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    Three Block War: Vigilant Resolve
    Three Block War: Vigilant Resolve
    Three Block War: Vigilant Resolve
    Ebook67 pages1 hour

    Three Block War: Vigilant Resolve

    By Matt Zeigler

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    About this ebook

    Three Block War: Vigilant Resolve is an excerpt of the full-length Three Block War. Vigilant Resolve recounts the action of Marines in the first Fallujah battle of April 2004 against Iraqi mujahideen. Marine units included 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, which battled insurgents in ‘The Jolan,’ a congested northwestern Fallujah neighborhood where the 2/1 engaged in vicious urban combat.
    In the southeast, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines advanced from an industrial zone into Fallujah’s urban battle template; which included IEDs, ambushes, indirect fire, and snipers firing from the towering minarets of mosques. One-Five and Two-one’s main assault was reinforced by ‘Darkside,’ 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines; and supported by units such as Bravo Company, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, which endured a brutal ambush in rural farmland south of Fallujah.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMatt Zeigler
    Release dateJun 29, 2014
    ISBN9781311381248
    Three Block War: Vigilant Resolve
    Author

    Matt Zeigler

    Former Marine Matt Zeigler worked eight years as a writer and photojournalist in the newspaper industry before embarking on an author's path. During the 1990s he traveled extensively throughout the Southeast covering the greatest athletes of American sports. Zeigler, a 1993 graduate of Troy University, has also published College Football Schemes and Techniques; Wild Alabama; Wild Alabama: Winter Haven; Wild Alabama: The American Robin; Sports Shooter: A Photographer's Story; and 1990s NFL Flashback.

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      Book preview

      Three Block War - Matt Zeigler

      Three Block War

      Vigilant Resolve

      By Matt Zeigler

      Copyright 2014

      Smashwords Edition

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      Chapter 1 Vigilant Resolve

      Chapter 2 Snipers in the Sky

      Chapter 3 Phase Line Violet

      Chapter 4 Field Maneuvers

      Chapter 5 Red Cloud

      Chapter 6 Squad War

      Chapter 1 Vigilant Resolve

      Major combat operations in Iraq had been declared over by then-President George W. Bush on May 1, 2003, but a guerilla war was in its infancy. When tens of thousands of Iraqi troops disbanded from their Army, Republican Guard or intelligence units, many went home, but they didn’t quit fighting. Instead of conventional warfare they built an insurgency with the aid of foreign mujahideen. Following occupation duty in southern Iraq the Marines returned home with their honor clean and battle legacy intact. But their return stateside would be brief.

      With barely enough time to refit, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force was once again headed into the brawl as stated in a letter to all hands by 1st Marine Division Commander Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis before Operation Iraqi Freedom II in 2004. The return of the Angels of Death, as Marines had been dubbed by Iraqi soldiers during Desert Storm, was sure to be a turning point in an intensifying guerilla war. Marines began the familiar routine of deploying to base camps in northern Kuwait before crossing the line of departure into Iraq. Unlike its previous occupation duty in southern Iraq, 1st MEF was designated to relieve the 82nd Airborne Division and other Army units in western Iraq’s highly-volatile al-Anbar Province; and south of Baghdad in northern Babil Province.

      Since 1st MEF departed in the fall, Iraqi jihad had developed most rapidly in Anbar, part of the infamous ‘Sunni Triangle,’ but was growing throughout the country. Muj had killed and wounded hundreds of Army troops with hit-and-run ambushes, mortar and rocket attacks, plus suicidal terrorist attacks. But the most preferred means of killing Americans was IEDs—Improvised Explosive Devices. Rather than facing American firepower head-on in sustained firefights, insurgents planted crude roadside bombs, such as a ‘wired’ artillery shell, then waited for vehicles or dismounted troops to pass by before they were ‘tripped’ or remotely detonated. It was a low-cost, high-reward endeavor that accounted for most of America’s hostile fire casualties after the fall of Saddam.

      Despite the fact that they were headed back to badlands, Marines initially were focused on aiding the Iraqi reconstruction effort foremost. Hence, Mattis added First, do no harm, to the Corps’ OIF I motto of No better friend, no worse enemy. The Marines’ official mission would be SASO, Security and Stability Operations, which suited the Three Block War concept. In addition to several cities, small towns and villages, the Marines’ sector in Anbar Province also consisted of Iraq’s borders with Saudi Arabia, Jordan and particularly Syria. Hundreds of desert miles concealed secret routes into Iraq for smugglers and jihadists alike.

      First MEF arrived in Iraq for OIF II with the best of intentions for the Iraqi people. But unfortunately, like the Army, Marines would not be treated as liberators of the oppressed who were continuing their good deeds. To the mujahideen, they were unwanted foreigners: the enemy. Saddam had been captured in December 2003 and was awaiting trial for various crimes, but during the spring and summer of ’04 the guerilla war would only intensify. It was the war’s next phase and 25,000 Marines (part of a coalition of

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