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Stranded Marines fight to last bullets

Apr-22-2004 » Filed Under: Iraq News

Here are two separate accounts of the same battle between insurgents and the Marines in Fallujah. Amazing story. This incident occurred last week.

[Link to Full Article]
From James Hider in Fallujah

THE 15 Marines were trapped in a house, surrounded by hundreds of Iraqis armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles, their armoured vehicle in flames on the street outside. Each man was down to his last two magazines.
“It was in my head, we just got to go. Whoever makes it back, makes it back, those who fall, fall,” said Staff Sergeant Ismail Sagredo, sitting in the relative safety of Bravo Company’s forward base yesterday, as mortars and machinegun fire sounded a few streets away.

“That was the decision I’d have had to make, and I’m glad I didn’t have to do it.”

It was one of the most dramatic actions of the war.

A must read.

[Link to Full Article]
"A Wrong Turn, Chaos and a Rescue"
By Pamela Constable, Washington Post Foreign Service

FALLUJAH, Iraq, April 14 -- It began as a routine supply mission to the front lines, in a volatile but largely becalmed city.

It ended as a fiery and chaotic rescue mission, with a small force of Marine tanks, Humvees and ground troops surrounded and attacked as they fought their way through a hostile neighborhood to save the crew of a burning armored personnel carrier.

Marine officials said the three-hour battle that erupted at dusk Tuesday on the streets of Fallujah, and was recounted Wednesday by several of the key officers involved, exemplified the bravery and resourcefulness that Marines are known for, even when surprised and surrounded by a host of enemy fighters on alien urban turf. By the end of the tumultuous encounter, the charred personnel carrier had been towed to safety by a tank and most of its 17 crew members -- several of them wounded -- had been rescued from a house where they had taken shelter.

(via Citizen Smash and Phil Carter)


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