Deadly Enemy Stronghold

3/5 had nearly finished its second, long day of clearing. Only a few more buildings remained, and then Kilo Company could rest. Second Lieutenant Colin Browning’s Third Platoon Marines moved into a single house to prepare for the push through the final few structures. Suddenly, McNulty’s Marines encountered two enemy positions a block apart.

Sergeant Jeffrey Kirk, a 24-year-old Louisiana native, was Browning’s First Squad Leader. Kirk had been a high school honor student who loved poetry. Staff Sergeant Kenneth A. Distelhorst, who had wanted to be a Marine for as long as he could remember, led Second Squad. Both were model Marine NCOs, dedicated to the Corps and their Marines. Both had been handpicked by Lieutenant Colonel Malay to lead their squads.

Kirk and Distelhorst decided that they needed to check out the next house before they moved their squads out of their current stronghold. Kirk took off out the door and down the narrow alleyway. The Marines’ squad radios weren’t working well and Distelhorst wanted to keep an eye on his friend, so he followed him out the door with one of his team leaders, Corporal William Silcox, Jr., to watch where Kirk was going.

Kirk stopped at a locked gate, and by the time Distelhorst and Silcox caught up with him, he was trying to kick it in. The gate didn’t budge, so they started pounding at it with a sledgehammer. After several swings the lock gave way to their abuse and the gate swung open.

The three Marines decided to clear the house on their own. Kirk took point as the three entered the courtyard and pushed toward the front door. Distelhorst looked over and spotted an unmanned RPK machine gun aimed toward the front door.

“Be careful. The door could be booby-trapped,” Distelhorst cautioned Kirk as he backed away. Kirk continued to test the doorknob.¹³

With Kirk, Distelhorst, and Silcox at their doorstep, one of the insurgents lobbed a German pineapple grenade into the courtyard. Distelhorst never saw it as it rolled between his legs. Kirk was the first to see the grenade.

“Sergeant D, grenade!” Kirk yelled as he hugged the wall.

Distelhorst looked down, saw the grenade at his feet, and tried to sprint away. He was only able to take a step or two before the grenade exploded, sending a quarter-sized piece of shrapnel through Distelhorst’s foot and peppering his legs with pieces of flying debris. Somehow, Distelhorst’s left index finger was also split open in the explosion, but in the chaos of the fight he didn’t even realize he had been hit at all. He continued running out of the courtyard into the street.

Just as Kirk’s fight was beginning, three close friends, Private First Class Chris Adlesperger, Lance Corporal Erick Hodges, and Corporal Ryan Sunnerville, reached a corner house only one block east of Kirk. Together, they entered their umpteenth courtyard of the day. Right behind them at the gate to the street were Lance Corporals Alston Hays and John Aylmer and Corporal Jeremy Baker. Adlesperger moved to the right and kicked in the first door. Hodges and Sunnerville were heading for the second door across the courtyard when a hail of machine gun fire opened on them from inside the building.

The enemy had been lying in wait for the Marines. One had positioned himself so that he could shoot out into the courtyard through a small hole in the wall. His first burst of fire cut down Hodges. Inside the courtyard, Navy Corpsman Alonso Rogero and Sunnerville were also hit, Rogero in the stomach and Sunnerville in the leg.

The Marines exchanged fire, not yet realizing that they were facing eleven insurgents barricaded less than twenty feet away. Adlesperger rushed to help Rogero and Sunnerville, firing as he moved toward the hidden machine gun position. All three made it into an outside alcove, out of the enemy’s line of fire.