First Fights in Fallujah
Marines During Operation Vigilant Resolve in Iraq, April 2004
David E. Kelly
Casemate, Havertown, Pennsylvania, 2023, 344 pages
Book Review published on: June 14, 2024
First Fights in Fallujah: Marines During Operation Vigilant Resolve in Iraq, April 2004, by David E. Kelly, is a compilation of interviews from marines who fought during Operation Vigilant Resolve in Iraq in April 2004. The interview process is framed through the deployment experience of the author, who is one of two Marine Corps field historians conducting the interviews. This provides a connecting context to the book, giving it a flow and structure almost like a narrated movie.
In March 2004, Iraqi insurgents ambushed a U.S. convoy in Fallujah, killing four Blackwater security contractors and parading their bodies through the streets. The author, a Marine Corps Reserve lieutenant colonel, was called to active duty to deploy to Iraq and conduct interviews with marines just as they began operations to regain control of the city of Fallujah. Along with a partner historian, Kelly traveled to several different camps interviewing marines from four battalions and an air wing over a four-month period from April to July 2004.
The predominant themes of the interviews concern the predeployment training of the marines, the ferocity of the fighting, and the adaptation by the marines in the contested urban environment. For the most part, the marines had trained for stability and support operations to establish civil security and civil control, restore essential services, and enable governance. Instead, the units found themselves in sustained urban combat against a well-armed insurgent force. The nature of the fighting involved snipers, improvised explosive devices, complex ambushes, and a never-ending onslaught of rocket-propelled grenades, often employed in volleys. The marines quickly adapted to this unanticipated environment by modifying their equipment and tactics. They discovered that armor protection was a must and brought in tanks from pre-positioned stocks in Kuwait. Fortunately, there were tankers in the force who had trained to operate as infantry but were able to quickly revert to their specialty. The tank company being interviewed was split up with tank platoons assigned to directly support infantry battalions. Operating at the section level, the tanks responded to contested firefights, knocking down compound walls, blowing ingress holes into buildings, evacuating destroyed vehicles, and using main guns to reduce strongpoints. Harkening back to Vietnam, “grunt phones” were installed on the back of tanks to allow infantry on the ground to talk directly to the tank crews and even patch through their radios to contact higher headquarters. The interviews also include many accounts of infantry clearing buildings in search of snipers and having to make snap decisions to prevent civilian casualties. Several interviews discuss marine infantry units employing Javelin anti-tank missiles to take out sniper positions in buildings. There are also many accounts of marines on the ground designating targets for AC-130 Spectre gunships overhead using both miniguns and 105-millimeter cannons. It is a dizzying combination of courage, adaptation, and firepower in the face of an elusive, persistent enemy operating in a chaotic environment.
A book based upon interviews introduces potential style and clarity issues. Many of the interviews contain running quotes from the marines and are conversational in nature. As such, these accounts are not always clearly organized or described. At times they ramble as marines try to describe the myriad actions of their fellow marines and enemy around them. The accounts are also full of military jargon and acronyms, which could make them difficult to understand for persons not familiar with military operations. The author provides clarity and advances the story between quotes to make the accounts more understandable. Another interesting aspect to the individual interviews is hearing different perspectives from marines involved in the same engagements. This happens several times and helps fill in some of the gaps that exist in the chaos of battle as well as highlighting the different decision-making criteria being employed by marines based on their perspectives.
It's interesting to note how quickly marine historians were deployed to this fight and the access and support they had in conducting the interviews. Not only does the Marine Corps recognize the value of capturing history, but the marines themselves are also thoroughly imbued in it, with many of them comparing their fighting in Fallujah with the Battle of Hue in Vietnam. This book will add to the long and distinguished collection of marine history and is well worth the read for anyone interested in personal accounts of modern combat. It also provides a good snapshot into urban combat and the tactics and techniques necessary to succeed in it.
Book Review written by: Lt. Col. David S. Pierson, U.S. Army, Retired, PhD, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas