Speaker 1: Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
Speaker 1: this edition is Sergeant Robert Day. He's a US Marine
Speaker 1: Corps veteran of the Iraq War. He served two deployments
Speaker 1: in Iraq and fought in the vicious house to house
Speaker 1: second Battle of Fallujah in November and December of two
Speaker 1: thousand and four. He was a machine gunner with the
Speaker 1: first Battalion, eighth Marines. Sergeant Day was born in Mobile, Alabama.
Speaker 1: Both of his grandfathers served in the Army, including one
Speaker 1: who served during World War II. Day explains why he
Speaker 1: chose to serve as well, and despite that Army heritage,
Speaker 1: why he enlisted in the Marine Corps.
Speaker 2: I joined in January two thousand and two. That's when
Speaker 2: my active service started. I joined because I wanted to
Speaker 2: do something greater than myself nine to eleven, and I
Speaker 2: obviously already happened four months prior. I was in college
Speaker 2: at the time, and I wasn't doing too well academically,
Speaker 2: and I was twenty one year old, pretty angry at
Speaker 2: the way things were going with the country and what
Speaker 2: had happened. And I always wanted to be a Marine
Speaker 2: grunt anyway. I had read books growing up on World
Speaker 2: War Two and Vietnam service, and was just enamored with
Speaker 2: the stories of battles from Waye City, Vietnam, Battle of
Speaker 2: the Bulge, the Pacific Island Campaign that the Marines took
Speaker 2: part in, and that's something that I wanted to continue
Speaker 2: the tradition of and so that's why I joined. I
Speaker 2: joined because I wanted to shoot a belt fed machine
Speaker 2: gun in the company of other great men.
Speaker 1: You joined with your eyes wide open?
Speaker 2: Correct?
Speaker 1: And did you do your basic at Paras Island? I
Speaker 1: did tell me about that. Boy.
Speaker 2: We started in January of two. It was cold there
Speaker 2: on the East coast. Had three drill instructors that we
Speaker 2: met first day and they were heavy on us. Gosh,
Speaker 2: we had probably eighty in our barracks. We were up
Speaker 2: at three thirty am every morning for revily. Somebody, you know,
Speaker 2: drill instructor came in with a baseball bat or a
Speaker 2: cane and he was rattling it in a metal trash
Speaker 2: can to get us up. We started the day heavy
Speaker 2: with physical physical activity, exertion, drilling, digging our heels into
Speaker 2: a concrete deck, and learning anything and everything about how
Speaker 2: to be a recruiting in the Marines, it was moment
Speaker 2: to moment. There wasn't a single second during the day
Speaker 2: that you had to yourself. You were always being taught
Speaker 2: book knowledge and learning about side to be a marine recruit,
Speaker 2: and and there was more physical physical exertion and push
Speaker 2: you up and pull up and mountain climbers and you
Speaker 2: name it. So we were we were constantly on the go,
Speaker 2: constantly being force fed information, physical activity, and food.
Speaker 1: It's said that the Marines and basic training break you
Speaker 1: down and then build you back up into the marine
Speaker 1: that they want you to be. Do you remember that
Speaker 1: particular point where either they broke you or you figured out,
Speaker 1: this is why I'm going through all.
Speaker 2: This I did? I mean that that was a daily
Speaker 2: that was a daily reassurance and thought that went through
Speaker 2: my mind. There was always the idea of why why
Speaker 2: am I here? What am I doing this for? I
Speaker 2: know I joined for a reason, and there's no turning back,
Speaker 2: and it's time to succumb to everything that's that I'm
Speaker 2: learning and that I'm doing. And uh, there was always
Speaker 2: the feeling of being stripped to your core, both physically
Speaker 2: and mentally. I mean, it really is a ninety plus
Speaker 2: percent mental game that you need to overcome. And there's
Speaker 2: certain things in your mind that you can remember from
Speaker 2: your past civilian life that comfort you. Whether it be
Speaker 2: a song that you liked, or a family activity or
Speaker 2: just being with friends, or something that you enjoyed doing
Speaker 2: that you can remember and play in your mind during
Speaker 2: those times that you're being stripped in the in boot
Speaker 2: camp and you're doing those those monotonous activities that you
Speaker 2: know you constantly learn and you know, you know in
Speaker 2: the short days ahead.
Speaker 1: After Basic, where did they send you?
Speaker 2: I went straight to School of Infantry at Camp Geiger,
Speaker 2: North Carolina, which is adjacent to Campbu's Union, North Carolina.
Speaker 2: And so that's the East Coast Infantry Training School, and
Speaker 2: that was that was Camp Geiger.
Speaker 1: Is that where they got you on your out fed
Speaker 1: machine gun?
Speaker 2: That's where that's where I started training for it. Yes, Sir,
Speaker 2: started in Bravo Company UH in this rather odd looking
Speaker 2: building we referred to as the mushroom. It had it
Speaker 2: had a stem to it with with stairs and then
Speaker 2: you went up and then it it bellowed out like
Speaker 2: a mushroom and then there was an office up there.
Speaker 2: But but outside of that was the deck where we
Speaker 2: where we trained and formed up every day. And then
Speaker 2: we of course had barracks right next to that, so uh,
Speaker 2: it's it's a rather famous location for you know that
Speaker 2: that scores of men and women have trained at over
Speaker 2: the over the decades.
Speaker 1: And then did you have specific training for Iraq such
Speaker 1: as urban combat situations? Maybe not at that school, but
Speaker 1: at some point before you deployed.
Speaker 2: We did, we did, we we got I mean, the
Speaker 2: School of Infantry was pretty basic in terms of learning
Speaker 2: weapons systems and gaining your and learning your mo os
Speaker 2: and get time. For me was on the M two
Speaker 2: forty machine gun and the Mark nineteen machine gun and
Speaker 2: the fifty cal machine gun. But eventually when I got
Speaker 2: to my unit in August of two was when was
Speaker 2: when we started to do more urban training like mount
Speaker 2: training and eventually some SASSO training out in California just
Speaker 2: before you know, our much later deployment.
Speaker 1: What was it about those weapons that you felt drawn
Speaker 1: to them, that that's what you wanted to be using
Speaker 1: in war.
Speaker 2: I grew up watching a lot of World War Two
Speaker 2: movies at my grandparents' house and listening to my dad
Speaker 2: tell stories that he had read in books about World
Speaker 2: War two, and I learned a lot about John basilone
Speaker 2: and his great courage on the battlefield and as the
Speaker 2: leader of a machine gun section. And I watched old
Speaker 2: videos of Vietnam shooting them sixty belt fed guns, and
Speaker 2: I was just captivated by the rate of fire, the
Speaker 2: bursts that they put out, how tight you can get
Speaker 2: your groups if you're really good, both conventionally and unconventionally,
Speaker 2: and just the amount of damage in the annihilation they
Speaker 2: do on the enemy is incredible. And I particularly was
Speaker 2: drawn to the medium machine gun, which is what we
Speaker 2: were referred to it as. That's the seven point six
Speaker 2: y two by five to one millimeter gun, and it
Speaker 2: was the successor to the sixty that I believe was
Speaker 2: used up until about the early nineties and still some today.
Speaker 1: At what point did you get assigned to Alpha Company
Speaker 1: of the one eight.
Speaker 2: I arrived at Alpha Company one eight in August of two.
Speaker 1: When did you deploy to Iraq?
Speaker 2: We deployed shortly after that in March of three was
Speaker 2: when we left. We took some we took some transportation
Speaker 2: up to Little Creek, Virginia, which is where the USS
Speaker 2: Carter Hall was waiting, and we loaded up on that
Speaker 2: boat and along with the USS Nashville and the USSC Regima,
Speaker 2: we we parted out of there. At some point, I
Speaker 2: want to say early March, the war kicked off.
Speaker 1: And tell us about that first deployment in Iraq.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was a Sea Service deployment. We
Speaker 2: we crossed the across the Atlantic, entered the Mediterranean. We
Speaker 2: hit some ports in Europe such as Toronto, Italy. We
Speaker 2: went to Greece. We went to the island of Crete
Speaker 2: and there we had some liberty in the town and
Speaker 2: we got to get on our feet, walk around, get
Speaker 2: some food, and then we ended up at a hangar
Speaker 2: in Crete where my company posted up lived for I
Speaker 2: want to say a few days, maybe it was a
Speaker 2: week or two, and then we flew out to Mosuil,
Speaker 2: Iraq for the following two weeks in April of three.
Speaker 1: What were your duties in Mosul?
Speaker 2: We pulled security at the airfield there. We did a
Speaker 2: few patrols out on the city. We pulled some security
Speaker 2: on the rooftops and that was about the extent of it.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: Rather, there was maybe one small skirmish that one of
Speaker 2: our snipers had gotten into, but it was not significant.
Speaker 2: In our eyes at least, although we were a presence
Speaker 2: there generally.
Speaker 1: So when you came home before the second deployment, what
Speaker 1: were you focusing on in training?
Speaker 2: Oh, when we came home. Let's see, we arrived back
Speaker 2: at Campbell's Union in October of three, and we started
Speaker 2: immediately building up to our second deployment. I mean, we
Speaker 2: hit the ground running when we got back after our
Speaker 2: ten day block leave. We did all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 2: We did some sea service training such as asak AX
Speaker 2: and RGAX is what we call them, where we would
Speaker 2: take the boats, the ships that we were deployed on.
Speaker 2: We would go out and we would get on the
Speaker 2: amtraks and we would float into the beaches and land
Speaker 2: and do some land training. We went to the ranges
Speaker 2: a lot and shot the M two forties and the
Speaker 2: fifties and the Mark nineteens, and of course went to
Speaker 2: the rifle range with all the other Marines in our
Speaker 2: and our platoons and companies and spent plenty of time there. Uh.
Speaker 2: Starting in two thousand and four in the spring was
Speaker 2: when we started doing what General mattis Uh and his
Speaker 2: and his colleagues would call sasso training. UH, and that
Speaker 2: was Uh. It was definitely some urban training, you know,
Speaker 2: house clearing, UH, some limited close quarters combat training within
Speaker 2: enclosed structures and UH and what they called winning hearts
Speaker 2: and minds of the locals in Iraq. And so it
Speaker 2: was a hybrid. It was a combination of both of
Speaker 2: those things. We used some simulation rounds in our mount
Speaker 2: training back at Camp La June, which was some paintball rounds,
Speaker 2: and everything else was really ground fighting. We did quite
Speaker 2: a bit of that. They ramped up the Marine Mixed
Speaker 2: Martial Arts program. We learned all kinds of tactics within
Speaker 2: our belt systems, the Tan Belt, the Great Belt, the
Speaker 2: Green Belt, Brown Belt, you know, arm bard takedowns, all
Speaker 2: kinds of tactics like guillotines, and that was some of
Speaker 2: the most memorable and helpful hand to hand combat training
Speaker 2: that we did that.
Speaker 1: Sergeant Robert Day, he's a US Marine Corps veteran of
Speaker 1: the Iraq War who served in the Second Battle of
Speaker 1: Fallujah in late two thousand and four. Still Ahead, Sergeant
Speaker 1: Day takes us through the Battle of Fallujah in vivid detail.
Speaker 1: But when we come back, it's back to Iraq for
Speaker 1: the second deployment and getting ready for the difficult fight
Speaker 1: in Fallujah. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles.
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Speaker 1: This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
Speaker 1: this edition is Sergeant Robert Day. He's a US Marine
Speaker 1: Corps veteran of the Iraq War, serving as a machine
Speaker 1: gunner with the first Battalion, eighth Marines. After one largely
Speaker 1: quiet deployment to Iraq in two thousand and three, Day
Speaker 1: and the other Marines in his unit returned to the
Speaker 1: US and were soon engaged in much more intense training
Speaker 1: for their next tour. By the summer of two thousand
Speaker 1: and four, they were on their way back.
Speaker 2: We headed back in June of four after our ten
Speaker 2: day leave, and we jumped on a commercial plane and
Speaker 2: it flew over.
Speaker 1: So knowing that this deployment is going to be a
Speaker 1: lot different than the first one. What's going through your
Speaker 1: mind here? Obviously, you joined the Marines in order to
Speaker 1: fight for your country, and you're ready for it. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, this is really going to happen.
Speaker 1: Did did you think much about that on the way over?
Speaker 2: I did? I did? I had I had studied up
Speaker 2: on oh I f two uh, just looking at magazine
Speaker 2: articles that were that were just coming out, specifically in
Speaker 2: April of four prior to our leave on that second deployment,
Speaker 2: because while we were doing SASSO training out in California
Speaker 2: four O I F two UH, the first battle of
Speaker 2: Felujah had kicked off in April. I remember over hearing
Speaker 2: some Marines while we were training saying, yeah, Marines are
Speaker 2: tearing up Fallujah right now. And so I read an
Speaker 2: Atlantic Monthly article on it and showed some pictures of
Speaker 2: some grunts with their weapons in Fellujah on the outskirts,
Speaker 2: and they didn't they didn't go inside the city, but
Speaker 2: they had scraped the outside and taken some casualties and
Speaker 2: certainly certainly eliminated a lot of the enemy. I felt good,
Speaker 2: I felt motivated, I felt excited and just downright excited
Speaker 2: to be with, you know, all my comrades for that deployment.
Speaker 2: I knew it was going to be big.
Speaker 1: When did you find out that it's happening, and it's
Speaker 1: happening soon.
Speaker 2: Well, we got there in June. We spent a lot
Speaker 2: of the summer of four patrolling around Haditha Dam and
Speaker 2: doing patrols in the desert around little towns like hit
Speaker 2: and Rahwa and Habania, and it was it was extremely hot,
Speaker 2: and we didn't encounter any enemy. We didn't have any
Speaker 2: resistance other than some IED's and so I remember my
Speaker 2: vehicle was hit with an IED as I was in
Speaker 2: the gun turret one day in the lead vehicle and
Speaker 2: the convoy, and and it shook me up. It really
Speaker 2: rang my bell. Although none of us were hurt. We
Speaker 2: we just felt the fog of war immediately right there
Speaker 2: and thought, well, this is real, something's coming because everybody's talking.
Speaker 2: Lieutenant Malcolm, Lieutenant Barnes, they were, they were rolling down
Speaker 2: some talk that the heat was coming in the nearby
Speaker 2: city somewhere.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: And we we knew quite well that it was going
Speaker 2: to be Fallujah as we were close to that where
Speaker 2: we were stationed at all Sade.
Speaker 1: What kind of instructions were you given just prior to
Speaker 1: the battle about what your company, what you're put in
Speaker 1: we're going to be assigned to do. As the battle began.
Speaker 2: We knew we were going to be involved in it
Speaker 2: because General Mattis told us that. Well, he got us
Speaker 2: into a facility on base at all Sade, and he
Speaker 2: gave us a speech that was significant. It was it
Speaker 2: was historic and it was. It was motivation. It was
Speaker 2: this is what's going to be happening in the combat
Speaker 2: theater in Iraq and Fallujah particularly, and his presence was
Speaker 2: was when we knew it was it was coming, was
Speaker 2: when a battle was going to happen. And I believe
Speaker 2: he told us that it was going to be as
Speaker 2: significant as the Battle of Waste City in Vietnam in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight. And I remember, I remember him telling
Speaker 2: us that the first time he had killed somebody was
Speaker 2: in Vietnam, and I was just proud to be listening
Speaker 2: to him because we knew we were going to be
Speaker 2: going up against a terrible enemy that needed to be eliminated.
Speaker 2: And so that was also the part of the fog
Speaker 2: of war that was real.
Speaker 1: All right, So tell me about Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: tell me about the bombardment before you guys went flying
Speaker 1: in there, the Shakanaw aspect of.
Speaker 2: Right, we lived at Camp Fallujah for about I want
Speaker 2: to say, a week to ten days before we went
Speaker 2: into the city. There were some mortar rounds that landed
Speaker 2: in and around the base, and it was very close
Speaker 2: to the city. I mean we're literally talking about a
Speaker 2: quarter mile maybe half a mile or less. On the
Speaker 2: night of November ninth, we posted up outside outside of
Speaker 2: Fallujah on the north side at night, and our entire
Speaker 2: battalion was told that we were going to be going
Speaker 2: right through the center of the city north to south
Speaker 2: on foot meckt up with support from tanks and artillery
Speaker 2: in the rear and air assets and everything else that
Speaker 2: accompanies marines on foot. So we spent the night prior
Speaker 2: to November tenth outside of that city literally watching over
Speaker 2: the buildings and the high rises about of what our
Speaker 2: artillery was doing. They were dropping rounds that exploded midair
Speaker 2: that had white phosphorus in them, and they would literally
Speaker 2: rain down molten chemicals to soften up the enemy and
Speaker 2: kill them. We also watched line charges being detonated. A
Speaker 2: line charges is basically a long charge charge of explosives
Speaker 2: that is intended to make other IEDs improvise explosive devices
Speaker 2: blow up, you know, before we encounter them and they
Speaker 2: take us out. So, I mean, we just we watched
Speaker 2: incredibly large fireballs explode and that was meant to help
Speaker 2: us out before we went in. And then we saw
Speaker 2: the BBC crews right in front of us outside of
Speaker 2: the city getting ready to accompany us, and all was
Speaker 2: quiet before we before D Day on November tenth.
Speaker 1: That Sergeant Robert Day, a US Marine Corps veteran of
Speaker 1: the Iraq War and the Second Battle of Fallujah. When
Speaker 1: we come back, it's time to fight in Fallujah, and
Speaker 1: Sergeant Day shares his gripping account of the battle, from
Speaker 1: the first moments through the intense house to house fighting.
Speaker 1: I'm Greg Corumbus, and this is Veterans Chronicles. This is
Speaker 1: Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition
Speaker 1: is Sergeant Robert Day. He's a US Marine Corps veteran
Speaker 1: of the Iraq War serving as a machine gunner with
Speaker 1: the first Battalion, eighth Marines. After all the preparation that
Speaker 1: Day and his fellow Marines did for the fight in Fallujah,
Speaker 1: it was finally time to do it. Day and the
Speaker 1: other Marines in his company were among those tasked with
Speaker 1: advancing two and securing the Mayor's Complex as the fight began.
Speaker 1: Day now takes us moment by moment through the fighting
Speaker 1: and the mindset needed for a battle so relentlessly intense.
Speaker 2: Right we were in the we were in the amtraks,
Speaker 2: floaded up with guns and ammunition and frags and everything
Speaker 2: else we carried and packed in there pretty tight. And
Speaker 2: we were rolling in and you could just hear. All
Speaker 2: you could hear were the tracks, uh, the sound of
Speaker 2: the tracks going, and and that that that usual whine
Speaker 2: of the diesel machine, you know, that pushes that track.
Speaker 2: And nobody was talking inside, and you know, everybody just
Speaker 2: put some dip in their mouth, and and we waited
Speaker 2: and waited, and time went by. We would stop and
Speaker 2: then go again until everybody pushed forward. And we finally
Speaker 2: got to where we got to that Mayor's complex and
Speaker 2: it was dark still. It was zero four when they
Speaker 2: dropped the ramps or so. And I remember I was
Speaker 2: with I was in the same track as Bradley Faircloth
Speaker 2: and my team leader and a few others and probably
Speaker 2: ten or fifteen others in that track, and they dropped
Speaker 2: the ramp, and some guys that were in faircloths fireteam
Speaker 2: Smith and Meadows and and Matthews, they were all together.
Speaker 2: They dropped the ramp and Faircloth had been talking about
Speaker 2: how he wanted to wanted to get an ak as
Speaker 2: a souvenir. He wanted an ak forty seven you know,
Speaker 2: the enemy's rifle and uh. And as the ramp dropped,
Speaker 2: they all were about, they were all running out of
Speaker 2: the back of the track and they all toppled over
Speaker 2: each other and fell on the ground, fell on the deck,
Speaker 2: and they stumbled out of there, and uh, and the
Speaker 2: sun came up, and you know, they were they were
Speaker 2: dead bodies strewn about from there that you know, the
Speaker 2: the bombs that had dropped, you know, from our air assets.
Speaker 2: And uh, the sun came up a little bit and
Speaker 2: fair Claus found a found a dead body with an
Speaker 2: ak and he grabbed it and he goes, oh shit,
Speaker 2: it's bent up. The barrels bent. And then after that
Speaker 2: we we were right there at the Mayor's complex and
Speaker 2: we you know, we got on the rooftop and posted
Speaker 2: up and the sun came up and and it was
Speaker 2: on from there.
Speaker 1: Talk about that. How are you set up? You mentioned
Speaker 1: the roof but the enemies awake now and there they're
Speaker 1: coming at you. So set the scene for us and
Speaker 1: explain what what you're doing.
Speaker 2: At this point, we went in through the back of
Speaker 2: the complex. It was it was basically a square block
Speaker 2: that had a large opening of just ground dirt in
Speaker 2: the middle, and then surrounding it were buildings in the perimeter,
Speaker 2: and so in the rear of the complex was where
Speaker 2: we posted of I believe that was on the north side.
Speaker 2: And we just got up on one of the rooftops
Speaker 2: of one of the buildings and it was the first
Speaker 2: building we picked. It wasn't any rhyme or reason for
Speaker 2: why we picked it, and it turned out to be
Speaker 2: a rather exposed position. It was just flat. I mean,
Speaker 2: there was a lip on the outer edge of that
Speaker 2: complex rooftop we were on, but there was no cover.
Speaker 2: There was some cinder blocks you could have used to
Speaker 2: move around. I put I put my two forty belt
Speaker 2: fed gun on the edge and just kicked up the
Speaker 2: bipods on it, and rounds started flying in. I mean
Speaker 2: they were coming from other higher that were directly ahead
Speaker 2: of us, that were probably five hundred yards away, I
Speaker 2: want to say, about five hundred meters, and then there
Speaker 2: were some minarets behind that that were more or less
Speaker 2: like mosque towers. There were some snipers in there, and
Speaker 2: there were bullets that were being I mean we could
Speaker 2: hear snaps and crackles and pops, like just whizzing right
Speaker 2: past our heads. The whole city was just rubbled, especially
Speaker 2: where we are, you know, from bombs that were being
Speaker 2: dropped from us. And there was rebar sticking out of
Speaker 2: the roof. I remember, you know, maybe it went up
Speaker 2: about ten or fifteen twenty feet high and it was
Speaker 2: just bear and I remember bullets pinging off of it,
Speaker 2: like just bullets whizzing and pinging off of it. It
Speaker 2: sounded like a bell, you know. And that happened throughout
Speaker 2: the day on November tenth, on that D Day, and
Speaker 2: I have myself and my teamly Healy with me, and
Speaker 2: UH I would send around. I would send bursts of fire,
Speaker 2: UH support support by fire over across into a high
Speaker 2: rise into windows where we saw muscle flashes coming out
Speaker 2: of and UH the enemy was was hiding mainly, you know,
Speaker 2: they were taking covering concealment and shooting at us. I
Speaker 2: remember mortars falling and exploding all around the Mayor's Complex
Speaker 2: roof we were on about mid morning. I remember second Platoon,
Speaker 2: Alpha Company, positioning themselves on a rooftop just forward of
Speaker 2: our position. So they were on a rooftop in the
Speaker 2: Mayor's Complex also, but they were closer to the enemy
Speaker 2: and they were taking fire, and they were they were
Speaker 2: firing eighty four rocket launchers into windows because they were
Speaker 2: closer and they were hitting. They were hitting the enemy
Speaker 2: and blowing and you know, making explosions and killing them.
Speaker 2: And so I would provide support by fire over their heads,
Speaker 2: and they were pretty frightened about that. I think. I
Speaker 2: want to say, my my bursts of fire were probably
Speaker 2: I don't know, twenty thirty feet above their head, just
Speaker 2: to give you a picture of what the scene was like.
Speaker 2: At one point, I want to say, one of our
Speaker 2: one of our aircraft was intending to drop a five
Speaker 2: hundred pound bomb on the enemy, and it actually landed
Speaker 2: pretty close to us, and it missed the enemy and
Speaker 2: it exploded. I mean, it landed on the street right
Speaker 2: by the building we were on. It was it was
Speaker 2: it was really bizarre the bar. I mean you could
Speaker 2: see the bomb hit the ground and then it sunk
Speaker 2: into the concrete of the street. It landed on the street,
Speaker 2: and then there was this delay of maybe five seconds,
Speaker 2: and then it was like slow motion. I looked over
Speaker 2: after I squeezed off a burst of fire, and the
Speaker 2: massive portions of street and concrete would would go up
Speaker 2: into the air and some guys in second Platoon were
Speaker 2: wounded from that, and uh so it was just it
Speaker 2: was just part of the heart, the horrific you know,
Speaker 2: the horrific outcomes of combat and things that happened. It
Speaker 2: was hell. I could feel it coming on. Some of
Speaker 2: our guys in third Platoon had had killed some of
Speaker 2: the enemy in the street right around the complex. I
Speaker 2: mean some of the enemy were would be seen walking
Speaker 2: around with aks, sneaking around the side of buildings and
Speaker 2: they would just slight them up and kill them right there.
Speaker 2: And so it was a long day. It was the
Speaker 2: beginning of our finest hour, and it was on.
Speaker 1: How did you push out of the complex and keep
Speaker 1: moving south with that kind of enemy intensity.
Speaker 2: November tenth went on and we got we displaced off
Speaker 2: that rooftop. We had lost our lieutenant, Lieutenant Malcolm, and
Speaker 2: we ran over to another building, a small office building
Speaker 2: which was one story, and we sat on the ground
Speaker 2: floor and just waited in that building. I remember, yeah,
Speaker 2: our squad our platoon, third platoon was there and we
Speaker 2: were about to push. I could feel it coming. We
Speaker 2: were minutes away, and I pulled out a can of
Speaker 2: dip out of my pocket and I told my I
Speaker 2: told one of my superiors, I said, hey, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go I'm gonna go into this office room next door
Speaker 2: and just have a dip and get about five minutes
Speaker 2: to myself. So I went in there and just said
Speaker 2: some prayers and had some had had a moment alone,
Speaker 2: and then I rejoined the rest of the rest of
Speaker 2: the Marines I was with. And I want to say
Speaker 2: it was about four or five o'clock by then, and
Speaker 2: it was winter days, so the days were shorter. Night
Speaker 2: was coming, but we still had still had probably two
Speaker 2: hours of daylight. And then at that point we pushed
Speaker 2: across Route fran We bounded, you know, one man after
Speaker 2: the other, and I mean bullets were flying everywhere. It
Speaker 2: was loud machine gun fire, enemy machine gun fire, pkms
Speaker 2: ak's mortars were landing, a lot of yelling, a lot
Speaker 2: of screaming, a lot of orders being or being dealt,
Speaker 2: and and men were moving fast and and that's when
Speaker 2: it kicked off.
Speaker 1: Now, when it comes to the house to house fighting
Speaker 1: due to your weaponry, from what I understand, you were
Speaker 1: outside most of the time or maybe on top of
Speaker 1: depending on what the situation was. How was your role
Speaker 1: to find logistically as they as everybody's clearing the houses.
Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, I carried my I carried my two
Speaker 2: forty in an unconventional sense. I mean it just used
Speaker 2: bipods and we didn't. I didn't bring in a tripod
Speaker 2: or traversing, an elevating mechanism which is used for more
Speaker 2: long distance and precision support by fire. I had it
Speaker 2: on a sling and uh and I carried it with
Speaker 2: a I had a hundred round belt to start in it.
Speaker 2: And you know, I carried two more hundred round belts
Speaker 2: with me on my person and had a few of
Speaker 2: my few of my few of my comrades carry other
Speaker 2: hundred round belts. So I was I was well supported.
Speaker 2: But I stayed. I stayed on the rooftops and in
Speaker 2: the alleys, and I kept watch around the houses where
Speaker 2: where our three eleven riflemen were going in and clearing
Speaker 2: rooms and hallways. And uh, there was there was resistance
Speaker 2: outside of the house as they were clearing rooms. I
Speaker 2: mean I got I got my first taste of what
Speaker 2: it was like to kill and kill an enemy combatant
Speaker 2: uh on. On the very first rooftop after the Mayor's
Speaker 2: Complex that I got on top of after we crossed
Speaker 2: that main route on D Day that afternoon. Really I
Speaker 2: provided more security after that, but that first rooftop was significant. Uh.
Speaker 2: We referred to it as Hadgi Alley and Hajji Alley
Speaker 2: was where a lot of our resistance was met right
Speaker 2: in the very beginning of the battle.
Speaker 1: So in addition to protecting the guys that are going
Speaker 1: into the houses, you're also kind of the eyes of
Speaker 1: the whole neighborhood, or at least as much as you
Speaker 1: can see from your vantage point right right right.
Speaker 2: I had obviously a fully automatic weapon to suppress and
Speaker 2: destroy the enemy. You know, snipers had bolt action rifles
Speaker 2: for more precision, long range shooting, so I complimented them well,
Speaker 2: and we took out enemy combatants in the streets in
Speaker 2: the alleys as we pushed south.
Speaker 1: What was your communication like, so if you know, the
Speaker 1: guys are in the house, and hey, we need a
Speaker 1: little more firepower over here.
Speaker 2: Right right. I usually I stayed in the rear of
Speaker 2: a stacks as marines went into the houses, and before
Speaker 2: they went in, I would go around and come to
Speaker 2: the front of the house and waste fire it into
Speaker 2: the house and usually do a six to eight round,
Speaker 2: burst to the right, to the left, to the right
Speaker 2: again and suppress to neutralize the house, provide some psychological
Speaker 2: terror on the enemy, if not kill them or wound them.
Speaker 2: So it was it was an efforts to shake them
Speaker 2: up before they went in immediately and and have some
Speaker 2: type of advantage. I mean it was. It was a
Speaker 2: gorilla tactic for use on our behalf too, just as
Speaker 2: they used on us. So it was. It was an
Speaker 2: unconventional battle in that sense. And my communication with my
Speaker 2: with my fire teams was was good, although you know,
Speaker 2: we had a lot of we made a lot of
Speaker 2: mistakes too that cost us.
Speaker 1: What kind of damage does the two forty round do?
Speaker 2: Right? That seven six two round? Uh? It? It penetrates
Speaker 2: the walls. I mean the walls weren't weren't fortified, you know,
Speaker 2: they were they were glorified mud huts. They were brick,
Speaker 2: and they'd penetrate those structures pretty well, and they would
Speaker 2: they would go through walls really well.
Speaker 1: I have heard though, that you did do clearing on occasion, correct, yep.
Speaker 2: After after more, when we got to the south part
Speaker 2: of the city and in the middle of the city,
Speaker 2: I cleared a few houses used my nine mil my
Speaker 2: side arm, and we lost our rules of engagement.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Towards the southern part of the city, we weren't allowed
Speaker 2: to use automatic fire fully automatic fire anymore because all
Speaker 2: our friendlies were in such close proximity that we had
Speaker 2: to use point target weapons.
Speaker 1: So, yes, what's it like entering a house when you
Speaker 1: know there's enemies there and you're not completely quite obviously
Speaker 1: on the layout. If it's the first time you've been there,
Speaker 1: they've got a little bit of an advantage, and maybe
Speaker 1: even more of an advantage. How do you get that
Speaker 1: advantage back?
Speaker 2: Well, the enemy was cowardly. They used their own gorilla
Speaker 2: tactics against us. They would board up, they would put
Speaker 2: curtains over the windows, and they would hide from us
Speaker 2: and keep the sunlight out. So when we entered the houses,
Speaker 2: it was completely blacked out and dark, and they'd be
Speaker 2: hiding in the corner with PKM belt fed gun just
Speaker 2: pointed right at the door, and that's usually when that's
Speaker 2: when people would get it killed and hurt. So we
Speaker 2: learned quick that that all of our conventional tactics didn't
Speaker 2: really work. You know, we could throw frags in the windows,
Speaker 2: we threw frags through the doorways, down chimneys. We called
Speaker 2: in tanks. We sent some tank crowns in that would
Speaker 2: basically just obliterate the house and cause a shock to
Speaker 2: all the bodies inside. We'd fire Mark nineteen fully automatic
Speaker 2: grenade launchers at them at the houses through the windows.
Speaker 2: We'd run D nine bulldozers right over the house at
Speaker 2: one point and just crush everybody inside. I mean, at
Speaker 2: one point we were we were yelling at him from
Speaker 2: outside of the house and they would respond a lotac
Speaker 2: bar and you know, we knew they were inside, and
Speaker 2: it was a trap, you know they had They had
Speaker 2: all kinds of booby traps inside that we weren't about
Speaker 2: to waste human assets on. So when we knew they
Speaker 2: were inside, I mean a lot of times we would
Speaker 2: kill them with point target weapons and grenades, and other
Speaker 2: times we would just send a tank round in or
Speaker 2: a javelin missile.
Speaker 1: That's Robert Day, a US Marine Corps veteran of the
Speaker 1: Iraq War and the Second Battle of Fallujia Still to Come.
Speaker 1: Day explains how the Marines and their enemies adjusted their
Speaker 1: tactics as the battle continued, and he describes losing one
Speaker 1: of the most beloved Marines in his platoon. I'm Greg Corumbus,
Speaker 1: and this is Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans' Chronicles. I'm
Speaker 1: Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this addition is Sergeant Robert Day.
Speaker 1: He's a US Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War
Speaker 1: and the Second Battle of Fallujah. In just a moment,
Speaker 1: Day articulates the pain of losing a beloved member of
Speaker 1: his platoon and the bomb that still exists inside that
Speaker 1: platoon twenty years later. But first, Sergeant Day explains how
Speaker 1: the Marines and their enemies adjusted their tactics as the
Speaker 1: battle for Fallujah unfolded.
Speaker 2: They had spider holes that they dug in between each
Speaker 2: house that they would disappear into and go into a
Speaker 2: house that we had already cleared, or move forward to
Speaker 2: another house that we hadn't cleared. It was a constant
Speaker 2: game of whack them all. We didn't know where they were,
Speaker 2: and unless we saw them during the day peeking out
Speaker 2: of an alley or a courtyard, and somebody would shoot
Speaker 2: him right in the head or in the chest. And
Speaker 2: they were tricky. They'd come out at night. Sometimes we
Speaker 2: didn't recount a lot of resistance at all at night time,
Speaker 2: but we killed them when we saw him.
Speaker 1: Did you come under fire much from your position normally
Speaker 1: on the rooftops?
Speaker 2: I did, I did, yeah that first day. That first day,
Speaker 2: we got up on that first rooftop in Hajji Alley
Speaker 2: and uh I ran. I ran through the door, the
Speaker 2: main door of the house, along with a lot of
Speaker 2: a lot of guys, probably about probably nine or ten
Speaker 2: marines went through that hatch in the first in the
Speaker 2: first house in Hajji Alley. We I remember, I remember
Speaker 2: running through that first house and looking in the side
Speaker 2: of the little entryway to the door, and there were
Speaker 2: some RPG warheads at the enemy used in a backpack
Speaker 2: that was that was leaning up against the wall, So
Speaker 2: we knew there were some people inside, but there actually weren't.
Speaker 2: I mean, we cleared it. We immediately ran upstairs to
Speaker 2: the elevated rooftop, and on this particular rooftop there was
Speaker 2: there was a wall maybe like four or five feet high,
Speaker 2: probably about three or about four four feet high that
Speaker 2: everybody propped their weapons up on. I propped my two
Speaker 2: forty up on it, and and we had a lot
Speaker 2: of snipe up there too. Some guys from Stay were
Speaker 2: up there with us. Ergo was up there with us,
Speaker 2: and my team leader, Healey, and I mean, we immediately
Speaker 2: just started taking fire right we could. I could see
Speaker 2: straight down a street. We were directly above a street
Speaker 2: that I could see straight down, and there were guys
Speaker 2: shooting at us from that street, out in the middle
Speaker 2: of the street, just shooting at us with aks. There
Speaker 2: was another street that was perpendicular to the street that
Speaker 2: I was looking down that we were looking down, and
Speaker 2: I remember seeing I remember seeing this large, this really
Speaker 2: big fat guy running down the street. He was an
Speaker 2: enemy combatant and he had RPG warheads in his backpack
Speaker 2: and he was running from something. He was running from
Speaker 2: an Army Bradley tank that was firing a Bushmaster machine
Speaker 2: gun at him, a big twenty five millimeter fully automatic
Speaker 2: gun that slow rate of fire. And he was running.
Speaker 2: I could see the tracers following him, and he could
Speaker 2: they weren't hitting him. And I aimed right in at
Speaker 2: him and I shot him, and I crumbled him and
Speaker 2: he fell. He didn't get back up. And then I
Speaker 2: looked closer into the street and there was it was
Speaker 2: filled with smoke down below. I mean, that guy was
Speaker 2: at about one hundred and twenty five hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: yards and then closer to us in the street. Right
Speaker 2: after that incident was multiple enemy in the middle of
Speaker 2: the street, hiding behind walls and standing in the middle
Speaker 2: of the street firing at us. I could see muscle flashes. Martinez,
Speaker 2: we called him Marty, he was also next to us.
Speaker 2: He directed my fire into a window and then I
Speaker 2: looked back down on that street and I hit somebody
Speaker 2: that one of our one of our stay guys, had
Speaker 2: just shot, and he looked over. That stay guy looked
Speaker 2: over at me and goes, I got him, and uh,
Speaker 2: and then I shot him again as he was moving
Speaker 2: around on the ground. And then Lee, another guy from
Speaker 2: our platoon looked at me and he goes, you got him.
Speaker 2: So there was that, There was that come, There was
Speaker 2: that communication and that bravado about what we were actually doing.
Speaker 2: What we were actually there to do was was annihilate
Speaker 2: the enemy. And that's what we did right there on
Speaker 2: Hanjie Alley and I remember feeling like getting popped in
Speaker 2: the face by little bitty pieces of concrete from enemy
Speaker 2: bullets coming in and hitting the walls, and it felt
Speaker 2: so it felt so real that we were, that we
Speaker 2: were in it. I mean, I felt like I had
Speaker 2: been training my whole life for that moment, and I
Speaker 2: knew that any moment, I could just get zipped, I
Speaker 2: could get killed. And it was frightening and surreal and exciting,
Speaker 2: and I just remembered so.
Speaker 1: Well as you guys progressed, how frequently are you moving positions,
Speaker 1: disassembling and moving to the next rooftop?
Speaker 2: You know, we moved constantly. We stayed at some specific
Speaker 2: places for a day before before somebody was wounded and
Speaker 2: had to be metavact, and then we would bound over
Speaker 2: to a different location. I mean, we stayed at this
Speaker 2: one location called the Alamo that we later called the
Speaker 2: Alamo for about I want to say, most of a day,
Speaker 2: and we took some fire from that house and we
Speaker 2: gave it back, and we had some really close calls
Speaker 2: up on that rooftop, aside from three of our marines
Speaker 2: getting wounded and being sent out. So we moved, we stayed.
Speaker 2: It was a mix of everything, but the push was
Speaker 2: on and we didn't stop till we got to the
Speaker 2: southern part, which was Queen's Queens District in Fallujah.
Speaker 1: Talk a little bit about the Alamo and what happened
Speaker 1: on the roof that day as the enemy was firing
Speaker 1: in the RPG. Where were you positioned and how close
Speaker 1: were you to the impact point?
Speaker 2: I was on the roof with everybody else. I mean
Speaker 2: it may have been about probably about a thirty or
Speaker 2: forty feet by the same thirty or forty feet and
Speaker 2: you know, in the area surface area, So it gives
Speaker 2: you an idea of our platoon. We had about what
Speaker 2: fifteen twenty five marines on that rooftop that day. And
Speaker 2: I remember certain times where I was on the outskirts
Speaker 2: of that rooftop propped up on a wall. Fire and
Speaker 2: burst of fire into the city and where I thought
Speaker 2: they were coming from, and I mean they were snipers
Speaker 2: everywhere they were hidden. And I remember seeing bullets spinning
Speaker 2: on the deck of that roof, enemy bullets that had landed,
Speaker 2: and they were just spinning out of control right in
Speaker 2: front of your face. I remember the same bits of
Speaker 2: concrete hitting my face as I did in Halji Alley.
Speaker 2: I remember seeing our artillery rounds in the distance on
Speaker 2: the street and on the ground land and not explode,
Speaker 2: and just bizarre things like that. I remember at one
Speaker 2: point talking to Lieutenant Barnes, and he had his rto
Speaker 2: Duran with him and I was right in front of
Speaker 2: him in the middle of the rooftop, and I remember
Speaker 2: picking up a bullet and enemy bullet and showing it
Speaker 2: to him. I said, that's a dragon off Rouncer. And
Speaker 2: and then right after that, I believe it was when
Speaker 2: that RPG came in and wounded three of ours, Fox,
Speaker 2: Martinez and Leo. I remember going down to UH. I
Speaker 2: grabbed Ergo and he and I went down to the
Speaker 2: balcony below. So that was the second roof, the second roof.
Speaker 2: We were on second story, and then we went down
Speaker 2: to a balcony below that and there was the same
Speaker 2: you know wall, maybe two or three feet high, and
Speaker 2: Ergo got down into the Indian style position and he
Speaker 2: had a two oh three grenade launcher on his M sixteen,
Speaker 2: and he was lobbing rounds into the nearby area a
Speaker 2: couple of hundred meters away, and I was I was
Speaker 2: spot and for him, and I was standing up in
Speaker 2: a doorway and I remember hearing a loud snap pop,
Speaker 2: and I looked right next to me, and you know,
Speaker 2: there was a round that impacted right next to my
Speaker 2: groin on the doorframe that I was standing in, and
Speaker 2: I immediately hit the deck and it was pretty frightening.
Speaker 2: And then we returned fireing after that we were exposed.
Speaker 2: We were sitting ducks at the Alamo, and we stayed
Speaker 2: there for most of the day and eventually moved.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Bradley the Faircloth a couple of times. Now,
Speaker 1: first of all his hunt for the souvenir and being
Speaker 1: lost around Thanksgiving of two thousand and four. What happened
Speaker 1: that day and where were you in proximity to that happening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Faircloth was fearless, he really was. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: always there's always one, two, three marines you know, around
Speaker 2: in each platoon that that want the enemy dead a
Speaker 2: little bit more than everybody. Everybody was hungry to kill
Speaker 2: the enemy. We were all starving for it. And and
Speaker 2: but Faircloth displayed that he was Nobody was going to
Speaker 2: get ahead of him in a stack to clear a room.
Speaker 2: Nobody was going to be able to kill an enemy
Speaker 2: before he did. He would literally push you out of
Speaker 2: the way. He would he would tackle you to get
Speaker 2: get you out of the way so he could get
Speaker 2: get up there. I mean, there were so many skirmishes
Speaker 2: between Hadji Ali and the Alamo and South Queens that
Speaker 2: that I can recount fighting the enemy alongside faircloth and
Speaker 2: in him displaying his courage.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: But I was right there with him with his fire
Speaker 2: team when he when the day he was killed, we
Speaker 2: were clearing houses. I want to say. It was towards
Speaker 2: the end of the city between the Alamo and South Queens,
Speaker 2: and Uh, I was outside of the house pulling security,
Speaker 2: looking down the alleys and streets, making sure nobody crossed
Speaker 2: over or expose himself. And we had a more three
Speaker 2: eleven riflemen up on rooftops nearby, also doing overwatch from
Speaker 2: elevated positions. And they entered the house and immediately he
Speaker 2: was he was the front man in the stack, and
Speaker 2: and he kicked down a door and he immediately all
Speaker 2: I heard was a long burst of machine gun enemy
Speaker 2: machine gun fire. And uh, that's when I knew something
Speaker 2: was bad was going on. And they stayed in the
Speaker 2: house and fought the enemy for a short period. And
Speaker 2: I later came to find out that the two or
Speaker 2: three two or three enemy combats had jumped out the
Speaker 2: window in the back of the house and fled and
Speaker 2: they were cut down and killed by some of our
Speaker 2: marines from our platoon up on that rooftop, and then
Speaker 2: doctor Ponti and Meadows and Matthews and Smith. They drug
Speaker 2: him out, drug faircloth out of that house, one arm
Speaker 2: at a time. One was on one arm, one was
Speaker 2: on the other, dragging him out. And I immediately got
Speaker 2: up and ran around to the front of that courtyard
Speaker 2: entrance and saw him come out, and his whole face
Speaker 2: was just was bleach white and lifeless. In his head
Speaker 2: was bobbing, and it was just I knew he was dead.
Speaker 2: There was no blood though, I mean, he had his
Speaker 2: flat jacket on, and I think that enemy machine gun
Speaker 2: was pointed right at his chest, and that flat jacket
Speaker 2: had held in, you know, it more or less plugged
Speaker 2: up blood flow. And it was just it was bizarre
Speaker 2: the way I saw him, because he had been so
Speaker 2: full of life and so full of courage in the
Speaker 2: days before, and vigor and tenacity to slaughter the enemy,
Speaker 2: and he wasn't anymore. And that hurt real bad because
Speaker 2: he was from my hometown. You know, I saw future there,
Speaker 2: but that was it. He zipped him up in a
Speaker 2: body bag and took him off and we pressed on.
Speaker 1: How do you press on? After that?
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of things were going through my mind.
Speaker 2: I mean I grew up probably about seven blocks from
Speaker 2: Bradley in downtown Mobile, Alabama, And I mean he played
Speaker 2: in my neighborhood as we were growing up. I never
Speaker 2: actually knew him, but I knew the kid that lived
Speaker 2: across the street from me that he would stay with
Speaker 2: and play backyard football with and all that, And I
Speaker 2: just I wanted to be friends with him even after
Speaker 2: the core and you know, have a beer with him
Speaker 2: in a bar and talk about talk about hilarious times
Speaker 2: and hard times and combat and how do I press on?
Speaker 2: I mean I befriended his mom, Kathleen, after that deployment.
Speaker 2: We met her at the service at the memorial service
Speaker 2: on Campbell June and about February five, And I mean,
Speaker 2: from then on, it's been a it's been a wonderful relationship.
Speaker 2: My mom and her and her have been good friends
Speaker 2: in town in Alabama, and we have annual dinners together
Speaker 2: during the holidays, and she's just a wonderful person and
Speaker 2: we love her.
Speaker 1: Where were you when you heard that the battle had
Speaker 1: been declared over? And what was your reaction.
Speaker 2: Uh. We We were in the south part of the
Speaker 2: Flujah in Queens District, and we were at a fob
Speaker 2: that we had stayed in I want to say, for
Speaker 2: about a week and right around Thanksgiving, well Thanksgiving Day
Speaker 2: was the day before Faircloth died. He died on the
Speaker 2: twenty sixth, I believe. And then after that, come early December,
Speaker 2: we pulled out of that fob and we went back
Speaker 2: to Camp Falloosia for a short stint, and it wasn't
Speaker 2: long after that till we went back to Ala Sade,
Speaker 2: which is the bigger base, stayed there, and then we
Speaker 2: flew out to Cherry Point, North Carolina on that commercial
Speaker 2: flight and that was it. I'll tell you one thing,
Speaker 2: the flight back wasn't nearly as fun as the flight over.
Speaker 2: The commercial flight to Kuwait City for that deployment, it
Speaker 2: was just exciting, and the one back was pretty somber
Speaker 2: and as as not as exciting.
Speaker 1: Talk about the bond that still exists. You mentioned the
Speaker 1: relationship you have with Kathleen Faircloth and even she and
Speaker 1: your mom are good friends. Now now twenty years after
Speaker 1: the battle, how would you describe the bond that still
Speaker 1: exists between you and the other guys and as pretend.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's incredible, It's great. I mean, especially this year
Speaker 2: at our twentieth anniversary year, I've really reconnected with a
Speaker 2: lot a lot of men that I served with in
Speaker 2: our platoon particularly, and I mean I met up with
Speaker 2: Paul Smith from Fair cous Fire Team just this past
Speaker 2: April back in Alabama where I live, where I'm from,
Speaker 2: and we went we had some we had a week
Speaker 2: at the beach with his family as well as Kathleen,
Speaker 2: And I mean, I've reconnected with so many people over
Speaker 2: the phone via text, and I've kept up with with
Speaker 2: a lot of them, you know, in the early years,
Speaker 2: like Mike Rgo. You know, I've done some done some
Speaker 2: backpacking trips with him out west in California, and we've
Speaker 2: just done some adventurous things that you know, we're sort
Speaker 2: of a spin off of all our physical training in
Speaker 2: the Marine Corps together and uh, just more adventurous, fun
Speaker 2: type stuff that that that are challenging. And so I
Speaker 2: mean that's there's been camaraderie with that. I've had some
Speaker 2: marines out to Colorado where I currently live, to climb mountains,
Speaker 2: and so it's just it's been it's been exciting, and
Speaker 2: we've carried on that tradition.
Speaker 1: Last question for you, Robert, what are you most proud
Speaker 1: of from your time in the Corps.
Speaker 2: I'm most I'm most proud of what I put in.
Speaker 2: I think that one thing I learned from my time
Speaker 2: in the Corps was that you get out what you
Speaker 2: put in. And it's largely a mental game, but then
Speaker 2: it's also largely a physical game. And I didn't I
Speaker 2: didn't reap any any injuries while I was in, and
Speaker 2: it was just it felt good to physically push myself
Speaker 2: past what I thought I could do in my mind.
Speaker 2: You know, I wasn't perfect. I didn't I wasn't the
Speaker 2: best leader. I wanted to be a gunner, particularly, and
Speaker 2: that billet was pretty much where I stopped right before
Speaker 2: the Battle of Flujah and of course in the months
Speaker 2: and year after it until I got out. So I
Speaker 2: was happy with that. And I'm just proud that I
Speaker 2: became a machine gunner and was really proficient at it,
Speaker 2: and I was a good shooter, and I was a
Speaker 2: good marine two other Marines, and I got out what
Speaker 2: I put in.
Speaker 1: Robert Day is a US Marine Corps veteran who served
Speaker 1: in the Iraq War, including the Second Battle of Fallujah
Speaker 1: in November and December two thousand and four. I'm Greg Corumbus.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Veterans Chronicles. Hi. This is
Speaker 1: Greg Corumbus, and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a
Speaker 1: presentation of the American Veterans Center. For more information, please
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