3rd Fallujah? I got nothing on that for you. But we happily kicked butt at 2nd Fallujah.

By
"Seth M."


Best
Defense guest memoirist

Former 3/1 Marine and veteran of
Fallujah II here. I'll admit that the recent events in Anbar have been
disheartening, to say the least. As you're aware, the news of Fallujah, Karmah,
parts of Ramadi, etc. falling into ISIS/AQI hands has been accompanied by a
narrative that these events have somehow made the Iraq War not worth fighting,
on balance, Paul Szoldra's "Tell Me Again, Why Did My Friends Die
in Iraq?"
being the most prominent example.

I posted a comment to Facebook the
other day, to the effect that it could be worse -- imagine being a Vietnam
veteran and seeing the fall of Saigon in 1975. Most of the comments from my 3/1
friends were of slight anger, to the cynical resignation of "I'm surprised
it took this long." Then a hard-charging machine gunner from our company
posted:

"You
know what I hate worse? Being portrayed as some unfortunate creature because of
this, the vast majority of us were overjoyed for the opportunity to get in a
real fight. Stop treating us like weak little pussies in the media; we're men,
fighting men."

Going back to November 2004 this is
true. Having sat in Karmah since June, taking mortar, rocket, and IED attacks
on a near-daily basis, I Co. 3/1 knew that a sizable share of our enemy and his
weaponry were coming from the city not 10 kilometers to the due southwest.
Almost to the man, we were looking forward to seizing Fallujah (one guy from K
Co. tried to shoot himself in the foot but only hit the webbing between his
toes, an exception). As we got along in the seven-month tour, the biggest
concern became that the battle would be postponed for this reason or that until
January, after 3/1 rotated out of theater and we would miss it. 

The battle for Fallujah might have been about the future of
Iraq at the political/strategic level, or about stabilization at the
operational level. But at the personal level it was never much more than a
punitive mission, and one that we were eager to fight at that. We accepted this
mission with a happy heart despite its costs. Current events haven't changed
that.

"Seth M." served in the U.S. Marine Corps
from 2001 to 2005 and deployed in support of OIF I and OIF II. He lives in
Washington, D.C., and works as an analyst for the federal government. He
harbors ambivalent feelings about the Iraq War.