The "Fallujah Marines."

From the Soldier side: My teams first mission as most know, was in Fallujah, Iraq. I won't go on about it too much, you can read about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Fallujah

as well as other sites. If I knew then what I know now, I think I would have called in sick.

Part 4, we arrive at Fallujah. As we got out of the Humvees, it took me a few seconds to get my legs working. I had either driven on been a passenger on many convoys a lot longer than this trip, but not as scary. We were greeted by the Army team we were here to replace. They looked very burnt out. One agent had been helping the Marines look through the dead insurgents to figure out who they were... he had the joy of being able to speak, read and write Arabic, so he was well used up. I had never seen anyone who looked so burnt out.
We were escorted to where the senior Marine Sergeant was, and I met the guy we were going to work for.
I can't mention his name, but he was a Marine Gunny (E-7) who was a Marine Reserve who'd been on many deployments. He was also a cop in is civilian life...so we got along good. We had plenty of coffee, but couldn't locate any donuts.
Just as I was being introduced to "Gunny" an Army 155 MM cannon went off without warning. I had been around a lot of loud noises in my life, but that cannon caught me off guard---good thing I had just gone to the latrine.
"Gunny" looked at me and saw my expression, and said: "it's out going....don't worry."
Each time a 155mm cannon went off, I thought it was taking out a city block in Fallujah. The battle was not over.

To be cont.