U.S. Marines prepare to patrol Fallujah, Iraq, to clear the city of insurgent activity and weapons caches during the second Battle of Fallujah, Nov. 26, 2004. The Marines are, left to right, Staff Sgt. Eric Brown, Sgt. Aubrey McDade, Cpl. Steven Archibald and Lance Cpl. Robert Coburn. Twenty years later, McDade and others say they are still coming to terms with what would be known as the bloodiest single battle of the Iraq War in the years following the 2003 invasion. (U.S. Marine Corps)
Even the dead insurgents lining the streets and alleys of Fallujah were a threat to the U.S. Marines pushing into the Iraqi city two decades ago.
Troops shot up the often boobytrapped corpses lying ahead of them as a precaution. Enemy snipers hid in the buildings. Others sprung from spider holes and fired from a high-powered Western arsenal that included .50-caliber machine guns, much of it seized from earlier fights.
The initial push on Nov. 7, 2004, marked the start of what would turn out to be the bloodiest battle of the Iraq War, confronting U.S. forces with fighting on a scale not seen since Vietnam.
Twenty years later, memories from the battle, which killed nearly 100 U.S. service members, remain raw for many who fought there. And some continue to grapple with the legacy of what it all meant.
“I kind of came to grasp that, you know, the world’s probably a worse place for what we did,” said Marine veteran Alex Nicoll. “People died, limbs were lost, and I don’t know if any outcome came of it.”
Nicoll and a group of Fallujah veterans reflected on their experiences and the battle’s legacy as part of a special commemoration created by the organization Disabled American Veterans.
“It’s pretty impressive when rules of engagement are thrown out the window, the wall of lead that comes with Marines,” Nicoll said in his video testimonial. “I’m glad I got to see that. For a just reason or not? That’s debatable. But it’s irrelevant, too. We got to be a part of Marines being unleashed.”
Like the Iraq War itself, the battle has left conflicted feelings. The bravery of U.S. forces in Fallujah and the hardships they endured are now part of military lore.
The battle showcased how an unleashed Marine Corps, backed by U.S. soldiers, could lay waste to a tough adversary in brutal urban warfare conditions.
Soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade Reconnaissance Troop clear houses in Fallujah on Nov. 15, 2004. The soldiers were part of the largest single urban battle of the Iraq War in the years following the 2003 invasion. (Kimberly Snow/U.S. Army)
Yet the battle didn’t pave the way to a bigger turnaround in a war that had many dark days ahead. It would be more than two years before the tide started to clearly turn, with the 2006 “Anbar Awakening” and the troop surge of 2007 eventually helping to quell much of the fighting.
But even those successes proved to be short-lived. When U.S. forces pulled out in 2011, Iraq was in shambles and Iran’s influence in the country was larger than ever. By 2014, a new group of militants that came to be known as ISIS was on the march.
Complicated retrospective
The legacy of Fallujah is muddled in ways other major operations in history aren’t, such as the great battles of World War II that are memorialized every year for the role they played in American victories in Europe and the Pacific.
In Iraq, there were none of the traditional measures of military success — no unconditional surrenders, no peace treaties — that helped make the sacrifices at Fallujah seem worth the cost.
The November battle was launched months after a precursor in Fallujah was called off amid international outcry over the scale of civilian casualties.
Hundreds of Iraqi civilians were believed to have been killed during that clash between U.S. forces and insurgents. After pulling out of the city on May 1, 2004, the U.S. turned the mission over to the Iraqi Fallujah Brigade, which quickly folded.
Spc. Stephen Lewis, Staff Sgt. Nicholus Danielsen and Staff Sgt. Jimmy Amyett, top to bottom, clear a house in southern Fallujah, Nov. 19, 2004. The second Battle of Fallujah began Nov. 7, 2004, claiming the lives of nearly 100 U.S. service members. (Kimberly Snow/U.S. Army)
Many of those Iraqi troops joined up with the insurgents. After the American withdrawal, Fallujah festered throughout the summer, becoming the center of opposition to the U.S.-led coalition.
The city also served as the main base for the militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who directed numerous high-profile kidnappings, executions and beheadings of foreigners.
By the end of the summer, American commanders and the Iraqi government had determined that an operation to clear the city of an estimated 4,000 insurgents would be needed.
Responsibility for the second Battle of Fallujah, known as Operation Phantom Fury, fell to I Marine Expeditionary Force, which commanded a contingent of more than 12,000 U.S. troops drawn from every Pentagon service and an array of coalition soldiers.
Perhaps the biggest problem facing them would be distinguishing guerrilla fighters from civilians still trapped in their homes. Civilian casualty estimates from the battle ranged between 580 and 800.
On Nov. 8, U.S. forces stormed into the city. While the Marine Corps was the main element, the U.S. Army also played a large role.
Then-Staff Sgt. David G. Bellavia, an Army squad leader, on the third day of the battle charged into a house infested with insurgents, doing battle from room to room in close-quarter combat.
Bellavia was credited with singlehandedly saving an entire squad, and in 2019 he received the Medal of Honor, becoming the first living Iraq War veteran to receive the honor.
“Men go into battle because it is our love of nation, our way of life and our love of those we serve with side by side,” Bellavia said during a ceremony at the time. “We defend, we avenge, we sacrifice, we bleed and we are willing to die for this unique creation, the United States of America.”
President Donald J. Trump presents the Medal of Honor to former U.S. Army Staff Sgt David G. Bellavia during a ceremony at the White House in Washington, D.C., June 25, 2019. Bellavia was awarded the Medal of Honor for actions while serving as a squad leader with the 1st Infantry Division in in Fallujah, Iraq when a squad from his platoon became trapped by intense enemy fire. (Kevin M Roy/U.S. Army)
Staff Sgt. David G. Bellavia in Iraq in 2004. In 2019 he received the Medal of Honor, becoming the first living Iraq War veteran to receive the honor. (U.S. Army)
Medals and memories
Scores of valor medals were awarded in the aftermath of the fighting, including at least 10 Navy Crosses for Marines.
Then-Sgt. Aubrey McDade, a machine gun squad leader, was one of the recipients of the Navy Cross, the military’s second-highest combat medal.
But McDade said he struggled for years to come to terms with the carnage he had witnessed and the screams in battle he heard from injured Marines.
“I struggled so bad,” he said during his testimonial shared with the Disabled American Veterans organization. McDade compared his recollections to being in a trance and being “forced to watch a movie I didn’t want to watch.”
Nicoll also struggled for years after the war. He and his team did battle in what came to be known as the “House of Hell,” where bullets and grenades were flying everywhere as they fought off scores of insurgents. During the shootout, Nicoll was badly injured.
Amid the mayhem, then-Cpl. Robert Mitchell, Nicoll’s squad leader, was putting a tourniquet on Nicoll’s leg when an insurgent lunged at them. Mitchell pulled his combat knife and, in a swipe, instantly killed the fighter, according to the Marine Corps’ account.
Mitchell went on to receive the Navy Cross for his actions.
“In those situations, you just react and decide how to gain the upper hand,” Mitchell told the student media at Arizona State University in a 2012 interview. “Your training takes over and you forget about everything else because one of your guys is injured and you have to be there for him.”
The experience of Fallujah drew him closer to his fellow Marines, Mitchell said.
“When you think you are in the worst situation possible, whether it’s in training or in combat, there is always someone who knows just what to say to make light of the situation,” he said.
Nicoll, who lost his leg below his left knee in Fallujah, said it took him about 15 years to find new purpose in life.
Now he works as a motorcycle mechanic. But all these years later, he said, there’s no replacing the bonds formed under fire.
“You’re never going to get those buddies again,” Nicoll said.
Soldiers of Task Force 2-7, 1st Cavalry Division, pay final respects to Sgt. Jonathan Shields and Spc. Jose Valez during a memorial service on Camp Taji, Nov. 27, 2004. Shields and Valez were among nearly 100 service members that were killed during the second Battle of Fallujah. (Benjamin Cossel/U.S. Army)
