TV ALERT:Series looks at Iraq ambush

Posted December 13, 2005
Series looks at Iraq ambush

HOBART — The fierce gun battle that killed U.S. Marine Pfc. Ryan Jerabek, 18, of Hobart, will be profiled on the History Channel series "Shootout!" at 8 p.m. today.

The episode "Battlecry Iraq: Ramadi" will examine the April 6, 2004, battle, which killed Jerabek and 11 other Marines at a Ramadi intersection ambush.

For his role in the firefight, Jerabek was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart medal and a Bronze Star with Valor, the Marines' fourth highest medal for bravery,.

An encore of "Battlecry Iraq: Ramadi" will be aired at midnight.

For more information, go to www.historychannel.com.

Ellie

History Channel Tube Alert

Tonight - two shows. As it says, these are premieres. Times are Eastern and Pacific. The show is called "Shootout.". There is another one on the 16th about the CIA in Afghanistan, early days.

Premieres: Tuesday, December 13 @ 9pm ET/PT

"Today we are going to kill Americans." That was the warning to shopkeepers in Ramadi's marketplace on April 6, 2004. Insurgents meant what they said. They intended to harm any and all members of Echo Company--part of the Second Battalion of the 4th Marine Regiment. Ramadi, a Sunni stronghold and former Saddam power base in the Anbar province, is one of the most dangerous places in Iraq. Resistance there is fierce. "The Magnificent Bastards" as the 2-4 is called, bore the brunt of hatred and rage as they were ambushed in a well-planned attack. We chronicle the 2-4's struggle for survival while under fire--everywhere and all at once--from an enemy that couldn't be seen. AK-47s, machine guns, and rocket-propelled grenades exploded all around. About 50 insurgents positioned themselves on the roofs of one-story buildings and in between market stalls. The next week-and-a-half would be bloody and deadly.

Premieres: Tuesday, December 13 @ 10pm ET/PT

They're cold-blooded killers, not particularly selective about their victims--coalition troops, international journalists, Iraqi civilians--just about anyone will do. These slaughterers want political power. In the south, militant cleric Muqtada al-Sadr unleashes his militia on US Marines policing Najaf. The two forces battle hand-to-hand in a 1,000-year-old cemetery. In central Iraq, a skilled insurgent mortar team tries to disrupt national elections by targeting polling places in and around F! allujah. Marine Recon squads quietly hunt them down and kill them one-by-one. In the northern city of Mosul, Uday and Qusay Hussein, sons of Saddam, help plan and fund insurgent training and operations. US Special Forces and 101st Airborne troops surround their hardened, reinforced hideout and decimate it. For Iraq's "Most Wanted", the message is clear: surrender and you might live; resist and you'll crumble in a storm of lead.

Premieres: Friday, December 16 @ 10pm ET/PT

Afghanistan, 1981. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, threatening to expand its huge hold of territory and edge closer to the rich oilfields of the Middle East. President Reagan decided to send CIA officers in to train Afghan rebels to fight against the Soviets. But he didn't want to tip America's hand, so he sent in a small team of undercover officers from the CIA's Islamabad station in Pakistan. Working in dark alleys and traveling on Pakistani military helicopters, Milt Bearden and his team of CIA officers gradually built a network to funnel arms and cash into Afghanistan and train the rebels to fight. Dodging bullets and risking their lives, the CIA officers became secret warriors fighting America's last battle of the Cold War.

Bump to let the word out;)

Ellie