Personal Narrative: The Battle Of Tal Afar, Iraq

If I could go back to any time in the world, I would go back to France in October 1944 on the Western Front. World War Two has always interested me. Being able to see the revolutionary weapons would be incredible. I would also love to take part in such a historic and epic war. War is a horrible event that plays a major part in human development.

I can not begin to tell you about what I have seen over the past three days. When the battle began on July 1st I never would have imagined how many men would be wounded or killed. Makeshift hospitals had to be made for all of the wounded men. Large warehouses and even the railroad station were turned to hospitals. They grew quickly overcrowded though so we had to use other buildings. Churches were turned into hospitals, with the pews acting as beds. Schools and even private homes had to house wounded soldiers in need of medical attention. Volunteer nurses from Gettysburg gathered to help the wounded. The brought sheets and seat cushions from their homes for soldiers. I can only imagine how overwhelmed they must be, seeing all of the wounded

“Fire, bullets, death” that’s everything I saw when I was in Afghanistan. I open my eyes, i’m at work again, but, everytime I close my eyes I see all the tragedies that happen over there. Before war everyone use to tell me, “Jeff don’t be too shy” or if not “Jeff you are so loveable and friendly with everyone.” Brandon Wallace was my best friend since childhood, he even went to war with me. Then there's, my lovely wife, Nicole Sebastian, she is the most beautiful woman I have ever met. I was in my senior year in high school when army men came to my school and ask for recruiters for war. At that moment I asked myself, “what am I going to do after high school? Am I going to survive in war? Should I enter myself in this situation?” After all, I out my name down, my heart was pounding, my breath was hard, I knew there wasn’t no turning back. When I got home

Patrol officers arrived at 518 N. K Street and surrounded the house. Patrol officers called the victim and the suspect out of the house. The suspect was taken into custody without incident.

It was 115 degrees; the platoon was walking through the middle of the desert each of them with 40 pounds of gear on and an M16A2 rifle. It was summer time in the country of Afghanistan and the temperature was rising. At this point I asked myself what the hell I am doing here and why did I join the United States Army? Right when I was thinking that I felt a tug on my leg and there stood a young boy about 7 years old with only one arm, “Candy,Candy” he asked. Upon speaking with the local villagers we found out that his arm was taken from an improvised explosive device (IED) planted

     According to the author Tim O’Brien, people tend to readily accept the ‘facts’ presented of what happened during a war. People do not consider the existence of fallacies regarding the actual stories of what happens in wars, few consider that the ‘facts’ of an incident often change through people’s words. The film ‘Saving the Private Ryan’ by Steven Spielberg features both facts and seemingness part of the war story. Since it is so difficult to fully describe a war using human language, Spielberg ended up revising his stories to make sense out of it. Spielberg included parts that did not occur or exclude parts that did occur in order to make their stories seem more credible. According

“We have teams in there going over every detail,” says Sgt. Pam Marone. “We’re getting a pretty clear picture of what went on yesterday morning. It hasn’t been easy. Even some of our veteran officers got pretty shaken up when they walked in there. It’s such a tragedy.”

Some of the bullets managed to hit some of the barrels which caused a chain reaction of explosions. Soldiers everywhere were returning fire while other gasping for help. Fletcher scanned around the room for Marcel. He saw him lying behind a brick wall as cover. He seemed to be severely injured as his hand, tainted with blood, covered of what seemed to be several bullet holes. Fletcher couldn’t believe what was happening. There were soldiers lying lifeless here and there. It was complete chaos. Fletcher knew he had been fooled. He knew that secretly there was no prize. He knew that he had to

Happy Easter Monday mom! How are you? Hope all are doing well in Canada. Walter and I are doing bonzer. We deeply miss you mother and, of course, father too. We both have bonzer possies here. The chief is really nice to us now. I still can’t believe it has been over a year since we have seen you. It fascinates me that exactly few years ago we were altogether even dad was with us. We have created so many memories together especially the ones we created on this specific day. Every Easter Monday, Walter will make us laugh by saying nonsense and we will all tell him to chub. Those are good times that I will never forget.

The long 172 days had finally passed, and the day I had been waiting for, for months, had finally come. We were in Chicago for my One Direction concert, the day couldn’t have come faster. The agonizingly slow hours that passed that day was too much to bear. Before arriving at Soldier Field, I was highly anticipating meeting one of my closest friends, Jessica, for the first time. It’s actually rather incredible to me, we first were introduced on social media, we didn’t know each other at all, all we knew was that we both loved the same band, and we were both going to the same concert. Prior to meeting for the first time, we were restricted to Skyping each other almost every other day and texting every day.

turning my head again I saw Simon dive to my aid. He did not utter a

Once the outskirts were cleared out and no one was found there we continued down that road towards the town center and that church. As we closed in on the town we heard sporadic gun fire to the east. You could even hear the distinct sound of the Germans dreadful MG-42, which we have nicknamed “Hitler’s Buzz saw.” Once we heard that our Captain who leads our platoon yells for us to hurry to assist 6th platoon to our east.

Immediately following the set containment pieces 3rd squad moved to continue clearance of the objective. The squad was on line as they moved uphill and crested a knoll during the clearance. As they crested the knoll, backlit by the high illumination, the squad took fire from multiple enemies firing positions, including a bunker and a machine gun nest. During the initial bursts by the enemy on the squad, Sergeant Ryan Olech and Specialist Dick Dallas were struck. Sergeant Olech suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the torso, biceps, and back while Specialist Dallas was shot in the helmet and body armor. At least one round tore through Spc. Dallas’s helmet through his NVG mount knocking him unconscious. As Sgt Olech lay wounded, unable to fight, Sergeant Kyle Oswald single handedly returned fire, eliminating several enemies. Spc. Dallas was able to displace to my location somewhat removed from the immediate fire. As Sgt Oswald continued to engage and suppress the enemy, my platoon sergeant, SFC Crouch moved to and pulled Sgt Olech from the immediate fire where he could be treated for his immediate life threatening wounds. Simultaneously, the isolation and containment elements of the platoon massed fires on known, likely, and suspected enemy positions in order to facilitate the retrieval of SGT

I joined the Marine Corps looking for a challenge. I wanted to open doors for a new career and longed to have a positive impact on the world around me. Looking back five years later, I realize I found all that I originally sought, but I’ve also found something profoundly satisfying and meaningful that I never knew I was missing.

My group has been in the dark since that fence went up and to get info we captured a soldier and now we have him in a basement of a empty house.He isn't talking much but we have ways to make him talk… now he is talking he says that they plan to leave in 48