The Visit

"November 16, 2005 is seared into my memory. It was a day of pitched battle, heroism and violent death.

We rose early, ate hurried meals of crackers and cheese washed down with weak lukewarm Gatorade. The night before word was passed that solid intelligence indicated a significant number of insurgents were cornered with their backs against the Euphrates River, and they had nowhere else to go. The blocking force, an Army National Guard Stryker unit, on the north side of river had seen to that. The Marines of 2nd Battalion 1st Marine Regiment had relentlessly pushed them east along this ancient river valley; all the way from Husayba on the Syrian border to this final fist of land called Old Ubaydi."
Fire and Ice