![]() ![]() Army) VIEW ORIGINAL 2 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – (Photo Credit: U.S. Nicholus Danielsen, acting platoon sergeant with the troop, while conducting clearing operations in Fallujah Nov. ![]() Morisson, Executive Officer with the 1st Infantry Divisions 3rd Brigade Reconnaissance Troop, directs Staff Sgt. "Thank you, on behalf of our families most of all," Natonski told a group of his former protectors crowding around him Friday.Captain Dean W. Natonski and his personal security detail were shot at every day in Fallujah, he said. The violence in Iraq that year as the insurgency flared affected all ranks. 10, when troops blasted the "Marines' Hymn" across town using Army psychological-operations loudspeakers. There was also the Corps' birthday celebration that Nov. Under the newly formed Fallujah Brigade of local Iraqis meant to secure the city, insurgents merely retrenched and fortified their defenses, erecting sniper positions.ĭuring the second engagement in November, scores of journalists traveling with coalition forces served as eyewitnesses to the combat and a check on insurgents' propaganda, Natonski said.Īmong the few light-hearted memories recounted by Natonski of an otherwise harrowing period of combat was the live turkey a Marine squad captured and carried, fattening it up for a Thanksgiving feast. Inaccurate reports of wanton killing of civilians during the first battle inspired public outcry and a premature end to the battle. Two of their mutilated bodies were hung from a bridge. The first battle for Fallujah, Operation Vigilant Resolve, commenced in April 2004 after four Blackwater security guards were ambushed and killed. "You fought for your country, you fought for Iraq and the people of Iraq, and you fought for your brothers, and in the best traditions of the United States armed forces." However, despite that fact, those who fought in Fallujah have every right to be proud of their performance on the battlefield," Natonski said during the ceremony. "Recent events in the Middle East have been very disheartening and disappointing to those who were there 10 years ago. Yet the battles for Fallujah failed to stop the rise of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda in Iraq organization, which was responsible for mass bombings and incitement of sectarian strife. Sunni residents of Anbar province largely boycotted Iraq's national election in January, but Fallujah had the highest turnout, Natonski said. The bodies were still warm," Anderson said.Ĭoalition forces immediately began rebuilding the town as it was cleared of insurgents. "He told me they went into hostage slaughterhouses and saw women and children who were disemboweled, with their feet cut off only four or five hours before. 14, 2004 as his squad traveled from house to house on rooftops searching for enemy combatants, his father, Michael Anderson Sr., told the Los Angeles Times that month after speaking with his son's squadmates. troops, six Iraqi soldiers and an estimated 1,200 insurgents had been killed, the Marine Corps said.Īmong Gold Star families of the fallen who attended Friday's event were relatives of Marine Cpl. military officials announced that Fallujah had been secured, although fighting continued that winter against pockets of insurgents. ![]() "You can't bring back a life, but you can always rebuild a building."īy Nov. "We faced an enemy that wanted nothing more than to kill Americans," Natonski, who retired as a three-star general, said after the Friday ceremony. Buildings packed with enemy fighters were evaporated by "danger close" airstrikes of precision munitions called in across the street from coalition forces. Much of Fallujah ended up being leveled as the coalition fired more than 6,000 rounds of artillery and more than 19,000 mortars into the town, Natonski said. During house-to-house fighting that month, the 1st Marine Division and supporting forces encountered suicide bombers, mosques piled with weapons and extremists high on amphetamines who continued fighting after getting shot multiple times or losing a limb. ![]()
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