Sabre

The easiest way for me to do this is just take one event at a time, so I will start with our short and simple 3 day op to clear 2 villages and an oil refinery near the dam. The only problem with that is that is was not so simple.

After just getting back from Hit, the company just had less than 2 days of rest before we headed back out for this op. It wasn’t too bad starting off. On July 27th, we cleared through an oil refinery outside Haqlaniyah, which only took about half the day before we returned to the dam. The following morning, left again for the village of Cykla; estimated time to clear: 2 hours.

We started to clear the village with no problems. The teams in my squad would bound with one another taking turns providing over watch while the other clears the next house. It wasn’t until about half way through the village before we started to take sniper fire, which was very inaccurate, and then heard machine gun fire in the center of town. My team took refuge in the nearest house while we figured out what was going on. 2nd platoon was engaged in a firefight with some insurgents in a house. It started with Corporal Williams kicking a door in and being met with a barrage of heavy fire. His fellow Marines were able to pull him out and continued to fire upon the house.

At this time, my team is just keeping over watch on the west side of town, just a block from the fighting. My platoon sent over its corpsmen and 2 squads set up on nearby rooftops surrounding the house with insurgents. I am unable to do anything but listen on the radio and hear about there being at least 5 insurgents running between 3 houses next to each other.

After we fired a large volume of rounds into the houses, my platoon got together our assault team so that we could fire a few shoulder mounted rockets. Around this time, 2nd platoon tried to make entry into the house with a squad, but was repelled with heavy gunfire. They also tried to get a squad of Iraqi soldiers to make entry, but once again failed. Around this time was when Lance Corporal Lyons was hit. While waiting for the rockets, an M1A1 Abram tank was called in to fire a few rounds with its main gun into the houses. They were able to take down an insurgent with its .50 caliber machine gun plus knock over some walls to get better view of the situation.

In the end, the company just pulled everyone back to allow an air strike. Even while withdrawing, we were still taking fire from these houses. Though after four 500 pound bombs were dropped, the insurgents fell silent. With 2nd platoon taking a large amount of wounded, we had to send them all back to the dam and have weapons platoon come out to help us finish clearing the village. The rest of the day went on without further incident. That day, we were able to kill 8 insurgents and destroy several safe houses they were using.

The result of messing with Lima Co, 3rd Bn, 25th Marines:


After staying in Cykla for another day, we proceed to the last village to clear and that went without incident. This allowed us to return back to the dam for some much needed rest, but would soon find out that we would not be getting any. More to come in a couple of days.


Lance Cpl. Christopher P. Lyons, 24, of Mansfield, died July 28 when his unit came under attack by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades in western Iraq. Lyons only saw his 3-month-old daughter via Webcam. His wife, Bethany, was pregnant when he deployed. Still, "Chris never once complained about having to go," said Scott Miller, advertising director at the Mansfield News Journal, where Lyons was a sales representative.


Cpl. Andre L. Williams, 23, of Galloway, died July 28 when his unit was attacked with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades in western Iraq. Williams, his obituary said, was known for drawing, being able to "talk the talk," and his love of Ohio State University and the Cincinnati Bengals. He was involved in Toys for Tots, and had two young children.