American Valor Quarterly Issue 2 - Spring 2008 | Page 39

Another grenade exploded. It knocked us down, and I just
remember Sgt. Kraft handing me a grenade. It seemed like nothing
we were doing was stopping these guys. I was starting to wonder
where they were coming from. I mean, this was two hours now
of continuous fighting.

my three hours in the battle of Fallujah. It has changed my life; it
has really opened my eyes. I feel bad sometimes because I’ve only
been to Iraq once. But I’m just thankful for being able to take
part in the battle of Fallujah and just do my part. I can honestly
say that some of the things I witnessed, there’s not enough awards
to go around. These Marines did some pretty heroic things. I’m
I thought I was dying. It was like I was looking through a straw just proud to be a Marine, and glad I had the opportunity to be
and it was getting smaller and smaller. I figured that if I was a part of the battle of Fallujah.
going to go, I was going in a blaze of glory. I was going to pull
the pin on the grenade and I was going to run into the bedroom SSgt. David Bellavia: I joined the Army in 1999 when the Twin
and detonate myself in this room. I took one step with this grenade Towers were still up, and everything was great. When the towers
and almost got my legs sawed off. Kraft pulled me back – and fell, I started to obsess about my job as an infantryman, knowing
thank God he did. If I had taken one more step I would have that something was coming. I was an NCO, which is the thing I
will take to my grave–it’s the greatest honor I’ve ever had.
been shot right there and dropped the grenade on my guys.
As an NCO, I had nine subordinates under my leadership and
care, and I was their surrogate father; I was in charge of nine
people’s sons. I made commitments to their parents, and I
promised their children and their wives that I was going to do
what I could to deliver them home safely.

U.S. Marines at Camp Fallujah engage enemy targets with their M-198
155 mm Howitzer in support of Operation Phantom Fury,
November 11, 2004.

I don’t know if I was feeling sorry for myself, but I was done at
that point. I leaned up against the wall on the staircase with guys
stepping over me so they could keep fighting. I thought about
my mother and my wife and I thought that was it. Then I woke
up to the Major slapping me in the face. He grabbed me by my
helmet and dragged me out of the house. That was it; he pulled
me out of the house and threw one last grenade up into the top.
Once we had accountability for all the Marines we left the house
and they brought in a tank to destroy it. Word came out that they
needed a sniper to go up to an elevated position with an escort
and take a look around, so Kraft and I volunteered to be escorts.
The streets were very small and we had a tank sitting in front of
the house blowing its main gun at point blank range at the house
we had just been in. The tank was sitting in the street with its
turret turned, and it was over top of the sidewalk. As I’m escorting
the sniper I duck under the turret of this tank as it fired its main
gun. For three days, all I heard was that tank in my ear.

On November 10, 2004, three years ago today—and my
birthday—we walked into a house in Fallujah with some bad
guys in it. The district we were in was known as the “soldiers’
district” under Saddam. Some of these houses were upper-middle
class and pretty nice. Every house in Fallujah seemed to have
been built by siege architects. It seemed like they were fortresses
made by a paranoid society. We walked in through the front
door. Three squads were in the house, and these insurgents
unloaded on us with belt-fed machine guns. They were using a
stairwell and a Jersey barrier as a make shift bunker