American Valor Quarterly Issue 2 - Spring 2008 | Page 41

What proceeded after that was the worst moment of my life. I
am fighting a guy who is drugged up and injured and he’s basically
kicking my butt. It’s a 50-year-old man, and he’s beating me. I
heard screams coming from above me, and it dawned on me
that he’s yelling to his friends to come and help him.
I used my Kevlar helmet to subdue him and when he was able to
get that out of my hand I broke open my vest and used the plate
that we wear inside to keep him quiet.
He started to bite and scratch. Never in a million years would I
expect something to devolve into such an animalistic fight. It was
horrible. It ended up that I had a Gerber knife on my belt, and I
used that. At the very end I stuck it into his collarbone. The first
Sgt. Jeremiah Workman (second from right), with Sgt. Maj. of the
Marine Corps Carlton W. Kent at the 10th Annual Conference’s Awards
Banquet on November 10, 2007 - the 232nd birthday of the U.S.
Marine Corps. Sgt. Workman was the recipient of the American
Veterans Center’s 2007 Paul Ray Smith Award for his extraordinary
service to the U.S. military in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Also pictured
are American Veterans Center President James C. Roberts (left) and
Admiral Todd Fisher (right) of TriWest Healthcare Alliance, co-sponsor
of the Awards Banquet and sponsor of the Paul Ray Smith Award.

David Bellavia (center) with students from Bishop Ireton High
School in Alexandria, Virginia, one of the many high schools whose
students attend the conference annually.

time I put it in there, I just gashed my hand open. The second
time, I felt this wave of heat and it was as if my soul was depleting.
I felt that my innocence was gone. This was it. It was like I was
giving him CPR, but it was like Satan’s CPR, just pushing on his
carotid and pushing his life out.

I think the greatest testament of what today’s leadership is that,
while I don’t know how many recorded friendly fire instances
there have been in Iraq, I don’t think there was a single one in
Fallujah. For that many operations to occur simultaneously and
for no one to get shot by our own side is a true testament to the
professionalism that was planning Fallujah. In my opinion it is the
greatest urban fight in our history.
To lose the men that we lost in Fallujah and to serve and to see
what the Marines were sacrificing is incredibly moving. We hear
about the successes today in Anbar province, but every inch of
Anbar was paid for by the blood of the Marines and soldiers.
The changes in Anbar province is the model of Iraq, and it is
because of our sacrifice.

American Valor Quarterly - Spring 2008 - 41

Left and right: Joe Portnoy/American Veterans Center

He expired pretty much nose-to-nose looking into me. And he
did the creepiest thing at the end of it, he took his hand and he
caressed my face at the very end of it. To this day I am creeped The Battle of Fallujah saw the heaviest urban combat since the Battle of Hue
out by that. It was like he was forgiving me in a sense. He was City in the Vietnam War. It resulted in the elimination of some of the most diehard elements of the insurgency, and was an early step toward what has been called
almost saying that he understood—that this was war.
the “Sunni Awakening” in which Iraq’s Sunni population has largely abandoned
Long story short, I went out, smoked a cigarette, and one guy the violent jihadists and embraced the objectives of the Iraqi government and U.S.jumped down onto the second story and another was up on the led coalition for a more stable and prosperous Iraq.
third story. I was just exhausted. I took an AK-47 that was there
David Bellavia’s memoir of the Iraq War, House to
and burned 40 rounds, but just totally missed him.
House, is available in hardcover and paperback editions
at bookstores nationwide and at online outlets such as
The moral of the story is that they all died, I walked out, and I
Amazon.com.
was able to earn back what I had lost. Character is the building
block of competency. To be a competent leader you have to
Shadows of the Sword, by Jeremiah Workman,
have that character and I felt like I had relinquished that. To get
will be released in early 2009.
my honor back I had to earn it back the hard way.
AVQ