There have been several large battles in the town lasting anywhere from 3 hours to 36 hours

in the past, but we had traveled through the town on numerous occasions without incident
since then. I was prepared for contact but I wasn't expecting any. It turned out later that
there was a big meeting of enemy leaders in the town that we had interrupted and we
inadvertently trapped them inside of their compound. They must have thought that if they
ambushed us we would cut and run. This was not the case. They were not expecting us to
assault through their ambush and they were not expecting us to stay and fight. I think they
are used to a lot of people being tied to their vehicles. I think that the enemy commanders
gave the call to reinforce the town and fighters were coming in from all over the place. I
know that they were reinforcing the ambush site because the battle started out with about
thirty guys and eventually escalated to over 250. We didn't win the fight because of our
superior firepower. We were severely outnumbered, and outgunned. From that first counter
ambush assault we gained the momentum and maintained it until the enemy finally fled
from the battlefield eight hours later. We later found out that we had killed or wounded all
of their leadership in the fighting and this was probably what finally broke the enemy's
back.

We were patrolling through the town for an hour and a half before we were attacked. We
were walking through the town when I saw a [rocket-propelled grenade] go over one of my
HMMWVs. We saw a three man RPG team about 150 meters away. My [platoon sergeant]
killed the RPG gunner, and another one of my Marines killed the second RPG gunner
before he could fire his weapon. We starting taking fire from various compounds but we
kept pushing into the village. An hour or so later we were ambushed by 5 - 10 [insurgents]
in a shallow irrigation ditch. Part of my platoon assaulted through the ambush but started
taking heavy fire from a trench line to the north. Two of my trucks were ambushed from
another position in the same tree line with heavy machine gun and RPG fire. One of the
vehicles took a volley of RPGs to the hood. The crew dismounted from the vehicle and
immediately started taking accurate machinegun fire from the trenchline. The M249 SAW
gunner disregarded all the fire being directed at him and started suppressing the enemy with
his SAW from a very exposed position. The team leader from the other vehicle dismounted
with two of his Marines and began laying down suppressive fire. I pushed my truck into the
kill zone to cover the downed vehicle and my gunner was able to suppress the enemy
targeting my downed vehicle, which helped buy the Marines enough time to dismount from
their truck. My gunner was taking a lot of fire to his gunners shield but he stayed up on the
gun and continued to effectively suppress the enemy. The SAW gunner took charge of his
team, pulled his vehicle commander out of the burning vehicle and exposed himself to
enemy fire in order to suppress the enemy so that his Marines could get behind some
cover. All of a sudden we took an intense amount of fire from the tree line and at this point
numerous machine guns opened up on my vehicle and the dismounted crew trapped in the
kill zone. All of this happened in about thirty seconds to a minute. This began twenty
minutes of intense fighting as the platoon battled to recover the Marines from the kill zone.

RESPONSE TO QUERY 1
One of my designated marksmen heard what was going on so he crawled up on the berm he
was taking cover behind and began searching for targets with his rifle. This left him
completely exposed and the enemy began to focus their fires on him. He was able to
identify an RPG team targeting the Marines. With absolutely no regard for his personal
safety, the designated marksman ignored the heavy fire impacting within a foot of his
position, made the appropriate adjustments to his scope, controlled his breathing, relaxed,
and began engaging targets. He killed the first RPG gunner before he could fire. He spotted
another RPG gunner readying to take a shot and killed him. He scanned the trenches until
he found another target, made corrections for wind and distance and killed him.

The enemy fired over forty RPGs from the tree line but were unable to effectively engage
the Marines trapped in the kill zone because of the high amount of accurate fire being
directed at them. The SAW gunner continued to suppress the enemy while the gunner on
my vehicle systematically shifted his fire from fighting position to fighting position.

The enemy was reinforcing the tree and the enemy was replacing fighters as quickly as we
were killing them. The designated marksman was able to clearly see waves of enemy
fighters running to the tree line from a compound to the north. He quickly acquired these
new targets, made the necessary adjustments and rapidly worked his way down the line
destroying targets as they presented themselves. The enemy began to target him with
extremely accurate small arms and machinegun fire. In response to the heavy fire he was
receiving, the designated marksman merely adjusted the data on his gun and sighted in on
targets as they revealed their positions by engaging him. He rapidly acquired and
prosecuted these targets again and again, firing his rifle with exceptional accuracy. He
continued to scan the trenches for targets from his exposed perch until all of the Marines
were recovered from the kill zone. In the short time we were in the kill zone he fired twenty
shots and killed twenty enemy fighters.

After twenty minutes of fierce fighting, we were finally able to suppress the enemy enough
to get an MRAP into the kill zone to recover the Marines. Once that was accomplished, we
pulled back so our platoon corpsman could look at the casualties. The vehicle commander
from the downed vehicle was incoherent. The gunner wasn't in much better shape. We
drove out of range of the enemy's fires, took ten or so minutes to redistribute ammunition,
and came up with a quick game plan. I don't think the enemy expected us to come back,
because we caught them off guard. We dropped some [close air support] on them while we
conducted a trench assault. We started fighting our way through the trenches to clear out
the ambush site but we had to cross over a road in order to complete the assault. As soon as
we started to make our way over we took heavy machinegun fire from a compound to the
north. We took another sixty or so RPGs, some rockets and mortars. We turned the direction
of our attack and fought our way to the eastern flank of the compound. It wasn't as far to
the compound from that direction, but as we attempted an assault we started taking more
fire from another compound. The enemy had established a defense with mutually
supporting positions. We were unable to press forward because a direct assault would have
been extremely difficult because of the distance and level of resistance. We could see

RESPONSE TO QUERY 2
vehicles arriving from the distance with dozens of enemy reinforcements who could be
seen swarming through the fields and trenches to protect their stronghold. We engaged
these fighters, but while we significantly reduced the number of enemies on the battlefield,
there was no lull in the fire from the enemy compounds.

One of my team leaders and his SAW gunner (the same team leader and SAW gunner from
the ambush above) crawled under heavy small arms and machinegun fire until they were
thirty meters away from the enemy compound and were able to positively identify the
enemy fighting positions. The team leader used his map and compass to mark these
positions and returned to cover seventy five meters away from the compound. He continued
to observe the enemy fighting positions as he called for air strikes on the various
compounds only seventy five meters from his position. At this point we saw that the enemy
was starting to pull back their forces and we drove them off the battlefield.

RESPONSE TO QUERY 3