A squat water tower rose above the rooftops a few blocks from one of the roofs where we were perched. It looked like a wide yellow tomato.
We’d already moved a few blocks past the tower when a Marine decided to climb up and retrieve the Iraqi flag flying from the grid work. As he climbed, the insurgents who had lain low during the earlier attack began firing on him. Within seconds, he was shot up and trapped.
We backtracked over, moving along the streets and across the rooftops until we found the men shooting at him. When we had the area cleared, we sent up one of our guys to retrieve the flag. After we got it down, we sent it to the Marine in the hospital.
Runaway Shows His Colors
Not long afterward, a guy I’ll call Runaway and I were on the street when we had contact with Iraqi insurgents. We ducked into a shallow setback in the wall next to the street, waiting for the hail of bullets to die down.
“We’ll work our way back,” I told Runaway. “You go first. I’ll cover you.”
“Good.”
I leaned out and laid down cover fire, forcing the Iraqis back. I waited a few seconds, giving Runaway time to get into position so he could cover me. When I thought enough time had passed, I jumped out and started running.
Bullets began flying all around, but not from Runaway. They were all coming from the Iraqis, who were trying to write their names in my back with bullets.
I threw myself against the wall, sliding next to the gate. For a moment I was disoriented: where was Runaway?
He should have been nearby, waiting under cover for me so we could leapfrog back. But he was nowhere to be seen. Had I passed him on the street?
No. Motherfucker was busy earning his nickname.
I was trapped, hung up by the insurgents and without my mysteriously disappearing friend.
The Iraqi gunfire got so intense that I ended up having to call for backup. The Marines sent a pair of Hummers, and with their firepower backing up everything I could lay down, I was finally able to get out.
By then I’d figured out what had happened. When I met with Runaway a short time later, I practically strangled him—I probably would have, if it hadn’t been for the officer there.
“Why the hell did you run away?” I demanded. “You ran all the way down the block without covering me.”
“I thought you were following me.”
“Bullshit.”
It was the second time that week Runaway had taken off on me under fire. The first time I’d cut him slack, giving him the benefit of the doubt. But it was now clear he was a coward. Once he was under fire, he just pussied out.
Command separated us. It was a wise thing to do.
“We’re Just Gonna Shoot”
A little after Runaway’s Exciting Adventure, I came down from my position on one of the roofs when I heard a shit-ton of rounds go off nearby. I ran outside but couldn’t see the firefight. Then I heard a radio call that there were men down.
A fellow I’ll call Eagle and I ran up the block until we came across a group of Marines who’d retreated after taking fire about a block away. They told us that a group of insurgents had pinned down some other Marines not too far away, and we decided we’d try and help them.
We tried getting an angle from a nearby house, but it wasn’t tall enough. Eagle and I moved closer, trying another house. Here we found four Marines on the roof, two of whom had been wounded. Their stories were confusing, and we couldn’t get shots from there, either. We decided to take them out so the wounded could be helped; the kid I carried down had been gut-shot.
Down on the street, we got better directions from the two Marines who hadn’t been shot, finally realizing that we had been targeting the wrong house. We started down an alley in the direction of the insurgents, but after a short distance we came to obstructions we couldn’t get around, and we reversed course. Just as I came around the corner back out onto the main street, there was an explosion behind me—an insurgent had seen us coming and tossed a grenade.
One of the Marines following me went down. Eagle was a corpsman as well as a sniper, and after we pulled the injured kid away from the alley he went to work on him. Meanwhile, I took the rest of the Marines and continued down the road in the direction of the insurgents’ stronghold.
We found a second group of Marines huddled at a nearby corner, pinned down by fire from the house. They’d set out to rescue the first group but stalled. I got everyone together and I told them that a small group of us would rush up the street while the others laid down fire. The trapped Marines were about fifty yards away, about one full block.
“It doesn’t matter if you can see them or not,” I told them. “We’re all just gonna shoot.”
I got up to start. A terrorist jumped out into the middle of the road and began unleashing hell on us, spitting bullets from a belt-fed weapon. Returning fire as best we could, we ducked back for cover. Everybody checked themselves for holes; miraculously, no one had been shot.
By now, somewhere between fifteen and twenty Marines were there with me.
“All right,” I told them. “We’re going to try this again. Let’s do it this time.”
I jumped out from around the corner, firing my weapon as I ran. The Iraqi machine gunner had been hit and killed by our earlier barrage, but there were still plenty of bad guys farther up the street.
I’d taken only a few steps when I realized that none of the Marines had followed me.
The insurgents began focusing their fire on me. I tucked my Mk-11 under my arm and fired back as I ran. The semiautomatic is a great, versatile weapon, but in this particular situation its twenty-round magazine seemed awful small. I blew through one mag, popped the release, slammed in a second, and kept firing.
I found four men huddled near a wall not far from the house. It turned out that two of them were reporters who’d been embedded with the Marines; they were getting a hell of a better view of the battle than they had bargained for.
“I’ll cover you,” I shouted. “Get the hell out of here.”
I jumped up and laid down fire as they ran. The final Marine tapped me on the shoulder as he passed, signaling that he was the last man out. Ready to follow, I glanced to my right, checking my flank.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a body sprawled on the ground. He had Marine camis.
Where he came from, whether he’d been there when I arrived or crawled there from somewhere else, I have no idea. I ran over to him, saw that he’d been shot in both legs. I slapped a new mag into my gun, then grabbed the back of his body armor and pulled him with me as I retreated.
At some point as I ran, one of the insurgents threw a frag. The grenade exploded somewhere nearby. Pieces of wall peppered my side, from my butt cheek down to my knee. By some lucky chance, my pistol took the biggest fragment. It was pure luck—it might have put a nice hole in my leg.
My butt was sore for a while, but it still seems to work well enough.
We made it back to the rest of the Marines without either of us getting hit again.
I never found out who that wounded guy was. I’ve been told he was a second lieutenant, but I never had a chance to track him down.
