It’s been 15 years since the U.S. military's battle for Fallujah. November 2004. This will be a little long. Just stay with me for a while, I promise I’ll get there. (All of this is from reporting clips and a bit of memory. Haven’t gone back through notebooks) 
During the first week of June 2003, the Grand Hyatt in Amman was hosting a conference, “Doing Business With Iraq.” U.S. diplomats and aid agency heads met with businessmen, mostly Jordanian, to talk about the post-invasion landscape.
I was on my way to Iraq, after a month or so in the States taking a rest following my embed during the invasion. I stopped by the Hyatt to do a quick feature on these guys, who were crowded around, trying to figure out how to get a piece.
I wrote of men "out on the hotel bar's patio, smoking Cuban cigars and talking about the wealth to be had." Looking out toward the ornate blue dome of a mosque, they ordered drinks, told stories. Iraq was an old trading partner, they only had only to make the right connections
I paused after writing that just now. Good Lord. Think about that moment, of no one having any idea what was about to happen. Of the death, the violence, the forces that today are still tearing at maps and lives.
Sipping whiskey and gazing at the night sky, counting the imaginary dollars in their heads.
In the middle of that scene, a waiter asked me what I was doing in Amman. I told him I’d been in Iraq for the invasion, riding in the back of a Humvee with the 101st, but didn’t really know the place yet. I was headed back. He asked if he could give me a piece of advice.
Whatever you write about Iraq, the opposite will also be true, he said. It was a throwaway line, from a waiter arching his eyebrow at the scene of self-satisfied businessmen and an American reporter who clearly was out of his element.
By the time I was riding across the border in a SUV, speeding in the early, dark morning across the desert and Anbar province, past Fallujah, into Baghdad and the al Hamra hotel, where I’d spend much of the next three years, it was the last thing on my mind.
But yesterday, looking out the window in Singapore, with Jason Isbell on the speakers and my boys off at school, the breeze in the trees outside, that phrase came back to me.
Fallujah is now shorthand for bloodshed, for chaos and danger -- the deaths on the bridge, the countless days of warfare, the terrible lunacy of beheading videos, the Islamic State. There have been many “Battles for Fallujah.”
But before the twinning of the name Fallujah and terror, I first spent a fair amount of time there that first year, 2003. It was a place. A city. Shops. Restaurants. Families.
The same day my story about the Amman conference ran, June 5, @danahull had a story from Fallujah. It began like this: One U.S. soldier was killed and five were wounded early Thursday when an unknown assailant sneaked over a wall and fired a rocket-propelled grenade
@danahull When I’d left Baghdad in April, chaos was setting in – I remember watching buildings getting stripped bare, first the furniture and large appliances, all the way down to wiring – but the guys I was with from the 101st were greeted by friendly crowds
@danahull I wrote on April 11, 2003--> Men yelled, "Welcome, welcome, mister," and young boys ran up, smiling, and gave high fives.
@danahull "It's not really how I expected it to be," said 1st Lt. Bill Reker. "I thought we'd come in guns blazing, meeting resistance." Instead, they met chanting and clapping. Iraqis tried to trade dinars for dollars, and gave away bags of bread
@danahull And now, less than two months later, my colleagues were writing about RPG attacks just down the road from Baghdad. A protest in April had turned violent, with more than a dozen people in the crowd killed by American fire. What was happening?
@danahull Reading through my clips from the time, sitting here in 2019, I get a sense of dread. It’s so clear things were going to get bad, people were going to die. But at the time I didn't really understand what that meant. I was running from Fallujah to Baghdad, with the windows down.
@danahull I was 27. I understood things were violent. My focus, though, was filing one story then the next. Now, after all these years later out in the world, the facts in those dispatches from the ground, one after the next, make clear that deeply terrible shit was coming.
@danahull Fallujah was in a lot of ways my introduction to Iraq. We’d drive over for the day from Baghdad and report. I smoked cigarettes and traded jokes with tribal leaders. I had luscious kebabs at Haji Hussein’s and lingered over tea so sweet I can still feel it in my teeth.
@danahull People there were angry. Beyond house searches and whispers of X-ray goggles that allowed soldiers to see through womens’ clothes, much of the area was both very rural and very religious. They did not want foreign troops. The area was fertile for insurgency.
@danahull On the other hand, many of the US soldiers based in the area were from the 3rd Infantry Division. 3ID had formed the tip of the spear in the invasion, the Thunder Run into Baghdad in April, a hell of a punch that felled Saddam. They thought they’d head home soon after.
@danahull But now they were in Fallujah. In many ways, the war, which had already been fought and won, was just beginning.
@danahull I quoted two 3ID guys: “The soldiers of the 3rd ID, the two men pointed out, were deployed to Kuwait more than eight months ago, fought the main thrust of the Iraqi war, and are still taking fire from people who speak a language they don't understand.”
@danahull The cycle of violence churned. An RPG launched here, small arms ambush there. I wrote: “No less than three soldiers have been killed and 21 wounded in Fallujah since major combat operations ended on May 1, an average, roughly, of one soldier hit every two days.”
@danahull A brigade commander told me his unit was trying to piece together who was shooting at his men: “I have no idea, it could be former Baath party members. It could be mob-type people. It's hard to say because there are so many elements here with agendas”
@danahull I went on foot patrols: Sweat was dripping down 1st Lt. Eric Moberley's neck as he made his way up one narrow alley after the other. "Ever since the war ended, the action started," Moberley said. "I don't see an end to it all any time soon, it's like anarchy."
@danahull There was a map tracking incidents on the wall of an intelligence unit tent at the 3rd ID camp. A chart had a drawing of a hunter holding a bunch of dead ducks by the neck and slashes on it for Iraqi fighters killed, under the phrase "Operation Smackdown."
@danahull In the meantime, the titular mayor of the city, a former exile working out of an office protected by the U.S. military, explained of locals that, "They do not know what is good for them. Until now they do not know how to think," he said. "The people are still confused."
@danahull In Washington, there was push back against the notion that guerrilla war had begun. I spent time w/ a 13yo named Ahmed, whose older brother had been a security guard for the Fallujah mayor when he got shot by a US soldier. A cop who was w/him at the time was also shot, and died
@danahull Ahmed explained to me that, "We wish that Allah would have revenge on the Americans.” The U.S. military was launching operations across the surrounding al Anbar province.
@danahull Out in Rawah, past Fallujah and toward Syria, there was the aftermath of a U.S. strike on a suspected terrorist training camp. We drove over from Baghdad; I think it took about four hours.
@danahull Locals took me to see the wreckage of an Apache helicopter that had been shot down. The corpses of the men who targeted it were in a shallow grave; their stench in my nose as I walked by.
@danahull There was a graveyard for 78 men with rocks as markers. I remember the unreal site of soda bottles stuck in the ground for graves where the names of the dead were known – they were written on slips of paper and folded inside the glass.
@danahull We got to the remnants of the camp by way of a local who got in the car and directed us along piles of rocks used as sign posts to a small strip of land between a row of reeds in a creek bed and a cliff in the middle of the desert.
@danahull There was a man's thumb sitting on the ground beside a charred straw mat. Several yards away, an arm, cut off slightly above the elbow, not far from the charred remains of a Quran. There were empty ammunition boxes, backpacks with pockets for RPG rounds.
@danahull One villager explained to me that the dead men included fighters, “from Syria, Jordan, and one was even from France … of course they were going to kill the Americans, everyone hates the Americans."
@danahull That night, a man let me and two strangers sleep in his home, fed us, and said our safety was his honor.
@danahull On one trip, I made a mistake. We went to meet the family of a man killed by US soldiers. We were out at a farm, sitting in a circle of family members. The more they spoke, the angrier they got. One man thundered that the next time he saw an American he would get his revenge.
@danahull Everyone looked at me. In the sort of flash of dread that comes in those situations – like seeing the belly of a fighter jet overhead and realizing you’re the only car moving on the road – I realized that not only my life, but that of my local colleagues, was no longer guaranteed
@danahull There is no other way to put this: I had fucked up.
@danahull With the same misguided arrogance that got us there in the first place, I scribbled something on a piece of notebook paper and handed it to the man who’d spoken. He looked down at it and asked what I'd given him.
@danahull My Iraqi colleague, not entirely confident about where this was going, asked me what I’d done. I told him that on that piece of paper was the word: Revenge. And that it was the only revenge I could offer. When that was explained, the man paused and then laughed.
@danahull I share that because it was al Anbar. Dangerous, but full of men who would invite you into their homes, share their stories, share their food, and then laugh at a young man’s foolish bravado and shake hands.
@danahull In February of 2004, a group of gunmen rolled through the streets of Fallujah and in broad daylight attacked an Iraqi police station, releasing prisoners and killing at least 20 and wounding dozens.
@danahull The battle began at about 8:30 a.m. when a line of attackers drove through the middle of town and got out of their cars and trucks with machine guns. Others scrambled to the top of rooftops with rocket-propelled grenades or mortar kits.
@danahull Residents said there'd been fliers circulating through town from a group purporting to be an insurgent Islamic organization warning that it would soon install its own government. Those cooperating with the Americans, such as the police, could expect punishment.
@danahull A local barber was opening up his shop when he saw the procession. “I asked them what they were doing and they said shut up or we will we shoot you in the face.” People we interviewed said many of the fighters were foreign.
@danahull A week earlier, the United States had raised the bounty to $10 million for Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who they blamed for a spate of suicide bombings. You might recognize his name from more recent events – he was the leader of the precursor of the Islamic State.
@danahull Things in town were hostile – I had the barrel of a gun shoved in my chest. A police official said that proving whether or not the attackers were foreigners didn’t matter after the day's bloodshed. "It's too late for the truth," he said. "We are in the middle of a war."
@danahull Not long after, I went back to the States for a break. I’d been hired by the Miami Herald, which agreed to let me go back to Iraq to keep reporting. When I returned to Iraq that summer, the Fallujah I knew had disappeared. It was gone and would not come back.
@danahull Things had gotten so dangerous that it was no longer possible to drive there. Most reporters went as embeds with the military, flying in on helicopters and getting off at the same bases where I’d previously dropped by for chats with officers before heading to lunch.
@danahull A reporter from the Washington Post took a ride over and ended up in a vehicle pumped full of bullets. nextwarnotes.org/memories-lost-…
@danahull In June 2004, President Bush declared that sovereignty had been handed over to Iraq’s interim government. I traveled to Diyala Province to see what changes that brought in security for American soldiers.
@danahull Diyala is a beautiful spot – lots of date palm groves, grainy light in the late afternoon, winding rivers. It’s also the place where, two years later in 2006, Abu Musab al Zarqawi was killed in a US airstrike.
@danahull I met a guy named Kamil Sztalkoper, a first lieutenant in the 1st Infantry Division. I described him looking a little bookish, something he reminded me of when we met later, in Fallujah. Waiting on a convoy to take us to a town called Muqdadiyah, we spoke about insurgency
@danahull “You get taught to do symmetrical fighting, but here in Iraq it's a guerilla war, where it's not just in front of you, it's behind you, it's on the rooftops, it's below you in the sewers”
@danahull About an hour later, the convoy we were in got hit by a roadside bomb, a crude thing made from artillery shells wrapped with explosives. There was the loud noise, the dust, then a burst of AK-47 gunfire from the side. A Humvee gunner returned fire with the thud-thud of a .50-cal
@danahull And now there was Sztalkoper, holding a saline bag in the middle of the road. Two soldiers were on the ground in front of him; one a staff sergeant with shrapnel wounds to his lower legs who was able to talk, another a sergeant whose legs and feet were badly mangled.
@danahull Sztalkoper, his face pale, leaned down and ran his hands through the hair of one of the men, amid the wreckage, saying, "You OK? You're doing good, you're doing fine." The afternoon sun beat down; it was above 110 degrees, and curious Iraqis stood in doorways and watched
@danahull A medic tore through a bag, looking for the right bandages. "Talk to me baby, talk to me baby, you're doing good," said a solider crouched by the more seriously wounded sergeant.
@danahull An officer standing to the side filled out slips of small, white pieces of paper, listing the time of attack, the place, the mens' names and a description of their injuries. The slips were pinned to the buttonholes of torn, bloody shirts.
@danahull (I looked up the photo from that day, taken by the photographer who was with me. It’s as powerful and terrible as I remembered. I won’t post it here.)
@danahull I spent the summer and fall covering war. A Shiite militia led by Muqtada al Sadr was running the capital’s biggest neighborhood. They were also in the holy city of Najaf. They’d give us permission slips to enter – dutifully checked by gunmen at checkpoints.
@danahull Whatever was being said in DC, that’s often who was in charge in the streets of Iraq. Men with AK-47s and RPGs. Everything was spinning out of control.
@danahull Depending on what part of the country you were in, Sunni insurgents or Shiite militias launched attacks on U.S. military. Sunni insurgents detonated car bombs in Shiite areas. Shiite militias rounded up Sunnis, tortured and killed them.
@danahull So, Fallujah, November 2004. Fifteen years ago. The U.S. military announced it was going to take it back from the insurgents, who were running it like some ultra-violent, deranged version of a caliphate, creating a beehive of fighters who’d swarmed in from across the region.
@danahull The Marines and Army had been building up their presence outside the city for weeks. An intelligence officer with the 1 Marine Expeditionary Force said he thought there were some 4,000 to 5,000 fighters between Fallujah and nearby Ramadi.
@danahull A group of reporters was flown out there. I didn’t have an embed slot with a unit that was going in. I wrote a piece about expected casualties. Because the insurgents knew the Americans were coming, it was generally assumed the city had been turned into one big trap.
@danahull A Navy surgeon talked about wounds. "To treat a patient when (his) brain is coming out ... ," she said, before her voice trailed off. "There are things that I will never understand. It's beyond my comprehension; a higher power will have to explain why these things have happened."
@danahull I don’t remember where I was, exactly, but I ran into 1Lt Sztalkoper. His unit was there for the push into the city. Could I come with them, I asked. Sure, he said.
@danahull I got a seat with Alpha Company, of the 1st Infantry Division’s Task Force 2-2. The company commander, a captain named Sean Sims, told me that, “everybody realizes that it’s something that will affect the rest of our lives, in terms of seeing that type of combat.”
@danahull Sims reminded me of a lot of the captains I’d met in Iraq. They were smart, decent men, trying to figure out how to deal with extraordinarily complex problems for which there was no clear answer – infrastructure, governance, history, insurgency, religion, violence, death.
@danahull A battalion commander gathered his men in a circle on the morning of November 8, 2004, and spoke of their role in a battle of good versus evil. Later that day, I watched with Sims as mortars fell. Then there was sniper fire, and return fire.
@danahull That evening, crammed in the back of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, Sim and his men went into Fallujah. The heaviest fighting lasted about a week.
@danahull As I rode through it, I watched Fallujah, block by block, be destroyed. No one in the Bradley with me had ever walked around its streets, had ever shared a kebab or a cigarette with the men of that town. That time, that place, was finished.
@danahull David Bellavia was also with the 2-2 in Fallujah (I was close, but following a different group of guys.) He was recently awarded the Medal of Honor and his description of the fighting, and the footage, conveys what was happening: cbsnews.com/video/medal-of…
@danahull Some snapshots from my stories at the time: “Insurgent AK-47 fire rang off the sides of the Bradley. Explosions sounded to the rear, but it was impossible to tell which belonged to roadside bombs and which were rocket-propelled grenades.”
@danahull “The rear hatch of the Bradley lowered amid yells of ‘Dismount! Dismount!’ The soldiers, having ridden in a tight, sweaty box through the battle – their knees cramped and aching – ran out, then slammed to their knees and took cover beside a wall.”
@danahull “Then came “Go! Go! Go!” and the men busted through the front door of a house and, waving their rifles, cleared rooms before storming upstairs.”
@danahull “Mortar rounds began to fall, at first far away, then closer and closer as unseen insurgents walked their mortar fire forward a few feet at a time. Sims’ Bradley was stuck between two other vehicles, but to veer off the road would risk hitting a mine or bomb.”
@danahull “Another mortar fell, and its shrapnel tattooed the side of the Bradley and rattled those sitting inside. ‘Kill those bastards, kill those motherfuckers,’ someone screamed in the darkness.”
@danahull “The streets outside were littered with dead men, their corpses left for cats and dogs to gnaw on after the sun set. The sight of bearded insurgents, eyes open, lying in gutters was no longer a novelty.”
@danahull “Walking through the house, Ofori turned his gun toward a doorway. Shots rang out. A fighter in the room had been waiting with a grenade in hand. He’d probably been listening the entire time as the men sat on the sofa next door, their voices wafting through the holes in the wall.
@danahull “When he jumped forward, he didn’t scream ‘Allahu Akbar’ – God is Great – as insurgents often did. He moved in silence, until Ofori’s fire blew him back. Ofori looked down for a few seconds and walked out of the room.”
@danahull “A reporter offered Sims a satellite phone to call his family. No thanks, he said. He wanted to talk with them when he got somewhere quieter. He had an infant son, Colin, whose brown hair and small ears, which poked out on the sides, looked just like his father’s.”
@danahull Here, I want to quote from a book that featured Sim’s wife. (You've come this far -- click and read through each)
@danahull On the way out of Baghdad later that year, I was in Amman again. The bar at the Hyatt was still there, so was the view of the mosque and the cigars. But a year and a half later, I wasn’t interested.
@danahull To be honest, I don’t remember exactly what I did. I probably took a walk around the Roman ruins downtown, something I almost always did. Sometimes a trip to the Dead Sea or Petra. I’d gone from a kid reporting in Eastern Kentucky to someone who knew those places intimately
@danahull I was on my way to Cairo, to friends and smoking shisha on the banks of the Nile. And pretending that was all just part of my life now.
@danahull But before I left Amman, I stopped to pick something up, to buy something that didn’t help anything make sense, but that reminded me of a town I once knew.
@danahull Whatever I say, the opposite will also be true. It was a place that terrified me. And a place that I loved.
