We Were One

"No," I responded.

"What are you going to write about here?"

"That I was with a band of heroes and I am going to tell the truth about what happened here."

"Good. That's what these men deserve. People need to know what happened here, their courage, and the sacrifices these men made for each other and their country."

After spending several weeks in combat with U.S. Army and Marine special operations units, doing everything from conducting raids in Baghdad to inserting Special Operations teams, I joined the Third Battalion, First Marine Regiment, one of the infantry units mounting the frontal assault into the city of Fallujah. Through fate, or as one Marine captain described it, "It was meant to be," I was assigned to Lima Company's 1st Platoon, the unit that saw some the worst of the battle of Fallujah. After twelve days of house to house, hand to hand urban combat, only fourteen of the platoon's original complement of forty-six were still standing when Lima Company was withdrawn from the city.

First Platoon was more than just a fighting unit. The platoon was a closely knit family of men, best friends, who could and did lay down their lives for one another. The focus of this book is four pairs of best friends including the "heart and soul" of 1st Platoon—Lance Corporal Michael Hanks. Several of the more experienced men in the platoon didn't even have to be in Iraq; they selflessly extended their tours of duty so that they could protect the younger Marines who hadn't seen combat.

After the battle, the father of one of 1st Platoon's fallen Marines, with tears in his eyes, gripped my hand and said, "Tell my son's story." I leave it to the reader to decide whether, in telling this story, they are the next "Greatest Generation."

"This place is a hellhole," observed Hanks with his signature "George Bush-like" smirk. Hanks and Sojda had been inseparable since meeting two years earlier in the Marine School of the Infantry (SOI), a training school for basic combat skills attended by all recruits after boot camp.

The two Marines belonged to 1st Platoon, Lima Company, of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. Battalion 3/1 spearheaded the initial invasion of Iraq in March 2003, fighting its way through the crossroads town of Nasiriyah into Baghdad, and ending up in Baghdad's worst ghetto, Sadr City. In the weeks following the capitulation of Baghdad, the Shiite Muslim neighborhood became a haven for criminals, the remnants of Saddam's army, and fanatical Islamist fighters from all over the Muslim world. For over a week, Hanks, Sojda and the rest of 3/1 had been patrolling the mean streets of Sadr City.

The Marines frequently encountered random potshots, and occasionally they faced full-scale ambushes. In one incident, the entire company was embroiled in a "hellacious" two-hour firefight. During the exchange, the barrels of their weapons grew white hot.

The men scrambled into three armored amphibious tracked vehicles, known variously as AAVs, amtracks, or tracks. Each track carried one of the platoon's three rifle squads. First Platoon's mission that day was routine: drop off medical supplies at a needy Iraqi clinic, pick up an informer who had intelligence on the enemy, and provide general security within Lima Company's area of operation.

Two Iraqi interpreters, one a woman, were accompanying the Marines. The "terps," often unarmed civilians, were needed to overcome the language barrier. Both translated this particular mission as an opportunity to get shot at. Sojda and Hanks brushed off the threat, claiming they enjoyed the adrenaline rush associated with combat.

Hanks, a burly, aggressive Marine, never missed an opportunity to get into a fight, either in a combat zone or in a bar. He always seemed to be in trouble, but at the same time, Hanks was a born leader who could get anyone to follow him, and would do anything to protect the people around him. He loved the Iraqi children, playing with them frequently, and handing out candy, water balloons, and squirt guns. Hanks loved to listen to himself talk. His sarcastic sense of humor, reminiscent of comedian Bill Murray, always seemed to keep everyone around him rolling with laughter.

In contrast, Bill Sojda, the quiet, decisive fire team leader, reminded people of Clint Eastwood. Sojda was a no-nonsense Marine, "known for not liking bullshit," and widely considered a "stud" on the battlefield. Both men were warriors. They didn't fear combat.

Hanks and Sojda trotted into the lead track, along with a third man they had met at the Marine School of the Infantry (SOI), Lance Corporal Benjamin Bryan. Fondly nicknamed "Opossum" because he was "kind of pudgy and short" and loved to munch on pizza and drink beer while off-duty in the barracks. In contrast to the other Marines, who tended to be very assertive, Bryan was very easy going and took life day by day. He was known as a "giver," someone who would give his friends the shirt off his back.

Gray smoke spewed from the tracks as they crunched through Baghdad's trash-strewn streets. After delivering the medical supplies, the Marines moved deeper into Sadr City to pick up the informer. After about twenty minutes, the tracks ground to a halt in front of one of the neighborhood's countless ramshackle apartment buildings. A four-man fire team hopped out of each track to provide security. Hank's, Sojda's, and Bryan's heads swiveled, looking for trouble, even as they skipped over the raw sewage pooling in the gutter.

As the Marines were about to clamber back into the tracks with the informant, "a massive explosion, bigger than any I've ever heard before, a nine on the Richter scale, shook the ground," remembered Sojda. Dust and debris flew through the air, as a massive mushroom cloud began to rise above a row of seedy apartment buildings several hundred meters away. Confusion reigned, as a stunned officer ordered the men first to mount, then to dismount, the tracks. "What do you want us to do? Is the mission still on?" thought Sojda. "Back in the tracks," barked an NCO. The Marines piled into the tracks and the armored column rumbled forward toward the source of the cloud. Sojda and Hanks drew "air security." They poked their heads out of the track's top hatch to watch for threats from above. After traveling about two hundred meters, the tracks began passing the bodies of blast victims lying in the street.

Nearly an entire block had been leveled by the blast. Terrorists had detonated an 18-wheeler loaded with crates of bullets, artillery shells, and at least one Scud missile. Both sides of the street were on fire, with burning ammunition thrown in every direction. As the tracks drew closer to the blaze, the Marines could see secondary explosions, as bullets and mortar rounds "cooked off" in a radius of about one hundred meters from the center of the explosion. Dead bodies littered the area. The tracks pulled up a couple of hundred meters from the blast crater, and the Marines dismounted.

Not much was left of the two-story houses in the neighborhood. Many had been reduced to rubble. Cars were flipped over up and down the street. One car had been hurled right through a building, creating a gaping hole in the building's façade. Fires raged throughout the buildings and palm tree fronds burned bright crimson.

Suddenly the female interpreter pointed to a building not far from the center of the explosion. "My family is in that house!" If any of the terp's family was still alive, they were facing imminent catastrophe. Five more tractor trailers loaded with Scud missiles and ammunition were parked along the street. Hanks and Sojda looked at each other. "We need to do something, there's people in there," said Hanks.

BOOM. More artillery rounds detonated. Fully aware of the danger, Hanks, Sojda, Bryan, and two other Marines took off for the house. They were running for their lives, braving the mortar blasts in a race against the clock to save any survivors in the building before another tractor trailer went up. "This is it. It's pretty much up the gut or get killed," Sojda was thinking. They found nobody alive in the building, and ran back through the danger zone to the tracks. Then the interpreter spoke again.

"No, no. That house." The interpreter pointed to another house across the street from the first.

Back into the danger zone. This time, the Marines made a beeline through the large crater created by the initial explosion. Hanks and Sojda moved side-by-side, with Bryan and the others trailing behind them.

Hanks led the Marines into the house. A plump Iraqi tottered out of the wreckage. His eyelids were gone, his left eye was hanging out, and his shin bone was exposed by a huge gash. "Got him," said one of the Marines, who put an arm under the wounded man's shoulder and helped him start walking toward the safety of the tracks. On their way back, they were bowled over by the concussion of an exploding mortar shell. Adrenaline flooded through the fat man's body, enabling him to get up and run.

Screams from other people trapped inside the building filled the air. "You guys go next door," barked Sojda. Lance Corporal Bryan went to the next house and led several badly shaken Iraqi teenagers to the safety of the tracks.

More civilians, blackened from the explosion, stumbled out of nearby apartments. The Marines helped the wounded Iraqis back to the tracks even as mortar rounds continued to detonate. The last person to emerge from the building was Michael Hanks, carrying a bleeding five-year-old girl. Hanks ran past the burning arty rounds and delivered the girl into the arms of the corpsman in the tracks.

Once the survivors had been moved to safety, Hanks, with his cocky grin, said, "If I'd known it would be that much trouble, I'd have let the dirty hajjis die." It was a joke, of course. Michael Hanks was a protector, "always had the backs of those around him." It was a principle that Sojda and Hanks would preach incessantly—and put into practice—as they trained the "new" 1st Platoon back at Camp Pendleton.