My Men are My Heroes Read online

  MY MEN ARE

  MY HEROES

  THE BRAD KASAL STORY

  AS TOLD TO

  NATHANIEL R. HELMS

  NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS

  ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND

  Naval Institute Press

  291 Wood Road

  Annapolis, MD 21402

  © 2007 by Brad Kasal and Nathaniel R. Helms

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  First Naval Institute Press paperback edition published in 2012.

  ISBN: 978-1-6125-1137-5

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data for the hardcover edition is available from the

  Library of Congress.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2006921329

  This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

  201918171615141312987654321

  First printing

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to the memory of the members of 3d Battalion, 1st Marines who gave the ultimate sacrifice in the fight for Fallujah.

  Headquarters and Service Company

  SSgt Russell L. Slay

  SSgt Trevor L. Spink

  Sgt Krisna Nachampassak

  Cpl Bradley T. Arms

  Cpl Nicanor A. Alverez

  Cpl Terry Holmes

  LCpl Louis W Qualls

  LCpl James E. Swain

  PFC Christopher J. Reed

  Weapons - George Company

  Sgt Byron W. Norwood

  Cpl Brian Oliveira

  Cpl Steven Rintamaki

  LCpl Joshua W. Dickinson

  LCpl Abraham Simpson

  Kilo Company

  Sgt Christopher T. Heflin

  Sgt Morgan W. Strader

  LCpl Jeramy A. Ailes

  LCpl Juan E. Segura

  India Company

  Cpl Dale A. Burger Jr.

  LCpl Justin D. McLeese

  LCpl Andres H. Perez

  LCpl Joseph T. Welke

  LCpl Phillip G. West

  PFC Fernando B. Hannon

  PFC Geoffrey Perez

  Lima Company

  Sgt Juan Calderon Jr.

  Sgt William C. James

  Cpl Theodore A. Bowling

  LCpl Benjamin S. Bryan

  LCpl Luis A. Figueroa

  LCpl Michael W. Hanks

  LCpl Nicholas D. Larson

  LCpl Nathan R. Wood

  SPECIAL THANKS

  From Sergeant Major Brad Kasal:

  The Marines and Sailors of Weapons Co. and of 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, “The Thundering Third”

  Lou Palermo

  John and Cathia Sylvester

  Ian and Tia Welch

  Jim and Linda Arslanian

  Ed Sparks

  Hope Petlock

  Roy Lundstedt

  SSgt Nic Fox and wife Sarah

  SSgt Sam Mortimer and wife Christy

  SSgt Chris Lopez

  GySgt Chad Wade

  1st Sgt Wayne Hertz

  Sgt Major Tim Ruff

  1st Sgt Scott Samuels

  Sgt Major Rob Cadle

  Lt Col Willard Buhl

  Lt Zach Iscol and family

  Major Rob Belknap

  Gary Munstermann

  Shawn Essy

  Patricia Driscoll

  Geoff and Clyrinda Milke

  Nurses and corpsmen of Ward 5c, Bethesda Naval Hospital

  Cmdr Frank McGuigan and staff

  Lt Cmdr P.J. Girard

  Lt Maurer

  Staff of Aav School, Camp Pendleton, California

  Soldiers Angel Organization

  Semper Fi Foundation

  MSgt Kelley Ramsey

  Sgt Robert Mitchell

  Alex Nicoll

  Sgt Chris Pruitt

  SSgt Kris Korreck

  Mary Medina

  Sandy Dorothy and family

  Heather Richardson

  Sgt Major Ed Sax

  Sgt Major Kent

  Lt General Staettler

  From writer Nat Helms:

  Writing this book has been a remarkably rewarding endeavor. I would like to thank people who contributed so much to making sure this story could be told.

  First I would like to thank Sgt Major Kasal for his patience, forbearance, and honesty. By nature he is a very humble man. It was necessary to remind him almost daily the book was about him; otherwise he might never have mentioned his own role in anything.

  Kasal is a Marine’s Marine and a warrior of unparalleled valor, honor, and honesty. His efforts were ably reinforced by Lt Col Willard “Willie” Buhl, Brigadier General John Toolan, and all the officers and men of the United States Marine Corps who directed me, patiently corrected me, and put up with all my questions for almost two years.

  Also I wish to acknowledge the role of Lt Col Robert Brown, U.S. Army Ret, the publisher of Soldier of Fortune magazine. Without his advice and encouragement this project would not have gotten off the ground.

  I’m grateful to our editors, Larry Erickson and Dan Weeks, who deserve much credit for the final product. During the production of this book Larry’s son, Ryan, was fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan as a grunt in the 10th Mountain Division, no doubt making Larry’s editorial task doubly difficult.

  Finally I must mention my wife, Marsha, who listened to me rumble on far into the wee hours; my daughter, Cecily Daller, Esquire, who provided me legal advice and constant encouragement; and my son, Nate Helms, currently serving in the Coast Guard. It is men like Kasal and our sons and daughters in uniform who make it possible for the rest of us to pursue our dreams.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  FAILURE WAS NOT AN OPTION

  CHAPTER 1

  THE MAN AT THE POINT OF THE SPEAR

  CHAPTER 2

  FALLUJAH: ACT 1

  CHAPTER 3

  GROWING UP IN AFTON

  CHAPTER 4

  JOINING UP

  CHAPTER 5

  THE LONG HAUL

  CHAPTER 6

  THE BRIDGE FIGHTS

  CHAPTER 7

  BEFORE FALLUJAH

  CHAPTER 8

  MOVING UP

  CHAPTER 9

  SNIPERS, SNOOPERS, AND SELLERS

  CHAPTER 10

  THE OPENING GAMBIT

  CHAPTER 11

  THE TRAIN STATION

  CHAPTER 12

  BREAKING OUT

  CHAPTER 13

  CLOSING IN

  CHAPTER 14

  THE HOUSE OF HELL

  CHAPTER 15

  FIGHTING FOR LIFE

  CHAPTER 16

  RECOVERY AND RECOGNITION

  EPILOGUE

  PERSONAL REFLECTIONS

  GLOSSARY

  INTRODUCTION

  FAILURE WAS NOT

  AN OPTION

  The long white bone lying on the road looked like an enormous chicken leg that had been sucked clean and tossed aside—except for the gray athletic shoe on the rotting foot. The shoe and the leg had once belonged to a radical Muslim jihadist—a “holy warrior.” The remnants of the rotting corpse had become breakfast for a pack of the starving, half-mad dogs that roamed the embattled city of Fallujah, Iraq, in November 2004. It was a city that thousands—perhaps tens of thousands—of warriors on both sides of the battle wouldn’t exit in one piece, much less alive.

  The last time Marines had fought from house to house and room to room for days on end was during the epic battle for the Vietnamese city of Hue in 1968. As
it was then, the combat at Fallujah was ghastly and the casualties high. During the monthlong fight, at least 136 Marines were killed and more than 1,200 were wounded.

  In both cities, pools of blood slicked the floors and stained the walls of embattled houses after the Marines surged through them. Every alley was a death trap and every room a potential morgue. Dead men shared floor space with the living while cracking bullets zipped overhead and pinged around like castor beans in a cheap Juarez rattle. Walls of the rooms where the combatants took shelter suddenly collapsed, and roofs came crashing down without warning. A finely sifted frosting of concrete, dust, and sweat covered the living and dead alike, coloring everyone in the same dull gray. Every room in every house promised a fierce contest with only one outcome for the embattled Marines. To a man, they knew that failure was not an option.

  Another gripping image from Fallujah—captured by a freelance photographer—depicts a terribly wounded Marine being assisted from a house by two comrades. He is bloody but still defiantly holds his 9mm pistol at the ready. The man’s jaw is set in determination to come out standing up.

  The riveting photo couldn’t show it, but the Marine had been shot seven times and riddled with at least 43 grenade fragments during a struggle to rescue several wounded comrades from inside the house. His right leg was nearly severed by a burst of bullets from an AK-47 assault rifle, one that also wounded another Marine.

  By all rights, he should be dead—he lost enough blood to kill most men while surviving a give-no-quarter shoot-out, point-blank range. The loser of that gunfight lay sprawled on his back in the shadows behind the Marine, seeping blood and brains from massive holes where the back of his head used to be.

  That memorable photo—snapped by Lucian Read for World Picture News—stares at you from the cover of this book. You may well have seen it before, as it has appeared on hundreds of websites, magazines, and newspapers and was even made into a Marine Corps poster. The photo’s subject, First Sergeant (now Sergeant Major) Brad Kasal, did make it out alive. Thanks to his death-defying bravery, cunning, intelligence, and raw grit, Kasal is now known around the world as the iconic United States Marine.

  “Kasal is always ready,” says Staff Sergeant Sam Mortimer, currently a drill instructor at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot near San Diego, where young men are forged into steel. “There ain’t another Marine like him in the entire Corps.”

  This is his story.

  CHAPTER 1

  THE MAN AT THE

  POINT OF THE SPEAR

  Friends and family call him “Brad.” Marines now call him “Sergeant Major,” the highest noncommissioned rank in the United States Marine Corps. Brad Kasal was promoted to that status after the Battle of Fallujah, but he will always be “First Sergeant” to the men he led into the fight there. They speak the title respectfully, almost reverently, as if it were reserved only for him.

  Even before entering Iraq, Kasal was almost mythical among Marines, known for leading his troops at the front to ensure that he would always be the first man into a fight. In his mind, that is what Grunts do, and Brad Kasal is a true Grunt.

  Unlike most career Marines, Kasal has always been an infantryman. With the exception of recruiting duty, he has spent more than 18 years in the infantry. That’s not typical. The infantry is a young man’s game. In addition to guts and brains, infantry service takes tremendous stamina. Most men simply can’t maintain the pace of leading 18- and 19-year-olds—kids in their absolute physical prime—for nearly two decades. It’s the same reason there aren’t many 41-year-old Olympians—and even that comparison trivializes the physical challenges of the infantry.

  Perhaps more important, infantry service takes tremendous courage to stand in harm’s way. Death is always just around the corner. Kasal never seemed to notice. He chose the infantry because infantrymen live on the cutting edge of America’s military might. The sharp point of the spear is where Kasal lives to be.

  “Infantrymen are the troops who close with the enemy and kill them,” Kasal says simply. “That is our only purpose.”

  ROBO-GRUNT

  Until an Iraqi gunman shattered Kasal’s right leg, blasted his ass with bullet holes, and riddled his head and back with shrapnel, Kasal could outrun, outfight, outshoot, and outthink the much younger men he led. Unlike the medical experts who urged him to accept amputation of his leg and retire quietly, his Marines expect he will one day lead again. If anyone can do it, they say, it will be Kasal.

  Kevin Kasal, who served with his older brother at Camp Pendleton, California, recalls how Brad once motivated his men by picking up a lagging Marine and running to the top of a steep mountain trail with the trainee slung over his shoulder. Many of his young Marines still call him “Robo-Grunt” because he was able to run them into the ground long before he got tired.

  You won’t hear such superlatives from the man himself, however. “Leadership is not about ego,” Kasal insists. “It is about taking men into battle and keeping them alive. The best warriors make the best leaders because they can think and function effectively when surrounded by the chaotic hell of combat.

  “Marine Corps combat leaders are expected to lead from the front, so they have to be the best. Green Marines need to see that somebody is there for them—somebody who will ensure they understand what they have to do.”

  Whether they’re Marines or Army soldiers, infantrymen have been called “Grunts” since the Vietnam War, ostensibly for the sound they make when they shrug on 100 pounds of combat gear and stand up. In other times and other wars they were called doughboys and dogfaces, sad sacks, and GIs. The terms all mean the same thing.

  Privately, infantrymen will tell you they’re called Grunts because the name fits their unfortunate station. Grunts are the first into combat and the last out. They live in mud and dust, heat and cold, in wretchedness so complete that all they can do is grunt with despair. But the very misery they endure also makes them proud that they can take it—and cocky to the point of being eager for more. Grunts are weird that way.

  Grunts march. And because they usually walk instead of ride, everything they need must be hauled on their backs. Sometimes Grunts have to carry 100 pounds of equipment, food, ammunition, and water for many long miles. They call it “humping.”

  Robo-Grunt is a supreme accolade among men who offer very few. Kasal earned it by consistently showing himself to be exceptionally tough and hard in a culture where strength and endurance are important measures of a man.

  Just down the road from Kasal’s hometown of Afton, Iowa, is the sleepy community of Winterset, birthplace of actor John Wayne. Wayne made Marine infantry legends more than 50 years ago in the role of Sergeant John Stryker in the World War II classic Sands of Iwo Jima. The movie is a fictionalized story about the conquest of the most expensive real estate ever paid for with the blood of Marines. Wayne’s character was a hard-bitten three-striper who led a squad of 13 riflemen and machine gunners.

  Being a Marine Corps squad leader is an exceptional honor and an apprenticeship for higher distinctions: Kasal’s longtime job of first sergeant and his current rank of sergeant major. The Corps is very picky about whom it chooses to lead its young warriors. When squad leaders make mistakes, young men die.

  An infantry squad leader is usually the leader closest to the opposition. What he sees and what he knows are essential to the success of the mission, so he has to be smart and capable of keeping a cool head when bullets fly. John Wayne made it look easy, but in real life it’s tough—very tough. In combat, an infantry squad is never far from the center of the fight. They live with the stink of death in their noses and taste it in the grit that comes free with their morning chow.

  “We are usually very ordinary guys who have an extraordinary job,” Kasal says. “All Marines wonder if they are capable of killing someone before it happens. Being curious about combat comes with the job.”

  Kasal had been curious about combat for a long time. Like most boys, he had watched Wayne’s wa
r movies and wondered what it would be like to be a tough-talking, two-fisted Marine. By the time Kasal reached high school, he had already decided to join some branch of military service. All that was left was choosing which one.

  “My older brothers joined the Army, so I knew a little about the military,” he says. “I had seen and listened to the Army, Navy, and Air Force recruiters when they came to my high school to talk about joining the service. They all emphasized education, seeing the world, and earning all the benefits of joining their particular service. None of them even mentioned war.

  “The Marine recruiter came out in his dress blues and said that most of us weren’t good enough to be in his Marine Corps. He didn’t promise us anything except we would be the best trained warriors in the world when the Marine Corps finished with us. I decided right then I wanted to serve with the best.”

  Service is a Kasal family tradition. In addition to his three older brothers who joined the Army, their father once guarded Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev as a member of the Iowa Army National Guard. Kasal’s youngest brother, Kevin, was in both the Army and the Marine Corps and still serves in the Iowa Army National Guard. Brad’s older brother, Jeff, was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division and fought in Desert Storm.

  Marines and the other services “all fight together and we’ve all got a job to do,” Brad Kasal says. “Each service does it differently. The Army trains for defense, and the Marine Corps trains for offense. Back during the Cold War, the American soldiers defending West Germany against the Soviet Union were taught to immediately go on the defensive and wait for help if the Russians attacked. Marines aren’t taught that. We would attack.”

  That aggressive approach fits Kasal perfectly. “Nobody wins wars being a speed bump,” he says. “Marines are trained to always attack.”

  The differences in military service were important to Kasal even before he joined the Corps. He spent a considerable amount of effort researching the various branches at the expense of his studies. As a high school student looking for a future beyond Afton, he saw that research as a reasonable trade-off.