American Sniper - Boekje Pienter

94/439
We stayed for three or four days, grousing and depressed the whole
time. Then, finally, we joined the Marine push in the area of Nasiriya.
We were back in the war.
NEAR NASIRIYA
Nasiriya is a city on the Euphrates River in southern Iraq, about 125
miles northwest of Kuwait. The city itself was taken by the Marines on
March 31, but action in the area continued for quite some time, as
small groups of Iraqi soldiers and Fedayeen continued to resist and attack
Americans. It was near Nasiriya that Jessica Lynch was captured
and held during the first few days of the war.
Some historians believe that the fighting in the area was the
fiercest the Marines encountered during the war, comparing it with
the most ferocious firefights in Vietnam and later in Fallujah. Besides
the city itself, the Marines took Jalibah Airfield, several bridges over
the Euphrates, and highways and towns that secured the passage to
Baghdad during the early stages of the war. Along the way, they began
encountering the sort of fanatical insurgency that would characterize
the war after Baghdad fell.
We had an extremely small part in the conflict there. We got into
some very intense battles, but the bulk of the action was by Marines.
Obviously, I can’t write about most of that; what I saw of the overall
battle was like looking at an enormous landscape painting through a
tiny straw.
When you’re working with Army and Marine Corps units, you immediately
notice a difference. The Army is pretty tough, but their