Ramadi, 2004

The battle, stage by stage

1. 5–6 April 2004, before the fighting

   A city held by one battalion

   In March 2004 the 1st Marine Division took over al-Anbar province from the 82nd Airborne Division and set up its headquarters at Camp Blue Diamond on the Euphrates. Ramadi, the provincial capital of about 400,000 people, was the main effort of the Army's 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, reinforced by the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines — the 'Magnificent Bastards' under Lt. Col. Paul Kennedy, about 1,000 men who had arrived in February. The battalion command post sat on the palace grounds at Hurricane Point by the Ramadi Barrage; Company E worked from the Combat Outpost at the eastern end of Highway 10 (Route Michigan), and Company G patrolled southern Ramadi. With most of the division's strength drawn to the siege of Fallujah from 5 April, insurgents — described as former regime loyalists and Islamist fighters — prepared to rise in Ramadi. Marines later recalled women and children vanishing from the streets the day before. Base positions here are approximate.

2. 6 April, about 10:45–12:30

   Golf Company in the Ma'laab

   At about 10:48, according to the battalion's record as summarised in later accounts, a Company G patrol takes small-arms and RPG fire in the Ma'laab district of eastern Ramadi. The Marines chase the attackers into a building and fight there until about 12:05; two squads are pinned down, and a quick reaction force is engaged a block to the east. Capt. Christopher Bronzi leads a fire team into a fire-swept street to recover a fallen Marine (he later received the Silver Star). The 3rd Mobile Assault Platoon of Weapons Company, 27 Marines, is sent to evacuate two wounded Golf Marines and finds another squad and a company in a heavy fight on a street the Marines called 'Easy Street'; Sgt. Kenneth Conde, shot through the shoulder, keeps fighting. Street-level positions are schematic.

3. 6 April, about 13:30–15:00

   Echo Company: the marketplace

   In the early afternoon the fighting spreads east. Company E, cordoning a reported roadside bomb on the eastern outskirts, comes under fire, and a sniper team near the Euphrates is attacked by 12 to 15 men. A squad is cut off on Route Nova. First Platoon, clearing the main supply route, loses Lance Cpls. Benjamin Carman and Marcus Cherry north-west of a marketplace. Capt. Kelly Royer sends the company quick reaction force, and 2nd Lt. John Wroblewski's 2nd Platoon is ambushed at the market's T-intersection by roughly 50 fighters on rooftops, one with a heavy machine gun. In under a minute most of the Marines in the lead, unarmoured Humvee are killed, among them Staff Sgt. Allan Walker and the corpsman, Hospitalman 3rd Class Fernando Mendez-Aceves; Lance Cpl. Deshon Otey is the only survivor. Wroblewski is mortally wounded. The marketplace and Route Nova are placed approximately.

4. 6 April, afternoon–night

   Relief columns

   Cpl. Eric Smith takes over 2nd Platoon, moves it to cover, goes back across open ground for his platoon commander and the weapons, and leads a counter-attack with machine guns and the platoon's 7-ton truck that reaches the isolated squad (he received the Silver Star, upgraded in 2017 to the Navy Cross). Capt. Robert Weiler's Weapons Company drives east to relieve the squad on Route Nova and is ambushed on the way; an Army Bradley platoon of the 1st Brigade helps evacuate the wounded and cover the withdrawal. A Company F reaction force is shaken by a car bomb on the highway. Early reports placed the attack near the governor's buildings downtown. The operations officer, Maj. John Harrill, takes the forward command element into the centre of the fighting; by his citation six companies fought in eight places over about seven hours. Twelve Marines were killed that day, ten of them from Company E — one of the deadliest days for U.S. forces since the 2003 invasion.

5. 7 April

   Golf surrounded; Route Apple

   The fighting resumes. In southern Ramadi Golf Company's 3rd Squad, 4th Platoon, is surrounded and forced into a building. Bronzi climbs to a roof to direct his Marines, links up the 2nd and 4th Platoons under fire, and brings the squad out to a rally point and the company firebase. Weiler takes his company to reinforce a unit in contact on Route Apple; moving north-east, the column meets heavy RPG and automatic-weapons fire, and he leads squads against the enemy positions in a three-hour firefight. Bronzi's citation credits his company's two days of fighting with about 250 insurgents killed; overall enemy losses in the week are uncertain. Route Apple and the Golf positions are schematic.

6. 8–9 April

   Raids and road bombs

   The battalion goes after the attackers: raids on houses and caches (on 6 April the 3rd Mobile Assault Platoon had already seized a large cache at the home of a former Ba'ath Party official) take several hundred weapons in the following days. The roads stay deadly. On Good Friday, 9 April, a bomb explodes beside a Company E 7-ton truck on a road sweep and a second device kills the driver; Pfc. Eric Ayon, who had survived the marketplace ambush, is killed by a roadside bomb at the same intersection.

7. 10 April

   House to house

   Before dawn on Saturday Company E begins a cordon-and-search and is caught in crossfire from front and rear; Royer's helmet is struck. With the company command element pinned down, 2nd Lt. Thomas Cogan crosses an open field under fire to direct his 3rd Platoon's fire, then leads it through a three-hour house-to-house assault (he received the Silver Star). Lance Cpl. John Sims is shot and dies on the way to a Bradley; helicopter gunships end the fight in three passes. Weapons Company's citations also record a four-hour fight in an operation code-named Bug Hunt. This counter-attack effectively ended the April uprising in the city. Positions are schematic.

8. 11 April and after

   Easter in the hangar

   On Easter Sunday the battalion holds a memorial in the Combat Outpost hangar. Accounts give about 12 Marines killed on 6 April and more over the following days, among them a corpsman; Company E alone lost nearly 20 Marines and sailors in the operations. Insurgent dead were put at about 250 for the week; Iraqi civilian losses in Ramadi were not separately counted in the sources used here. The insurgents did not try another city-wide assault in 2004, but 2/4's seven-month tour in Ramadi cost 34 dead, including a Navy corpsman, and more than 250 wounded — by several accounts the heaviest losses of any Marine battalion in the war.