Thanks for the Vid link. I think I saw that very one a few years ago. You can tell a lot about the conditions of the battle by the how sallow everyone's complexion is. It only takes a few days for the fat on the neck and face to melt away there aren't enough MREs in the world to make those uniforms stop sagging

. The guys who did this operation (like yourself) will always have a unique insight and experience to share with others. I wish we could have had more input from the grunts that were there into other operations in theater for the next 6 or so years. Unfortunately other units were either too proud or too stupid to get some free advice that you guys paid for. I have much respect for your unit and others that gutted out Phantom Fury. As the war went on after Phantom Fury, American forces never really saw such a high concentration of insurgents in a single city. Hawijah, near kirkuk, and Baquba, in Diayala Province were the only two cities that even remotely resembled the same level on enemy concentration (even those cities were not comperable). The battle of Hawijah was much shorter lived, and it took almost 4 years of buildup in Baquba for insurgents to put any sort of dent in US forces. I think Fallujah was successful in some ways in that foreign fighters could no longer believe that US forces wouldn't come in a clean and sweep such a large area. FFs started spreading out and reducing their footprint across Iraq after Fallujah because of how determined your unit was. Without such an inspiring performance in fallujah I think it is likely that US forces would have had to deal with similar situations in many other cities in Western and north Western Iraq.

quote:
The Marine commanders were actually opposed to assaulting the city. They recommended a series of pinpoint raids to bring the killers to justice. The WH disagreed and the Marines went in. After a few days and heavy casualties the Marines were told to cease their assault. What was called the "Fallujah Brigade" was formed to police the city and quell the violence. This didn't exactly work out and Fallujah became basically home base for the insurgency in Iraq with zero American presence in the city.

Awesome perspective man.