Battle at Ramadi

Originally published Aug. 15, 2004.

The Marines of Echo Company raced toward the sound of gunfire, dodging through Ramadi 's narrow streets and alleys.

Following their commander, Capt. Kelly D. Royer, they dashed past palm trees, through warrens of cinder-block buildings. I struggled to keep up and take photographs at the same time. It was April 6, 2004, and I had just joined Echo Company as an "embedded" journalist.

One of Echo's sniper patrols was under fire, and this 30-man "quick-reaction force" was on its way to reinforce the pinned-down Marines.

*

Before we'd gone far, a radio call crackled in from base that changed our plans: The sniper patrol had repulsed its attackers, but now the First Platoon, sent out earlier to clear a main supply route through the city of nearly 500,000, was taking fire and needed help.

Amid the afternoon's dust and noise, Royer stopped and radioed Second Lt. John Wroblewski. "Lt. Ski," as his men called him, was leading another Echo team through the chaotic streets of Ramadi. Royer's message: Pick us up at an intersection at a local marketplace.

Wroblewski knew the location well. He had been there a day earlier, leading a foot patrol, and had noticed that, unlike in other neighborhoods, residents did not wave and children did not flock to the Marines. They only stared.

Neither Royer nor Wroblewski could know that, earlier this morning, Iraqi and foreign fighters had slipped through the market, telling shopkeepers to close their stores and kiosks, warning: "Today, we are going to kill Americans."

*

Ramadi is one of the most dangerous places in Iraq.

The capital of Anbar province in the heart of a Sunni stronghold, this city on the Euphrates River was a power base for Saddam Hussein and remains a restive hotbed of resistance. If the Iraqi insurgency has a center of gravity, Ramadi, on the main road between Baghdad and Jordan, probably is it.

More than 129 U.S. service members have died in Anbar province since President Bush declared the end of major combat operations on May 1, 2003.

The Marine force in Ramadi, the Second Battalion of the Fourth Marine Regiment, nicknamed "The Magnificent Bastards," has suffered the most casualties of any U.S. battalion since the war in Iraq began: 31 killed and 175 wounded, roughly 20 percent of the battalion's 1,000-man fighting strength.

And Echo Company has lost more men than any other company: 23 killed, of 185 Marines.

I joined Echo on April 1, about a week after it arrived in Ramadi, for 11 days of patrols, bomb disposals, and deadly street fights with an aggressive, elusive enemy.

*

We began running toward the marketplace.

Gunfire rattled in the east, where we had been moments earlier. Here on the outskirts of the city, Marines seemed to be under attack everywhere at once, but I couldn't see any enemy gunmen.

Two young Marines from First Platoon - Lance Cpl. Benjamin Carman, 18, of Jefferson, Iowa, and Lance Cpl. Marcus Cherry, 18, of Imperial, Calif. - had been killed in the fighting northwest of us. Royer wanted to get his Marines there in a hurry.

Then we saw Lt. Ski roll by with his convoy, just a block away. Royer got on the radio again: Stop and pick us up.

"Roger, Six," Wroblewski responded, using military jargon for "commanding officer."

We heard the humvees and trucks slow down as they approached the marketplace.

Then all hell broke loose.

Staccato AK-47 rifle fire, the deeper growl of a machine gun, the thudding explosions of rocket-propelled grenades. It sounded as if the whole marketplace were blowing up ahead of us.

*

Six-foot-two, with piercing blue eyes and a linebacker's build, Wroblewski, 25, was a natural leader, popular with his men and respected by other officers.

"Stick next to John; he's one of my best," Royer told me when I joined Echo.

So I did. The day before the firefight, "J.T." talked with me about home as he led a 10-mile foot patrol through Ramadi. We talked about fishing, about the Marines, about his wife, Joanna.

He grew up in Morris County, North Jersey, where he was a high school football and baseball standout, and he graduated from Rutgers University before joining the Marines in 2002. He said the Sept. 11 attacks had cemented his decision to enlist. A history buff, he loved reading about World War II, and when he got the chance, was glued to the History Channel. He even named his Alaskan malamute pup Semper, after the Marine Corps motto: Semper fidelis (always faithful).

He had married Joanna Leonhardt, his college girlfriend, the previous July. He was so shy that she'd had to ask him out on their first date.

He was at home in Oceanside, Calif., with Joanna on Valentine's Day when he got his orders to ship to Iraq. She was making waffles with strawberries for breakfast when the call came. He was to depart the next day.

It made for a bittersweet Valentine's Day. He and Joanna spent the day talking, laughing, crying, and discussing their future.

Now, in Iraq, his most recent phone conversation with her had been three days earlier. Instead of signing off, as usual, by saying, "I'll see you soon," this time he'd told her: "I'll always be with you."

*

The ambush had been carefully set.

On both sides of the road leading into the marketplace, Iraqi fighters with AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers had taken positions on the roofs of the one-story buildings. A heavy .50-caliber Russian-made machine gun was on one corner rooftop, placed where the gunner could sweep the market street. Other fighters were hidden behind trees just beyond the market stalls.

Altogether, about 50 well-armed, well-trained insurgents were waiting for the approximately 20 Marines.

The first of three humvees entered the marketplace, slowing down.

At the wheel was newly promoted Lance Cpl. Kyle Crowley, 18, of San Ramon, Calif. In the unarmored green humvee with him were radio operator Lance Cpl. Travis Layfield, 19, of Fremont, Calif.; machine gunner Pfc. Ryan Jerabek, 18, of Hobart, Wis.; Pfc. Christopher R. Cobb, 19, of Bradenton, Fla.; Lance Cpl. Anthony Roberts, 19, of Bear, Del.; Navy Hospitalman Third Class Fernando A. Mendez-Aceves, 27, of San Diego, a medic; Staff Sgt. Allan K. Walker, 28, of Lancaster, Calif.; and Lance Cpl. Deshon E. Otey, 24, of Hardin, Ky.

Many of the young Marines had followed family tradition by joining the military. Crowley's great-grandfather had been a World War II Marine. Layfield's maternal grandfather was a Seabee in World War II. Cobb's stepfather had served, and so had Roberts' father. Mendez-Aceves had listened to his great-grandmother hum military marches to him as a child. Men in Walker's family had served in virtually all of America's wars. Jerabek's father, Ken, had been in the Army during Vietnam.

Behind them, in a second, tan humvee, were Wroblewski and several other Marines; a third humvee and two seven-ton trucks trailed slightly behind.

When the first humvee had nearly reached the T-intersection at the marketplace, the rooftops exploded in gunfire. Otey jumped from the humvee and took cover behind a concrete barrier, while the other Marines stayed in or near the humvee, firing up at the Iraqis. Behind them, seven Marines leaped from their vehicles and dashed for the protection of a small automotive garage.

*

As soon as we moved toward the firefight in the marketplace, we came under fire, too.

Running toward the cover of nearby houses, Royer was yelling at his radio operator to keep up: "Suck it up, find it, find it, son, your Marines are being shot at!"

I was out of breath, my heart was pounding through my bulletproof vest, my mouth was dry, and I was drenched with sweat as I tried to keep up.

Our Iraqi translator, a man everyone called "007," was smiling as he ran, in tan sandals, a sleeveless jogging outfit, and a navy-blue T-shirt that said Operation Iraqi Freedom across the front. Wearing neither helmet nor vest, he was blithely fatalistic: Inshallah, he said. God willing.

We reached the relative safety of a house. Other Marines were already there, and so was an Iraqi family, huddled in a large living room. Bullets were smacking into the side of the house as Royer led Marines up the stairs to the rooftop to gain a better firing vantage.

Royer got on the radio and called for air support, but the helicopters were in action elsewhere, circling over firefights elsewhere in the city.

*

Bullets crashed through the windshield and the metal doors of the lead humvee at the marketplace.

Crowley, the driver, was killed almost immediately, and the truck canted sideways. Jerabek opened up with the humvee's machine gun. He was quickly cut down, too.

Otey began firing from behind a low wall, but the seven others who stayed with the humvee were killed in less than a minute.

"We all took cover," Otey said later. "There was firing coming from all directions. They were shooting AK-47s, RPK machine guns, and rocket-propelled grenades."

Mendez-Aceves, the medic, died next to Walker, apparently working to save his life.

Behind them, near the second, tan humvee, Wroblewski was hit in the face by a bullet that smashed through the radio handset he was holding. The Marines with him called for an urgent medical evacuation of Lt. Ski.

Royer was on the nearby rooftop when he got word that Wroblewski was being taken back to base. The captain sent a team to silence the deadly machine gun on the corner rooftop, but the Iraqi gunners had pulled back by the time the Americans arrived, leaving only a pile of spent shell casings.

Taking the rooftops of nearby houses, the Marines gained control of the intersection, and the sound of gunfire died down.

Five Iraqi men walked along the intersection. "Do they have weapons, do they have weapons? " Royer yelled. Marines opened fire, and the men scattered out of sight. On the horizon, we could see cars and vans approaching the area, then slowing down and turning back, picking up walking men. Retreating fighters? We couldn't tell.

*

We entered the marketplace as Marines were removing the bodies of the Americans.

It is never pleasant to walk toward death, and the dead. I always fear that I will see some new kind of death, some new disfigurement. My mind prepared for what I was going to see; I took pictures of two dead Iraqis lying a few yards from each other, barefoot, unshaven, old.

A Marine passed by slowly, carrying the body of a comrade on his shoulder. He gently placed the heavy, dark-green bag in the back of a humvee.

Remnants of cotton and paper trauma supplies covered the ground. The bed of the first humvee was littered with other debris - empty water bottles, exploded green MRE packages, candies mixed among brass shell casings. The rectangular top handle of an M-16 was sheared off in a pile of debris.

A pair of military-issue eyeglasses lay smashed on the ground by the lead humvee, with blood drying on the right lens. They had belonged to machine gunner Jerabek.

A sergeant from base arrived and said he'd seen Wroblewski and that Lt. Ski would be OK.

Bodies of four Iraqis lay in the street, one beside a red-and-white taxi. Royer stood over one of the dead Iraqis for a few seconds, and then stepped over the body. Translator 007, trailing Royer, kicked the body hard and muttered, "Bastard."

No other enemy dead were found, but local residents said that Iraqi fighters were seen dragging their dead away as they retreated.

Pfc. Eric Ayon, 26, of Lancaster, Calif., climbed behind the wheel of the humvee and tried the ignition. Nothing. An RPG had pierced the engine compartment. I took a picture of Ayon through the bullet-shattered windshield, and the image would be published in newspapers all over the country.

It was the 15-minutes-of-fame moment for Ayon. When, the next day back at base, I showed him the newspaper front pages that carried the photo, he smiled apprehensively as other Marines slapped him on the back.

Three days later, Ayon, a former counselor for gang-hardened teens and the father of a 7-year-old boy, would be killed at this same intersection when a makeshift bomb exploded.

And the sergeant who brought the report on Lt. Ski was wrong. He wouldn't be OK. The medics couldn't stop the bleeding. He died.

In all, 10 Marines of Echo Company were killed in action in this single day.

*

Four days after the firefight at the market, Echo was out again in predawn darkness, this time to cordon off an area and search every house in it.

As illumination flares popped overhead, the two dozen Marines went house to house, interrogating and detaining the local men.

We heard a distant burst of gunfire and knelt against a cinder-block wall surrounding a house. I raised my camera and photographed 007 behind me.

Another distant burst and something yanked at my right arm. I looked around to see why 007 had tugged at me, but he was too far away. I rolled up my sleeve and with my left hand felt a divot in the underside of my biceps, near my elbow, where blood was seeping out. I realized I'd been shot. Grazed, really.

Before I could say anything, rapid firing burst out, and everybody dived into a nearby drainage ditch, filled with black mud, cow dung and water.

We were caught in a cross fire, drawing fire from front and rear.

I thought how mad my wife would be if I died on this trip. I thought of my 3-year-old daughter, Ingrid, who wouldn't have a father to dance with on her wedding day.

The Marine next to me yelped and grabbed his thigh, as a ricocheting bullet sprayed him with metal and stone. He spun around and climbed on my back, using my backpack as a rest for his M-16 as he fired over 007's head. He was heavy, but I was thankful for the protection.

I looked up to my left and saw where the shots were coming from: a field ablaze with hundreds of red tracer rounds stinging through the blue morning mist. I was scared to death.

"Aaaaaaah, I'm hit in the head," Royer screamed. A medic, Adam P. "Doc" Clayton, came running.

"Wait, there's no hole, I'm not bleeding," Royer said. "I'm OK. " The bullet had hit his helmet, but hadn't penetrated.

We crawled on our elbows toward the relative safety of a house and then ran 50 yards to duck behind a truck. Then up to the roof of another house. Gunfire was coming from everywhere, and in the field, black and white cows were grazing.

In another house, Lance Cpl. John T. Sims, 21, of Alexander City, Ala., was shot in the torso. Marines carried him on a field stretcher - a green tarp with handles - to a nearby Bradley armored vehicle for evacuation, but he died en route.

At last, helicopter gunships arrived overhead, and in three passes, spewing machine-gun fire, they ended the fight.

*

"I talk with some of the other guys in the platoon about what happened, but it still hurts," said Otey, the lone survivor in the lead humvee in the April 6 battle. "Every time I walk into our living space I see the empty racks [bunks]. Those were guys I used to talk to about my problems. Now I don't hear their voices anymore."

Otey, who wanted to be an FBI agent someday, was killed two months later with three other Echo Company Marines at a rooftop observation post.

The week and a half I spent with Echo Company was one of the deadliest since the fall of Baghdad. But the fighting still goes on in Ramadi . Since the handover of political control to the new Iraqi government, U.S. soldiers and Marines have reduced, but not ended, patrols of the city.

Ramadi is still considered crucial to the fate of Anbar province, and Anbar to the future of Iraq.

So almost daily, the Marines of Echo Company and other American troops are in the dusty streets and alleys, searching for improvised bombs and watching the rooftops.

Echo Company and the rest of the battalion are scheduled to go home to Camp Pendleton, Calif., in mid-September.

How this story was reported

This account is based on the eyewitness reporting of Philadelphia Inquirer photographer David Swanson, who was embedded with Echo Company, Second Battalion, Fourth Marines, in Ramadi, Iraq, from April 1 to 14.

It also draws upon reports written by Capt. Kelly D. Royer, the commander of Echo Company, and Capt. Christopher J. Bronzi of the Second Battalion, Fourth Marines; and on a summary of combat actions by Capt. R.S. Weiler, the commander of the Mobile Assault Company/Weapons Company, Second Battalion, Fourth Marines.

Other information, including the account of the battle by Lance Cpl. Deshon Otey, was in a report by Marine Cpl. Paula M. Fitzgerald posted on the Marine Corps Web site and in private e-mail messages from other Marines in Ramadi.

Knight Ridder Newspapers correspondents Lisa Fernandez, Joseph L. Galloway, Thomas Ginsberg, Nevy Kaminski, Lee Hill Kavanaugh, John Simerman, Sara Steffens and Thaai Walker contributed to this article.