Four Marines on a Rooftop

Submitted by Corporal Joe Cosentino, one of my vehicle commanders. Describing the early few days of Operation Vigilant Resolve:

We had been in the city of Fallujah for a couple days already.  The fighting had been pretty heavy as we began securing our foothold in the Northwest corner of the city.  I’ll never forget the sight of the first night as we pulled in to that corner, under the cover of darkness, seeing the world in a solid green through night vision goggles.  If I close my eyes I can still the muzzle flashes, and I remember vividly the PAQ-2 infrared lasers searching frantically from window to window to find them.

I won’t get into the stories of what had happened in terms of where the other companies of BN 2/1 were, because honestly, I wasn’t as good as writing it all down as Ryan was.  Time has faded those memories, and even now the timeline of events become hazy, but what I remember I will share.

We had been in the city of Fallujah for a couple days already.  We had started to dig in, finding Iraqi buildings to occupy and securing our stronghold on the city.  It was at this time Echo Company had established itself in their school building.  I remember on the radio hearing when Marines from Echo and Fox had been hurt, but I wasn’t nearby or involved enough to recall more.  I only know the company was behind us, because it was at this time I captured Ethan and Phil in their hide position helping support Echo, and doing what the History Channel would later document. (Note: the dates on the pictures are incorrect.  I hadn’t figured out how to set the date on the camera, and I bought it a month and 12 days prior to this picture being taken. Hence the reason for February 12^th.)

I was a Vehicle Commander for CAAT Platoon, WPNS Co 2/1, and a young Corporal leading Marines for the first time.  After the push into the city and several days of fighting to gain our footholds, we had secured a walled home that we could use to provide cover for our Humvees while some of the 2/1 Companies who had secured the school house and other buildings were conducting foot patrols into the city.

We had attempted mounted patrols once into this corner of the city, but it hadn’t ended well.  At this time, we were still driving older Humvees, we hadn’t received any armored ones yet.  Hell at this time, we were still using IFAV vehicles, and neither of which were good strategically in urban environment.  The mounted patrol we had attempted had insurgents jumping out and shooting up the vehicles, and by the grace of God, no one had been seriously injured.  (Corporal Hartrick had taken a round in the thigh, but was back in action several days later).  So we secured a few buildings that we could use to provide cover for the vehicles.  While Echo and Fox Companies were conducting the dismounted patrols and clearing buildings through the city, we had dismounted some of our heavy weapons to move to rooftops, to provide covering fire into the city.  Below is a picture of our dismounted MK-19 on the rooftop of one the buildings.  My apologies for the crude gestures (although the insurgents definitely deserved it).

The dismounted MK-19 provided cover fire for when USMC Cobra’s and F-16’s were conducting maneuvers over the city.  Each time one of the Helos flew over the city, insurgents would spring from their rat’s nests in an attempt to pop a few Ak-47 rounds off at them.  It was only at this time that we could get clear sights on which buildings they might be occupying, and we could attempt to take them out or at the very least suppress them so our air could do their jobs.

In an attempt to get better sight lines on the enemy, 4 young Marines pushed about 2 blocks south of friendly lines.  Corporal Onsgard, Lcpl Twitchell, Lcpl Byro and myself.  This building would become our home for the next 48 hours, and this is where my story truly begins.

We secured a 3-story building, one of the tallest in the area that provided some pretty solid views of the Northwest corner of the city, and really gave us a great view of most of the area rooftops where the insurgents had been going to fire shots at the incoming helicopters.  Below are some views of Fallujah:

We spent hours on that rooftop, calling out targets, and having a pretty awesome view of USMC power and authority as Woody, Darkstar, and Oprah made some strongholds of enemy insurgents pay.  I want to say that this extreme measure was used after the attacks on Echo and Fox company patrols had taken heavy fire, and Marines had been wounded and killed.

This is one of several airstrikes called in by Joe’s team. I had navigated the maze of trip wires to join them on the rooftop for a few hours.

The days were some of the longest days of my life, with very little sleep.  Long hours spent in the sun calling in movement on the rooftops.  The near impossible task of marking targets for hellfire missiles with smoke grenades at ranges of over 500 meters from Onsgard’s grenade launcher.  At one point, one of the strafing runs by an F-16 almost put us down with friendly fire, and LCpl Twitchell took a small piece of shrapnel to the hip.

This is two of the dozens of strafing runs conducted by USAF F-16 fighter jets. As you can see they were coming in low enough to be vulnerable to ground fire, making the suppression of firing points of utmost importance. You can clearly hear the gunfire from insurgent positions in the background.

Thinking back and having the hindsight that only time can provide, this was some of the riskiest and dangerous moments I endured during Operation Vigilant Resolve.  On this rooftop was just the 4 of us Marines.  That isn’t what had me worried.  A fire team of Marines could have held back the gates of hell and we had a Battalion of Marines behind us.  But being a few blocks south of friendly lines, on a rooftop by ourselves, in the midst of a city, exposed to insurgents more than willing to fight–It was just us.

We endured our own share of fighting on this rooftop.  We had “secured” the house by stacking pots and pans on most of the doors leading up to the rooftop, and I know we setup a few trip flares and a claymore within the house as our means of ensuring we’d at least be alone on the rooftop.  I remember our LT almost set off one of the flares just trying to get up to check on our position.  On top of marking targets, we had engaged plenty of the rooftop fighters with our own M16’s.  In my closest battle with the enemy, 4 enemy insurgents had realized we were on this rooftop.  It started early in the morning after a long night of being awake.  We had started taking fire into the wall of the roof we were on from almost directly below us.  Less than 50 meters away, 4 insurgents had begun firing on our position from a corner home directly across the building in front of ours.  We were in the midst of returning fire when a grenade landed on the rooftop in front of our position.  I had barely noticed it when Onsgard had screamed “get down” and shoved me to ground behind the wall we were using for cover.   We waited for what I could describe as eternity for that grenade to go off, which was probably only 20-30 seconds, only for nothing to have happen.   We both peaked over the wall to see what was going on and why there were no loud booms.  The insurgents, as untrained as they were, had forgotten to pull the pin on the grenade.

As we breathed a sigh of relief, Onsgard and I said we cannot let them do that again.  Finally locating the end of a walled home from which they were shooting, Twitchell, Byro and I began providing suppression fire to corner them, while Onsgard loaded his M203 with another grenade.  Our return engagements had created the perfect pattern for this attack, as we shot they took cover, and when we stopped and took cover ourselves, they returned fire.  Noticing the pattern, I told Onsgard I would shoot, take a small pause and when I did this time we would not take cover, but wait for them to pop out to engage us back.  At this time, two insurgents popped out, one was taken down by me while the other by Onsgard’s M203 grenade round.  We waited for the remaining two insurgents, but they had fled, apparently deciding they had enough of the marines who had taken out their friends.

This is the video Ryan took of Joe’s four man team on the rooftop in the Jolan Heights neighborhood as they were assisting Fox Co in calling in airstrikes on targets.

These 48 hours on the roof were daunting; we were exhausted and had barely slept.  That night after the attack, we were settling in for another long night when we got word that the AC-130 specter gunship would be on station.  We were told to mark the rooftop with IR chemical lights, and we finally got to close our eyes a bit.  That AC-130 gunship engaged targets, including what I was later told was a squad size force moving directly towards our area.  I never got a chance to thank the specter pilot and gunner, but if they ever read this, Thank You.  Below is a picture of Onsgard on day 2, during a break for water and food, and to get out of the sun. (His Norwegian skin didn’t fare well in the Iraqi sun.)

Here is a clip of one of the nights that “Slayer” was on station. Slayer was the call sign for the first AC-130 gunship that supported us during Vigilant Resolve.

Once again, hindsight becomes clear, and time fades other memories.   After our 48-hour vigil, we decided it was time to descend from our roof since the enemy knew our position.  We pulled out of the city several days later, which I only remember as being a political move, not strategic.   But what I will say is I’ll never forget the three Marines who secured the roof in city of Fallujah with me. Semper Fi.