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By Root 1050 0

the Baghdad International Airport, other Army units were crunching the key town of Karbala southwest of the capital, and we were closing in from the southeast. Everyone was coming to roost at the same time, and while the Iraqis might delay us here and there, as the first week of April came to a close, they couldn’t stop us. The regime’s spokesman, a little fruitcake known to every television audience in the world as “Baghdad Bob,” was undeterred by reality and busily peddled the official line that we had all been rolled up like a dirty rug and were on the run. Baghdad Bob was broadcasting from a swank hotel, not on the front lines, where things were dirty and bloody. Looks like each side had its own Bob.

The 5th Marines were still involved in heavy fighting around Al Aziziyah. “The enemy order of battle included T-55s, T-62s, mechanized vehicles, air defense artillery, long-range artillery, and mortars of the Republican Guard,” the regimental historian wrote. Enemy troops, dug into formidable positions, managed to destroy a couple of Marine tanks and some other armored vehicles, and several hundred fedayeen fools who had come in from other Arab countries prowled the countryside to ambush the unwary. But piece by piece, the 5th Marines took them apart—and killed a Republican Guard general in the process.

Our unit, the 7th Marines, had spread out alongside the 5th to the east, and the 1st Marines came up beside us, which meant that the entire 1st Marine Division was now grouped together, ready for the final party.

One of our forward air controllers, Captain Christopher Grasso, arranged a surprise for one persistent pocket of Iraqi fighters. We watched from a safe distance as a lethal pattern of bombs fell from a giant B-52 that was flying so high we couldn’t even see it. These huge bombers with their signature swept-back wings are older than the men who fly them but have been continually upgraded with advanced avionics over the years to remain weapons of immense power. A single bomb can cause incredible destruction, which means there are few things like a B-52 strike, when such bombs fall in strings like monstrous firecrackers.

A towering fountain of dirt, debris, and dust rose into the air when the first Mk-82 bomb hit and exploded, followed in a heartbeat by another fountain overlapping the first, then another, and another, and another, and finally it seemed there would be no end to the entwined, ripping explosions, and a solid curtain of dust hung in the air. We were a mile away and still felt the wall of displaced air push against our faces and our clothes, and the dull grumble of detonations reached our ears. How could anyone survive that? The reeling Iraqis had to be wondering just how many different ways—tanks, bombs, missiles, artillery, helicopters, ships, grenades, riflemen, snipers—we could kill them. The answer was, a lot.

Early on Saturday morning, April 5, our Bravo Company armor parked their tanks squarely on a busy intersection, and we took a security platoon out to deal with a huge crowd of civilians streaming around their position. Many of those traipsing past were men of fighting age who had thrown away their uniforms and donned droopy civilian robes. Only a short while ago, some had been the strutting members of the vaunted Al Nida Division; they were still recognizable by those signature red boots beneath their robes. After we made sure they had no weapons, we let them get out of the way of our advancing battalions, because it was easier to parole them rather than have to guard, feed, and protect them as prisoners of war. If they shed their uniforms, walked south through our lines, and had no guns, we considered that they had surrendered and let most of them return to their homes. To capture so many thousands of men would just have slowed our momentum, and we had the enemy reeling.

We did take prisoner any men we thought might be dangerous or possess useful information. Just being in civilian robes did not earn them a free pass, but they were not brutalized. McCoy had written and distributed