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thedrifter
09-14-05, 08:27 AM
Parris Island Marine recognized for valor in Iraq
Published Tuesday September 13 2005
By GEOFF ZIEZULEWICZ
The Beaufort Gazette

Marine Corps 1st Lt. Robert Miller almost missed the biggest battle of his life last year.

After being deployed to Iraq, the 32-year-old Charleston native came home to tend to his sick son, and he missed his unit's movement to the north of Fallujah for Operation Phantom Fury last fall, a large-scale effort to take back the embattled city from insurgents.

But with typical Marine grit, Miller persevered.

"I had a lot of time freaking out because I didn't know where my gear was," Miller said. "But in reality, I had a pistol waiting for me in Kuwait so I wasn't too stressed out."

Soon after that, Miller coordinated a push by Iraqi and American forces to take back the streets of Fallujah from the insurgents, a battle he said he will never forget.

For his efforts, Miller was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with a Combat Distinguishing Device for Valor last month.

Miller not only fought his way through the city, but he also guided Iraqi forces to their objective of taking the Hydra Mosque.

In January, Miller was deployed back home and is now a series commander at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island.

When talking about his part in Operation Phantom recently, Miller was matter-of-fact, while noting the chaos he had lived through.

"You can't do it service, as crazy as it was," he said.

Training Iraqis

Working with Iraqis is a world apart from Marine protocol, he said.

"When you're working with Iraqi forces, you go and talk about family for an hour, talk about the troops," Miller said. "We'd eat some food, drink some chai, smoke a lot of cigarettes and kind of relax for a while. Then I'd hand them a map of what we were going to do and maybe have two minutes to explain it to them."

Many of the Iraqi forces wore masks for fear of retribution by insurgents -- against themselves and their families -- if they were recognized, Miller said.

While some training occurred between the Marines and Iraqis, a gap still existed, he said.

"Marines train nonstop with each other to create that internal bond so you know what the other guys are thinking," he said. "With the Iraqis, obviously, that bond is not there."

Language also proved to be an obstacle, Miller said.

"We had two or three guys that spoke minimal Arabic," he recalled. "Hand and arm signals became our bread and butter."

Moving into place

Early in the morning on Nov. 8, with rain coming down and a temperature of about 45 degrees, Miller roused his guys and moved to his unit's staging area north of the city, reaching their spot at about 6 a.m.

"We showed up, dug fighting holes, and just sat, drinking water and eating chow," he recalled. "We sat there all day."

At about 10 a.m., the bombardment of the city began.

"They bombed the city all day," Miller said. "Any type of heavy weapons system, any individuals carrying weapons, any fortifications. They were all shot down."

Any cars in the city were instantly destroyed because they might have been bombs, he said.

"We spent all day watching this symphony of destruction," Miller said. "As night came, it was time for the grunts to go in."

Into the breach

The battle began the moment Miller's unit entered the city.

"It was so intense that it was just numbing," he said. "The second house, we had contact. We spent all night, and moved a block and a half."

Aided by tanks, which replenished troops with rations, artillery and grenades, Miller and his troops kept pushing.

At one point, a Marine moving through an alley was hit in an explosion, Miller recalled, and the platoon commander thought it was an improvised explosive device.

Two more Marines went into the alley, and fatal explosions soon followed, Miller said.

"There were a group of guys at the top of this building, throwing hand grenades out of this little hole into the alley," he said, adding that the building was soon demolished.

The battle's chaos resulted in tanks getting lost, and the enemy moving forward behind tank cover, he said.

"Three tanks had to be replaced that first night," he said. "As soon as the tank was partially destroyed, it went out of the city, and the crew got a new one and came back in."

Talking below a scream was not an option, he said, and training took over.

"That first night was an eternity," he said. "People had to get used to it."

On the second day, as Miller's unit moved toward its objective, the Hydra Mosque, things began to make a bit more sense, he said. All the training began to make sense.

"No matter how tired you are, at no time did you stop assuming that someone is trying to shoot you," he said. "You never walk. I didn't walk for two weeks."

Working with the Iraqi forces posed problems of its own.

"I spent all my time shuffling these guys around," Miller said. "They were freaking out pretty heavily."

The fire discipline of the local forces also posed a danger of its own, he said.

"If they get shot at, they will form a circle and shoot outward, and god help you if you're in that 360 degrees," he said.

Miller said he also came face-to-face with the realities of modern urban combat.

While he didn't see any women or children in the city, he recalled seeing many men waving white flags. Distinguishing between enemy and innocent became blurry.

"They did the old tricks where they'd shoot at you from one building, then cross the street with a white flag, then they'd shoot at you from over there," he said. "You weren't a 100 percent positive."

The push into the city and the taking of the mosque lasted about a week, he said.

"I didn't take my flak jacket or helmet off for three to four days," he said.

When talking about it, Miller said everything blends, and he remembers dates and times only by the events that occurred around them.

"Everything else is kind of weird," he said of the battle. "It's just movements and running, the most intense I've ever seen. I had squads that kept running out of hand grenades."

Ellie

thedrifter
03-20-08, 03:24 PM
http://www.robmillerforcongress.com/

Ellie