sunni-mainly Sunni,
controlled Fallujah.
They-they-they owned terrain.
I mean they-it was their's.
And Zarqawi and-and the Al
Qaeda piece began to-
to move in
and take advantage
of that safe haven.
(speaking a foreign language)
(screaming)
(speaking a foreign language)
LT. COL. MCCOY: When I went
back to the original CP,
I was able to see the Nicholas
Berg beheading on the video.
It-it just confirms
that we're in a f-
locked in a fight
with a-a murderous enemy
that is without honor.
If anything, that just
stiffens our resolve to-
to keep going after these guys.
I mean, they-they want us dead
and-and they mean every
word that they say.
LT. GEN. METZ: General Casey's
challenge was to ensure
that the Allawi government
was-was in support of an attack
in Fallujah because it was
clearly going to trigger
a- a Sunni reaction.
And I think as the
beheadings and the
atrocities came out of
Fallujah, more and more
people realized that Al
Qaeda was there,
that it was a cancer, that
it had to be cut out.
LT. COL. BUHL: The plan was
to clear from the north,
from the high population
concentrated areas,
push them to the south,
which was mo-generally
more open terrain;
the area known as
Queens at the very
south end of the city
had detached housing.
It was a newer-
of newer architecture
and construction.
Also the industrial area
to the southeast
corner of the city.
Again open-characterized
by more open terrain,
larger, big structures, etc.
This would be an
area we could more
ya know, apply our combined
arms with more effect.
(loudspeaker blares in
a foreign language)
LT. GEN. METZ: I think one
of the most successful
parts of the operation was
a psychological operation
which alerted the citizens
of Fallujah that they
needed for their own safety
to be out of the city.
And we estimate of a city
of about 300,000 that about
270,00 of 'em left.
Now most people would
say that would create a
humanitarian problem somewhere,
but you gotta understand
th-this - the society
that exists in Iraq
could assimilate over
200,000 people into homes
and-and other places
and we didn't create the
humanitarian problem.
Although that
potential was there,
we-we planned for it
and stored food
and comfort items.
(helicopter sounds)
(digging sounds)
SOLDIER: (laughs)
Yeah! Hells bells!

CPL. SLAWATYCKI: There's
a lot of downtime in war,
and,
so, you know everything
about everybody
that you're with,
especially the guys
you're in charge of,
like my team, I knew-I mean,
I knew, you know, families,
and they knew everything
about me, and, yeah,
they were, you know,
Lance Corporals,
and I was a Corporal,
but that, a lot of times,
that doesn't matter
when-when you're there.
SOLDIER: Living the dream,
dog, living the dream.
(digging sounds)
CPL. BENDER: These guys
were tight-knit, you know,
they were-they were
together, they were one,
and I was this-
who's the new guy?
A new guy right before you're-
you need to be as be-
the best you can be.
And so, when I heard these
talks about 70 percent
casualties or whatever else, I-
you know, I had kind
of written myself off.
I said if anybody
gets lost in here,
it's gonna be an outsider;
it's gonna be a new guy.
SOLDIER: I give you
Mortimus Maximus!
(laughing, cheering and booing)
LT. COL. BUHL: Just
for a moment today,
just enjoy yourselves for
a couple of minutes,
'cause after this,
it's as deadly
serious as it's been
for the last five months
for this battalion...
and all the work that
it took to get here.
So God bless all the
Charioteers and all of YOU.
Fighting for freedom,
freeing this country from
the terrorist oppression
that we all know too well.
("Eye of the Tiger" song
playing on loudspeaker)
(distant gunfire)
1ST LT. GRAPES: The day
prior to the assault
we spent in the desert
about a kilometer
north of Fallujah,
in some fighting positions
we dug in over the night.
And then that morning, I
think around 0400, 0500,
we got in our column of
Humvees and tanks and tracks
and they blew a breach lane
in the railroad track to
the north of the city.
We crossed that breach
probably around 0800
and we were in the city
and fighting within
half an hour.
(engines rumble)
CPL. BENDER: We all loaded up
and we're sitting
in these tracks,
just crammed in there
like we always are.
You know tracks are
basically like a bulldozer,
they can spin on a
dime and do a 180,
and I remember just
spinning the track,
the ramp starts dropping, and
guys' eyes were wide open.
(gunfire) (shouting)
You know, you're wired.
We come up, and we're right
beside this house and we're
looking down the street,
and I think we were just
kinda getting our wits about us,
and this fireball just
explodes right beside us.
This was like a
sledgehammer to the chest,
and boom, hit this wall.
And I remember kind
of shaking my head,
and of course you
can't hear anything.
You got these guys
yelling and it goes from
"Hey, Marine, get over here!"
To "Woowooowooo."
Like, you can't-guys are
yelling and you just can't
hear it because
your head's rung.
We didn't understand
what had happened.
We thought, you know, a
car exploded or whatever it
was, and as we pulled guys
back into this courtyard,
we cleared the first house
we were in, you know,
our staff sergeant
tell us that was a tank.
And we'd never-
personally I'd never been
that close to a
tank when it fired,
and we were probably
less than six feet
from the front of
an Abrams main gun.
And it thumped, you know,
it rung all of our bells.
(gunfire)
LT. GEN. NATONSKI:
On the peninsula,
which was just across the
river from the city of Fallujah,
we had a-a joint force of-
a joint combined force
of Marines, soldiers,
and the Iraqi 36th
Commando battalion
move up the peninsula
and secure the hospital,
which was right
across the river.
(vehicle brakes squealing)
LT. COL. KELLEY:
During the first part
of Fallujah there
had been a lot of
very inflammatory news coverage
from that hospital
and so the plan that
we came up with was that
Green Berets will lead
the Commando Battalion
as the first assault,
ground assault of the-
the larger Fallujah assault.
The first opening action will be
the Iraqis liberating
the hospital.
And so that-that's what
those guys executed.
That's what Mike Manley,
that's what the Iraqi
commandos executed.
(shouting) (gunfire)
MASTER SGT. MANLEY: The
door we came to was locked.
(explosion)
We breached that door, got
inside and started flowing
through the eastern
side buildings.
We encountered very
few-few people.
We-we did find in the
emergency room quite a few,
actual doctors and what not.
We picked them up.
We found some seriously
wounded individuals.
But on the western side of
the building, as we moved
around to the-to the
western side
of the hospital, my guys
encountered the bulk of-of
the fighters and we found
people from, you know,
Morocco, Syrians, Lebanese,
there was, you know, people
from several different
countries that we-we found
inside the hospital that
would obviously supported
the fact that foreign
fighters were coming in
there for the-for the big fight.
(indistinct conversations)
LT. COL. KELLEY: They
had a-a news crew
embedded with them and this-
this was obviously a
very important story.
The fascinating thing to us
was, and if you look at the
helmet cam video, you can
see the television monitors
on the hospital.
These guys just assaulted
the hospital and they're
still clearing it, and on
the television monitors you
can see Al Jazeera showing
them clearing the hospital
because the CBS news
reporter is beaming his
footage back and before he
even gets on the air with a
report of the assault on
Fallujah has finally begun,
Al Jazeera grabs his
footage off the satellite
pipe that it rides on,
they slap their take on the
story, on what's happening,
even though they have no
one there reporting,
they grab the footage and
they're-they are reporting it
before CBS even
breaks the story.
(soldiers shouting) (gunfire)
(indistinct chatter) (gunfire)
CPL. SLAWATYCKI: I believe
it was seven battalions
pushed in, into the city,
into the northern edge of
the city, every one of them
directly online at the same
exact time, from east to west.
And as everybody pushed
down, when one got ahead of
another, they stopped,
waited, held security, and
waited for the next one
to get online, because as
you're jumping from house
to house, you have to stay
together, or else
insurgents will get through
and get behind you.
And once that happens,
everything is known
to go to hell.
SOLDIERS: Breach! (gunfire)
CPL. SLAWATYCKI: For us,
it was clear the building,
and then worry about
the next one.
Clear the building, and the
next one, and the next one,
and then hundreds and
thousands of 'em after,
and the millions of rooms
that you end up walking into.
SOLDIERS: Hey someone
get behind me!
(gunfire)
SOLDIER: Just found
a huge cache...
It's like 50120-rounds,
various rockets, other
mortars, and mortar systems.
(distant gunfire)
CPL. BENDER: The original
thoughts of Fallujah was
that it was a safe hold
for insurgents,
and a real hornet's
nest in that sense.
But also, it was a-it
was a munitions dump.
They had an insane amount
of weapons and-
explosives there.
They were using it as a
storage point, because
they knew Americans
couldn't touch it before-
before the invasion of
Fallujah, so they were
basically reporting there,
filling their trunks up
with mines and IEDs, going
to outer-lying cities,
planting them, and coming
back into the city and
having a good night's
rest, you know?
And so we were running-
running across these,
and as we cleared houses,
even-even though we didn't
run to-run into
insurgents in every house,
we almost-
I'd say every fifth house
had weapons in it.
(distant gunfire)
(door thunks)
SOLDIER: Clear.
LANCE CPL. PANCAMO:
We were clearing
so many houses a day, I mean,
we were clearing I would
say up in the double
digits at least, houses a day.
It's kind of the same
process and sometimes there
are people inside and
sometimes there's not and
it just kind of wears
on your mind and body.
(banging and shouting)
(explosions)
(banging and shouting)
CPL. SLAWATYCKI: We
pushed the contact,
as a squad, and I-I
believe as a platoon,
and that was our-
our objective was
push the contact,
keep on moving,
keep 'em on their toes.
(footsteps)
SOLDIER: Pancamo!
Next time you go into
a house by yourself
I'm gonna
knock you out...
Always make sure somebody's
behind you, all right?
(door crashes)
LANCE CPL. PANCAMO: My
squad we were kind of
branded with the whole, like,
being a "cowboy,"
you know whatever,
or the name or whatever, because
we were-we were
kind of reckless.
I wouldn't-I wouldn't
say reckless,
we were kind of,
yeah, we would-I guess
I would say reckless.
We were kind of bold.
You know, we were
kind of bold with the
everything that we did.
(footsteps)
CPL. BENDER: Pancamo and I
are looking over some paperwork
in one of these rooms,
and I'm kind of-
he's right in front of me,
and we're-we're close,
you know, we're kind
of face to face
looking over this stuff
and trying to read,
and out of the corner of my eye,
I basically see an
Iraqi man, you know,
we called it a man
dress, but the-
the average attire for an
Iraqi guy is basically
a floor-length
dress shirt, you know?
And he's got the-the
rag around the top-
around the top of head or
whatever, and he comes in
and just-instinctively,
you know, you've been in
this environment and this
mindset for so long that
that means danger;
that means death
in a lot of circumstances.
And I'm-you know, like
I said, it was out of the
corner of my eye, and I
didn't really want to alert
him to the fact that I knew
he was there, but I just
draw fast, I get my 9
mil right here, this-
and I pull, aim it,
and I'm half squeezing
this trigger,
I mean, I am-in my
mind, he's already dead.
And it's Boloff, and he had
thrown this Iraqi attire
on, thinking it was funny.
And it really was not funny,
especially when
you're inside the-
the city of Fallujah,
so he got body slammed
for that one and, I
don't know, he just
wasn't a very deep
thinker, I guess.
(tank humming) (gunfire)
MAST. SGT. CASTILLO: On the
other side of the courtyard
they had no eyes, no vis;
I did 'cause I
was sitting so high,
so what I would do is
I'd just lean over my
machine gun, look over
the wall, and if I saw
something I'd shoot at it
prior to them entering the
building or going
into that courtyard.
And what was happening was
the platoon commander or
the platoon sergeant was
guiding me on the building
they wanted to hit using
the grunt phone, a-a box,
a- a radio mic
that we have on the-on
the back of the tank
that they used to talk to
the tank commander on the
inside of the tank.
So they would tell me on
the radio, on the hook,
"Hey, we want to take
this building here
on the right side."
And I'd go ahead
and prep it for 'em.
I'd-I'd launch a couple of
main gun rounds in there
(explosion)
And then they'd storm in.
(soldiers shouting) (gunfire)
CPL. BENDER: First
day's kind of a blur.
I mean, we ran-you're
just on pure adrenaline,
waitin' for that house.
You know, every house is
a potential death trap.
And you know, you always
take a deep sigh after the
door you-you take
is cleared, and-and
truthfully, I didn't run
that much video
on the first day.
I was all about being on
the trigger, you know.
(tank humming)
MAST. SGT. CASTILLO:
Unfortunately,
when you're in-in battle
and every tanker knows this
the-the tank pretty much becomes
the Port a Potty
sometimes, and you have to
do your business
inside the tank.
And it-it's an awful smell
when men haven't showered
in days or weeks sometimes,
and you know, you just-
the body odor, the smell
of the-the-the FRH
and the hydraulic
fluids and the diesel
and the oils and your clothes.
And all these things, it just-
it reeks really bad sometimes.
So it's just something you
get used to, and you just
do what you gotta do and
toss it in a black bag out
of the hatch. (laughs)
(distant gunfire)
SOLDIER: Hey, Fitz! Let's go.
SOLDIER: Let's go Fitz!
SOLDIER: Let's go, let's
go, let's go, c'mon, c'mon.
CPL. BENDER: I guess
towards the end of
the day we ended up,
in a position a lot of
guys, or some guys refer to
as the Alamo.
It was a giant schoolhouse,
kind of a center point,
in-in the Jolan district
for our push, anyway.
(footsteps)
CPL. PIANO: I believe
3rd platoon was off
to one of our flanks
and they were getting
some serious contact.
And we had-my platoon
was in the schoolhouse,
the Alamo, and we were just
getting mortared, RPGs,
small-arms fire from everywhere.
SOLDIER: Did you get an ID
on that shooter from the mosque?
(gunfire)
(gunfire) (explosion)
SOLDIER: You blew
that bitch in half!
CPL. SLAWATYCKI: They
pretty much came out of the
woodwork like rats, I mean,
we had mortars coming in,
being shot at on a
consistent basis;
what we did is, initially, to
set up a consolidation point,
and keep pushing,
we set ourselves up
in a-in a building,
and-not so much trapped
ourselves,
but, we were a target,
and for that day and night,
there was a lot of
fightin' going on.
(gunfire)
CPL. BENDER: To
sum it up, it was-
we were in one
position way too long,
and more Marines kept
showing up, and we...
it was the only secure building
in that area of the city,
but at the same time,
the insurgents had known
we'd been there for hours,
and I think higher ups will
even tell you that it was-
it was a nerve-testing
time, you know?
I heard lieutenants
screaming at each other and
dropping the F-bomb
every other word.
I mean, they were-they
did not want to be there.
They really wanted to move,
but we couldn't because we
had a platoon behind us,
and we had to stay online.
(gunfire)
CPL. SLAWATYCKI: I can't see,
I don't have any windows.
CPL. SLAWATYCKI: I
looked at it more like,
you know, you just gotta
do what you gotta do
to help your friends,
you know, to help
your fellow Marines.
You know, I wasn't worried
about, you know, getting
shot or getting wounded,
or anything like that, or
having something drastic
happen to me, I was-
I was worried about the
guys to my left and right.
(distant gunfire)
CPL. BENDER: That's kind
of how things were.
There's intense moments,
and then there's hanging
out, you know, and so for
that point, I'm trying to
switch tapes around and get
my camera ready to roll for
what's coming next, trying
to take advantage of the
time that we had, and-and
I get my camera slapped-
slapped back together,
I'm ready to roll,
and Piano now is-
he's ducking and he's-
ducking and dodging bullets,
and it's-it's
kinda weird, because most
of the other Marines
were drinking water,
and kind of on standby.
We're waiting for word
from staff sergeant.
(gunshots)
(indistinct chatter) (gunshots)
CPL. SLAWATYCKI: One
insurgent popped up
and we fired,
myself and Corporal Piano
fired shots at him,
and at this point we had
only saw him very briefly,
we weren't sure, and I
actually asked, I believe I
asked Lance Corporal Pancamo,
I'm like, "Did I get him?"
Yeah, I wasn't exactly sure
at this-at that point,
so, he dropped down, and
the next thing I remember
seeing was a glint of a rifle,
and shots were fired.
CPL. BENDER: 'Brrrrrrrat, '
like an AK buzz, you know?
And he just-I can
remember it, you know,
it was like a freeze frame
in my mind, and you see-
his Kevlar is like this,
and you see, 'thonk!'
and I'm behind him, and I
just see this dust 'ptoo!'
like puff out of his
Kevlar, and you just get
this sick feeling in
your stomach, you know?
He-his rifle-he takes it
like this, and-you know,
you're never supposed
to drop your rifle,
and even when he gets
thumped in the head,
and Piano like, takes his
rifle and sets it down
and like-kind of like
lays it on the ground
as he's falling.
CPL. SLAWATYCKI: I stood up
and started firing two
or three grenades,
and also shots in the
area, second platoon
can confirm that they had
found the insurgents,
and Corporal Piano
was on the ground.
CPL. BENDER: Thump
right through there,
the round-the round went in
and came out the
back of the Kevlar.
So he should have been a goner.
You know, the docs
were there with us,
and everybody's-we thought
he was dead, you know?
We figured we'd pull off
his Kevlar and there'd be a
mess of brains in there,
and he'd be done, you know?
And he walked out of there.
And you know, Tycki will
tell you he kept repeating
things like, "Tycki, you
got the squad," you know,
he's-he's trying to-
he knows he's gone,
he knows he's out of the
fight, but he wants-
he wants us to be successful.
(gunfire)
CPL. PIANO: What
really got to me
when I got to the train station,
what I was very upset
with and like,
I still regret it
to this day was-
I don't know about other
wounded Marines but,
if you get wounded you
feel as if you failed.
You are trained
not to get wounded.
It's just a-a failure,
you feel like a failure.
I feel I let my Marines down.
CPL. SLAWATYCKI: Immediately
I took over the squad,
became squad leader,
made Lance Corporal
Pancamo my first team leader,
and right after that we
had left the schoolhouse,
and began to push south again,
as if nothing happened.
But we-it was-
the mindset changed.
He was the first one in
our squad to get seriously
wounded, and the mindset
changed immediately.
And from then on out,
I'll have to say, honestly,
in my personal opinion,
it wasn't just-just
another battle
that you happen to be
in that you train for,
it definitely became a
personal situation,
for myself, because that
was bad day for the whole
company and the battalion,
we lost a lot of guys that day.
(heavy gunfire)
(soldiers talking)
(heavy gunfire)
(soldiers talking)
(heavy gunfire)
LT. COL. BUHL: The further
south we advanced,
the more determined
the resistance got.
And particularly Queens,
the very southernmost
neighborhood in that city,
fanatical resistance.
And one might say well it's
natural, you're pushing
them against what, in
this case really was
the wall behind them.
Because we had the
entire city cordoned
and there was nowhere
for them to go.
LT. GEN. NATONSKI:
We had instances
where the enemy would wave
a white flag and then shoot
American forces nearby.
We saw insurgents playing
dead and then picking up
rifles and firing on our forces.
They were using drugs.
Many had been high on
amphetamines and other
types of narcotics.
You could shoot em',
and they would
continue to attack.
(crickets chirping)
CPL. BENDER: We had
a patrol on foot
and we're coming
through these streets,
it's really eerie
because, you know,
minutes ago we were
shooting at guys in these
buildings that we're
walking right beside now,
and it's dark, and like I
said, night vision is tough
to deal with in that scenario.
And we hear this rustling,
and somebody points their
taclight over, and you
see this insurgent that had
been shot crossing the
street, and then a cat
pounced on top of him,
pulling tendons out of his leg.
You know, this is-this
guy got shot maybe six
hours ago, and these
feral cats and dogs,
it's a heyday for them.
I mean, they're
already setting in.
Once the sun goes down,
the smorgasbord starts.

LT. COL. BUHL: We found a
number of torture chambers
replete with all the
things you'd expect,
bloody knives,
saws, hooks, fingernails,
scratches into the cement.
We-we found the room that
the British citizen who had
been beheaded,
was-was detained
inside, was tortured in.
And-and the picture had
his face and his hands on
the bars and we had the
very same room with the
exact bars, with the same
markings on it, etc.
(whirring sound)
MAST. SGT. CASTILLO: The
smell was horrendous.
I just-the smell of
death in the air,
and when you-when you
don't-when you've never
experienced something
like that, it's something
that'll never leave your
mind because it's just-
the destruction is-
is just horrible.
The smell is horrible.
It's just-it's an
experience that you have to
live to really truly
understand and get a
feeling of.

LT. COL. BUHL: One of our
young Marines
noticed fresh feces
at an outhouse outside the-
this particular structure
that later became known
as the "Hell House" and
reported it on his
platoon radio,
alerted people that he
was investigating it.
A fire-reinforced fire
team, part of a squad,
entered the house and
immediately encountered
enemy inside.

1ST LT. GRAPES: What
they didn't know
was, besides the man
who was standing
in that living room
shooting at them directly,
and besides the man
that was in the
first room that they
had already killed,
there was two fighters who
were in an elevated position
in that living room,
which is kind of-
just like in the States,
right in the middle
of the house,
so all the other
rooms are kind of
adjoining off of this
one central location.

LT. COL. BUHL: This
was pre-precisely
one of these situations where,
in this case the insurgents
remained very quiet,
hidden, and didn't
advertise their position
and-and in fact that's
what we saw also as we
advanced south was that
the insurgents were less
willing to-to engage us
as we approached, but would
wait until we physically
entered the homes to fight
as close as possible to negate
our combined arms advantages.

1ST LT. GRAPES: So I arrived
about twenty minutes-
fifteen minutes
after this fight had
begun, and it was at-
I guess I would call it
a bit of a stalemate.
And the reason I say a
stalemate is because:
wounded Marine inside,
Staff Sergeant Chandler
organizes a rescue party.
They run in the room,
try and shoot
everything that they-
that moves so they
can pull this Marine out.
Soon as they run in,
what did the enemy do?
They're smart, they throw
grenades in the room.
As they walk in the
room, they blow up,
and now I've got two
more Marines wounded.
The other two wounded
Marines fall into the
kitchen, and they're
trapped in this kitchen.
So now I've got four
Marines trapped
in the house,
because no one can
go in this living room
without getting blown up.
Another rescue party goes
in, led by a Corporal,
Corporal Wolf goes
in with a Sergeant
and they try and go in,
Corporal Woof-Wolf gets
shot in his flak jacket,
falls on the floor,
Sergeant Byron Norwood
gets shot in the head,
killed, instantly.

LT. COL. BUHL: Then
First Sergeant
Brad Kasal realizes that
there are men in-
in extremis hurt.
He can hear the screams.
He enters the house.
He grabs Marines nearby,
takes them in with him,
begins to develop the
situation inside the house
and in the process of
maneuvering to an empty
room engages and kills a
man at close quarters and
is wounded in the process
by a enemy above him.
And in fact he and his
partner, his-his buddy
Lance Corporal Nicolls,
both are stitched down their
legs with AK-47 fire.
1ST LT. GRAPES: These guys
are in a very good position,
the-the enemy.
There was very-not a very
easy way to get to them,
and at the same time,
all of the-these rooms-
this-this structure's
very solid.
You know, the-the
construction in Iraq is
very sturdy-
steel rebar,
reinforced concrete,
and sometimes
triple-layer brick.
You couldn't shoot a
missile through some of
these walls.
And so we couldn't bring
any heavy weapons to bear,
couldn't bring any grenades
to bear, because we had too
many of our own men
wounded on the inside.
So basically all we could
use was our hands
and our guns.
So another Marine, PFC
Boswood and myself,
started taking the sledgehammer
to the steel grate
of this window.

LT. COL. BUHL: So the lieutenant
goes in without their
protective vests and plates
on etc., through the bars
of a window that they
managed to pull aside.
This all in extremis.
There's firing going on,
there are grenades being
thrown in the house,
there's groups of Marines
separated and
trapped by this very
effective defense scheme.
And Grapes goes in with
Boswood, they identify the
threat above them, they
work out a situ-a scenario
to-to suppress the
enemy above them.

1ST LT. GRAPES: We
got four or five guns
pointed up at these positions,
and just like you'd imagine,
with a countdown,
"Okay, you ready?"
"I'm not sure." (laughs)
You know, "Okay,
we're gonna go on three,"
you know, "Make sure you
don't run in front of our
guns, because we're
gonna be shooting,"
and-and the old,
"Ready, set, go!"
And then we start unloading
on these guys upstairs,
and these two selfless Marines,
run across this kill zone,
not once, not twice,
but four times
to pull Marines out of there.
And we had some Marines in
some pretty bad situations;
Lance Corporal Nic- or PFC
Nicoll was bleeding really
bad from his leg; First
Sergeant Kasal was carried
out by those two Marines
who weren't carrying any
weapons, but still holding
his weapon, ready to fight.
And they were in bad shape.
So we had to get them out
of there as quickly as
possible, but we still
had these two guys
in the-in the house.
And they weren't going
anywhere, and we weren't
going anywhere until
the job was done.
LT. COL. BUHL: They
managed to get everybody
out of the house
alive and Byron,
they managed to
get Sergeant Norwood
out of the house
and then they drop the house.
1ST LT. GRAPES: So we
let the-the smoke clear,
and we-we take a
walk over to make sure that
there's-there's nothing
left to be done, and as
we approach, we see two of
these guys hanging out
of the-the rubble,
from their waist up, and we
assume that they're dead.
I mean, we just think that they
logically would be dead.
And I'll never forget this
French photographer, he says,
"Hey, one of these
guys is moving."
And he and I and John got
up close and look at the
guy, and as we got within
three, four feet of him,
he has his arm kind of, you
know, held to his chest
like this, flings a grenade
at us with his last breaths
of life, right at
our feet-we turned,
all seven of us,
you know, run for-for
cover, grenade blows up
behind us, we turn around and-
and you know, fired
on-on both of them.

And then we went up
and finished them off

And went back to-to our base.

LT. COL. BUHL: They're
asking after their buddies.
That's all they're asking.
"How is...
How is Kasal?"
"How's Nicoll doing?"
That's all they ever asked.
"Do I have to leave?
Do I have to be medivac'd?"
"You're going to
be okay, and yes,
"doc says you've got to go.
"We'll see you.
We'll see you, you know,
as soon as you get better."
You always want to reassure
these men that they've done
their duty and... oh
gosh I thought I-
I didn't think I'd
have a problem here.
You always want to reassure
them and you want to try to
do that before they get
their medication so they
remember it because that
memory is seared
into their-into their soul.
They-they never forget it.
None of us do.

1ST LT. GRAPES: In
a rifle platoon,
to lose almost all of your
leadership in one battle,
that just doesn't happen.
I mean, we were almost
depleted in strength by a
third in an hour and a half
span, and you know, we had
all been working together
for years, and you know,
we're just sitting back
there at our base,
like I said, decompressing and-
and just reflecting, saying,
"I can't believe that we
were just involved in that.
I can't believe I'm still
alive, involved in that."
And I think one of the
Marines just said,
"Yeah, that was hell."
And they just started calling it
the "Hell House."
And it was, so the
name just stuck.

CPL. PIANO: I remember saying
something to Captain Clark
at one point, when he was a
captain then, major now,
he said something about them.
Because one of my friends
just got killed and I said
something to him and he was
like, that's the hardest
thing about fighting this
enemy is they're not afraid
to die, which was
very, very true.
If they are not
afraid to die then,
how do you fight 'em?
1ST LT. GRAPES: What our
enemies respect over there
is not candy and soccer balls;
they respect the hammer,
and-and we gave it
to 'em in Fallujah.
And-and that's why they
haven't replicated that
again in the country.
Certainly there's fighting
going on throughout Iraq;
certainly there are
ambushes and IEDs and
things like that going on
everywhere, but that's the
reason why soldiers and
Marines are so frustrated,
because it's not the
combat they trained for,
there's no honor in it.
There's no pride in
it with your enemy.
You don't respect them.
In Fallujah, I can
honestly say, well,
certainly we don't agree
with their political ideo-
ideology or their
religious ideology.
We respected the fact
that they stood there
and faced us and fought us.
(gunfire) (explosions)
CPL. SLAWATYCKI: We ended up
consolidating the platoon
and got in a-a patrol formation,
and we had these personal
radios, the PRRs,
and I believe it
was Corporal Bryan
from-from third squad
comes over the radio
and starts singing Mickey Mouse.
And if you've ever seen the
movie "Full Metal Jacket,"
when they're in Hu City
at the very end, they all-
moving with-through
the buildings at night
singing Mickey Mouse.
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
Mickey Mouse!
Mickey Mouse!
Forever let us hold
our banner high
High! High! High!
Boys and girls
from far and near
You're welcome as can be
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
CPL. SLAWATYCKI: It was
just like one of them
moments in life that I'll
always look back on,
like, you know, I-
I guess you could-
you could say war is
hell, and you know,
bad things happen and
stuff like that.
I mean, we lost a lot of
friends, a lot of people
got wounded, but at that
moment n-nothing else
mattered because you were-
you were with friends
that you have for life,
and you're walking
through a place
that you just did
something that, you know,
will be everywhere,
will-will live on,
and it'll always be remembered,
and you can laugh and
joke at the same time.

WEST: I don't think that we
should call it a victory.
And because the whole
episode if you look at the
six months, if anything
gave solace to the enemy in
saying, "Well, the Americans
don't have it all together.
They don't finish a fight."
And even when we finished
the second fight in
Fallujah, the American high
command was so concerned
with the physical damage
done that there was no
pursuit of the enemy and
the enemy was allowed to
scatter to other towns.
LT. COL. BUHL: We bought
some time after Fallujah 2.
If-if-you know, and you're-
you're told never to speculate,
"Stay in your lane
Lieutenant Colonel Buhl."
But if I were to speculate,
this was our moment,
this would have been a
moment for us to surge.
At this moment in time we
had the insurgency in the
Al Anbar Province flat on-
that we had them on their back.
We truly did.

(soldier speaking
indistinctly on intercom)
LT. GEN. METZ: The enemy
is always gonna go,
like most things do in nature
to where there's the
least resistance.
As an example, I don't
think the enemy's going to
go try to challenge us in
the deep blue sea or the
light blue sky.
I mean our wonderful Naval
forces and Air forces will
prohibit any enemy from-from
re-entering those domains.
He's going to go to jungles
and to mountains and to
urban environments where
it's very, very hard.
The enemy will make it
a-a boots on the ground
intensive fight and
we gotta expect it.
He's not gonna try to fight
us where we're dominant.
He's gonna fight us
where we're weak.

(tank rumbles)
LT. COL. MCCOY: Despite all
the technology that we had,
it came down to men going
to the sound of guns,
in that cauldron where-
where human wills clash,
where the metal meets the meat.
And those with the-the
best training win.
At the end of the day,
all the metal and guns
in the world don't-
aren't worth, you know,
three squads of-
of Marines that are willing
to do the work with rifle,
bayonet and grenade.

MAST. SGT. ERICKSON:
Foreign policy,
I don't make it,
I just deliver the
last 600 meters of it.

SOLDIER: We got a
red platoon directly
in front of us, sir.
Can't see anything really.
But we haven't seen
anything for a while.
We've got two people
on the bridge.
ANNOUNCER: This program
is available with
PBS Passport and on
Amazon Prime Video.
SOLDIER 2: Okay, as soon as
this last big rig goes
we're gonna start
backing you guys up
and getting out of the
way (indistinct) over.
SOLDIER: Roger that.