Back Clearing
The Darkhorse Marines continued their room-to-room clearing behind 3/1 in the Jolan and around MICHIGAN, while Buhl’s Kilo Company Marines climbed into their vehicles and drove north to GRACE, dismounted, and started another squeegee stroke to clear from the north to the south. Ramos’ Marines conducted patrols from firm bases scattered throughout the northeast section of Fallujah. Gary Brandl’s Charlie Company pushed south to clear behind Cunningham’s and Omohundro’s advance. As Bethea’s Marines moved south to clear the large buildings across from the Government Center, Colonel Shupp packed up and started moving his regimental command post from the apartment complex to a four-story building in Fallujah’s Government complex.
Newell still held the industrial area down through the garbage field. Task Force 2–2 had found VBIED factories, one with a large stockpile of a white powdery substance.1 Just to be safe, the soldiers called in the Division’s NBC2 unit to clean up the potentially hazardous material. They uncovered tunnel networks, weapons caches, fighting positions, and enemy casualty collection points with pre-staged medical supplies. Newell called in a Marine 155mm artillery barrage on one of the larger underground bunker complexes he found deep down south. Some 150 rounds pounded the area in an effort to collapse the bunkers, but the barrage had little effect on the fortifications.