June 25, 2025 • 35 mins
Doug Bahrns knew he wanted to be a U.S. Marine Corps officer when he finished high school a couple of years before 9/11. He graduated from the Virginia Military Institute and was commissioned as a Marine Corps officer. After going to officer's training at Quantico, Bahrns was assigned command of 3rd Platoon, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines in 2003. By 2004 they were in Iraq, and a few months later they would be involved in some of the fiercest fighting of the war - the Second Battle of Fallujah.
In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Bahrns discusses the ramping up to the battle, how he got orders to get his men ready for the fight in the middle of the night, and what he went over in his mind just before the battle began.
Bahrns describes the successful push to the mayor's complex, the vicious fighting to move out from there, and the brutal house-to-house fighting that followed. He explains the very effective method of clearing houses, how those gains stayed secured, and how his Marines escaped from a very precarious situation at a place they called "The Alamo."
Finally, Bahrns details the devastating loss of Cpl. Bradley Faircloth in late November 2004 and how Faircloth's death still weighs on him today.
In this edition of Veterans Chronicles, Bahrns discusses the ramping up to the battle, how he got orders to get his men ready for the fight in the middle of the night, and what he went over in his mind just before the battle began.
Bahrns describes the successful push to the mayor's complex, the vicious fighting to move out from there, and the brutal house-to-house fighting that followed. He explains the very effective method of clearing houses, how those gains stayed secured, and how his Marines escaped from a very precarious situation at a place they called "The Alamo."
Finally, Bahrns details the devastating loss of Cpl. Bradley Faircloth in late November 2004 and how Faircloth's death still weighs on him today.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Doug Barnes.
He's still on active duty and he also served as
commander for a third platoon in Alpha Company, first Battalion,
eighth Marines during the Second Battle of Fallujah in late
two thousand and four. Doug Barnes grew up in northern
(00:32):
Virginia and knew he wanted to serve as a Marine
Corps officer when he finished high school. He attended the
Virginia Military Institute, and after being commissioned as a Marine
officer and completing officer training at Quantico, Barnes was assigned
to his platoon in two thousand and three. By the
summer of two thousand and four, they were in Iraq,
just months from the fight for Falluja.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Initially we went to Ali Sade Airbase and we operated
mainly mainly around Haditha in al Ambar Province.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
What were the general conditions then when.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
We got there, I would kind of describe it as
a transition phase from the initial invasion the previous year
into what would become the counter insurgency fight. So when
we got there in the summer of four. The insurgency
was active, but compared to the events in Flujjah in November,
(01:31):
it was pretty permissive. We'd get rocket attacks occasionally, occasionally
somebody would hit an ID, we'd get hit with mortars.
First platoon was ambushed in Haditha, but relatively speaking, it
wasn't too bad.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
At what point did you start hearing about plans or
the likelihood of a second battle of Fallujah.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
So, you know, after the first Battle of Fallujah that
went April of four, we got there in June.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
So there was always this discussion.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
On the periphery of when are we going to go
back into Fallujah and clear it out, because it was
pretty well recognized that it had become a somewhat of
a safe haven for insurgents. So I remember sometime in
the summer, the battalion leadership we went out to an
overpass where you could see Fallujah in the distance. The
(02:32):
odd binoculars and whatnot. We essentially did kind of a
leader's recon from a distance, just to kind of see
what the city looked like and kind of discuss options
for how we would go in there. That was really
the first time it kind of clicked in my head
that we may be going in there, but nothing was
(02:54):
ever definitive till we finally got the word.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
What's your role specific as a young lieutenant in this company,
in this battalion?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
So I was a platoon commander, assigned a third platoon,
the leader of the platoon, the first officer in the
chain of command for the platoon.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
And how do the enlisted guys welcome you?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
That's a loaded question in many respects.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
But you know, for a young second lieutenant checking into
a unit and a platoon that had already been to Iraq.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
So my NCOs that I.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Had, my squad leaders and my team leaders, those guys
had already done a tor in Iraq, so they had
a little they're a little seasoned, and I'm the new
guy checking in trying to earn their respect. So you know,
it's intimidating for me checking into a unit like that.
But you know, once once you kind of get settled
(03:50):
and you earn trust amongst each other, it's not too bad.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
But they test you.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
You know, the sergeants and corporals that they test you.
They don't make it easy on you. But I wouldn't
make it easy on me either.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
When did you start to hear specific plans?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
So we started to kind of get uh indications that
it would go that something was going to go down.
We were at Ali Sade at the time, and we
started to get indications that something was going down in Fallujah,
but it was all close hold, like nothing, nothing official
(04:32):
came down. And then I just remember one night my
XO woke me and my roommate up and we were like, hey,
they're like, pack pack your stuff, get the platoon ready,
We're going to Fallujah, and like middle of the night
notification we headed down, had it down to in and
(04:55):
around Camp Fallujah.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
And then in terms of the assignment specifically given to
your platoon and your company.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Our objective was the Mayor's Complex, So I mean the
broader operation had other units gaining footholds and securing certain routes,
and then our company, Alpha Company, was tasked with shooting
into the center of Fallujah where the Mayor's Complex was
(05:23):
and seizing that and holding it and waiting for the
rest of the battalion to come up online.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
With us. And my platoon was tasked.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
With securing one portion of the perimeter of the Mayor's Complex.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
What's going through your mind right before you start this assignment?
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Is there?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Just focus on the mission. Is there a little bit
of apprehension? What's going through your mind?
Speaker 3 (05:51):
You know all of that.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
So we ended up pushing in on ten November. We
got to the assembly area north off Flujah, I think.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
On the eighth.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Those two days we dug fighting holes and just hung out.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
There until they gave us the go.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
But those two days we prepped called prepped the battlefield,
so a lot of artillery fire, airstrikes targeting certain things
so that when we push in it's a little easier.
And so it's artillery, you know, twenty four to seven airstrike,
you know, So we're just sitting there anticipating what's to
(06:32):
come as we bomb and you know, soften the target.
And then the night initial entry was made was like
this tremendous display of warfare. The breach goes, we fired micklicks.
Are you familiar with a micklick? I may screw the
(06:55):
acronym up, but it's a mine clearing line charge. It's
like a thousand pounds of explosives that shoot out in
a big rope looking thing, but it's more like a
like a fire hose kind of kind of looking thing,
and it's designed to blast a lane open clear minds
(07:17):
and i eds. They shot a couple of those into
the city. Observing that is just shocking, just the explosion
and the fire and whatnot. So people start shooting and
you can see machine guns going and tracers, and we're
just there waiting for all of this this to go
down until we get the word to go in. So
(07:38):
you can only imagine what's going through your mind, you know,
getting word that you get casualties with the breaching unit,
and you can just observe the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
So a lot of anxiety, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
And then for me it's just the question of how
will I perform, you know, you know, because we had
been shot at but not really shot at.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Well, I'll be the person that I need to be
to serve the patoon, you know, and it weighs heavy
on you.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Did you face much resistance on the way to the
Mayor's office, No.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
So the breach went and we basically passed through that
friendly line and then shot all the way down into
the center of the city. So at one point our
company was the most forward unit in all six of
the battalions that were were online. What we came to
find out later in the operation is insurgents didn't do
(08:35):
a whole lot at night. We got in there and
we got up to the Mayor's complex. Tanks shot some
holes into the wall, and then we just drove in
with tracks and then executed, you know the plan, so
no resistance on entry. As soon as the sun came up,
that's when all hell broke loose.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
What happened the next morning, so.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
You'd have to kind of look out of mat But
the battlespace geometry had the Mayor's Complex right on regimental boundary,
which initially.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Wasn't a huge deal.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
It became a huge deal because it was you know,
with that boundary comes a lot of control measures like
who can shoot where, who can go where? Also it's
another regiment like how do you talk to those guys?
So anyways, we get in there, everybody gets to their positions,
the sun comes up and we start taking fire from
(09:31):
every single direction.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
You know, you have the.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Mayor's Complex three hundred and sixty degrees taken fire, and
we just hunkered down and found fighting positions and just
started to started to give them.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Hell, you know, as best we could.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
How do you organize that organized chaos is a kind
of a unique thing.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
For one, you rely on your.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
NCOs, right, and I had great NCOs. Those guys are warriors,
my sergeants and my corporals. They knew what they were doing,
they knew what their assignment was, they knew what their
sectors of fire were, and they managed their squads. And
then I just moved from squad to squad, made adjustments
as needed, got support as.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Needed, amo anything that they needed.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
I was there coordinating with the company, company commander, working fires,
fire support, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Talking about one of the squad leader's a guy named
Billy Leo. What was his role? He's so well regarded.
What made me?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Yeah, a good leader? So that's a really good question.
So I had somebody tell me once.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
A mentor of mine from the War College, Gene Communa,
he's an old Army veteran colonel, retired brigade commander.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
He used to say, any unit, any.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Infantry unit, is made up of about ten percent of
true warriors. The rest of the unit is willing to
fight and willing to follow those warriors, but like only
ten percent of any unit is the true like a
William Wallace kind of guy from Brave Heart, you know,
(11:15):
just warrior to the core.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
And that's the kind of guy Bill Leo is.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Just he's got warrior in his DNA, doesn't hesitate, never
seemed to be scared or bothered by.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Anything that's going on.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
He was wounded and then came back twenty four hours
later later in the fight a couple of days, a
couple days after we had gotten into the city.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
But he's just a true essence of warrior.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
That's US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Doug Barnes on the
Battle of Fallujah in late two thousand and four, when
we come back breaking free from the Mayor's complex and
then fighting house to house. I'm Greg Corumbus and this
is Veterans Chronicles.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
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Speaker 1 (13:02):
This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbas. Our guest in
this edition is US Marine Coral Lieutenant Colonel Doug Barnes.
He commanded third Platoon, Alpha Company, first Battalion, eighth Marines
in the Second Battle of Fallujah in late two thousand
and four. Barnes now picks up his story by explaining
how his marines moved away from the Mayor's complex and
(13:23):
quickly into house to house fighting, so.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
We stayed and I talked to some guys yesterday about
the timeline. For me, the timeline gets a little fuzzy
the first couple of days, but so eventually the rest
of the battalion.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Comes up online. That took about twenty four hours.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
We kind of reorganized there in the Mayor's Complex to
accommodate everybody else that had come up online with us,
and then I'm fairly confident it was eleven November we
got the word that we're going into the assault. We're
leaving our fi defensive positions and we're gonna locate and
(14:05):
close with the enemy.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
And that meant house to house.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
It meant house to house. So, uh, that's probably the
most nervous I've been in my life. It's like leaving
the comfort or your home, like when you're behind a
wall or.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Behind a window, and you can kind of like you've
got all.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
The protection when you go into when you go into
the assault, it's a different it's a you know, it's
a totally different game. That's what we're designed to do. Uh,
but uh, but certainly had some nerves. So we get
organized in the Mayor's Complex. The company we had already
had a platoon that had pushed forward from the Mayor's
(14:43):
complex to gain a foothold on the south side of
a road that we call it Fran. It's a phase line.
It was named Phase line Fran. But essentially it was
like a kind of like a six lane highway. It
was kind of like a three ninety five. It was
like a major highway that ran the main highway that
(15:05):
ran through the center of Flujah.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
So it was a lot of road to run across.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
And what the battalion did was they took our weapons company,
our heavy guns, fifty cows mark nineteen's, our missiles, javelins,
javelin in a tank, missiles, and they basically said, go
those guys set up in buildings started firing, and I
took my platoon and ran across Fran to essentially come
(15:35):
abreast of the other platoon that was on the other
side of the highway, Elliot Ackerman's platoon.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
We made it across the road, and.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
We affectionately called this battle Hadji ali as what we call.
I don't know who coined it or how it became such,
but it's it's like our little battle within a battle.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
But we we crossed the road. I was with Leo's squad.
They were in the lead.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
We crossed the road and we hit the alley, and
the alley probably went down twenty five fifty meter section
and then it had a hard jut to the left
and to the right. And when we hit that little
juncture right there that they were like waiting on us,
and it was it was on I mean, they were
in the streets. I got up there, and as soon
(16:31):
as I got up to that little corner, the small
gunners start started clacking off small rounds rockets.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
It's like a.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Bazooka kind of kind of thing if you don't know
what a small is. And then it was just a
running gun fight for several hours.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
The enemy obviously knows the area better. Yeah, how do
you or what disadvantages did that present and how did
you deal with them?
Speaker 2 (16:56):
So, I mean, an urban environment is tearable no matter
how you look at it. Anybody that's in a house
that has the bead on you, and you try and
go into a house that's occupied with bad guys, you
already had a great disadvantage in most situations. Knowing what
(17:17):
I know now, I learned fairly quickly, is you don't
go into a house that's occupied by an insurgent. And
what you got to understand too, is we're not hostage
rescue dudes.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
We're not CQB guys.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
We're Marine Corps infantry, and like we're like the bulldozer
of the military. Like you want a major problem solved,
you throw a Marine infantry at it, and we're going
to destroy everything in front of us. So what I
learned is to use the tools that we had. I
(17:54):
had two tanks in the lead. I can remember Leo.
Leo was up there, and they've got the back of
a tank. They've got a little radio. They call it
a grunt phone. What we did is we took the
grunt phone and we put a fifty foot wire on
it so you could talk to the tank and still
(18:15):
hide behind cover. Because usually there's like a you know,
a little cord, but we put a long cord on it.
And Leo got on there and he said something like,
I need you to destroy everything in front of us
from three o'clock to nine o'clock. So basically that one
hundred and eighty degree radius in front of us. Tanks
(18:38):
they shoot the house, followed up with some machine.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Gun and just.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
That effectively pushed the insurgents back like they just they
couldn't withstand that.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
And then we would go through and clean up.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I had guys on rooftops going from rooftop to rooftop.
I was on the ground in the street behind the tanks,
and we just methodically did that, you know, just step
by step. We didn't move any faster than we needed to.
We didn't rush.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
That's US Marine Corey Lieutenant Colonel Doug Barnes discussing house
to house fighting as a platoon commander in Fallujah in
two thousand and four. When we come back, how the
platoon escaped a brutal enemy assault at a place called
the Alamo, and the devastating loss of Corporal Bradley Faircloth.
I'm Greg Corumbus, and this is Veterans Chronicles. This is
(19:35):
Veterans' Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition
is US Marine Cory Lieutenant Colonel Doug Barnes. In a Moment,
Colonel Barnes discusses some of the most difficult moments of
the battle, including the death of one of his men.
But first Barnes explains how the Marines prevented areas they
had secured from falling back into enemy hands.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
So before we left the Mayor's complex, Aaron kunner Haam
set the company leadership down. He held a map and by.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
The way, this hadji Ali.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Thing I just described was the most complicated thing I've
done professionally, even up through battalion command. The order that
was given was simply, you attack this side. You attacked
this side, here's a control measure here, and then Aaron
Cunningham established a phase line to stop. Phase line blue
(20:29):
is what he called it. He's like, when you get
to this road intersection, stop and then that's where we'll reorganize.
And that's exactly what we did. It took less than
five minutes to brief and then we went and executed.
So we get to phase line blue and we link
up with the other platoon. We had another platoon that
(20:50):
was coming up behind us that kind of secured the rear,
and then us in first platoon cleared a series of
houses out.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
And then basically the perimeter down.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
And then as you engage them one on one, when
you're in these houses and they're they're is it just instinct?
Is it training kicking in? Is it I got a
shoot before he shoots me, what's the strategy?
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Let me back up to Hadji Ali because that'll help
answer that question. For somebody who's in the business of
gun fighting, like a marine infantry guy, I think there's
a few things that need to happen, like a quality
they need to possess and something that they need to
do to be effective gunfighters. One, you got to be
(21:35):
an optimist because marines are put in the most terrible
positions on the planet and they have to figure a
way to be successful. So if you're a pessimist like
you're gonna get in your own head and not be effective.
So you got to be an optimist about your ability
to solve a significant problem.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Two, you have to make peace with death. That's a hard,
hard thing to do for me. It happened in that
alley fight. And once you make peace with death, you
don't want to die for sure. But when you make
peace with it, everything's pretty easy. After that.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
It could still be scary a little bit, but it
becomes more instinctual. Like like you mentioned, you're not worried
about what's around the corner. You just go That's my
own personal kind of feeling and take away from my
situation somebody else may have a different one.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
So after that very intense first day, how did the
following days unfold?
Speaker 2 (22:43):
I mean, it was all kind of somewhat similar, but
it wasn't as congested like this congested alley fight. It
was kind of a little bit of different flavor going forward.
We went, so we put and we ended up and
the other the guys will call it the Alamo. It was,
(23:06):
you know, in hindsight, probably not the best position to take,
but it's where we ended up for about twenty four hours.
And it was a kind of a lone house out
in kind of an open area. It's kind of like
a field, like a like a muddy desert field kind
of area in the middle of the city. And we
(23:27):
just worked. We became a target and we couldn't get
out of there. There was a lot of fighting, a
lot of fighting from from that position. Leo was wounded there,
Fox was wounded there.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
We fought in shifts like it just it was all
day just getting shot at.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
You know, at this point we're forty eight seventy two
hours into it, like people need to rest, like, and
there were only so many places you could fight from.
So we'd work work from shifts. We're up on the rooftop.
That's where Leo and Fox were wounded. They shot an
(24:08):
RPG into the rooftop. I remember, it's like a three
or four foot brick, kind of like parapet It was
just like a.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Brick wall on the roof.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
And we were up there fighting from there, and it
was like limestone limestone bricks, so they weren't really resilient.
So the enemy was shooting the brick and bullets were
going through. They were hitting us, but like not hurting
us because the brick would stop it enough.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
And it got crazy up there. So I just remember
trying to figure.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
It out, and I took a knee to get on
the radio, and that's when the RPG hit that all
those limestone bricks just went. They went everywhere. Fox was hit,
Leo was hit, and I was like, you know what,
let's just get off this rooftop. Fight from the windows,
fight from other areas, but this rooftop.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Is just it's just too much.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
And so that's what we did. But we got we
were pinned down there at least a night. I remember
the Regimental commander, Colonel Tucker, he showed up to the
position and he he couldn't he couldn't leave. He laid
on one of the There was like a it was
like a lower lower level outside porch where we did
(25:29):
a lot of the command and control from and did
some fighting from there.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
But the wall on.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
It was low, so we kind of just we had
to lay to talk on the radios and do our
coordination and then you know, kneel to fight. But he
showed up, the regimental commander for RCT seven, and he
couldn't leave.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
He was stuck.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
How'd you get out of there?
Speaker 3 (25:55):
We backed tracks. There was a we had.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Blew a hole when we went into the Alamo, from
what I remember, we blew a hole in the side
with a small and we backed a track up, dropped
the ramp. We ran into the track, and then another
one came in and we fed in, and then we
(26:22):
basically pushed south from the Alamo, got out of the tracks,
gained a foothold, and then.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Just kind of continued continued the fight.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
In our remaining time. I want to talk a little
bit about what I'm sure for most of you. It
was the darkest day of the battle, and that's just
before Thanksgiving and the loss of Bradley Faircloth. What do
you remember most about that day?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
We were patrolling back to our fob, our little base
that we had set up. We had gone out on
a security patrol, and we were making our way back
and we weren't far from the base, maybe two hundred meter,
I mean we were close. There was one row of
buildings between where that happened in our fob. We were
(27:14):
clearing the houses out because at this point we've got
to do some detailed clearing, just because that's what needs
to be done at this because.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
This was several weeks after all the stuff we just discussed.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Yeah, ten days, almost two weeks. So anyways, we're making
our way back, clearing and doing everything right. I was
at a road intersection with my radio operator.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
I had a squad across the street.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
I had a squad in the street, and then I
had Bradley's squad that was making entry into the building
that I was kind of standing at the corner of.
I'm like trying to orate the three squads. I had weapons,
patoon guys, machine gunners, I had all kinds. I mean
it was a large patrol. I mean it was sixty
(28:07):
people probably, so there was a lot of things going
on and then I hear gunfire. For anybody that's never
been in a gunfight, you know, it's kind of like
a car accident, you know, It's like you don't necessarily
anticipate it. When it happens, it's shocking, and then when
(28:29):
it's over with, you're trying to figure out what the hell.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Is going on.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
So I'm at this street corner and I hear this gunfire.
You know, the radio is going crazy. I'm like, what's
going on. Very quickly after the gunfire happened, three insurgents,
the insurgents that were in the house that killed Bradley,
jumped out of a window on the backside of the
(28:54):
house right in front of me and the radio operator.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Maybe like right in front like ten meters.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I mean, they were close. Like I was like shocked
to see him. You know, it's not what I expected.
So I engaged him.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Hit them. They didn't fall right.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
There, they didn't, you know, like seeing the movies.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
I hit them, but they kept on running. They ran
into a building.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Across across the street from behind the house where Bradley
was at. So I had several things going on right now.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
I had.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
A great marine that was just killed We're in a gunfight.
I've got these insurgents running around. People were crying, you know,
like Bradley was He's our friend, you know, and like
I would say, that's probably one of the hardest days
(29:51):
of my career because, like, you just lose a guy.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
I'm responsible for him, so I carry that.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
But I also got to deal with the three guys
that just killed them. I can't really focus on Bradley
at the moment. I got to kill these guys that
just killed him.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
So that's what I did. You know. We got Bradley
out of there. We surrounded the house.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
I called in weapons company in one of the anti
tank mobile platoons CAT is what we call them, combined
an Ani armour team. It's just vehicles mounted with rockets.
They have heavy guns, and we just hammered the house
with everything we had, killed, killed the guys. How did
(30:40):
I feel I've helped a lot of things. I mean,
like the range of emotions that you could you could imagine,
But like, you know, I remember calling Aaron and like
again calming, you know, like I called him on the
radio like I'm like, we've got a k I A
(31:03):
And He's like, you know, I could sense that he
wanted to bring some stability to the situation over the
radio and he's like, so, how would you categorize a
casualty because you categorize you triage at three levels, routine,
(31:23):
priority or urgent. Urgent's like lifelim er eyesight. And unfortunately
Bradley was gone and I was like, oh, serve, we
got a routine. Never forget that, you know, because you're
like you want him back, you know, and it's.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Can't.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
So what was the impact on the platoon going forward
from that?
Speaker 2 (31:53):
I mean, it's obviously terrible losing I mean they're like
like family, you know, it's like losing a family member.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
So like.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
The sadness will forever exist, but you got to go
on with the fight.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
We're there to do a job.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
So what I would say, like, aside from talking about
the emotions, I think I think we got a little
bit more violent, not reckless, but we took zero chances.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
We used a lot more hand grenades.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Bulldozed a lot of houses, and you know, it's it's
just such a hard thing. Like had I known there
were three bad guys in that house, I just would
have bull dozed it. I would have surrounded it, and
I would have bull dozed it, but not sending anybody
in there. But it just you know, every environment's different,
every situation is different, and they happened to just surprise.
(32:51):
I mean, they shot they shot him through a door.
We didn't even know that they were in the room.
They shot through a door, hit him, so he didn't
even have a chance to know that they were behind
the door. So after that, we're just a little bit
more destructive, rightfully.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
So what was the status of your platoon at the
end of the battle in December?
Speaker 2 (33:16):
December ninth, I think is the day we left Fallujah,
almost a month after we pushed in exactly, you know,
I think we had eleven wounded and we lost Bradley.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
We were ready to get out of there for sure.
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
It's one of those things where you know, before Fallujah,
you know, Marines being Marines are like, when are we
going to get into a real gun fight already? Like
we came here to fight, like we want to fight,
like that's what we came to do. But you know,
after the first few days of Fallujah, like you've had enough,
(33:59):
you know, and then you start some people and the
reality of war sets in you're ready to be done,
and you know, come December ninth, we were ready to
be done.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
I know virtually all, if not all the men then
went to his service size mom and so forth. What
was that?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
I'm like, for me, it's tough, just because I carry
so much responsibility for it, Like I've struggled with it
for a long time, you know, like.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
You know, a mom and trusts her kid in your care.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
And he doesn't come back Like it's just something I
have to carry with me, you know, just.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
How it is. But it's very hard.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
That's US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Doug bamb commander of
third Platoon, Alpha Company, first Battalion, eighth Marines in the
Second Battle of Fallujah. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is
Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus, and thanks for
(35:23):
listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of the American Veterans Center.
For more information, please visit American Veteranscenter dot org. You
can also follow the American Veterans Center on Facebook and
on Twitter. We're at AVC update. Subscribe to the American
Veterans Center YouTube channel for full oral histories and special
(35:45):
features and of course, please subscribe to the Veterans Chronicles
podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for listening,
and please join us next time for Veterans Chronicles
Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
this edition is US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Doug Barnes.
He's still on active duty and he also served as
commander for a third platoon in Alpha Company, first Battalion,
eighth Marines during the Second Battle of Fallujah in late
two thousand and four. Doug Barnes grew up in northern
(00:32):
Virginia and knew he wanted to serve as a Marine
Corps officer when he finished high school. He attended the
Virginia Military Institute, and after being commissioned as a Marine
officer and completing officer training at Quantico, Barnes was assigned
to his platoon in two thousand and three. By the
summer of two thousand and four, they were in Iraq,
just months from the fight for Falluja.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Initially we went to Ali Sade Airbase and we operated
mainly mainly around Haditha in al Ambar Province.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
What were the general conditions then when.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
We got there, I would kind of describe it as
a transition phase from the initial invasion the previous year
into what would become the counter insurgency fight. So when
we got there in the summer of four. The insurgency
was active, but compared to the events in Flujjah in November,
(01:31):
it was pretty permissive. We'd get rocket attacks occasionally, occasionally
somebody would hit an ID, we'd get hit with mortars.
First platoon was ambushed in Haditha, but relatively speaking, it
wasn't too bad.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
At what point did you start hearing about plans or
the likelihood of a second battle of Fallujah.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
So, you know, after the first Battle of Fallujah that
went April of four, we got there in June.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
So there was always this discussion.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
On the periphery of when are we going to go
back into Fallujah and clear it out, because it was
pretty well recognized that it had become a somewhat of
a safe haven for insurgents. So I remember sometime in
the summer, the battalion leadership we went out to an
overpass where you could see Fallujah in the distance. The
(02:32):
odd binoculars and whatnot. We essentially did kind of a
leader's recon from a distance, just to kind of see
what the city looked like and kind of discuss options
for how we would go in there. That was really
the first time it kind of clicked in my head
that we may be going in there, but nothing was
(02:54):
ever definitive till we finally got the word.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
What's your role specific as a young lieutenant in this company,
in this battalion?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
So I was a platoon commander, assigned a third platoon,
the leader of the platoon, the first officer in the
chain of command for the platoon.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
And how do the enlisted guys welcome you?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
That's a loaded question in many respects.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
But you know, for a young second lieutenant checking into
a unit and a platoon that had already been to Iraq.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
So my NCOs that I.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Had, my squad leaders and my team leaders, those guys
had already done a tor in Iraq, so they had
a little they're a little seasoned, and I'm the new
guy checking in trying to earn their respect. So you know,
it's intimidating for me checking into a unit like that.
But you know, once once you kind of get settled
(03:50):
and you earn trust amongst each other, it's not too bad.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
But they test you.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
You know, the sergeants and corporals that they test you.
They don't make it easy on you. But I wouldn't
make it easy on me either.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
When did you start to hear specific plans?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
So we started to kind of get uh indications that
it would go that something was going to go down.
We were at Ali Sade at the time, and we
started to get indications that something was going down in Fallujah,
but it was all close hold, like nothing, nothing official
(04:32):
came down. And then I just remember one night my
XO woke me and my roommate up and we were like, hey,
they're like, pack pack your stuff, get the platoon ready,
We're going to Fallujah, and like middle of the night
notification we headed down, had it down to in and
(04:55):
around Camp Fallujah.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
And then in terms of the assignment specifically given to
your platoon and your company.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Our objective was the Mayor's Complex, So I mean the
broader operation had other units gaining footholds and securing certain routes,
and then our company, Alpha Company, was tasked with shooting
into the center of Fallujah where the Mayor's Complex was
(05:23):
and seizing that and holding it and waiting for the
rest of the battalion to come up online.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
With us. And my platoon was tasked.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
With securing one portion of the perimeter of the Mayor's Complex.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
What's going through your mind right before you start this assignment?
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Is there?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Just focus on the mission. Is there a little bit
of apprehension? What's going through your mind?
Speaker 3 (05:51):
You know all of that.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
So we ended up pushing in on ten November. We
got to the assembly area north off Flujah, I think.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
On the eighth.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Those two days we dug fighting holes and just hung out.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
There until they gave us the go.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
But those two days we prepped called prepped the battlefield,
so a lot of artillery fire, airstrikes targeting certain things
so that when we push in it's a little easier.
And so it's artillery, you know, twenty four to seven airstrike,
you know, So we're just sitting there anticipating what's to
(06:32):
come as we bomb and you know, soften the target.
And then the night initial entry was made was like
this tremendous display of warfare. The breach goes, we fired micklicks.
Are you familiar with a micklick? I may screw the
(06:55):
acronym up, but it's a mine clearing line charge. It's
like a thousand pounds of explosives that shoot out in
a big rope looking thing, but it's more like a
like a fire hose kind of kind of looking thing,
and it's designed to blast a lane open clear minds
(07:17):
and i eds. They shot a couple of those into
the city. Observing that is just shocking, just the explosion
and the fire and whatnot. So people start shooting and
you can see machine guns going and tracers, and we're
just there waiting for all of this this to go
down until we get the word to go in. So
(07:38):
you can only imagine what's going through your mind, you know,
getting word that you get casualties with the breaching unit,
and you can just observe the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
So a lot of anxiety, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
And then for me it's just the question of how
will I perform, you know, you know, because we had
been shot at but not really shot at.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Well, I'll be the person that I need to be
to serve the patoon, you know, and it weighs heavy
on you.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Did you face much resistance on the way to the
Mayor's office, No.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
So the breach went and we basically passed through that
friendly line and then shot all the way down into
the center of the city. So at one point our
company was the most forward unit in all six of
the battalions that were were online. What we came to
find out later in the operation is insurgents didn't do
(08:35):
a whole lot at night. We got in there and
we got up to the Mayor's complex. Tanks shot some
holes into the wall, and then we just drove in
with tracks and then executed, you know the plan, so
no resistance on entry. As soon as the sun came up,
that's when all hell broke loose.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
What happened the next morning, so.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
You'd have to kind of look out of mat But
the battlespace geometry had the Mayor's Complex right on regimental boundary,
which initially.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Wasn't a huge deal.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
It became a huge deal because it was you know,
with that boundary comes a lot of control measures like
who can shoot where, who can go where? Also it's
another regiment like how do you talk to those guys?
So anyways, we get in there, everybody gets to their positions,
the sun comes up and we start taking fire from
(09:31):
every single direction.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
You know, you have the.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Mayor's Complex three hundred and sixty degrees taken fire, and
we just hunkered down and found fighting positions and just
started to started to give them.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Hell, you know, as best we could.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
How do you organize that organized chaos is a kind
of a unique thing.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
For one, you rely on your.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
NCOs, right, and I had great NCOs. Those guys are warriors,
my sergeants and my corporals. They knew what they were doing,
they knew what their assignment was, they knew what their
sectors of fire were, and they managed their squads. And
then I just moved from squad to squad, made adjustments
as needed, got support as.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Needed, amo anything that they needed.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
I was there coordinating with the company, company commander, working fires,
fire support, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Talking about one of the squad leader's a guy named
Billy Leo. What was his role? He's so well regarded.
What made me?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Yeah, a good leader? So that's a really good question.
So I had somebody tell me once.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
A mentor of mine from the War College, Gene Communa,
he's an old Army veteran colonel, retired brigade commander.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
He used to say, any unit, any.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Infantry unit, is made up of about ten percent of
true warriors. The rest of the unit is willing to
fight and willing to follow those warriors, but like only
ten percent of any unit is the true like a
William Wallace kind of guy from Brave Heart, you know,
(11:15):
just warrior to the core.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
And that's the kind of guy Bill Leo is.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Just he's got warrior in his DNA, doesn't hesitate, never
seemed to be scared or bothered by.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Anything that's going on.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
He was wounded and then came back twenty four hours
later later in the fight a couple of days, a
couple days after we had gotten into the city.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
But he's just a true essence of warrior.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
That's US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Doug Barnes on the
Battle of Fallujah in late two thousand and four, when
we come back breaking free from the Mayor's complex and
then fighting house to house. I'm Greg Corumbus and this
is Veterans Chronicles.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
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Speaker 1 (13:02):
This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbas. Our guest in
this edition is US Marine Coral Lieutenant Colonel Doug Barnes.
He commanded third Platoon, Alpha Company, first Battalion, eighth Marines
in the Second Battle of Fallujah in late two thousand
and four. Barnes now picks up his story by explaining
how his marines moved away from the Mayor's complex and
(13:23):
quickly into house to house fighting, so.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
We stayed and I talked to some guys yesterday about
the timeline. For me, the timeline gets a little fuzzy
the first couple of days, but so eventually the rest
of the battalion.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Comes up online. That took about twenty four hours.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
We kind of reorganized there in the Mayor's Complex to
accommodate everybody else that had come up online with us,
and then I'm fairly confident it was eleven November we
got the word that we're going into the assault. We're
leaving our fi defensive positions and we're gonna locate and
(14:05):
close with the enemy.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
And that meant house to house.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
It meant house to house. So, uh, that's probably the
most nervous I've been in my life. It's like leaving
the comfort or your home, like when you're behind a
wall or.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Behind a window, and you can kind of like you've
got all.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
The protection when you go into when you go into
the assault, it's a different it's a you know, it's
a totally different game. That's what we're designed to do. Uh,
but uh, but certainly had some nerves. So we get
organized in the Mayor's Complex. The company we had already
had a platoon that had pushed forward from the Mayor's
(14:43):
complex to gain a foothold on the south side of
a road that we call it Fran. It's a phase line.
It was named Phase line Fran. But essentially it was
like a kind of like a six lane highway. It
was kind of like a three ninety five. It was
like a major highway that ran the main highway that
(15:05):
ran through the center of Flujah.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
So it was a lot of road to run across.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
And what the battalion did was they took our weapons company,
our heavy guns, fifty cows mark nineteen's, our missiles, javelins,
javelin in a tank, missiles, and they basically said, go
those guys set up in buildings started firing, and I
took my platoon and ran across Fran to essentially come
(15:35):
abreast of the other platoon that was on the other
side of the highway, Elliot Ackerman's platoon.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
We made it across the road, and.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
We affectionately called this battle Hadji ali as what we call.
I don't know who coined it or how it became such,
but it's it's like our little battle within a battle.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
But we we crossed the road. I was with Leo's squad.
They were in the lead.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
We crossed the road and we hit the alley, and
the alley probably went down twenty five fifty meter section
and then it had a hard jut to the left
and to the right. And when we hit that little
juncture right there that they were like waiting on us,
and it was it was on I mean, they were
in the streets. I got up there, and as soon
(16:31):
as I got up to that little corner, the small
gunners start started clacking off small rounds rockets.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
It's like a.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Bazooka kind of kind of thing if you don't know
what a small is. And then it was just a
running gun fight for several hours.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
The enemy obviously knows the area better. Yeah, how do
you or what disadvantages did that present and how did
you deal with them?
Speaker 2 (16:56):
So, I mean, an urban environment is tearable no matter
how you look at it. Anybody that's in a house
that has the bead on you, and you try and
go into a house that's occupied with bad guys, you
already had a great disadvantage in most situations. Knowing what
(17:17):
I know now, I learned fairly quickly, is you don't
go into a house that's occupied by an insurgent. And
what you got to understand too, is we're not hostage
rescue dudes.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
We're not CQB guys.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
We're Marine Corps infantry, and like we're like the bulldozer
of the military. Like you want a major problem solved,
you throw a Marine infantry at it, and we're going
to destroy everything in front of us. So what I
learned is to use the tools that we had. I
(17:54):
had two tanks in the lead. I can remember Leo.
Leo was up there, and they've got the back of
a tank. They've got a little radio. They call it
a grunt phone. What we did is we took the
grunt phone and we put a fifty foot wire on
it so you could talk to the tank and still
(18:15):
hide behind cover. Because usually there's like a you know,
a little cord, but we put a long cord on it.
And Leo got on there and he said something like,
I need you to destroy everything in front of us
from three o'clock to nine o'clock. So basically that one
hundred and eighty degree radius in front of us. Tanks
(18:38):
they shoot the house, followed up with some machine.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Gun and just.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
That effectively pushed the insurgents back like they just they
couldn't withstand that.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
And then we would go through and clean up.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I had guys on rooftops going from rooftop to rooftop.
I was on the ground in the street behind the tanks,
and we just methodically did that, you know, just step
by step. We didn't move any faster than we needed to.
We didn't rush.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
That's US Marine Corey Lieutenant Colonel Doug Barnes discussing house
to house fighting as a platoon commander in Fallujah in
two thousand and four. When we come back, how the
platoon escaped a brutal enemy assault at a place called
the Alamo, and the devastating loss of Corporal Bradley Faircloth.
I'm Greg Corumbus, and this is Veterans Chronicles. This is
(19:35):
Veterans' Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition
is US Marine Cory Lieutenant Colonel Doug Barnes. In a Moment,
Colonel Barnes discusses some of the most difficult moments of
the battle, including the death of one of his men.
But first Barnes explains how the Marines prevented areas they
had secured from falling back into enemy hands.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
So before we left the Mayor's complex, Aaron kunner Haam
set the company leadership down. He held a map and by.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
The way, this hadji Ali.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Thing I just described was the most complicated thing I've
done professionally, even up through battalion command. The order that
was given was simply, you attack this side. You attacked
this side, here's a control measure here, and then Aaron
Cunningham established a phase line to stop. Phase line blue
(20:29):
is what he called it. He's like, when you get
to this road intersection, stop and then that's where we'll reorganize.
And that's exactly what we did. It took less than
five minutes to brief and then we went and executed.
So we get to phase line blue and we link
up with the other platoon. We had another platoon that
(20:50):
was coming up behind us that kind of secured the rear,
and then us in first platoon cleared a series of
houses out.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
And then basically the perimeter down.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
And then as you engage them one on one, when
you're in these houses and they're they're is it just instinct?
Is it training kicking in? Is it I got a
shoot before he shoots me, what's the strategy?
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Let me back up to Hadji Ali because that'll help
answer that question. For somebody who's in the business of
gun fighting, like a marine infantry guy, I think there's
a few things that need to happen, like a quality
they need to possess and something that they need to
do to be effective gunfighters. One, you got to be
(21:35):
an optimist because marines are put in the most terrible
positions on the planet and they have to figure a
way to be successful. So if you're a pessimist like
you're gonna get in your own head and not be effective.
So you got to be an optimist about your ability
to solve a significant problem.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Two, you have to make peace with death. That's a hard,
hard thing to do for me. It happened in that
alley fight. And once you make peace with death, you
don't want to die for sure. But when you make
peace with it, everything's pretty easy. After that.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
It could still be scary a little bit, but it
becomes more instinctual. Like like you mentioned, you're not worried
about what's around the corner. You just go That's my
own personal kind of feeling and take away from my
situation somebody else may have a different one.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
So after that very intense first day, how did the
following days unfold?
Speaker 2 (22:43):
I mean, it was all kind of somewhat similar, but
it wasn't as congested like this congested alley fight. It
was kind of a little bit of different flavor going forward.
We went, so we put and we ended up and
the other the guys will call it the Alamo. It was,
(23:06):
you know, in hindsight, probably not the best position to take,
but it's where we ended up for about twenty four hours.
And it was a kind of a lone house out
in kind of an open area. It's kind of like
a field, like a like a muddy desert field kind
of area in the middle of the city. And we
(23:27):
just worked. We became a target and we couldn't get
out of there. There was a lot of fighting, a
lot of fighting from from that position. Leo was wounded there,
Fox was wounded there.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
We fought in shifts like it just it was all
day just getting shot at.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
You know, at this point we're forty eight seventy two
hours into it, like people need to rest, like, and
there were only so many places you could fight from.
So we'd work work from shifts. We're up on the rooftop.
That's where Leo and Fox were wounded. They shot an
(24:08):
RPG into the rooftop. I remember, it's like a three
or four foot brick, kind of like parapet It was
just like a.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Brick wall on the roof.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
And we were up there fighting from there, and it
was like limestone limestone bricks, so they weren't really resilient.
So the enemy was shooting the brick and bullets were
going through. They were hitting us, but like not hurting
us because the brick would stop it enough.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
And it got crazy up there. So I just remember
trying to figure.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
It out, and I took a knee to get on
the radio, and that's when the RPG hit that all
those limestone bricks just went. They went everywhere. Fox was hit,
Leo was hit, and I was like, you know what,
let's just get off this rooftop. Fight from the windows,
fight from other areas, but this rooftop.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Is just it's just too much.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
And so that's what we did. But we got we
were pinned down there at least a night. I remember
the Regimental commander, Colonel Tucker, he showed up to the
position and he he couldn't he couldn't leave. He laid
on one of the There was like a it was
like a lower lower level outside porch where we did
(25:29):
a lot of the command and control from and did
some fighting from there.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
But the wall on.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
It was low, so we kind of just we had
to lay to talk on the radios and do our
coordination and then you know, kneel to fight. But he
showed up, the regimental commander for RCT seven, and he
couldn't leave.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
He was stuck.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
How'd you get out of there?
Speaker 3 (25:55):
We backed tracks. There was a we had.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Blew a hole when we went into the Alamo, from
what I remember, we blew a hole in the side
with a small and we backed a track up, dropped
the ramp. We ran into the track, and then another
one came in and we fed in, and then we
(26:22):
basically pushed south from the Alamo, got out of the tracks,
gained a foothold, and then.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Just kind of continued continued the fight.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
In our remaining time. I want to talk a little
bit about what I'm sure for most of you. It
was the darkest day of the battle, and that's just
before Thanksgiving and the loss of Bradley Faircloth. What do
you remember most about that day?
Speaker 2 (26:48):
We were patrolling back to our fob, our little base
that we had set up. We had gone out on
a security patrol, and we were making our way back
and we weren't far from the base, maybe two hundred meter,
I mean we were close. There was one row of
buildings between where that happened in our fob. We were
(27:14):
clearing the houses out because at this point we've got
to do some detailed clearing, just because that's what needs
to be done at this because.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
This was several weeks after all the stuff we just discussed.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Yeah, ten days, almost two weeks. So anyways, we're making
our way back, clearing and doing everything right. I was
at a road intersection with my radio operator.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
I had a squad across the street.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
I had a squad in the street, and then I
had Bradley's squad that was making entry into the building
that I was kind of standing at the corner of.
I'm like trying to orate the three squads. I had weapons,
patoon guys, machine gunners, I had all kinds. I mean
it was a large patrol. I mean it was sixty
(28:07):
people probably, so there was a lot of things going
on and then I hear gunfire. For anybody that's never
been in a gunfight, you know, it's kind of like
a car accident, you know, It's like you don't necessarily
anticipate it. When it happens, it's shocking, and then when
(28:29):
it's over with, you're trying to figure out what the hell.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Is going on.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
So I'm at this street corner and I hear this gunfire.
You know, the radio is going crazy. I'm like, what's
going on. Very quickly after the gunfire happened, three insurgents,
the insurgents that were in the house that killed Bradley,
jumped out of a window on the backside of the
(28:54):
house right in front of me and the radio operator.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Maybe like right in front like ten meters.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
I mean, they were close. Like I was like shocked
to see him. You know, it's not what I expected.
So I engaged him.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Hit them. They didn't fall right.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
There, they didn't, you know, like seeing the movies.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
I hit them, but they kept on running. They ran
into a building.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Across across the street from behind the house where Bradley
was at. So I had several things going on right now.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
I had.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
A great marine that was just killed We're in a gunfight.
I've got these insurgents running around. People were crying, you know,
like Bradley was He's our friend, you know, and like
I would say, that's probably one of the hardest days
(29:51):
of my career because, like, you just lose a guy.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
I'm responsible for him, so I carry that.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
But I also got to deal with the three guys
that just killed them. I can't really focus on Bradley
at the moment. I got to kill these guys that
just killed him.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
So that's what I did. You know. We got Bradley
out of there. We surrounded the house.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
I called in weapons company in one of the anti
tank mobile platoons CAT is what we call them, combined
an Ani armour team. It's just vehicles mounted with rockets.
They have heavy guns, and we just hammered the house
with everything we had, killed, killed the guys. How did
(30:40):
I feel I've helped a lot of things. I mean,
like the range of emotions that you could you could imagine,
But like, you know, I remember calling Aaron and like
again calming, you know, like I called him on the
radio like I'm like, we've got a k I A
(31:03):
And He's like, you know, I could sense that he
wanted to bring some stability to the situation over the
radio and he's like, so, how would you categorize a
casualty because you categorize you triage at three levels, routine,
(31:23):
priority or urgent. Urgent's like lifelim er eyesight. And unfortunately
Bradley was gone and I was like, oh, serve, we
got a routine. Never forget that, you know, because you're
like you want him back, you know, and it's.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Can't.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
So what was the impact on the platoon going forward
from that?
Speaker 2 (31:53):
I mean, it's obviously terrible losing I mean they're like
like family, you know, it's like losing a family member.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
So like.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
The sadness will forever exist, but you got to go
on with the fight.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
We're there to do a job.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
So what I would say, like, aside from talking about
the emotions, I think I think we got a little
bit more violent, not reckless, but we took zero chances.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
We used a lot more hand grenades.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Bulldozed a lot of houses, and you know, it's it's
just such a hard thing. Like had I known there
were three bad guys in that house, I just would
have bull dozed it. I would have surrounded it, and
I would have bull dozed it, but not sending anybody
in there. But it just you know, every environment's different,
every situation is different, and they happened to just surprise.
(32:51):
I mean, they shot they shot him through a door.
We didn't even know that they were in the room.
They shot through a door, hit him, so he didn't
even have a chance to know that they were behind
the door. So after that, we're just a little bit
more destructive, rightfully.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
So what was the status of your platoon at the
end of the battle in December?
Speaker 2 (33:16):
December ninth, I think is the day we left Fallujah,
almost a month after we pushed in exactly, you know,
I think we had eleven wounded and we lost Bradley.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
We were ready to get out of there for sure.
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
It's one of those things where you know, before Fallujah,
you know, Marines being Marines are like, when are we
going to get into a real gun fight already? Like
we came here to fight, like we want to fight,
like that's what we came to do. But you know,
after the first few days of Fallujah, like you've had enough,
(33:59):
you know, and then you start some people and the
reality of war sets in you're ready to be done,
and you know, come December ninth, we were ready to
be done.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
I know virtually all, if not all the men then
went to his service size mom and so forth. What
was that?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
I'm like, for me, it's tough, just because I carry
so much responsibility for it, Like I've struggled with it
for a long time, you know, like.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
You know, a mom and trusts her kid in your care.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
And he doesn't come back Like it's just something I
have to carry with me, you know, just.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
How it is. But it's very hard.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
That's US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Doug bamb commander of
third Platoon, Alpha Company, first Battalion, eighth Marines in the
Second Battle of Fallujah. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is
Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus, and thanks for
(35:23):
listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of the American Veterans Center.
For more information, please visit American Veteranscenter dot org. You
can also follow the American Veterans Center on Facebook and
on Twitter. We're at AVC update. Subscribe to the American
Veterans Center YouTube channel for full oral histories and special
(35:45):
features and of course, please subscribe to the Veterans Chronicles
podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for listening,
and please join us next time for Veterans Chronicles
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