MAJ Frank Diorio Interview Transcript. Marine Corps Oral History ...

1Interview Top LevelJohn A. Adams ’71 Center for Military History and Strategic AnalysisMilitary Oral History ProjectInterview with MAJ Frank Diorio, USMC by Cadet Zachary Carmen, March 28, 2008.©Adams Center, Virginia Military InstituteAbout the interviewer: Cadet Zachary Carmen is majoring in History and is a member of the Class of2008. At graduation he will commission in the U. S. Marine Corps.Carmen – The following interview is being conducted for the John A. Adams 1971 Center forMilitary History and Strategic Analysis as part of the requirements for HI 386—United States MilitaryHistory since 1919. The interviewer is Zachary Craig Carmen. The interviewee is Maj. Frank Diorio.Today is 28 March 2008. We are meeting at Kilbourne Hall at the Virginia Military Institute.Carmen – On behalf of VMI, I thank you for being here today for this interview and I would like tocongratulate you, as well, on your newborn son. If you could, for the record, please give a real briefautobiographical sketch on your birth, where you’re from, and on your career?Diorio – I was born in January 1973 in Denville, New Jersey, to Maureen and Frank Diorio. I wasthe fifth child out of six—I have five sisters. They kept trying to have a son—not that they didn’t love theirdaughters, but they wanted to have a son. They tried to give me a brother but it turned out to be a girl sothey figured that’s enough. I attended the University of Notre Dame and graduated from there in 1996. Iwas commissioned in the Marine Corps in May 1996 when I graduated. I attended the basic school andreceived Military Occupational Specialty as an infantry officer. I went out to 2 nd Battalion, 4 th Marines as aplatoon commander. I was commander of Lion platoon for a year, went over to Weapons Company andwas platoon commander for a Weapons Company platoon—Anti-Armored platoon—for about a year anda half. I served in Operation Desert Fox in Kuwait/Iraqi border, 1997-2000. From there I went to OfficerSelection station in New York City, Manhattan from 2000 to 2003, where I witnessed the September 11 thattack on our country. My office was only a block away. I was supposed to be in the World Trade Center,actually, when the attack happened but I missed my train from New Jersey that morning. The good Lord

2was looking out for me. After 2003 I served with the Marines Expeditionary Warfare School in Quantico,Virginia and then I got stationed at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina as company commander for InfantryCompany, 3 rdBattalion, 2 nd Marines. We deployed twice. We deployed to Operation Enduring Freedomto Djibouti, Africa. Our job there was as security Camp Lemonier, joint base in Djibouti, as well as todeter Al-Qaida movement through the Horn of Africa and into the Middle East. I came back from thereand started the work up for Operation Enduring Freedom; deployed to Al Anbar Province. We took overCamp Gannon. Camp Gannon was an operating base out of Husaybah, Iraq, right on the Syria/Iraqiborder. Camp Gannon was named after Capt. Rick Gannon, who was in command before me. He waskilled there. We served there from February to September 2005. Now I’m here at VMI as senior Marineofficer instructor.Carmen – What was it about Notre Dame that interested you when you were growing up in NewJersey—going all the way out to Notre Dame?Diorio – Joe Montana. I remember Joe Montana. The first football memory I have is of my fatherand myself, sitting in our television room—this small room in our house—and Joe Montana was thequarterback for Notre Dame in the 1978 Cotton Bowl. Notre Dame was losing and he had the flu, so hiscore body temperature was like down to 93 degrees so he was out of the game. At halftime he came outand Notre Dame was down something like 28 to 10. They fed him chicken noodle soup at halftime. Hecame on the field and led a come-back against the University of Houston. The last play of the game hescored a touchdown and with no time left he scored a two point conversion and won. My dad went toNotre Dame—he is the son of Italian immigrants—and my sister went to Notre Dame and I wanted to gothere and play football. I topped out at 5’7”, 150 pounds so that never happened. I remember that dayand what my dad told me about hard work and what you can do if you believe and work hard and nevergive up. That’s the biggest thing I remember from that day—more so than the game. I don’t reallyremember the game too much. I just remember my dad telling me that if you never give up you canaccomplish things. My love for Notre Dame was Joe Montana, and from there it just became this placethat I always wanted to go to, so it was a dream fulfilled.Carmen – So that was kind of a motto you live by today—the one that your father shared withyou?

3Diorio – I was never allowed to quit anything, and he never forced me to start anything, but ifthere was something I started—if I wanted to be on a team or work—if I was a kid raking leaves forneighbors or shoveling snow for money—I was never allowed to stop in the middle. If I joined a team hesaid “That’s fine, but you’ve got to finish it.” A couple of times I said “I don’t think I like this.” He said“That’s fine, you can not like it—once it’s over.” I always remember that. If you start it or volunteer to dosomething, you have to finish it. Once you’re in it, if it’s tough, you finish it and never give up.Carmen – I suppose it was at Notre Dame where you got interested in joining the Marine Corps.Could you tell us a little bit about what sparked that interest and why the Marine Corps and why not theArmy or the Navy?Diorio – I was a junior at Notre Dame and didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life. Ithink I always had on my mind that I would go back home to New Jersey and get some corporate job—work on Wall Street doing something like that. That’s what a lot of guys at Notre Dame were doing.That’s what they wanted to do. I think I was interested in advertising at the time, but it just didn’t seem tofit me. I was looking for something else. I had always had an appreciation for the military but never reallythought I would go into the military. I looked at enlisting a couple of times in high school and then, as Iapplied to college and got into college, that idea went away. I think I looked at enlisting in the Navy acouple of times. My dad was in the Navy so I looked at that. I had relatives who had served in World WarII in the Army mostly. I didn’t have any relatives in the Marine Corps. The only program at Notre Damethat had approached me about serving was the Air Force. I was in the Air Force ROTC for about twoweeks—really nice people, but after two weeks I realized it was not for me. I just needed something alittle more challenging at the time. Mostly I was looking for a physical, tough challenge. I was a boxer atNotre Dame, I had wrestled previously, and I grew up outside. I didn’t see the inside of the house verymuch. My dad made sure I stayed outside as a boy. I was looking for a challenge. I remember I took theAir Force PFT. I didn’t even train for it and they said I had the highest score in the battalion. Not that Ididn’t try—I just didn’t train for it. It was easy.My roommate at Notre Dame had just come back from PLC—officers class—and I asked himwhat that was about. He said “Next time I see the recruiter I’ll tell him to talk to you about it.” I didn’t evenknow what it was. I had no idea how to get a commission. I didn’t know what a commission in the Marine

4Corps was. I knew that they had the Air Force Academy. I had no idea how the Marines got theirofficers. Then I saw the Marine recruiter walk across campus in his blue Deltas and I thought “That’swhat I want to be. I want to be a Marine.” He looked sharp. He was solid. He just looked like a Marinelooks. He approached me and looked at me—he was good at his job—and he said “I don’t think youcould handle it.” That was the first time someone had told me that. All the other recruiters said “We’llgive you money”—we’ll give you this, we’ll give you that. He came up to me and said “I don’t think youcan do it. You don’t look tough enough.” I said “O.K. Where do I sign?” He said “Right here.”So I signed up and went to Officer Candidate School. I loved it. It was exactly what I was lookingfor. It was a challenge, it was leadership, you could think and try to solve problems by thinking—analytical problems—but it was also physical endurance. You can lead people without saying a word, justwith your endurance—it was for me. When I got done I knew that was what I wanted to do. I had no ideawhat jobs were available in the Marine Corps. That would come later. I just knew I wanted to be aMarine officer—I had no idea what. I got commissioned, and I went to the basic school and from therethat’s where I found out what job I was going to do. Half-way through the basic school I remember I wasin the woods—we were doing a patrolling exercise—and my staff platoon commander, CaptainWhiteside—it was in the middle of the night, like 2:00 in the morning, and I hear someone call my name,real quiet, and he says “Are you alright?” I didn’t know who it was because he was in the bushes,camouflaged up. He said “Come here.” I said “O.K.” I said “What about the patrol?” He said “Don’tworry about the patrol, we’ll catch up later.” He sat down and said “What do you want to do in the MarineCorps?” I said “I have no idea.” He said “You need to be an infantry officer.” I took that as a complimentbecause at TBS—to be an infantry officer, you know, was like everyone’s desire. Once we got to thefield, it was hard. You’d get cold and hungry and you didn’t want to do it. So, mid-way through for him totell me—he was a prior enlisted infantry Marine—that he saw in me that I would be a good infantry officerwas great. I said “O.K.” And that’s what I did.Carmen – What were some of the challenges you faced early on in your career as a newlycommissioned officer in the Marine Corps? What helped you better as an officer and as a person?Diorio – The good thing is that the way the Marine Corps sets it up with the basic schoolpreparing you, you know a lot more than you realize when you get out to the Fleet. The earliest

5challenges for me was that you have to be confident in what you spent time learning and knowing. Mostof our Marines were pretty salty guys. A lot of them came from tough backgrounds. I was in California soa lot of them came from gangs. A lot of them looked to you almost as a father figure but here I am, 21years old, 140 pounds, 5’6” and most of these guys were about 6’ at least. What I learned is they don’tcare what you look like. You either lead them, or you don’t. There were Marines 6’5” that they wouldn’tfollow anywhere. I learned real quick that they just wanted a leader so it made no difference what aMarine looked like, they just want somebody who cares about them, who will do the right thing, who willmake the tough decisions, and will lead them. It wasn’t so much the challenge—I was excited to do that, Iwas looking forward to doing that, I felt that this was something I was built to do mentally. Physically Ienjoyed the challenge of being tough and the Marines knew I was going to hump just as far as they wereand I was going to carry the same amount of weight and they respected that.It was really challenging, really understanding that the Marine Corps put me in front of a platoonbecause they said “You’re ready.” And it was accepting that and saying “Yes, I am ready.” Thatimproved me, it just made me understand the appreciation for what faith the Marine Corps put in me as alieutenant, that I really owed these Marines. What it did was really made me take a look at my life. I was21 years old and all of a sudden I was not the college boy any more. You know most college kids arevery selfish people, and I was one of them. It was about me, so what it did for me was know that it wasn’tabout me any more. It never should have been about me but now I realize that it’s not about me. This isabout leading. You agree to do it, you raised your hand, you took the oath and you’d better make sureyou know your job and you know it better than anyone else. So it matured me real quick.Carmen – One of the culminating events of your career was your deployment to Iraq, which we’lltouch on later, but could you please talk about some of your earlier deployments to Djibouti. I believe yousaid you were in Kuwait for a little while before Operation Iraqi Freedom? Could you please touch on alittle bit of those deployments and tell us what they were like and how they helped prepare you forOperation Iraqi Freedom and those tours?Diorio – I deployed with 31 st MEU as the battalion landing team the second time—4 th Marines—and we were supposed to go to Okinawa and do a regular seven month deployment with 31 st MEU. Wewere in Okinawa and I got a knock on my door in the middle of the night saying “Lieutenant, we need you

6to get your platoon and get them out to the tarmac right away.” We got everyone up in the middle of thenight, got outside and asked “What’s going on.” The battalion commander said “We’re deploying.” Hedidn’t tell us where. He said “We’re getting on ships in 24 hours and we’re deploying. I can’t tell youwhere, but we’ve got to go somewhere.” This is completely out of the box for us.What happened was there was a gap in 1998 in the Persian Gulf. There was a gap betweenunits coming and going—a two month gap. Normally I think that gap was there or one that you got pulledaway to do something else. At the same time, Saddam Hussein was toying with the weapons inspectorsearly on, and he decided to get the weapons inspectors out of Iraq. So in late November and earlyDecember 1998 he finally kicked the weapons inspectors out of Iraq. The result was that we needed tohave units in the Persian Gulf now as a show of force and maybe even something else. We got the callso we sailed—no one told us where we were going—for 10 days straight and steamed right into thePersian Gulf. They finally told us right before we went through the Canal that we were going to thePersian Gulf. We didn’t know what the deal was, didn’t know what was going to happen, but we neededa battalion landing team prepped to go in.It turns out that that was Operation Desert Fox. The majority of it was an air campaign againstSaddam Hussain’s weapons plants. The fear was that, once that campaign started, he was going to gosouth again, into Kuwait so they needed the Marines to dig in. We were the only ones in the arearelatively quickly enough to get in there so my battalion went in and dug in right on the Iraqi border in1998. We could watch the air war. There was no gun fire across the border. But at the time, in 1998,that was the closest thing to the action since even Somalia or Haiti, so it was a pretty big deal at the time.In many ways it was a tough deployment for me. I learned a lot of things. I learned a lot of toughlessons.I didn’t get along with my company commander very well. I felt like he probably shouldn’t havebeen in that position of leadership. I learned a lot about moral courage—what I thought it was before andwhat I learned it was afterwards—as far as standing up for the right things. I learned a lot about myself inthat regard. I was glad it happened but it was very tough. I almost got out of the Marine Corps after thatbecause I had a very young, idealistic view of a company commander in the Marine Corps. My previouscompany commander was a good man, and I just viewed that the guys who get here are all good guys

7and they’ve worked hard to get there. Somehow I felt this guy slipped through and I thought “Man, thisdoesn’t seem right.”When I got home I took stock and almost got out. I took the job as Officer Selection Officer inNew York City—kind of a job to see what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to be in the Officer Selectionoffice because it had to do with molding lieutenants and to me that was important. Also I was back homein New Jersey to see my family. Every time I went home they looked older so I wanted to be close tohome. But it was also a good time for me to see what I wanted to do because I always believed that if Iwas going to stay in the Marine Corps it had better be for the right reasons. It was a good time for me. Ihad three years to really take stock. I think being around young people again in the Officer Selectionoffice who wanted to be in the Marine Corps and had that fire about leading Marines. That re-ignited meand I knew I wanted to stay in. That was one of my earlier deployments.Carmen – You talked about being Officer Selection Officer in New York City, Manhattan from2000 until 2003. Obviously you were just telling us about how you were thinking about getting out of theMarine Corps. I’m sure September 11 th had a profound effect on you staying in the Marine Corps. Couldyou please touch on that day a little bit and tell us about your experience and your unique position toactually be a Marine officer in the city during the attacks?Diorio – Yes. I remember the day. It was probably one of the most beautiful days I can everremember. If you talk to anyone in the area, they’re remember that vividly—the sky was so blue. Iusually took the train from New Jersey to New York City, went under the river, and then my train wouldcome into the station in Hoboken and then I’d take a train from Hoboken to Manhatten. The train wouldcome in under the World Trade Center. I remember that morning there was a traffic jam and I was angryabout it. I was annoyed that I missed my train. I got to the train station and the rule was, if the train wasin the station when you got to the parking lot, you were going to make the train. So I thought “O.K., good,the train is still in the station. I’ll make it.”I got out of my car and I start to move toward the train—actually I started to run toward the trainbecause I wanted to make sure I made it, and there was a voice inside me that said “Don’t run.” I can’texplain it. I stopped running. The same voice said “Go get a cup of coffee, say your morning prayers.” Ithink a lot about me changed after that experience in Kuwait and made me really take stock of a lot of

8things after I came home. I was a very young Christian at the time when I was in New York City. It was anew relationship as a Christian and I was not very good at it. I wasn’t comfortable with it. But that voicesaid “Don’t run. Say some prayers this morning, have a cup of coffee and enjoy the sunshine.” So I didthat. I sat down, got some coffee, said some prayers, got on the next train and from the second train Isaw the plane hit the World Trade Center. People were calling on the phone. Someone announced thata plane had hit the World Trade Center. I thought it was just a small prop plane. Then the second planehit and I knew right away that it was a terrorist attack. The train that I was supposed to be on was at thebottom of the World Trade Center and a lot of people didn’t make it.I saw the second plane hit and I tried to get over there. There were a bunch of guys with boatsand I asked them to take me over there but they wouldn’t. I tried to get on the train but they wouldn’t takeme over. I wanted to get over because I knew there were Marines in my office. I couldn’t get in touchwith them. The phones were all down; the people at that train station in Hoboken were starting to gocrazy. People started to really go into chaos and screaming so I knew I had to get out of thatenvironment if I was going to do anything else. I saw one train going the other way and I jumped on thattrain, went the other way 15 minutes until I could get cell phone coverage. They had shut all the cellphone circuits down in the immediate area. I was able to call my Marines; they were O.K. I called myboss and all was O.K.The next day I went down there. Most military people were not allowed to go down there but Iwas because my office was in the area. We had secure information that I had to get out of the safes.Actually I went up to the building but wasn’t’ allowed in because there was too much damage to it. It wasa block away. A lot of the building was missing. A lot of the buildings in the area were in danger of fallingdown; in fact, one fell down a couple of hours later. So, I went down there and helped. What I saw wasmetal workers and union guys from all over the East Coast—from Boston, from Maine, from down South.I saw guys from California—days later, obviously. Immediately, within 24 hours, I saw guys from all overthe Eastern Seaboard—union workers, steel workers, firemen—who just came to help and see if theycould get anyone out alive. They worked around the clock. It was dangerous. There were cavernsbelow where everyone was walking. If you stepped the wrong way you were going to fall thirty storiesdown. It was just humbling to me to see my countrymen do that. I was very angry that this happened in

10knew it at the time, but at this point Al Anwar was such a Sunni stronghold, a Baathist stronghold, andforeign fighters were coming in. It was bad. It was like Al Fallujah; second Fallujah had happened justthe previous November. What happened, interestingly enough, was the insurgents who got squeezed outof Fallujah all came west, to western Al Anwar, our area of operations. They came to a lot of areas butmost of them came out west because when I got out there, there was no Iraqi police, no Iraqi borderguards, no Iraqi army—there was nobody—nothing. It was just no-man’s-land. It was insurgents,Marines and the locals, who were choosing sides in between.At the time they were choosing the side of the Sunni’s because they were all Sunni’s. The areawe were in was a Baathist stronghold, so they really ran those things, plus it was on the Syrian borderwhich meant that it was easy for money and weapons and people to cross the border into Iraq. I tookover for Baker Company 17—Captain Andrew Nelson was the company commander out there. He tookover for Captain Rick Gannon. At the time, initially 2003, the Army had gone out there as part of the initialOIF-1 invasion and they treated our Western Ally Al Anbar, as everyone did during OIF-1, as if it were justa place they had to rid of Saddam Hussain’s national army. But after OIF-1, that fight wasn’t against thenational army; it was against the local Sunni insurgents, Baathists regime and foreign fighters. The Armywent in there to seize western Anwar Province at the border control point. They turned it over to theMarines. When the Marines came in, Captain Rick Gannon realized that he was really fighting the townof 150,000 with a company of Marines. It was a Sunni town, a Baathist town and they didn’t want usthere. They were loyalists and they had no tie to Bagdad.What we were trying to do in Bagdad, as far as restore government—as far as they wereconcerned, they weren’t Iraqis, they were Sunni from western Anwar so they would really care less whatwas going on in Bagdad, they could care less about a national army, they could care less about seeing aunified Iraq. They wanted their own power. They knew they were going to lose power with SaddamHussain going out. They wanted their power so they were going to fight. They were going to fightdemocracy. They were going to fight a unified Iraq, and they did. Captain Gannon came in to a hornet’snest and he did a great job. He was killed reinforcing his Marines for basically calling an urban ambush.He went to free his Marines up and was killed during that battle. That’s why it’s called Camp Gannon.

11Captain Andy Nelson took over. He was the first one to really start looking at the battle space.The word “presence” was being thrown out there but in the town of 150,000 and 250 Marines, presence isa misnomer. We still needed to have presence but we needed presence without having people standingon every street corner, because that was impossible. We had to figure out how to have presence in away other than physical because it was impossible due to the economy of force issues. Captain AndyNelson was the first to realize that we could have presence by controlling avenues of approach, but thatmeant we have to go out in the city and seize objectives, protect ourselves from them, and move our wayinto the city without necessarily walking patrols. We were sending patrols out in an area where that theconditions had not been set for patrols. We were walking patrols as if there was a phase four operation—humanitarian-type operation—and the conditions weren’t set for that. It was still straight up combat as faras the Sunni insurgents were concerned so we were walking into a hornet’s nest. Nelson was the firstone to take a look at it. He did a great job seizing forward areas. By the time we took over it was still thesame way. The environment was the same. The enemy was the same. But we had to find ways to seizecontrol of the city despite our limited numbers. When we took over, we took a look at the situation and webuilt on what Captain Andy Nelson did.The first thing that we decided to do was to build a battle position to the north of the city. Nowwhat Baker Company did, there was a little house north of the city that covered the main east and westavenue approach in Husavbah. It was the main street where all the markets were, where the mainmosques were, where all the main attacks came from. The mortar attacks came from north of that city.When we first arrived we were taking two mortar attacks every day on our base—two mortar attacksevery day. Captain Andy Nelson took this fighting position—this house—and put Marines in there. It wasamazing what it did to the enemy. They hated this position so bad they would spend the majority of theirtime trying to get rid of it. They tried small arms fire and that didn’t work. They went to rockets and whenthe rockets didn’t work, they went to mortars and when mortars didn’t work, they went to a biggerweapon. What happened was, they waited for a foggy day and when the fog came in they drove asuicide vehicle into the building where the Marines lived, and the house was blown up.When we took it over we said “O.K. Somebody is on to something here. They are finding theway to have a presence in a different way than what everyone assumed was a way to have presence. It

13at some points. In some places 75 meters away, outside where we lived and slept. There’d be a fence ora wall and that was it. We lived in the city. The Army had chosen this battle position because it was onthe border, an old trading post. You wouldn’t choose this if you were looking for a place for stand-offprotection, because at the time, remember, there were no suicide bombers, there was no insurgency. Itwas chosen for its location on the border as a way to control the flow of traffic from Syria to Iraq. It wasn’tchosen for tactical reasons. It was passed down, and when you look at it, we lived with our enemy.There was no rear area. There was no going back for a safe night’s sleep. We took mortar fire all thetime. I wanted tanks to protect my Marines who were building the fortification, so the general sent me allhis tanks because he knew at the time that India Company was the most heavily engaged unit in thearea.The problem was, we were building about a kilometer south of the Euphrates River, which meantit was very soft—the field was very soft—and it was in the middle of what we would consider springtimehere. I sent two tanks out and they both got stuck, up to their hull. I sent a tank retriever out and the tankretriever got stuck. I sent another tank to pull out the tank retriever, which, in itself, is almost impossibleand that tank got stuck. I didn’t have to tell the general that I had four tanks that are stuck—the onlytanks he has. I have seven ton trucks to pull them out. I have two seven tons get stuck. I had othersmall gear. I had a tracker—a D-90—which got stuck. What Marines do is they figure it out.The enemy didn’t know the tanks were stuck. We only built at night and during the day mybuilders, my crew, my gunny, and all his crew—30 Marines—would get sleep. They’d get rested andthey’d go out at night because at night it was safer. They’d build by NVG’s [night vision goggles], they’dbuild in darkness—400 meters away from the enemy. They took small arms fire while they were buildingbut we protected them. Nobody got hurt and nobody got killed, but it was still dangerous. When we’dtake small arms fire, we’d take cover, and we’d then maneuver against the enemy, then we’d go back andbuild. It had to be done. My gunny in charge of tanks comes in and says “Sir, they’re stuck.” The enemydidn’t know it. They were shooting mortars at us during the day and the tankers, God bless them, are inthe tanks and mortars are coming down and they just stay in their tanks. They would fight from theirtanks but I don’t think the enemy knew they were stuck, so it could have been worse. I said “Let’s go digthem out.” So that’s what we did. We all went out there in shifts and we dug and dug and dug and once

14we got one tank unstuck we got the tank retriever and the rest of them out, the D-9s and D-7s. Over aperiod of three nights we got all our vehicles unstuck by digging by hand. It was awesome and incredible.That was a challenge to the Marines. The point of all this was that the enemy—remember now, they gotsqueezed out of Fallujah and a lot of them went west to Nusaybah. When I arrived in Nusaybah, CaptainAndrew Nelson told me “Just so you’ll know, the propaganda that we’re finding on the streets says thatNusaybah will be the next Fallujah.We didn’t know it at the time, but when the tanks showed up at Nusaybah for building the battleposition, the locals, the foreign fighters and the Baathists believed the rhetoric that they were passing toone another that Nusaybah was going to be the next Fallujah. What happened was, when the tanksshowed up, the enemy believed that Nusaybah was about to be under siege from the Marines. They sentout communications to all the foreign fighters in Al Anbar Province that Nusaybah is about to go down.What that brought in was hundreds and hundreds of foreign fighters while we were building this battleposition, but there is no intelligence coming in about their moving otherwise. We had no idea. So now,all of a sudden in this town of Nusaybah, we have thousands of foreign fighters, hundreds of Baathists,hundreds of Sunni insurgents, preparing for the siege of Nusaybah because of the tanks that came in,plus the rhetoric that was being told.The other thing that I knew, when we came into the country in February 2005, was that I wasbriefed on the fact there was a fire truck loaded with explosives that was in Al Anbar somewhere. Therewas enough intelligence that we know about it and they are moving it around from place to place, hidingit. It’s full of propane tanks and explosives and they’re waiting to use it somewhere. This was when I wasin Al Asad when I was hundreds of miles away from Camp Gannon. I thought “That thing needs to befound, because that’s going to hit someone, somewhere soon.”On the morning of April 11, 2005 the foreign fighters were ready for the siege of Husaybah andthey decided they were going to open it up. I was awakened that morning by mortars, which to me or anyof my Marines was nothing new. We took mortars twice a day, every day now for two months. I could tellwhere they hit and where they were. Where I was racked out was almost on the Syrian border. Rightover my wall was Syria. I could tell by the sound of it they were northwest of me and I knew they were inSyria, but I also knew that I had to get up. Whenever there were mortars the man who operated the

15center started working on mortar drills, but we had gotten so used to them—I heard the mortars, I knewmy lieutenant was on duty, I knew he was going to start working the drill—so I said O.K. We had justgotten to bed three hours earlier. We were out doing operations that night. We got to bed, I hear themortars land around 7:00 in the morning. I get up, went out to the command operations center and said“O.K., where are the mortars?” We finally decided where the mortars were coming from. I called mybattalion commander for a counter mortar drill. They were used to it too. They said “O.K.” I startedworking counter mortar drill as far as returning fire and the next thing I know the roof lifts up off thefoundation though. It was a cement poured roof. It lifts up and you can see daylight between the roofand the top of the walls and the dust and the doors get blown off and everyone gets knocked off their feet.We all get up and say “What was that?” We thought we were taking direct hits on our CP with rockets.We didn’t know what else to think.We get up and I called to the battalion, “Hey, I think they dialed us in. I think they dialed in theCP. We’re taking direct hits with rockets.” As I’m saying that, about a minute later, it happens again andwe all get knocked off our feet. There is a bigger explosion this time. Right before the second one hits,actually, about three seconds, I can hear Marines on the radios yelling “Fire truck, fire truck!” As soon asI heard that, I knew what it was, and then the explosion happened. The first explosion was a SUV full ofexplosives. That was meant to breach our perimeter so the fire truck could get up to the command post.As soon as I heard “fire truck” and felt the explosion, my heart sank. I knew right away that we were allalive but what I didn’t know was whether my Marines on the perimeter were alive. When I knew what itwas, and I knew the size of the explosion—it was huge—words can’t tell you how big the explosion was.After the second explosion we all ran outside and we can’t see anything because it’s just dusteverywhere. You can’t see in front of your face. I go back to the radio and say “We just got hit with a firetruck.” He said “What are your casualties?” I said “We have no way of knowing right now.” But, apartfrom all this—all we’re taking now is gunfire—because all those foreign fighters and all those insurgents Italked about, the fire truck was the cue for them to unload on the base from across the street, which isabout 200 meters away. We got RPGs and small arms fire coming in to the entire base, which was notthat big. The base was probably only a couple of acres in size, and the enemy was 200 meters away—and there are hundreds of them—just pouring RPGs and small arms fire. My lieutenant’s berthing spaces

16get hits with RPGs and small arms fire. A lot of the Marines were standing outside at the time. This is nota vacuum so we go outside—small arms fire, RPGs, suicide vehicles, dust everywhere, you can’t seewhat’s going on and you can’t hear anything because Marines are firing back but you don’t know who isalive and who is dead. You don’t know if there are foreign fighters or insurgents who are inside our lines.You can hear gunfire like it was 10 meters away and you don’t know who is shooting at who. I thoughtthat part of the base had been taken over with the fire truck.As the smoke starts to clear, I can see where the fire truck hit, and my heart sank because I haddozens of Marines in that parameter. Knowing how big the explosion was, I thought I’d lost about 50Marines. I’m back at the Command Operations Center (COC). I’m trying to bring in aircraft and I’m tryingto get aircraft in from outside to support us. Once the tank commander reports on casualties—I knowthey can’t do anything for me except help get me aircraft, because they’re hours away by truck—they hadto go through desert, so I knew reinforcement wasn’t going to be an option. I just had to find out what thestatus of my base was, were we getting overrun, how many Marines were killed, how many men do weactually need, and what the status was. It was amazing to see 300 Marines as their training kicks in. Myreserve squad kicks in. They run to the point of impact. My Marines on post were reinforced.Immediately, there are four Marines at a post where there used to be two. Over time, I’m starting to getreports in on casualties. It was a miracle.The main base felt the explosion, actually. It was almost 25 kilometers away. They thought theygot hit with something. They didn’t know what, but it was so big that they thought they got something.They walked outside and could see the plume of smoke and so they knew it was us. Twenty-fivekilometers away they felt like they got hit. Some of my Marines were 25 to 50 meters away from thisthing. Lance Corporal Butler was on the main post where this fire truck was going to hit. He knew aboutthe fire truck and as this fire truck drives toward him, he and another Marine on post—that Marine hadgone down to the bottom of the tower—Lance Corporal Butler was up there and when he sees this firetruck coming in, he knows what it is. This Marine stays in his position with his .556 and starts shootingthe windshield. The windshield turned out to be reinforced four inch bullet-proof glass. The tires werebullet-proof. They had a ramming device on the front of the fire truck so they could ram all of ourobstacles out of the way. We had heavy trucks and old cars built up as obstacles around our base. It

17looked like waste city. It was pretty austere at the time—blown out buildings—and they rammed the onetruck out of the way and they were on their way to the next obstacle, which was the last obstacle beforethey got up to us—the CP. And Lance Corporal Butler, knowing that a fire truck full of explosives wasdriving towards him, stays in his position and with 556 just starts pulling the trigger. To me, that’sincredible.He knows that this thing is loaded with explosives. He saw the first SUV explode, which took outhalf of our perimeter—no Marines, but half the perimeter—and he stays in place. What he wanted to dowas crack the windshield enough. He told me he saw the guys and they had flaks on, they had bulletproofhelmets on, and he could see them. That’s how close they got until they detonated. He hit thewindshield enough that they went left instead of right. If they had gone right, they would have been in myCP and we would have been dead. They went left because they couldn’t see as well. He also madethem detonate early, when the fire truck was 25 meters away from some of my Marines, and about 200meters away from my base. The only place that you can pick a place to blow up a fire truck withexplosives—if I had to pick one—that’s where they went. I learned this over time. The result was that Iwas getting reports from my platoon commanders—“I need to know how many casualties, I need to knowif there is any enemy on the base.” We’re walking outside where you can’t see anything. They said “Sir,we’re alive and we’re shooting. We don’t see any guys in our area inside the base but we’re shooting atguys across the street.”The plan was—we learned later from the locals—actually all these guys loaded up on the otherside of the street. They had come in the middle of the night. They took over the rows of houses thatwere 200 meters across from us. They told the people to get out or they just killed them and took overtheir houses. The fire truck was the signal for them to run across the street and take over the base,because they assumed that we were all going to be dead from the fire truck because of the size of it.Their plan was to run across the street, take over the base, take down the American flag and rise up theirown. This, at the time, was also a political statement. They looked around for a base where they couldmake a political statement. This was their offensive, basically, to gain political support—nationally,globally—and if they could take over a military base—a Marine base—it would have reverberations all theway back to Washington, DC and across the country. This is their way of hoping the American people

18would say “Get out of Iraq.” What happened was that my Marines lived. When the enemy ran across thestreet, my Marines started shooting back. It wasn’t a very good day for them.I started getting regular reports in from my platoon leaders because I needed casualty reports.First platoon commander, Lt. Brummond calls in, “Sir, I’m all accounted for.” Second platoon commander,Lt. Albert, “Sir, I’m all accounted for.” Third platoon commander, Lt. Hess, “Sir, I’m all accounted for.”Fourth platoon commander, Lt. Hackler, “Sir, I’m all accounted for.” Actually, at the time, my secondplatoon commander was Lt. Wagner. He called in and said “I’m all accounted for.” Lt. Hess joined us twodays later as anti-armor reinforcement and he would stay with me and would become my secondlieutenant commander—great man, great lieutenant. It took about an hour for us to figure out that we hadeverybody, because every single Marine—cooks, support, mechanics—they were all on post somewherewith a weapon. There were 350 Marines against a city of 100,000 and probably—we knew of severalhundred firing at us, but I don’t know how many more hundreds were behind them, supporting them. Atleast 1,000 foreign fighters—three to one, on their advantage.The Marines did what Marines do. They reinforced, they resupplied, they went into harm’s way,they exposed themselves. My first sergeant ran to the operations center—post 5—a machine gunposition. It was the main crux of our defense for the perimeter and was under heavy fire from about 25insurgents. They were trying to get rid of the machine gun bunker. My first sergeant runs the machinegun bunker under a hail of fire. His Marines were young Marines, doing a great job, but they were gettinghit with RPGs and small arms. He jumped out of the fighting position with an AT-4, jumped on top of theperimeter wall, exposed himself to small arms fire, shot an AT-4 and killed about 11 insurgents that werebehind the wall. He won a Bronze Star with V for that battle. Just incredible things. My gunny was resupplying.He was in the middle of fire and re-supplying to all areas of the post.It turned out to be a three-day fire fight. They had so many fighters that were coming in town forthis. We fought for three days straight. No one slept for, I’d say, 72 hours straight. To quickly go back—Igot my final report from everyone, “Sir, all Marines are accounted for.” I went in my room when it wasquiet that night—I think we had an hour of peace—I went in, ate something, and just dropped to my kneesand thanked God. One, it was the professionalism of the Marines, absolutely. They were where theywere supposed to be. They were doing what they were supposed to do. They were wearing their

19protective gear. They were not walking around without their gear—which is a rule for my base. Theywere behind the weapons systems, awake. All the things that they were trained to do. The reason forthat is because the lieutenants were walking their lines. Every day, before this happened, ensuring theMarines were doing what they were supposed to, I had corporals walking their lines. Early that morning,my lieutenant and my corporals reported to me “Sir, I just walked the lines. There are some of thediscrepancies that I see. We need more ammo on this post and on this post.” So the fact that Marineswere awake, Marines were doing their job, Marines were wearing their gear, Marines knew their fields offire and they knew what they needed to do, was the reason—when it happened—the result wasprofessional. The size of that fire truck, the size of that SUV—how close it was. All of us within 500meters should have had our insides blown out.I had scout snipers who were standing outside at the time, just outside of their building. They hadjust gotten in and they were standing outside cleaning off their shoes. They were 50 meters away.Without being inside, they should have been killed. I had Marines who were 25 meters away. We were150 meters away. There was a miracle to it, without a doubt in my mind. The Marines were doing whatthey needed to do. The last report came in that everyone survived—no casualties.We had some wounded. We had a bunch of Marines who got Purple Hearts that day, but itwasn’t anything like medi-vac right away. I did start to see some size of internal wounds with someMarines. Some Marines were showing signs of concussion but also they were starting to show signs ofpossibly internal bleeding. In about an hour and a half I medi-vaced four Marines who I was concernedmight have had internal injuries. They started to go white and looked pale. I medi-vaced them and theygot out in time. We had helicopters—God bless them—who came in right in the middle of all this and gotour Marines out. They all lived and were O.K. They had some internal injuries but nothing serious. Itturned into a three day battle.The result of this would have strategic implications further on. Because the insurgents didn’t takeover the base, because my Marines lived, we got word from the locals that, because we lived, becausethe structure was still standing, because no one died—because they knew no one got medi-vacedbecause they were killed. They read NBC, they read MBC—all the news agencies came out and did thestory because no one died. The other thing the insurgents did was video-taped it. The day of the attack

20they put it on the internet. The people who video-taped it believed we were all dead. It was such a hugeexplosion. As you can see on the video-tape, they were saying “What a great victory. We’re victoriousagainst them. We killed them all.” Then, two hours later comes CNN and NBC saying “Look at thisfootage of this attack and not one Marine died.” The locals actually started making fun of the people whodid it and I started hearing this. “No one died, you guys failed, you’re all talk, you’ve no action. You guysdon’t know what you’re doing.”I started to see this little kind of schism, but this goes back to how strategy in an insurgency istied to the tactical operations of the young corporal, the young private. If they weren’t wearing their gear,if they were not ready, if they were asleep on the job, if they were doing something they shouldn’t havedone—I had to medi-vac people for unprofessional reasons—then they would have seen the medi-vacand would have assumed that they had been successful. My privates, my corporals, my lance corporals,my lieutenants all made sure that if we were going to sustain combat wounds, that’s understandable, butlet’s not give the enemy any kind of free propaganda. How that ties into strategic was that they saw thereweren’t any medi-vacs, they saw what was on CNN and NBC, they read on CBS—all these stories that noone died.As the locals started going against the local insurgents, the local insurgents started thinking like“Well, I’m not going to support the foreign insurgents,” because the foreign fighters just come and go,every month or so. The local insurgents had to live with the local people. The local people started saying“You know what? These foreign fighters don’t know what they’re doing. Why are you supporting them?”So the locals started saying “You know what? We’re not so sure we want to support you.” The result ofthat was the foreign fighters started to come into town and say “You will support us.” They started heavyhandingthe locals. I learned this through multiple intelligence sources. I would say about a month afterthis we started seeing some locals starting to call on us with some information and starting to hand outfliers, and saying “You know what? The Marines aren’t the ones doing the heavy-handing tactics. It’s theforeign fighters that are doing it, and it’s the Baathist regimes who are with them, and it’s the locals whoare supporting and doing it.”A break happened in the middle of May when we were going to do an operation against a coupleof houses we had learned had foreign fighters staying in them. Through our intel sources I had learned

21that there was someone in town who told his local insurgents not to interfere with our operations againstthe foreign fighters. When I learned that—I mean, these were guys we were fighting at some point,maybe. He was never identified as being an insurgent but he came out as someone identified as a leaderand a local in the local villages, and he sent out a communication that said “Hey, if the Marines comeagainst their foreign fighters”—it didn’t sound like he knew we were doing it, but he said “Hey, theseforeign fighters came into town and I assume that the Marines are going to come against them. If they goagainst them, do not fight them.” Because a lot of times, in the middle of the night, if they would see ourvehicles go by, sometimes they would just put their weapons outside their windows and shoot them.They would just detonate IADs along the way if they knew we were going through there. He said “Don’tdo any of that. Let them go. Let them hit these foreign fighters. We don’t want them in our area.”Maybe two weeks later, we decided we were going to go against foreign fighters and nothinghappened. There wasn’t any locals. They stayed out of the way. I found out through my local contacts,“Who is this guy?” And I got his name. Through my interpreter I said “Get a message to this guy and tellhim I want to talk to him.” The message came back and said “O.K. Let’s talk.” So we set up a couple ofmeetings in the middle of the night and it never worked out. He wasn’t totally sure he could trust us. Wedidn’t push it. We said “Hey, if you don’t feel comfortable enough.” Finally, on the fourth time, in themiddle of the night, I met him in this blown out building in the middle of town. I look him in the eye, andhe looks me in the eye and I said “Look, coalition forces aren’t going anywhere. We’re here to stay andhere until this job is done.” One of the fears was that we were going to leave and if we left then the onlyones who would have power—he didn’t want people to say in his village that “You’re supporting theAmericans and now they’ve left us and now we’re going to come against you.” I said “We’re not goinganywhere. We’re staying. This is your town. This is your village. This is your country. We are here tobring peace so that, eventually, you guys can take over and we can leave. Whether it be years—twoyears, three years or a year—whatever it is.” I looked him in the eye and said “Look, let’s just go with this.You seem to be a leader in your village so I want to work with you. Let’s just go on this basis. Youshould never trust me and I should never trust you, but let’s see if we can work together.” He liked that.He said “I feel like that’s the most honest anyone has ever been with me.” I said “Absolutely. I don’t trustyou, you shouldn’t trust me, but let’s just see if we can work together.” He said “O.K.”

22A couple of days later I get a phone call on the base. I gave him the phone number. He calls meand said “I just want you to know that foreign fighters are going to try and attack your base tonight fromthis quadrant.” I said “O.K. Thank you.” I sent out a patrol around 2:30 in the morning and they openedup on us. They opened up on our base but what they didn’t know was that I had Marines in place toambush them and my Marines handled an amazingly successful attack. I called him and said “Thank youfor the intel.” He said “No problem. I was right, wasn’t I?” I said “Yes, you were.”Well, the foreign fighters got word that the locals had tipped us off, but then we actually got theintel that the enemy was coming in town to pay back the local villagers for assisting us. I called him andsaid “Hey, I just wanted to let you know the foreign fighters are coming in town tonight to ambush you atthis point.” He said “Thanks for letting me know.” He did the same thing. We never got involved at thispoint. He set up his forces to where the entry point was going to be and it was a very successful attackagainst the foreign fighters. He called me and said “Thank you for that information.” I said “No problem.”Over the next couple of weeks that happened a couple of more times. Finally I said “What can Iget for you?’ He said “The water has been turned off. It has been off since the fire truck hit you guys andthe city has no water. Do you think you can get us some water?” I said “Well, being that the villagers arethe ones who let them in, I’m not prepared to fix the water right now, but we’ll see what we can do.”Really, I didn’t have the capabilities to fix the water yet. I needed the Navy SEE-BEE’s and the engineersto come in and fix the water, and they weren’t coming for two weeks. I just bought some time. It was thetough love approach. I said “We’re not fixing the water until I know I can trust you for sure.” He said“O.K. Fair enough.” What we did was set up an operation the following night, in the middle of the night. Itook about a platoon of AVs, some trucks and dismounts and at 3:30 in the morning without any press,without anyone knowing, we went out and delivered dozens and dozens, and hundreds and hundreds ofcases of bottled water. We put it on their doorstep in the middle of the night with no fanfare, so that whenthey got up, before the sun came up, they would see the water and they would take it in their house andhave it.The reason for that was we learned that any time we did a civil operation in the light of day for allthe press to see and all the locals to see—those houses got hit later on in the day by foreign fighters forsupporting the coalition forces. What I saw was, in the middle of the night I could see people waking up

23early and they could see the water and pull it in their house. If they didn’t want anyone to see them takingthe water, no one could see. What we did was to show that we appreciated some of the difficulties theyfaced in helping us, so we delivered water on their doorsteps in the middle of the night; they pulled it inand would hide it. Later on I got a phone call from a local saying “That was really cool. We appreciateyou doing that.” I said “No problem.” So he got some water for the time being; two weeks later our NavyCBs were coming in and they fixed the water. I told him “Hey, we’re going to fix the water for you. If weget hit with a bomb, I’m not fixing it.” He said “I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen.” It never happened again.We fixed the water.Then a couple of other times we started working together with approval, because at the timemilitias weren’t allowed in Iraq and technically this was a local militia that we had really built up to support,and I had to get approval to do it from the CO (commanding officer) at the time. We got approval.Basically it said “No militia are allowed except in Husaybah because this was like the first sign thatsomething was working. Over time this militia built up to about 100 guys—100 locals, 200 locals, 300locals—and we would never fight together because now that there’s no Iraqi army, there was no workingtogether—coalition forces, Iraqi army—in our part of the country. This is still all brand new. It was just anunderstanding.They would call me and say “Look.” Because, at the time, in Husaybah there was a rule thatexisted nowhere else in the country that, if you were seen in the open with a weapon, you were a hostiletarget. That was understood by the locals, that was understood by the local coalition forces, and it wasapproved rules of engagement all the way up to Bagdad, that in Husaybah, if you had a weapon—it didn’tmatter if it was an AK-47 or anything else—out in the open, you were seen as a hostile target. Why didthey do that? Because the Marines were living 75 meters within the city so in order to protect us, we hadto say no weapons are allowed. It worked in time. The locals knew it. I would get a phone call saying“Hey, we got intel that foreign fighters were coming to attack us tonight and we would like to fight back,but that means that we’re going to have weapons two streets away from your base.” I said “O.K. But ifone round comes in my base, we’re going to fire it back. Roger that.”In the middle of the night we could see this fire fight going on but no weapons came on our base.No rounds came towards us; they were all going the other way—north and south, not east and west. He

24called me later on and said “Was that O.K.?” I said “Yes, that was fine.” It was just kind of anunderstanding so that we would build trust with one another.About late July, in the middle of the day, we’d hear this huge fire fight two streets over. Youcouldn’t see it but you could hear it, and I called out to my Marines “Who’s firing?” They’d say “Sir, noone is firing.” I said “What’s going on?” They said “It’s in town.” This goes on for about two hours but norounds come near us. Every once in a while we can see people run between streets and it’s right on thenorthwest corner of the city—right by our base. I was a little nervous about it but I said “Look, if you seeanyone point a weapon at you, or you see any rounds come near you, you’re clear to fire back.” It diesdown about three or four hours later and I get a phone call from a local guy and he says “Hey, I justwanted to let you know that those were foreign fighters who came to attack you this morning. Westopped them and we killed six of them. We just wanted to let you know.” We called the hospital and thehospital confirms that yes, there are six guys who aren’t from Husaybah who were killed this morning in afire fight. He said “Yes, they were coming to get you but we stopped them.”When that happened, I knew something was going on in Husaybah so, by the time we left inSeptember, they had formed this desert militia in Husaybah and it was like the first sign of coalition—working together with coalition forces—in Anwar Province. These are Sunni’s who are working withMarines. It was amazing. It got to the point that, when we were leaving, Husaybah wanted to turn over anew unit. The fall fighters, at the time, had got so annoyed at what was going on in Husaybah, they cameen masse. They came in the thousands. And all of a sudden the cities were erupting in gunfire. Literallythe day we were pulling out of Husaybah to turn over but the next unit. We called and asked “What’sgoing on?” He said “We’re being overrun. We’re getting killed. The foreign fighters that came in are soangry at what we’ve been doing that they came in to kill us.” So we worked some things out with higherauthority—what we were allowed to do—and actually the day we were leaving we had hundreds of Sunniformer insurgents coming through our lines to fight with us.What was agreed to, they were being squeezed into the city in the northwest corner and mylieutenant called me and said “Sir, we’ve got hundreds of Iraqis with weapons with their arms up and theirweapons up in the air asking if they could come through our lines so that they could be protected from theforeign fighters.” Higher approved it and we wound up taking about 250 of these locals Sunni’s who

25previously were part of the insurgency. They came through our lines and because of that the guy who wehad been working with, said “You saved my tribe today. Because of that my Sunni tribe is indebted to theUnited States Marines for the rest of our lives.”What wound up happening after that was we turned over to the next battalion and the nextbattalion did a great job of really bringing all sides to the table. What happened at the time was this tribethat had supported Marines—there was another Sunni tribe that wound up supporting the foreign fighters.The result of all this was the next battalion came in. The influx of foreign fighters made Husaybah thishornet’s nest again. Now you have foreign fighters and Sunni insurgents who are supporting the foreignfighters and came to Husaybah to kill off the Sunnis who were supporting the Marines. You had two localSunni tribes. You had one local tribe supporting the Marines, one local Sunni tribe supporting the foreignfighters, and now you had this attention in Husaybah. You now have coalition tension coming toHusaybah. It’s like this is division and it’s good.There’s this insurgency expert whose name is Kilkullen and he wrote that any time you see thistype of fracture, it’s not a bad thing. Initially, we can’t believe our tribe is getting routed by these foreignfighters and what he wrote is true. He said “This is not a bad thing. This is a good sign. When thishappens, this is a good sign.” So we were able to preserve this tribe, get them out of Husaybah.Husaybah really became under the control of the foreign fighters. This next battalion came in, but nowtwo infantry battalions came in and an Iraqi army battalion came in—or a company, I can’t rememberwhat size it was—with thousands of troops instead of hundreds and they wound up doing a street tostreet clearing of Husaybah and eastern Al Qaim, and they do this whole cleansing. So what you woundup having was this saturation of foreign fighters coming into Husaybah to teach a lesson to the localSunnis. You have the local Sunni tribes supporting the foreign fighters. You now have this hornet’s nestwhich was a good thing. You brought them all into Husaybah. Now you have these other Marinebattalions who then take the fight street to street, house to house—3 rd Battalion, 6 th Marines. It wasanother unit from 1 stMarines who came in—21 came in—and they fought through Husaybah and theycleared it out.Now you have safe conditions, to maybe have this situation to where we have Sunnis cooperatingwith coalition forces across the board. Now what you have is, once the foreign fighters were killed off,

26you have a Sunni tribe that was supporting Marines, you have a Sunni tribe that was supporting foreignfighters whose support is now dead and the only thing left are Marines. So what this 3 rd Battalion, 6 thMarines did was they brought everyone to the table, which is a tough job because you have a Sunni tribethat was the favorite tribe. You have a tribe that was odd man out. And the favorite tribe is like “Hey,we’re the ones who supported the Marines all along. We want all the power, we want all the positions, wewant everything else.” What the 3 rd Battalion, 6 th Marines was able to do, along with the other battalions,were able to bring everyone to the table and say “Look, we’re to share power. We forgive you for whatyou did. We appreciate what you did in supporting us, but now we need to bring everyone to the table.”All of a sudden you saw the Sunnis come to the table supporting Marines.I believe the Sunni effort we see in Anbar all the way east was a result of the Sunni cooperationthat started with India Company. I’ll tell you that that cooperation wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t forwhat Captain Andy Nelson did and what Captain Rick Gannon did and what Captain Trent Gibson. Thisis not about India company three-two (3/2). This is about what I learned from Rick Gannon and fromTrent Gibson and Andy Nelson and what we were able to accomplish and what the Marines who cameafter us were able to accomplish. You started to see the Sunni cooperation from out of the situation inHusaybah. This cooperation all came forth after April 11 th in which the Marines won the day. I believe theMarines did win the day. That’s how it’s all tied together. Now Husaybah is relatively peaceful and it’sgreat to get feedback. I got feedback from the battalion that replaced us. They said “We walk down MainStreet. We eat lunch with people.” It was never, ever considered. Main Street was a war zone when wewere there. By the time 36 was back, they told me how they patrolled the streets, they ate lunch there,they would eat with the locals, they would have tea with the locals. To me that’s a good story. To me thattells me that what we did was effective. That was our deployment.I’ll tell you, for seven months—this is coming from higher—we were the most heavily engagedcompany in a seven month period at the time. We were in over 300 engagements, and we didn’t lose asingle man and that was by the grace of God and by the profession of the Marines. My lieutenants, mystaff NCOs, my first sergeant, my corporals—walking the lines, making sure the Marines were doing theright thing. Then my privates doing the right things—standing their posts. My XO, Lt. Hodd at the time,just probably couldn’t have gotten a better XO. He was one of the bravest men I’ve ever served with and

28we all lived was sandbagged and shelter protected—but if you ever came outside from where you lived, ifyou saw sunlight you were going to wear your flak and your kevlar at all times, and you’d always haveyour weapon with you. Because you never knew where you were going to have to fight. It was tough. Itwas 110 degrees. The Marines were on post under heat, serving in heat. They were to walk off-post withtheir gear—it’s heavy. It’s hot. Sometimes they just wanted to get some fresh air. I made a rule that youwear your flak cover at all times. I made my lieutenants do it, and it was hard, because sometimes theyjust wanted to stand outside their door and get some fresh air. I said “Look, I’m not willing to tell yourparents that you were not coming home because I wasn’t willing to do what was hard.” So we made themdo it. My first sergeant was behind me and he did it and he mandated it. My lieutenants had to do it,because there was no way they could ask their Marines to do it if they didn’t. Marines are tough andthey’re like “Sir, it’s not going to happen. What’s the big deal. No mortars are going to come in at thistime of the day.” They wanted to do basic things like their gym. Their gym didn’t have a roof on it. It wasblown out. I said “I’m sorry gentleman. You’re not going to use the gym until we get a roof on it.” Sothere were very limited ways for them to try to get some fresh air. I had to be creative in ways to get themsome way to blow off some steam. Even chow—there was no chow hall. We had to eat where we lived.The previous chow hall, the roof was blown off after April 11 th so I said “Gentlemen, you’ve got to eatinside.” I mean, that’s seven months like this and it was hard, but I know the Marines appreciated it andunderstood why we were doing it, but that was the rule and it turned out we took mortars and we took ourflak and took shrapnel and the Marines would have been injured.In a sense it was easy and I knew I’d do it, but it was hard for seven months to enforce thosekinds of things. Strictly, we did most of our operations at night. We were going to go to night operations.We did most of our patrols at night, our raids at night. We did most of our planning at night. We switchedto a nighttime operation so we could sleep during the day. That was difficult at first, to get everything towork at night. We looked at the enemy’s template. The enemy didn’t like working at night. They liked tosleep and they liked to be cool. It was hot out there. They had air conditioning but just for one room, so Iknew they would be sleeping inside and from about 2:30 to 4:30 in the morning they were mostly not up.We had the advantage so we were going to operate at night. It messed up our systems. It was hard tobe inside during the day when the sun was out, but we did it. I enforced it. It was tough. It was

29unpleasant but I know Marines are alive and safe for it. They told me that. Sometimes you just had tofollow your good instincts.I remember I talked about Post 5 as the most important post on the base because it was amachine gun position. It also overlooked multiple avenues of approach to the base. Since we hadmultiple suicide vehicles try to get in, that was very important and the enemy knew it and they alwaystried to take out Post 5. One day I had Marines who came inside. It was early morning and I’d just gottenup. I think I had probably gotten in bed maybe an hour before. I didn’t get much sleep. I was getting outof bed and that same voice on September 11 th who told me not to run for that train—I was starting to walkout the door and that same voice inside of me said “You need to take five minutes and pray today.” I said“I don’t feel like it” and that voice said “Just do it.” I said “Fine, what do you want me to pray for?” Thevoice said “Pray for wisdom.” I said “O.K.” I was like a child about it. I didn’t want to pray, but I said“Fine, I’ll pray for wisdom. Give me wisdom.” So, labouringly I prayed for five minutes. I prayed forwisdom.As soon as I go out my door, these two Marines approached me, “Sir, there’s a guy on the rooftopacross from Post 5 and he’s staring at the post.” I said “O.K. He’s staring at the post. What’s he doing?”He said “He’s just staring at it.” I said “Is that something out of the ordinary?” He said “No, I just wantedyou to know.” I said “O.K.” They came back about 10 minutes later and said “The guy’s staring at Post 8again.” I said “Do you see a weapon?” They said “No, no weapons. He’s just staring at it.” I said “Fine.I’ll tell you what. Go ahead and move the Marines out of Post 5 and put them in 5-Alpha.” That was anauxiliary post. Not nearly as big, not nearly as strong. They said “But sir, are you sure you want to movePost 5, especially just for a guy looking at it?” And that happened all the time. I said “Yeah, move them.”I started to walk away and then said “Hold on. Just leave them there.” He said “O.K., sir.” They took fivemore steps and I said “Wait.” They said “What’s up sir?” I said “Move them.” They said “Are you sure?”I’ve never been that indecisive about anything. I said “Just move them.” They said “O.K.” I said “Go tellthe scout snipers to put one of the dummies inside of there to make it look like it’s manned, but just moveit.”Five minutes later the Marines are moved, the scout snipers get this dummy in there and no morethan 10 minutes later the post is gone—destroyed. Direct hit with a mortar. They couldn’t do that in a

30million years if they tried to do it again. Direct hit with a mortar and the post was gone—obliterated. Thetwo manikins inside, completed obliterated. Their weapons obliterated, they were obliterated. TheMarines could see it. They said “Sir, they made a direct hit with the mortar.” The Marines would havebeen dead. Later that night the Marines came in and said “Sir, we just wanted to thank you for saving ourlives.” I said “I didn’t save your lives. When you go to bed tonight, just give thanks in your prayers. Theonly reason I did it was because I felt like I should.” Sometimes you’ve got to follow your instincts, even ifthey’re not the most popular ones.Company command in an environment like that could be a lonely place. You’re the senior guy.Every decision you make or don’t make, is going to result in a Marine living or dying and you know youwill have to go home with that, if you lose Marines because of decisions you made. You have no peers torun things by. Every decision is your decision at the end and that can weigh on you. I always believedthat you agreed to go there and that’s your job. Your job as a company commander really wasn’t to pullthe trigger at all. Your job is to make decisions and to lead your Marines. Some days were lonely,especially when it came down to making big decisions that you knew could put your Marines’ lives indanger, but that’s what I was there for and I thank God for the opportunity to have done that. Sometimesit was a lonely place. Command can be lonely sometimes. I agreed to do it and that’s what I wanted todo. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.Carmen – So you finished your deployment in Iraq and you came back State-side. Am I correctin saying that?Diorio – Yes.Carmen – How did you help yourself and your Marines re-adjust to living in the United States andgoing from combat zone back to a civilian world where people have really no clue what’s going on in Iraq,other than what they see on the news?Diorio – I don’t know if I did a very good job in that regard. I think if I did it again I would probablybe more aware, but it was one of those things that you don’t know what you don’t know. We don’t realizethere are a lot of emotions or post-combat issues that don’t really surface until months later—sometimessix or seven months later. For me, personally, it was hard in that I came home and my first child was borntwo days later. I remember being at the hospital two days after I got home, where life was just going on.

31It was so strange for me to see life going on as normal. People were walking around. People weredriving cars. It was almost like I felt suffocated because you don’t realize how life is going on normalwhen you’re in a world that’s not normal. I remember I had to take a break, and I went outside of thehospital and took a deep breath. It was like, man, this is just strange. I could see people driving cars andpeople eating lunch and talking and laughing, and people going about their lives. It was just strange.Then for me to have my first child born two days later, it brought some other issues out. I was soconcerned for her safety all the time.I was neurotic about her safety. My wife, God bless her, handled it really well. She had somelong months with me. The middle of the night sometimes was rough for her. It wasn’t pleasant for her.Sometimes she’d just try to work through it. Sometimes I’d have dreams that the insurgents were tryingto kill my daughter and I’d wake out of the dream trying to prevent it. I would also wake up in the middleof the night and I thought I was still in Camp Gannon and trying to direct things. I told my wife where tomove the tanks and she’d say “O.K. I’ll move them, but you need to wake up now.”The hard part for Marines is (1) you think you’re the only one going through it and (2) you don’twant to talk about it. I also didn’t like people diagnosing people with PTSD. I didn’t like that termbecause it was too encompassing and no one really knew what they meant. Sometimes maybe it wasjust normal to be abnormal. It’s not normal, but it may be normal for what people are dealing with in somearea and I think it’s good that our nation has to deal with it. I think it’s good because a number of ourVietnam vets really didn’t get the attention they needed. What I learned, over time, was that my Marineswere having trouble. I had Marines who were having trouble sleeping. They felt they were being over-runmost of the time. They’d wake up out of a deep sleep and thought they were being over-run. I had aMarine who was put in jail because he was drinking. Alcohol and drinking was a big problem. I hadMarines passing out from alcohol, and police trying to wake them up, and the Marines thinking they werebeing over-run by insurgents, and they would assault the police and would be thrown in jail. It was hard.People very close to me—I don’t want to say who—but even officers and NCOs had some severe issuescoming afterwards. We just didn’t know how to deal with it.It took me a couple of months but when I realized we had to talk about it, one of the first things Idid was ask those who were having trouble—staff and NCOs and officers, specifically—to talk to the

32Marines about it. Once we did that, it was like a deluge of Marines who said “I’ve got the same thing.”That was the best thing we could do—talk about it. The hardest part is that you can’t explain, even toother Marines, what you went through. You can’t explain to anyone else who was there what you wentthrough. What you had was this India Company brotherhood, and you just wanted to talk to otherMarines in India Company. You had Marines who had gotten out, who had moved on, and what we didwas just talk to one another on the phone and e-mails and to this day I still get that from my Marines and Icall them. The frustrating part was you couldn’t explain it to people because God bless people—you hadpeople who wanted to know, which in one respect, at least people wanted to know. But then you’d getannoyed by other people who could care less. On one hand you’d get annoyed by people who could careless, but then you have people who wanted to know, but you don’t want to talk about it. And you feel badfor those people because the hard part is, they want to know—“Tell us about what you went through”—and when you verbalize it, you can’t do it justice so you get frustrated. I could tell the Marines would getfrustrated—“Sir, I don’t know how to explain what we went through.” So you wind up just going into ashell and you just want to talk to your brothers over there. It’s like they’re the only one who understand,so you just close yourself off to the world, which isn’t good. You have to find a way to tell your story. Inthe end you accept the fact that you can’t ever really tell it but you have a duty to those who were there totell it. I’ve seen it over time that my Marines are willing to talk about it a little bit more.At least we definitely have a rule that if you have a rough night or a long night, you call somebodyfrom the company, and they do that. I’ve gotten phone calls from Marines in the middle of the night. Iusually call my first sergeant. He’s just an incredible man—he’s an ultra-counselor professional combatveteran. He was a young captain as a Marine officer and he always gave me the respect of being the“old man.” He’d call me the “old man” even though I was 33 years old and he was 40 and he’s got muchmore combat experience than I did. But behind closed doors I looked to him as a brother figure. Nowthat he’s retired, he’s more of an older brother figure. I could always talk to him. He’d tell you that he hadsome issues that he would talk to me about.Now we have to do what we can for our Marines because we’re finding out now that a lot of theMarines have these post-combat issues that don’t show up until seven months later. Two years later myfirst sergeant found out he had a four-inch scar tissue on his brain from concussions experienced from

33OIF-1. It didn’t show up until two years later. He had it but he didn’t know it. We’ve got to work throughthe system. We’ve got to make sure they get awarded as they deserve. You’d be surprised that twoyears later, we’re still working through some awards. Also that they get the VA assistance they need. Tobe honest with you, I didn’t know enough. I was ignorant. It’s not about what I can do now and what I’llcontinue to do for the rest of my life for these guys to make sure they get the recognition they deserveand to make sure they get the help they deserve.Carmen – After you came back from Iraq, you were sent to the Virginia Military Institute as asenior MOI. Could you maybe share some positive and negative experiences that you’ve had or seen atVMI and what you think of the Institute?Diorio – I knew nothing about VMI except where it was and that it was a military institute. I knewsome guys who came through it and got commissioned. I had applied for the job because I had lookedup to the MOI at Notre Dame. I was not a scholarship student but he took me under his wing and alwaysincluded me in everything and that meant a lot to me. At the commissioning even, he called me down tohis office and gave me a “cover.” It wasn’t brand new, although it was brand new to me and it was aMarine Corps commissioning cover that fit me—I didn’t have a lot of money—and he gave it to me. Thatwas something that stayed with me. I always remember him as having an impact on future lieutenants.Now as a company commander and seeing what the lieutenants did in combat—seeing the good ones,and seeing some not so good ones—I knew, to me, how important lieutenants are to the Marine Corpsand what lieutenants do, especially in a time of combat. I want to be part of that. I want to be part oftraining the next lieutenants because my Marines are alive because of the lieutenants. Our enlistedMarines live and die a lot of times because of the decisions of officers and I wanted to make sure thatthey understand that. So, if I can go to a place and have a part in that, I want to go there.I thought, at the time, I’d put in for a couple of schools in the northeast, just to get near Jerseyand get close to my family again, so my daughter can grow up near family. So, when the Marine Corpsasked me if I wanted to go to the Virginia Military Institute, if I was interested—not that they were going toask, but they wanted to know how I felt about it—and I said “If that’s where you want to send me, I’mmore than willing to go there and learn about it.” Being here two years, I can tell you it’s more than I everdreamed of. It’s inspirational to see, not only the lieutenants, but young men and women who come here

34across the board, who just want to be something bigger than themselves, because that’s really what theMarine Corps is about—being part of something bigger than yourself. To see young 18 year olds comehere as freshmen—fourth classmen—and want to be part of something bigger than themselves, whetheror not they go to the Marine Corps, is awesome.Then, to work hand in hand with these students, to work hand in hand with you all, who are goingto serve as lieutenants in the Marine Corps—it’s a huge honor to be part of that, especially with a groupthe size that we have. The Marine Corps will be heard from the Institute for many years to come. Inmany ways it’s the busiest job I’ve ever had in the Marine Corps. I had no idea how busy it would be, butit’s worth it. It’s a nice place to live. It’s a nice place for my family. No one is shooting at you. I go homeevery night to see my family—maybe late—but I go home every night, which I couldn’t before. I’m justinspired. It’s good for me to come out of that environment—to get some decompression time—but also tobe around people who are excited about leading Marines. That is awesome. Also, just all of thestudents—they want to be part of something other than themselves. They are what I wasn’t in college.They are not self-absorbed. They are not selfish. They are, at a young age, willing to do something tocontribute to society, to contribute to their country, to contribute to the military and it’s awesome to bearound it. It’s an honor for me to do it. Two years in, it’s inspiring.Carmen – Are there any flaws or anything you see in VMI that needs attention?Diorio – There are always flaws in every organization. There is always the 10%. What excitesme more than anything, though, is that it’s not the upper echelons who see the faults. I’m sure they do,but it’s the students who see and the students who step out to correct the problem. Part of those flawsare inherent—not just at VMI—but in society and in any organization. What I like and what I see here atVMI is that the students step up to try and fix them amongst themselves, which takes the most courageas far as the peer group goes, because you have to step out and correct your peers. Yes, there areflaws. There are ideas of leadership that, as far as I’m concerned, are not leadership. There are ways toinstruct and teach that, as far as I’m concerned, are nothing more than just egotistical self-absorbedmeans of standing in front of people who you want to listen to you. That’s a small percentage, and thoseare things that people have learned maybe out in society, in high school, on several teams, or maybeeven here they’ve learned it with some people they’ve seen. But what I do see is that I see the other

35greater percentage of the students saying “You know what? That’s not leadership. That’s not the rightway to teach. That’s not the right man to mentor.” It’s not about just discipline and punishment. It’sabout seeing these people grow and learn and understanding where that comes in. Certainly discipline isa part of it. The thing about VMI is that, across the board, it’s the majority of the ones who are trying to dothe right thing and understand leadership—true leadership—and understand what it means to sacrifice,understands what it means to give up your time for someone else. Yes, there are flaws, but the thinghere is that the 18, 19, 20, 21 year old students are the ones who are stepping up against these thingsand saying “Let’s take a look at this and see if this is leadership or not.”Part of what I think is that it is a desired goal of the school, to be honest with you. To take thesestudents who come in from the outside and bring these things with them and to take the 10% who try topropagate these bad ideas of leadership and to have the students come in and say “No, that’s notleadership. Let’s fix it.” It creates that area in which you make these students step up at a very youngage and start to address these things so that when they get out, either to the civilian work force or themilitary, they have some experience in doing it. It’s interesting to see the development of the youngleader here at VMI and it’s an honor to be a part of it.Carmen – This last question is a little bit on a personal side for myself and about commissioning.Anybody in the military that I talk to, I like to ask this question, especially the officers. If there is one thingthat you could tell a second lieutenant, what would that piece of advice be?Diorio – Don’t ever forget why you exist. Always remember why you exist. If you remember that,you’ll always do the right thing. You exist to make the tactical, moral, physical decisions in order to serveyour enlisted Marines. That may mean that you have to stand up for the right thing against yoursuperiors. That may mean the ending of your career. That may mean you have to be unpopular withyour own Marines. But always remember why you exist, which is to serve your Marines. If you rememberthat, you’ll make the right choices. If you remember that, you’ll love your Marines. Always remember whyyou exist and love your Marines with all of your heart and all your soul and all your mind. That is playedout in different ways. When I say “love your Marines” that may not be something that sounds macho orMarine-like, but it is. You need to love them to the point where you discipline them, you love them to thepoint where sometimes you put your arm around them and talk to them. It may mean sometimes that you

36train them harder and further than they ever thought they could go. Sometimes it means you make themendure things they wouldn’t want to endure—but you love them—and you do the hard things for them andyou exist for them. You don’t exist for yourself. You don’t exist for a career. You don’t exist to pay thebills. You don’t exist for anything you can get out of it. You exist to lead your Marines, and if you do thatthey’ll love you back.Carmen – Thank you for taking out of your time today to do this interview with me. I appreciate itvery much.Diorio – My pleasure.