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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Encore Presentation - The Anvil of God

Aired November 08, 2007 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: American commanders said at virtually the same time -- the enemy has got a face, he is called Satan and he lives in Fallujah and we're going to destroy him. These are all words worth considering as our nation faces what seems to be a critical crossroads in this war, because if Iraq is a battle of wills as some have suggested, then there has been no greater test than the battle of Fallujah. Tonight in a special one-hour report, we examine that battle and the lessons it taught through the eyes of one very dedicated group of marines, whose dedications, sacrifice and sheer will to produce positive results are a measure of extraordinary effort young Americans are making every single day in that war, efforts that deserve honor and respect and consideration as we ponder the future course in Iraq. Here's Tom Foreman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Some insurgents say the great battle of Fallujah began at end of a long hot summer in which they held the city like none other in Iraq. Some Iraqis say it began at the end of a cold gray November Monday, with the sky spitting rain. But for members of the first battalion 8th Marine Regiment Bravo Company, it started when Sergeant Lonnie Wells tried to run across the street, and was taken down in a torrent of gunfire. That was the beginning of the longest and the most sustained combat that U.S. troops have seen in decades. For the fabled one eight marines, five weeks on the "Anvil of God."

The fuse that ignited Fallujah was lit in the spring of 2004, four American contractors were murdered, their bodies hanged from a bridge. Coalition troops attacked the insurgents behind the killings, but when false rumors spread that civilians were being slaughtered, Iraqi politicians demanded that the Americans withdraw. They did. The insurgents celebrated and soon every American officer knew Fallujah would have to be taken again.

LT. CHRISTOPHER WILKENS, BRAVO COMPANY: That was the enemy's headquarters. That's what was going on there.

FOREMAN: Lieutenant Chris Wilkens knew it.

WILKENS: Car bomb factories all over the city. The insurgents run deep check points. No coalition presence in the city whatsoever, radio stations broadcasting insurgent propaganda and you know, the people just in a state of fear.

FOREMAN: Dexter Filkens a reporter with the "New York Times" knew it, too. DEXTER FILKENS, CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Literally there was a group called the Mujadin council and Mujadin Shura that ran the city. They had free rein and they could do whatever they wanted and they were 35 miles from Baghdad.

FOREMAN: So, Fallujah really was living up to its reputation as the capital of insurgency.

FILKENS: Definitely. It clearly was.

FOREMAN: And Corporal Jake Jarvis knew all about Fallujah.

CPL. JAKE JARVIS, BRAVO COMPANY: That's all they could talk about was Fallujah, Fallujah, Fallujah, and we're just like, I was tired of hearing about Fallujah.

FOREMAN: He and Lance corporal Sam Chris in truth knew more than they cared to know, stuck many miles away in a desolate outpost called ASP Wolf.

JARVIS: It was a destination and it was not much of one at that. It is just out in the middle of nowhere, you hear about the wars going on, but you know, we didn't see civilians. We didn't see other people in the Marine Corps. There is nothing.

We were in the desert, and no one came out to visit us. We were in our own little world.

FOREMAN: Wolf was not what many of these young men expected. The 8th marines are the fabled survivors of the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing. Two hundred twenty marines died that day, but thousands more have served in the one-8th since in the worst circumstances with the highest honor. And yet, here they sit in the desert, waiting for something to do. Sergeant Michael Ramirez.

SGT. MICHAEL RAMIREZ, BRAVO COMPANY: We kept hearing the whole time we were up there, well, Fallujah is, no way, we will make an assault in Fallujah and then they would say, it got canceled.

FOREMAN: So they ran mission of little note, they build mock towns to practice urban warfare day after day. They build a mock tank just for fun. Then as summer fades, Fallujah comes up once again, only this time; the invasion appears as if it might really happen.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: I got a window.

JARVIS: The training, the mood, everything started to change. Now, it's - we're going to do something, and people aren't going to come back. You are going into a place where people want to kill you.

FOREMAN: The attack plan is classic. The army will encircle the city, some marines will come from the west, but the bulk will sweep in from the north.

FILKENS: The whole Fallujah operation was essentially a hammer and the anvil, and the marines were the hammer going in and the army was the anvil. I mean t army was the block along the southern part of the city, so it was like bam.

FOREMAN: Drive everybody down that way and surround them, capture them or kill them.

FILKENS: Capture or kill.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Urgent.

FOREMAN: "New York Times" photographer Ashley Gilbertson records the preparations, including the drills for handling casualties.

ASHLEY GILBERTSON, PHOTOGRAPHER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: There was a lot of bravado there with the marines and laughing and volunteering for this, to be wounded or dead guy, but I think afterwards there was - you know, people realized you know that there were going to be people killed and wounded during in this offensive.

FOREMAN: In October, the marines leave Wolf and move to a camp outside of Fallujah, and some still doubting the attack will come, doubting the insurgents will stand and fight. Even as they wait, poised outside of the city, playing baseball in the evening pass the time.

SGT. AUBREY MCDADE, BRAVO COMPANY: Even when we got to the actual launch point where we were getting ready to go inside of the city, I'm still rebellious, I'm like, we are not going to do nothing.

FOREMAN: But for weeks, tens of thousands of civilians have been pouring out of the city, heeding warnings of a strike, and now planes are pounding the insurgents left behind with bombs. Officers are reviewing equipment, transportation, plans, communication.

WILKENS: I 'm like my hair stood up on the back of my neck, wow that is the place we have been hearing about. And that's there it was.

FOREMAN: Blake Benson is a lance corporal, but he knows as well as any general what lies ahead now.

LANCE CPL. BLAKE BENSON, BRAVO COMPANY: We knew that this was going to be a fight. We knew we were going in to retake that city, and we weren't going to get blown out this time. The marines weren't going to be called back. This was, we're going in to finish the job.

FOREMAN: The problem is that the insurgents know all that, too. All through the summer of 2004, they have been building up defenses, and recruiting fighters and stockpiling weapons. Fallujah is now as hard as an anvil. On which both sides within hours, they will begin the pound.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOREMAN: The city of Fallujah was largely planned by Saddam Hussein. Its northern edge is a straight line against the desert. And just after dark, one evening in November 2004, more than 10,000 U.S. soldiers, marines, and new Iraqi troops slammed into it. WILKENS: It's insanely loud. I've never -- I've never experienced that loud in my life.

BENSON: All I see is tracer rounds just coming down range.

GILBERTSON: It seems like Fallujah was blowing up all of the arms and RPGs, everything that they could throw at the marines coming in, were coming at us.

WILKENS: Missiles are going off. Rockets are going off. Heavy machine gun and they're all over the place.

FILKENS: And behind us the Americans had set up these enormous speakers that you would use at a rock concert, and they were playing AC/DC.

And I remember they're playing "Back in black."

GILBERTSON: I remember thinking like, this is really, really bad.

FOREMAN: Estimates of insurgents' strength vary widely, but military intelligence suggests there may be 3,000 or more and Bravo Company is cutting right through the middle of them.

WILKENS: Anything we could see that was shooting at us, we'd try to take them out.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Watch out.

BENSON: Certain areas they had set up for us to fall into their kill zones.

FOREMAN: So, the first night, you're just pushing all night?

BENSON: Yes, nonstop pushing towards the cultural center.

FOREMAN: The cultural center, a half mile in, is a stronghold to be taken and used as an anchor for Bravo's charge. As they approached at sunrise, Sergeant Lonnie Wells is near the front. He's in his late 20s, always calm, the younger marines naturally follow him.

WILKENS: He's been around a while. He's older. He knows what he's doing.

FOREMAN: The wide road in front of the cultural center is comparatively quiet.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Running this way.

FOREMAN: Sergeant Wells starts running across, and the dawn explodes.

GILBERTSON: There were bullets coming in from every side of us, from in front of us, from the east and west and then behind us. It looked, sounded and felt like a nightmare. FOREMAN: The heaviest interlocking fire is coming from a nearby mosque and a building down the street. Shots, however, are all around. So bravo cannot sit. The center must be taken. But in the middle of the street, Lonnie Wells is down.

SGT. JOEL CHAVERRI, MARINE COMBAT PHOTOGRAPHER: The first sign of combat is extremely confusing.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Back up.

FOREMAN: Joel Chaverri, whose job is to record the battle for the military, sees Wells fall. And as he lifts his camera, he sees a gunnery Sergeant runs to Wells' rescue, a medical corpsman not far behind, the gunny is shot and thrown several feet, the corpsman is hit, too.

CHAVERRI: It was like a movie. It was extremely surreal. I didn't think, you don't think, you don't have time to think. You just react.

FOREMAN: Even with men down, the mad charge across the street continues.

GILBERTSON: I could see traceable of kicking out under the feet of the guy in front of me. I looked down at my feet; it's exactly the same thing, like why are these not hitting me.

JARVIS: I am not exaggerating. It's literally like they're going through your feet.

FOREMAN: Sam Crist sprints into the open, sees a blur of blood beneath his feet.

LANCE CPL. SAMUEL CRIST, BRAVO COMPANY: I didn't know who it was. I just remember thinking, oh, man, you know, I'm glad that's not me. And as soon as that thought went through my head, that's when the first round got me in the leg.

FOREMAN: Lance Corporal Michael Godoy.

LANCE CPL. MICHAEL GODOY, BRAVO COMPANY: All those time when he drops, you see the puddle of blood spreading. I'm, like, he's hit, he's hit. It started to open up even more with the weapons.

FOREMAN: Another bullet tears through Crist's arm.

CRIST: I just started crawling and screaming as fast as I could. I'm trying to like to look up to yell so they'll hear me because the fire is really loud.

FOREMAN: Crist and all of the others are finally dragged to safety. An armored medical vehicle finally arrives. They're piled inside amid the relentless gunfire.

CRIST: I just kept telling him over and over, hey, man, don't let them cut off my arm. FILKENS: And there ensued the longest, loudest, most sustained gun battle, you know, I've ever witnessed. Thousands and thousands and thousands of rounds.

FOREMAN: When the insurgents are finally driven back, Bravo holds the cultural center, the mosque and the street, but the cost is high. Four men have been taken out of the battle. Lonnie Wells is dead.

GODOY: That is the moment, the battle started for us definitely. Because, they were the first casualties. For us, at least. We just - it wasn't real until then. It wasn't real until you saw somebody go down.

BENSON: When people start going down, that's when you start questioning and when you start seriously thinking about, this could be my life. This could my buddy's life. This could be all of us. I mean, who's next? Who's going to go down next?

GILBERTSON: Some of the men cried. Some of the men didn't say anything. And I don't have a picture of that because I realized that I was doing exactly the same thing. I couldn't even begin to digest what had happened, crossing that street.

FOREMAN: Thousands of miles from the madness of Fallujah, Sergeant Wells' family is told that he has died. His eight-year-old son writes a school assignment and he calls it simply "My Hero."

JARVIS: You just don't know. I mean, bullets have no names. They don't care about color. They don't care about race. They don't care about what rank you have. They want to kill you. You're an enemy and they're going to kill you.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Everybody break out!

FOREMAN: For bravo, there is no time to mourn. Insurgents are swirling before them. The hammer must keep driving them south.

But with the difference, the marines now truly know what they are up against.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Go, watch out. Let me get a shot.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Let's go. Hurry up. Where is he?

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Hey, you got him?

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: He's wounded in between these two houses.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Hold on. I got one.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: He's done.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Just him?

FOREMAN: Above the chaos in the streets, as the insurgents are driven south -

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Hey. He's in that garage.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: This one right here?

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Yes.

FOREMAN: An extraordinary battle rages on the rooftops.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: See him?

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: No, no.

FOREMAN: Between the most highly trained fighters on each side, the sniper war.

CHAVERRI: The snipers are an interesting group. They're a little bit of loners. And they have to be. They live in a world of solitude because of what they have to do.

FOREMAN: Carefully selected, highly disciplined, the marines' snipers spend endless hours seeking the enemy through their scopes keeping stealthy attackers in the tight alleys from getting too close.

BENSON: They were a Godsend. They helped us out a lot. They were guardian angels in a lot of times. We were going somewhere, they had that over watch on us.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE SNIPER: Ten to 20 are moving behind the barriers.

FOREMAN: For bravo, two snipers stand out. Corporal Nick Ziolkowski (ph) or Ski is a tall handsome surfer from near Baltimore.

What was Ski like?

GILBERTSON: Cool. Really cool. Really nice guy.

FOREMAN: Everyone seems to know and admire him. His calm professionalism and easy manner, an oasis in the turmoil. Corporal Kirk Bosleman (ph) is another sniper from Maryland also known for his confidence and absolute reliability and rock solid shooting.

WILKENS: One shot means one kill for them. And when they fired, you knew they meant it.

FOREMAN: They have to be good. As officers plot their moves, military intelligence believes the insurgents have imported dozens of trained foreign shooters to pick off the American snipers.

GILBERTSON: Ski said that he had been looking for a particular sniper and one that had been firing at him and he had been looking for, for the whole battle. FOREMAN (on camera): How could he identify this guy?

GILBERTSON: I have no idea.

MCDADE: He knew the sniper was trying he didn't know if he was Chechnya or Serbian or whatever.

FOREMAN: But he had a real sense that there was a guy out there that was trying to get him?

MCDADE: Yes, sir.

FOREMAN (voice over): Bravo is losing more men.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Where is he?

FOREMAN: Corporal R.J. Jimenez from West Virginia is shot and killed while engaging the enemy. The marines, as they always have, leave no one behind. And they do the same when Corporal Nathan Anderson is deceived and then gunned down by insurgents dressed as Iraqi soldiers. The marines' snipers are constantly trying to lure their elusive enemies into the open.

CHAVERRI: Well, they definitely were creative. And at sometimes they did have to put a whole in the wall. And maybe get someone to put a little decoy of a helmet up there. Sometimes, it did work.

FOREMAN: There is some comfort. Moving with the marines, as they push south, is lieutenant commander and Navy doctor Dr. Richard Jadick. He has put his forward aid station in the middle of the battle, hoping that immediate care might save more lives.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Stretchers out there?

FOREMAN: It is working, but the river of wounded marines is astonishing.

LT. CDR. RICHARD JADICK, BATTALION SURGEON: They'd come in eights and 12s and you know 15s and they'd be lying out in the street. Next thing you know, we'd barely get that guy and the next guy would come in.

FOREMAN: Jadick studies military statistics to gauge how many more he might see.

JADICK: And I was coming up with 40 to 60 percent casualty rates. That's what I was expecting.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Nothing on the roof?

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Hey! Somebody's on the roof!

FOREMAN: What no one is expecting is what comes six days in. The men had been led to believe the entire battle would be done by now. Bravo has pushed nearly to the southern edge of town. They are exhausted, edgy, in need of any kind of relief. So, as they hunker down for another sleepless night, it helps that Ski sits easily among them, talking about home, college plans, surfing. When morning comes, Ski, the sniper, climbs back to the roof with his rifle to scan the horizon.

WILKENS: All of a sudden, we hear one shot ring out.

BENSON: I remember sitting there, and I hear one crisp shot.

WILKENS: And then they carry him out in a stretcher right in front of everybody.

BENSON: That totally destroyed me there. That was very hard to see.

FOREMAN: Ski is rushed to the aid station, so badly injured, only when Doc Jadick sees the name on his uniform, does he realize who this is. He quietly asks his staff to leave.

JADICK: He had some significant massive trauma to his head. And he wasn't going to make it. And I didn't want the memories to hurt the corpsmen.

FOREMAN: Who all knew him well?

JADICK: Who knew.

FOREMAN: Every death reverberates throughout Bravo. And this one so close to what they think is the end is especially hard.

WILKENS: It was like I didn't have that angel on my shoulder anymore you know, because Ski wasn't there.

FOREMAN: But all along the battle line, as the marines have pushed through the city, hundreds, maybe thousands of insurgents, have slipped behind them. And within hours, Bravo will find their fight is far from over. And the worst is still ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Fallujah began as a trading center 4,000 years ago. The crossroads for many faiths, but now it is called the City of Mosques. And in this battle, the more than 200 mosques with tall minarets and commanding views are centers for insurgent attacks. It infuriates Lieutenant Dennis Cox, the Navy chaplain with Bravo, to see places of worship treated this way.

CHAPLAIN DENNIS COX, BATTALION MINISTER: The insurgents were nothing more than thugs. They are not devout. There is nothing devout about them. They're thugs. They're criminals.

FOREMAN: This militarization of mosques however is often disputed, especially by insurgent propaganda. So, when Ashley Gilbertson hears a dead insurgent in a minaret, he wants a photo.

ASHLEY GILBERTSON, PHOTOGRAPHER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: It proved a lot of what marines were saying. That they're not using the mosques as temples that they're actually staging grounds now.

FOREMAN: A small group escorts him back to the mosque which they had cleared of insurgents earlier. Lance Corporal Billy Miller is up front. He's an eager marine, admired because he takes the toughest jobs and always puts the safety of others above his own. Miller leads the way up the twisting stairs of the minaret. Sergeant James Mulak.

CPL. JAMES MULAK, BRAVO COMPANY: He was maybe a full turn and half. So, he was probably in the lower one-third, and it just happened.

GILBERTSON: Shots rang out. And I felt you know, liquid fall over me and we sorted tumbled down the stairs and I saw that I had blood all over me. And that Miller had been shot by an insurgent who had been waiting inside the minaret.

MULAK: We started calling Miller and there was no response.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Spread out.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Get against the wall.

DEXTER FILKENS, THE NEW YORK TIMES: And every time they sent a guy up there the gunfire would come back down. I remember thinking to myself, my God; the whole platoon is going to die trying to get him out of there.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Where is he?

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: All the way to the left or the right?

GILBERTSON: There is absolutely no way that they would leave anybody behind.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Hey, this is what we're going to do.

FOREMAN: Bravo finally reaches their man and they hustle him out. A quick air strike destroys the minaret and kills the insurgent but Billy Miller is dead.

GILBERTSON: I felt like I killed him. I know I didn't pull the trigger, but I certainly felt responsible. Billy's death is still the death that has affected me the most, and you know, the one that I continue to think about every single day.

FOREMAN: That same day, Lance Corporal Bradley Parker from West Virginia dies in an explosion. Blake Benson is with him. There's nothing he can do.

LANCE CPL. BLAKE BENSON, BRAVO COMPANY: I know I had nothing to feel guilty about, but it made me feel really guilty about it. Because he was a great guy.

COX: A thousand may fall at your side.

FOREMAN: Chaplain Cox leads prayers every day, for the dead and the living.

COX: I think one of the most often questions that they would ask me anyway was, Chaplain, can God forgive me for killing someone? And I tell them, there's no need for forgiveness. If you don't kill that person, then you're endangering the lives of those around you.

FOREMAN: The danger is growing.

MULAK: Yu hear snaps all of the time. I mean, there wasn't any time of the day you didn't hear some sort of round going off.

FOREMAN: After Bravo reaches the southern edge of town, the anvil on which they had hoped to smash the insurgents, so many remain hidden, the marines are told they must now turn around, go back house to house, clearing them out.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: Go! Go!

LANCE CPL. MICHAEL GODOY, BRAVO COMPANY: We were, you know, we were very upset. We already lost how many guys?

FOREMAN: It is crushing news. Lance Corporal DeMarcus Brown has been counting the days until he leaves. He has previously written to his mother. "Last night had me scared I won't see my mom again. Continue to pray for my safety." But he struggled to get into the marines and he will do his duty now. Just like everyone else in Bravo. The next day, he's alongside Lance Corporal Demetrius Gabriel, a former stockbroker who joined the marines after two friends died in the Twin Towers. They're among a group that enters what appears to be an empty house to search for weapons. James Mulak goes into a room on the right.

MULAK: And as soon as I had cleared it, I started hearing gunfire.

FOREMAN: Gabriel is killed instantly by an insurgent firing from a hidden corner.

GODOY: All of a sudden you just see Brown run out of the house and the courtyard, and he's, like, patting his chest and trying to rip his helmet off.

FOREMAN: A bullet has slipped through a gap in Brown's body armor but as they rush him to an aid station, he's alert, talking.

GODOY: He gave us thumbs up. He winked. We thought he was going to be good and then -

FOREMAN: Doc Jadick thinks so, too, but through an hour of steady, hardwork, Brown slowly slips away.

LT. CDR. RICHARD JADICK: That was the worst one. It hurts you because he was speaking. When he was alive because that's my job. Because I knew him the day before, two days before, we'd seen him in the aid station and had taken a shrapnel to the lip and said, can I go back out? I said, sure. I couldn't save him. He died there. FOREMAN: The insurgent who killed Brown and Gabriel is killed too, and the marines recognize him from 15 minutes before the attack. That's when they say he crossed the road waving a white flag, smiling and Bravo waved back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOREMAN: Much has been written about the explosive first week in Fallujah. But the campaign to clear houses would prove much worse, much more deadly for Bravo. The terrifying door-to-door hunt, for weapons, bombs and insurgents.

GODOY: They weren't soldiers or anything. They didn't want to fight us. They just wanted to kill us.

FOREMAN: The marines are convinced many foreign fighters are here. When sniper Kurt Bosselman (ph) kills an opposing sniper, the scope they retrieve is the type favored by Chechen separatists. Insurgents seem united only by their hatred of Americans and a twisted vision of Islam.

GODOY: You'd hear them praying as they were shooting. You'd hear them say their death prayer. It was very eerie.

FOREMAN: One of Bravo's most respected marines was not born in the United States. Corporal Gentian Marku (ph) migrated with his family from Albania to a house in Michigan and home with the marines.

LANCE CPL. BLAKE BENSON, BRAVO COMPANY: Great guy. He was funny. He was always trying to make people laugh.

LT. CHRISTOPHER WILKENS, BRAVO COMPANY: And of course, you always hear stories, he was a great guy. Everybody loved him and literally everyone loved Marku.

FOREMAN: Before Fallujah, he serves as interpreter during a company deployment to his native Albania. He sends his mother a picture from the family cemetery. She calls it bad luck and that's something the marines do not need.

WILKENS: Every door you go behind, you're just hoping there's no one behind it. And you know you've got to go through it and you just, you pray. That's really all that you can do.

FOREMAN: In most houses, they find no one.

UNIDENTIFIED U.S. MARINE: RPG rockets.

FOREMAN: In about half, they find weapons. And in a few, they find elaborately concealed tunnels.

SGT. AUBREY MCDADE, BRAVO COMPANY: So they can like throw some grenades. Throw some pop shots and just run under like two or three blocks.

FOREMAN: You found that? MCDADE: Yes, sir.

FOREMAN: But in the worst cases, insurgents hide with machine guns, grenades and rockets, waiting until the place is full of marines.

WILKENS: They knew how to spring an ambush. They weren't just random guys who saw an American, they wanted to shoot. They waited until we had a position. They knew what they were doing.

FOREMAN: Thanksgiving, Marku, Lance Corporal Jeffrey Holmes from Vermont, Blake Benson and two other marines are due to join everyone else a few blocks away for their first hot meal in weeks. They need to clear a last house. They step into the courtyard. Marku approaches.

BENSON: As soon as his boot touched that door, rounds from inside the house rained down on us. I was hit.

FOREMAN: Coming through the door?

BENSON: Coming through the door, the windows, everything.

FOREMAN: Perhaps a dozen insurgents have opened fire, driving the five marines away from the narrow gate. The only exit. They're trapped.

BENSON: Rounds just keep coming in. I hear from inside of the house, the insurgents screaming Allah, Allah, God is great.

FOREMAN: Chris Wilkens and others race to the courtyard. Blistering gunfire awaits them.

WILKENS: They're yelling out to me -- don't send anyone in there.

It was going like, everybody's down.

FOREMAN: Marines hammer the windows with shots to keep the insurgents back. Benson's pants, soaked red, grabs Marku, trying to grab him away into the heaviest shooting.

BENSON: They're lighting me up this whole time. I got hit in the head. I got really dizzy. I lost my bearing, hit the ground. At this point in time, I'm thinking, all right, I'm going. I'm dead. This is it. I'm done.

FOREMAN: Finally a tank smashes the courtyard wall. Marines pour in to rescue their brothers.

FOREMAN (on camera): How many people came out of there alive and how many did not?

WILKENS: Of the five of them, two of them were killed and the other three were wounded pretty bad. FOREMAN (voice over): Jeffrey Holmes and Gentien Marku are dead. An air strike obliterates the house and all the insurgents. It's no comfort. Benson has been shot in his leg, his foot, and his head. He mourns for everyone else.

BENSON: I wish things would have been done differently. I just blame myself for a lot of it, unfortunately. And I know I shouldn't, but I do.

FOREMAN: Why do you suppose that is when you know better?

BENSON: Nobody deserves to die out there like that.

FOREMAN: No one deserved to die like Lance Corporal David Hawk from North Carolina. He helped pull Marku and others from the courtyard but was shot himself the next day. He loved rock climbing. He sent a fresh rose to his mother from the war. No one deserved to die like Lance Corporal Josh Willisero of Arizona, a hard-working teenager who became a harder-working marine. He was crushed on the first day when Lonnie Wells died. Now others mourn for him. And no one deserved to die like Kirk Bosselmann. The sniper who fought on after his friend Ski was killed. He had told his parents he did not expect to come home.

BEVERLY BOSSELMANN, MOTHER, CPL. KIRK BOSSELMANN: He basically told me where he wanted his ashes scattered. And who he wanted his things to go to. You don't want to believe it. I still don't want to believe it. I still have days where I think Kirk's coming home. I just wish he'd hurry up and get here.

FOREMAN: Bravo marks thanksgiving weekend in solemn contemplation. David Hawk had made a flag from a sandbag to record the names of the dead. His name and the names of the others are added to the growing list.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOREMAN: Their commanders had told Bravo that the battle of Fallujah would take six days. It took five weeks. It remains the only time insurgents have tried to hold substantial territory in this war. They failed.

FILKENS: I think one of the things that it was about was, for the Americans, was destroying what amounted to a safe haven for the -- for several hundred or several thousand insurgents. And it was absolutely successful on that front.

FOREMAN: American troops found abundant evidence of hidden prison cells for kidnapped victims, torture chambers, car bomb factories.

CHAVERRI: It wasn't just rifles. You know, rockets, grenades, suicide belts.

FOREMAN: They found signs of insurgents tracking and targeting Iraqis who opposed them and tools of remorse deception. JARVIS: Police uniforms. Military uniforms. All different types of passports and photos. It was scary.

FOREMAN: Every coalition unit suffered losses and injuries shutting down this capital of the insurgency and the men of Bravo are the first to say, all deserve equal respect.

JARVIS: We lost a lot of guys out of 182 people, out of the whole one -eight, Bravo company was hit the hardest. It just seemed to us that we were always up front. We were always the ones to follow.

FOREMAN: Thirteen dead, dozens wounded, countless acts of valor. Sergeant Aubrey McDade ran alone repeatedly through an intense firefight to carry wounded marines to safety, earning one of the highest honors, the Navy Cross. It doesn't seem to matter much.

MCDADE: We lost 13 people. The whole Navy Cross thing, I will throw that crap back five years if I could get the guys that we have I'll send it back.

FOREMAN: Thirteen men whose legacies live on, fellow marines continue to serve in their honor; parents and children feel their sacrifice every day. Nick Ziolkowski and Kirk Bosselmann, the snipers, wanted to be college roommates. Instead, a scholarship has been established in Nick's name. His mother has seen others follow his path.

TRACY MILLER, MOTHER, CPL. NICK ZIOLKOWSKI: His didn't waiver in his purpose. As one of his high school teachers said, it wasn't that the other kids wanted to be marines; it was that they wanted to be Nick.

FOREMAN: Kirk's parents try not harbor hard feelings. Even for the man who took their boy's life.

BEVERLY BOSSELMANN: If you can find the grace in yourself, then maybe one day we can stop the need for war. But if you can't find it in yourself, then how are you going to find it in others?

FOREMAN: They have the greatest respect for their son's fellow marines. The simplest request for fellow Americans.

RAINER BOSSELMANN, FATHER, CPL KIRK BOSSELMANN: When these people come home, need jobs, give them all the breaks in the world that you can, because they need the breaks and they're entitled to it.

FOREMAN: Gentian Marku was buried if his native Albania, at grave site he once visited. Everyone in town turned out to honor their American son. His little sister.

JOANA MARKU, SISTER, CPL. GENTIAN MARKU: The war for him was far more personal in a way, because he knew what it was like to live in a country where there's not much opportunity, and for him to be able to give back a little bit of hope to the Iraqi civilians, it meant a lot to him. FOREMAN: Billy Miller's family found out that he was apparently the first person ever from Pearland, Texas, to die in combat. Trees planted in his honor and monuments secure Billy's memory. Complete strangers came to church to pay respects and to celebrate his life. It would have been his 23rd birthday.

SUSIE MILLER, MOTHER, LANCE CPL. BILLY MILLER: I can't tell you how warm it made me feel to know that so many people cared so much about our son. He was wonderful.

FOREMAN: Just after losing DeMarcus Brown, Doc Jadick found a prayer card that he thought belonged to the young marine. Jadick carried it every day. His only memento of the war.

JADICK: It was at a time when I was at my lowest point and it was helpful.

FOREMAN: When he read a magazine article about Brown's mother, he sent the card her way.

CHYNITA BELCHER, MOTHER, LANCE CPL. DEMARKUS BROWN: And I think with all my heart that my son left it for him to give it to me somewhere down the line just so, a reminder, you know, that God will answer prayers, to let me know that he's all right and all the other soldiers are all right. They're in a better place.

FOREMAN: Some critics of the war have said astounding numbers of civilians were killed in the battle. Every person we spoke to who was there, including the journalist, says there is no evidence to support those claims.

FELKINS: I mean we encountered a city that was, for the most part, empty of civilians.

FOREMAN: Many of Bravo's marines are civilians now. Injuries forced some out. The trauma of battle simply never left others. It hasn't left Ashley Gilbertson. It is with him every day. His photos now in a book, a tribute to the men of Bravo and he's seen much more combat than many of these young marines.

GILBERTSON: Because it was so violent and it was so intense.

FOREMAN (on camera): Have you ever before or since seen anything on par with Fallujah?

GILBERTSON: Absolutely not. No way. And I'd really hope I'd never do.

FOREMAN (voice over): The insurgents have never reclaimed their capital. And they certainly suffered many more casualties than the coalition. Through the heat, the fear, the fire and fatigue, the marines were simply better fighters because they fought for each other.

JADICK: For the marines that you went there with, not for anything else, not for Fallujah, not for the insurgency, not for the country of Iraq, not for the United States. When it comes down to bullets flying, you do what you do because that guy on the right and the guy on the left.

MULAK: We were a huge family. Bravo was a huge family.

BENSON: I miss everything I was doing with being in the military. I miss the brothers. I miss my friends and everything else there.

FOREMAN: In this biblical land, they stood side by side, fought for each other and emerged unbowed on the "Anvil of God."

They made history. I mean, that's what should everyone remember is the 1st battalion 8th Marines was a bunch of good young men who did what they were asked to do.

ANDERSON COOPER, HOST: Tomorrow night the insurgents furious over the loss of Fallujah, strike back and it will lead to the single deadliest day of this war for the American troops. Tom foreman reports on the Ambush at the River.

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