Combat· Iraq War (Op IRAQI FREEDOM)
Second Battle of Fallujah
The Second Battle of Fallujah, known as Operation al-Fajr or Phantom Fury, was the largest and most intense urban battle the Marine Corps had fought since Hue in 1968, a deliberate assault to clear the insurgent stronghold that had been left in enemy hands after the first battle was halted earlier in the year. Marine and Army units, with Iraqi forces, breached the city from the north and drove south through a defended urban landscape of booby-trapped houses, barricades, and fanatical fighters prepared to die in place. The Marines cleared the city block by block and house by house in close, grinding combat, reducing strongpoints and fighting some of the war's most desperate room-to-room actions. After weeks of fighting the city was taken and the insurgent base destroyed. Fallujah stood as the defining battle of the Iraq War for the Marines, a costly demonstration of their enduring mastery of urban combat.
Record no. 32