Time for heroes, Marines told
New York Daily News ^ | 11/08/04 | AP


NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq - As U.S. forces prepared for what is expected to be the biggest Marine-led urban assault since Vietnam, U.S. commanders pumped up troops yesterday, saying they were no different from the storied heroes of Iwo Jima and Korea.
Standing before about 2,500 Marines who stood or knelt at his feet, Lt. Gen. John Sattler, the commanding general of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, told them that they would be at the front of the charge, with Iraqi backup.

"This is America's fight," Sattler said. "What we've added to it is our Iraqi partners. They want to go in and liberate Fallujah. They feel this town's being held hostage by mugs, thugs, murderers and terrorists."

Two Marine battalions, along with a battalion from the Army's 1st Infantry Division, will be the lead units sent into a Fallujah attack. They will be joined by two brigades of Iraqi troops.

More than 10,000 U.S. troops massed around the Sunni Muslim city are expected to take a role in the assault on Fallujah, whose green-lighted minarets are visible from the U.S. base near the city.

That's well over twice the number of Americans who were involved in an April siege on Fallujah. That assault lasted for three weeks, until Marines were forced to pull back amid an Iraqi outcry over the hundreds of casualties. Sunni insurgents then tightened their hold.

Sgt. Maj. Carlton Kent, the top enlisted Marine in Iraq, told troops the battle of Fallujah would be "no different" from the historic fights at Inchon in Korea, the flag-raising victory at Iwo Jima or the bloody assault to remove North Vietnamese troops who occupied the ancient citadel of Hue in the 1968 Tet offensive.

"You're all in the process of making history," Kent boomed. "This is another Hue city in the making.

"This is a whole can of whoop-butt all combined here," Kent said, surveying the Marines surrounding him.


A pumped-up crowd shouted a deafening "Hoorah" in response.

The Marine battalion commander, Lt. Col. Mike Ramos, predicted that "freedom and democracy" would prevail in Fallujah within days.

He added: "If I see someone who looks like a martyr, driving at high speed toward my unit, I'll send him to Allah before he gets close."

The Associated Press

Originally published on November 8, 2004
Torog Reviewed by Torog on . Time For Heroes, Marines Told Time for heroes, Marines told New York Daily News ^ | 11/08/04 | AP NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq - As U.S. forces prepared for what is expected to be the biggest Marine-led urban assault since Vietnam, U.S. commanders pumped up troops yesterday, saying they were no different from the storied heroes of Iwo Jima and Korea. Standing before about 2,500 Marines who stood or knelt at his feet, Lt. Gen. John Sattler, the commanding general of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, told them that they would Rating: 5