Third Platoon, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion–the Thundering Third–1st Marines is an enigma.  It is built for speed and power projection, the blunt end of American foreign policy.

Its Marines are trained and equipped to crush their opponents with unmatched aggressiveness, overwhelming firepower, and incomparable espirit décor. History has already shown that 3rd Platoon does its duty with unmatched valor and élan.

Its legion of critics says too much. During four combat deployments seven of its enlisted Marines have been charged with murder and other varieties of unlawful killing, a record unmatched in American military history.

When Third Platoon deployed in 2003 and 2004 it was led by 1st Lt. Jesse A. Grapes, currently a Catholic school administrator who joined up after 9/11 to defend the nation. Under his command were typically 45 Marines; an assortment of NCOs, fire team leaders, radio operators, riflemen, machine gunners and rocketeers that flesh out a regular Marine infantry platoon.

His superiors and subordinates included some of the most experienced and best trained infantrymen in the Marine Corps. Their stamp on the institutional memory of the platoon is indelible.

“Infantrymen are the troops that close with the enemy and kill them,” explained Navy Cross recipient Sergeant Major Brad Kasal in 2006. “That is our only purpose.”

Kasal was Kilo’s 1st Sergeant when it went to war in March 2003. He earned his Navy Cross fighting alongside Third Platoon in 2004.

Before the changing face of war in Iraq altered the Marine Corps’ traditional mission of destroying the enemy to building nations in 2007, the Thundering Third’s Marines sought peace through firepower.

There was nothing about “First, do no harm” in their ditty bags. That alien notion would be written in later. The battalion’s business was maximum destruction; the more harm the better, and business prospects seemed very good. By the end of 2002 the Pentagon had already issued warning orders to get ready for war and the Marine Corps trained them accordingly.

Then as now the battalion belongs to the 1st Regiment of the famed 1st Marine Division – “The Old Breed” – the core of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force headquartered at Camp Pendleton. Its goal before 9/11 was instant readiness; be the firstest with the mostest.

Between periods of refitting and training in California the famous division’s Marines trained around the globe preparing for the inevitable war already lurking just over the horizon. On September 11, 2001 it arrived.

The burgeoning conflict touched the Thundering Third early on. On October 8, 2002 unarmed Marines from Lima and India companies training for urban warfare off the coast of Kuwait on Failaka Island were attacked by two Kuwaiti religious extremists.

Only the bravery and foresight of a few senior NCOs and officers armed with pistols and two armed guards with M-16s prevented a massacre by the Kalashnikov wielding ambushers.  When the shooting stopped one Marine was dead and another wounded, arguably the first casualties of the second Iraq war.

The same deployment found the Marines from Kilo in Djibouti, Africa training for joint operations with other elite forces at a French Foreign Legion base. The horrific heat and barren scrub of Africa’s Horn is a perfect place to get ready to fight in Iraq. The Marines that would one day become names in the headlines practiced there for the war that would create them.

It was not all training at Djibouti. On November 5, 2002, Third Platoon was ordered into a pair of CH-53 “Super Stallion” helicopters for an unforgettable midnight ride complete with an aerial refueling over the Gulf of Aden. Their objective was Yemen, where their mission was to assassinate al Qaeda leader Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi.

Al-Harethi was al- Qaeda's chief operative in Yemen and a suspect in the October 2000 bombing of the destroyer USS Cole that killed 17 sailors and wound 39 others. A Hellfire missile got him first and the mission was scrubbed in mid-flight.

The culture of aggressiveness the pre-war company and platoon leaders planted in Third Platoon in California training areas and nurtured in Djibouti and Kuwait was inculcated into the young Marines by the end of 2002. Over and over the platoon practiced body snatches, building clearing, and breaking ambushes; always taking the fight to the enemy. Aggressiveness, audacity, and overwhelming firepower was its mantra.

It was no accident the Marines were honed into razors. The fighting spirit imbued in the impressionable youngsters by their superiors had been ceremoniously passed on to each generation of replacements – ensuring that the culture the fierceness would always survive.

Buck fever was still high in January, 2003 when 3/1 officially got the call it had been waiting for. It had just returned Stateside from its tumultuous Indian Ocean cruise when 3rd Platoon learned it was slated to be part of the invasion force gathering in Kuwait to invade Iraq.

It was assigned to Regimental Combat Team 1 – tasked to drive up Route 7 to Baghdad as part of the 1st Marine Division commanded by Maj Gen James N. Mattis.

Mattis told them they were the cutting edge of the assault force that would destroy Saddam Hussein’s army once and for all.

“Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet,” was one of the rules the hugely respected general gave his Marines to live by.

The young Marines in Third Platoon were ecstatic. The men who were there say it was high fives and oorahs all around. All the peacetime BS, the endless lectures and repetitious training was over. So was the grinding monotony of being warriors without a war. Two months later Third Platoon invaded Iraq.

An Nasiriyah

Third Platoon, Kilo was blooded at a city called An Nasiriyah, about 100 miles south of Baghdad. Initially An Nasiriyah was an Army objective, but the exigencies of war had changed the plan.

The city was important because a highway that runs through it links two important bridges the Marines had to secure to march north on Baghdad. The southern bridge crossed the Euphrates River and the northern bridge the Saddam Canal. The Marines officially called the highway between them “Route Moe.” To those who were there it will always be known as “Ambush Alley.”

An Nasiriyah is also the place where future Pentagon pop star PFC Jessica Lynch and 33 of her companions in the Army’s 507th Maintenance Company were ambushed, leading to Lynch’s capture and dramatic rescue. Somehow they managed to get themselves ahead of the Marines who were supposed to secure their route.

Leading the Marines was 1st Battalion, 2nd Regiment, assigned to the 2nd Marine Division’s Task Force Tarawa. It was still south of the city when the 507th ran into trouble. The battalion was supposed to secure and hold the two bridges so the rest of the Marines could move through the city.

Riding herd on 1/2 was an attached company of M-1 tanks. Behind the tanks came the infantry companies, in order: Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie, riding in lightly armored Amphibious Assault Vehicles commonly called “tracks.” The Army wasn’t supposed to be anywhere around.

Upon learning of the debacle ahead the Marines were dispatched to save the survivors of the slaughtered company. They initially managed to find five survivors and a line of burned out trucks. The rest of the 507th was dead, captured, or missing.

In the process of saving the soldiers the tank company became bogged down in the mud guarding the northern approaches of the southern bridge, partially blocking the road and slowing to a crawl the rest of the gigantic convoy. The Fedayeen and Republican Guard troops dug in around the bogged down armor revealed themselves with a devastating fusillade of fire. The Iraqis would give Task Force Tarawa fits for the next week.

Meanwhile the rest of the Marines approaching the city still expected an easy passage. In the lead was the balance of Task Force Tarawa, essentially a 2nd Marine Division formation. Lost in the massive convoy following behind was Third Platoon, an insignificant cog in the 1st Marine Division. There was no reason to think that an anonymous rifle platoon in that huge parade would color the world’s perception of Marines for years to come.

“Marines encountered Iraqi troops who appeared to be surrendering. Instead, they attacked -- the start of a "very sharp engagement," explained Lt. Gen. John Abizaid, deputy commander of the Central Command at a news conference later that week. “It was one of the few times regular Iraqi soldiers have fought, instead of surrendering or deserting.”

It was also the first hint of acrimony between Army and Marine Corps brass over running the Iraq war that would have such a profound effect on Third Platoon. Abizaid was being crafty. The Iraqis didn’t appear to be surrendering, far from it. The Marines had been told by Army intelligence the Iraqis would surrender when they appeared.

Instead of surrendering, Iraqi soldiers and irregular troops supported by tanks, mortars, and automatic anti-aircraft artillery fiercely resisted the Marines from strong points they created in the blocks of concrete houses and office buildings that lined Route Moe. The intense resistance surprised and then confounded the Marines.

Hours into the fight the lead elements of Task Force Tarawa’s attack were still bogged down by heavy enemy resistance and the unyielding mud. Air Force A-10 “Warthog” close support attack jets were called in to support their attack. Confused by the situation the pilots attacked the Marines instead.

The Warthogs devastating cannon and missile fire knocked out at least one Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAV) filled with Marines and damaged at least seven other vehicles. Eighteen Marines died and at least 17 others were wounded in the incident and its aftermath.

In March 2004 Central Command dismissed the A-10 attack as an accident caused by “the fog of war,” a double-edged phrase that will be heard again and again in this narrative.

Eight of the deaths were verified as the result of enemy fire, Central Command determined. Of the remaining 10 Marines killed, investigators were unable to determine the cause of death as the Marines were also engaged in heavy fighting with the enemy at the time of the incident.

Third Platoon was still locked inside AAVs somewhere toward the middle of a 20,000 vehicle convoy on March 23, 2003 when it got the word to move up and enter the fight. The enlisted men didn’t know anything about the situation ahead. All they knew was they had been crammed for three days into AAVs intended to bring Marines ashore from ships to beaches. Getting out to fight was a welcome reprieve.

Lima, 3/1 got to fight first. Third Platoon spent the night south of the first bridge listening to Lima shoot it out with the Iraqi Army and predominantly Sunni Saddam Fedayeen on the other side. The fanatical Fedayeen martyrs dressed in black and armed themselves with the best equipment Saddam could buy. They were dangerous adversaries.

The Iraqis running away from the war called the Saddam Fedayeen “death squads” for their propensity to shoot their countrymen who didn’t have the stomach to fight. The Marines called the Fedayeen “ninjas” for their uniforms and their uncanny ability to dematerialize inside the warrens of walled houses where they hid. The Fedayeen fanatics and their offspring in al Anbar Province would sorely test Third Platoon for several years.

The next morning the platoon received orders to get into the fight. It was tasked with securing part of an 800-meter strip of Route Moe that was interdicted by Iraqis armed with heavy machine guns, rocket propelled grenades, and small arms. The Marine were told the enemy had salted itself among the civilians living in the houses “so be careful who you shoot,” one Marine said. It was a warning that would become a familiar theme.

Kilo secured the shoulders of Moe the depth of a city block so the rest of the stalled convoy could reach the second bridge. They ostensibly did so following the untested rules of engagement promulgated by Central Command. What they decided privately was another matter.

The rules of engagement literally flew out the same window the first Fedayeen fighter appeared in, the Marines who were there said. For eight hours Third Platoon was exposed on a concrete highway surrounded by the enemy. If something moved they shot it and if it didn’t they blew it up - no remorse and no recriminations.

Cheering them on were embedded journalists providing America breathless accounts and striking video of the fighting. It was the heady time in the news business before the grinding war cost to much to report, before political correctness changed the tone of the initial optimistic reports. Occasionally the cameras would pan to a dead Iraqi,

Third Platoon Marine Alex Nicoll offers a vivid account of the action. Other 3/1 Marines privately tell similar stories, but they are afraid to speak out loud anymore. The pride they felt for their successes has given way to fear of legal reprisals from listening government prosecutors.

Nicoll, however, is a freer spirit than most. In 2003 and 2004 he was a riflemen in Third Platoon, an untested young Marine that evolved into a deadly hunter in Iraq. Nicoll lost a leg at the Hell House covering Kasal’s back.

“We drove into the city on tracks. We started taking fire so we pulled off, the doors dropped and we all got down on the street and shot people as they popped out. It was amazing. There were people all around us. One gunner left a pile of dead bodies, six or seven bodies right in front of us. It was incredible,” Nicoll recalled two years later.

Evan Wright, Rolling Stone's reporter with 1st MEF's reconnaissance battalion that later wrote Generation Kill told a similar tale:

Dead bodies are scattered along the edge of the road. Most are men, enemy fighters, still with weapons in their hands . . . . There are shot-up cars with bodies hanging over the edges. We pass a bus smashed and burned, with charred remains sitting upright in some windows. There's a man with no head in the road and a dead little girl, too, about three or four, lying on her back. She's wearing a dress and has no legs.

During March 23 and 24 Task Force Tarawa roped off the city to prevent the infiltration of Fedayeen reinforcements. 3/1’s Marines and infantrymen from other rifle battalions in the 1st MEF and TF Tarawa meanwhile destroyed the Fedayeen and soldiers still interdicting Route Moe. Overhead Marines in attack helicopters and jets pounded them as well.

3/1’s combat journal shows it received sporadic to constant incoming light automatic weapons fire, mortars, and rocket propelled grenades during the fight.

Civilian doctors said they had treated 900 civilian injuries between March 23 and April 3 and stacked 250 victims in the morgue, according to the April 4 Christian Science Monitor and other unofficial sources. There are no official government statistics.

After the first three days Iraqi resistance along Route Moe collapsed and the entire 1st MEF moved north on Route 7 to Baghdad.

After Third Platoon’s fierce encounter in An Nasiriyah the rest of the campaign was relatively anti-climatic.

As perverse the observation seems almost six years into the war, the combat between the bridges was the happy time for Third Platoon, one Marine observed. Despite the intensity of the fire, the deaths of 18 Marines, and the huge number of civilian casualties, the platoon suffered no losses and no one was charged with any crimes. It was the last deployment that would happen.

At the end of 3/1’s deployment in late May 2003 the battalion staff compiled a Lessons Learned list. At the top was the expectation of the Marine Corps brass that killing the enemy was what the Thundering Third was all about.

Nowhere was it mentioned that it was too late to turn off the switch that had turned on the young Marines. They were locked and cocked, killing machines already let loose on the enemy. There was no calling them back.

The prevailing attitude is exemplified by comments then Maj Gen Mattis made to newly arrived Marines at Al Assad Airbase in late 2003. Mattis, perhaps more than any other officer in the Marine Corps during the heavy fighting in Iraq, molded and fostered the fighting spirit of his command.

 “The first time you blow someone away is not an insignificant event,” Mattis told his young Marines in late 2003. “That said, there are some assholes in the world that just need to be shot. There are hunters and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.… It’s really a hell of a lot of fun. You’re gonna have a blast out here!”

Almost exactly a year later Third Platoon followed his lead with a blast of its own. The echo is yet to be stilled.  

__________________________________________

Nathaniel R. Helms
Defend Our Marines
12 July 2008

Note: Nat Helms is a Contributing Editor to Defend Our Marines. He is a Vietnam veteran, former police officer, war correspondent, and, most recently, author of My Men Are My Heroes: The Brad Kasal Story (Meredith Books, 2007).

© Nathaniel R. Helms 2008

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