I have no memory of when the suicide truck bomb detonated. Lights went out in the barracks. Dust and smoke filled the air. I found myself lying belly down, legs crossed. Men were gasping and coughing around me.
Then the burning started.
The insurgents had packed chlorine into the truck bomb: it was a chemical attack. It felt as if someone had shoved an open-flame lighter inside my mouth, the flames scorching my throat, my lungs. My eyes burned, and I fought to keep them open.
From nearby, Staff Sergeant “Big Sexy” Francis called, “You all right?”
“Yeah, I’m good!” Mike Marise answered. Mike had been an F-18 fighter pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps who walked away from a comfortable cockpit to fight on the ground in Fallujah.
“Joel, you there?” I shouted to my buddy. My throat was on fire, and though I knew that his bunk was only two feet away, my burning eyes and blurred vision made it impossible to see him in the dust-filled room.
He coughed. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he said.
Lieutenant Colonel Fisher shouted from the hallway. “You can make it out this way! Out this way!”
We stumbled over gear and debris as shots pierced the morning. My body low, my eyes burning, I felt my way over a fallen locker as we all tried to step toward safety. As gunfire ripped through the air, I stepped out of the east side of the building and fell behind an earthen barrier, Lieutenant Colonel Fisher beside me.
On my hands and knees, I began hacking up chlorine gas and spraying spittle. My stomach spasmed in an effort to vomit, but nothing came. Fisher later said he saw puffs of smoke coming from my mouth and nostrils.
I looked down and saw a dark red stain across my shirt and more blood on my pants. I’m injured. I shoved my right hand down my shirt and pressed at my chest, my stomach. I felt no pain, but I knew a surge of adrenaline could mask the pain of an injury.
I patted myself again: chest, armpits, crotch, thighs. No injuries. I pressed my hand to the back of my neck, and when I pulled them away they were sticky with sweat and blood. I still couldn’t find an injury.
Finally, I realized, It’s not my blood.
I couldn’t take a full breath; every time I tried to inhale, my throat gagged and my lungs burned. But we had to join the fight. Mike Marise and I ran back into the building. One of our Iraqi comrades stood in the bombed-out stairwell, firing his AK-47 as the sound of bullets ricocheted around the building.
Fisher and another Marine found Joel sitting on the floor in the chlorine cloud, trying to get his boots on. Shrapnel from the truck bomb had hit Joel in the head.
When he’d said, “I’m fine,” we’d expected him to follow us out of the building. But instead of standing up and moving, his brain had told him boots . . . boots . . . boots as he bled out the back of his head. They pulled Joel out of the building and a medic came to treat him.
Fisher, Francis, and I charged up the twisted bombed-out staircase to higher ground. The truck bomb had blown off the entire western wall of the barracks, and as we raced up the staircase over massive chunks of concrete and debris, we were exposed to gunfire from the west.
Iraqi soldiers from the barracks—our allies—fired away, but I couldn’t see any targets. At the top of the stairs, I paused for a break in the gunfire, sucked in a pained, shallow breath, and then ran onto the rooftop.
A lone Iraqi guard stood there, armed with an M60 and ripping bullets to the west. I ran to cover the northwest, and Francis followed to cover the southwest. A burst of gunfire rang out, and I dove onto the rough brown concrete and crawled through a mess of empty plastic drink bottles, cigarette butts, and dip cans—trash left behind by Iraqi soldiers who’d been on guard duty.
I peered over the edge of the roof to check for targets and caught sight of a tall minaret on a mosque to the northeast. It was not uncommon for snipers to take positions inside minarets and shoot at Americans. It would have been a long shot for even the best sniper, but as I scanned the streets, I kept my head moving, just in case.
Below me, women and children scattered in all directions. Far off to the north, I saw armed men running toward the building. I steadied my rifle and aimed. I took a slow breath, focused my sights, laid the pad of my finger on the trigger . . .
No. Those were Iraqi police from our base.
I called to Francis, “You see anything? You have any targets?”
“Nothing.”
The sun rose. I felt the heat of the day begin to sink into the roof. I waited. I watched. My breathing was still shallow, and I felt as if someone had tightened a belt around my lungs and was pulling hard, squeezing the air from me. I glanced over the ledge of the roof again.
Nothing.
I considered our situation: We had plenty of bullets, and my med kit was intact. We had the high ground, good cover, and a clear view of every avenue of approach. We’d need some water eventually, but we could stay here for hours if necessary. Sitting there in a nasty pile of trash on the rooftop of a bombed-out Iraqi building in Fallujah, I thought: Man, I’m lucky.
A moment later, Travis Manion and two other Marines ran onto the roof. Travis was a recent graduate of the United States Naval Academy, where he’d been an outstanding wrestler. I came to know him while we patrolled the streets of Fallujah together. Travis was tough, yet he walked with a smile on his face.
I glanced at the minaret again. The sky was blue and clear—a beautiful day. The radio crackled with traffic informing us that a Quick Reaction Force of tanks was on its way. After the explosion and the gunfire and the rush of adrenaline, the day grew quiet and hot. Tanks arrived, and a few Humvees rolled in for an evacuation of the injured. Because we’d been in the blast, Francis and I were ordered to leave with the casevac for the hospital.
I called over to Travis: “You got it?”
“Yeah, I got your back, sir.”
Later it would strike me how matter-of-fact that had become—one man taking responsibility for another man’s life, if only for a moment.
All the armored vehicles were full, so a young Marine and I climbed into the open bed of a Humvee made for moving gear. For armor, two big green steel plates had been welded to its sides. Lying flat, we had about as much cover as two kids in the back of a pickup truck during a water-gun fight. As we drove for the base, we’d be exposed to fire from windows and rooftops. I readied my rifle, prepared to shoot from my back as the Humvee raced through Fallujah, bumping and bouncing over the uneven dirt roads.
When we’d made it out of the city, I turned to the young Marine beside me.
“You okay?” I asked.
He gave me a smirk. “You know what, sir?” he said. “I think I’m ready to head home after this one.” Somehow that seemed hilarious to us, and we both laughed our heads off, exhausted, relieved.
At Fallujah Surgical, I was treated among a motley crew of Americans and Iraqis, many half-dressed, bedraggled, bloody. I asked about Joel, and they told me his head injury had been severe enough that they’d flown him straight to Baghdad.
When I got back to the barracks, I pulled off my boots, peeled off my clothes, and threw my armor in a corner. Everything reeked of chlorine. I stepped into a shower. As the water ran over me, I rubbed my scalp. Down fell tiny bits of concrete from the explosion. I watched as the pieces fell to the shower floor and washed down the drain. That was close.
For the next few weeks, I spent every night hacking and coughing in bed. When I woke in the morning and tried to run, my lungs hurt. I felt like they had been zipped half-shut. Still, I ran every day, and eventually I could take a deep, full breath. I lost a bit of my hearing for a few weeks, but it could have been far worse.
Not everyone I served with that day would be so lucky.