A Marine Platoon in Anbar Province

The Spear

John Amble

Government, News

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2004, Tim Strabbing was a lieutenant and platoon commander in the Marine Corps, deployed to an area just outside Fallujah in Iraq's restive Anbar province. On his platoon's very first patrol, they were ambushed by enemy fighters, earning his Marines a baptism by fire and setting the tone for a difficult deployment ahead. He joins this episode to share the story of one particularly eventful 48-hour period.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to The Spear, a podcast about the combat experience from the Modern War Institute at West Point.
0:09.8	More than 100 meters outside the village, you were definitely getting in a firepower.
0:14.1	My first patrol I took, we had a fire ambush.
0:18.9	And then it was just a huge explosion.
0:22.9	The primary threat was RKG3 grenades,
0:25.9	like machine guns and AK-47s, that kind of thing.
0:28.4	Small arms, fire, RPG fire.
0:31.2	Explosively formed penetrators.
0:32.9	Suicide bombs.
0:35.5	And then that's about the time that the third IED went off.
0:38.0	And that's when another grenade comes spinning over the side of the wall.
0:41.8	And it's at that point the IED chain detonates.
0:46.8	There was enemy in the wire.
0:48.3	There was all these Humvees on fire.
0:50.0	It was truly bullets flying from every angle that you could see. I opened the door and look outside and all I see is muzzle flashes.
0:59.0	There's a guy on top with a 240.
1:02.0	In the rounds, passed right past his head.
1:03.0	At that point, our instincts kicked in.
1:05.0	One pilot on the controls, the other pilot was using his M4 to engage single-man targets on the ground.
1:10.0	You're shooting at everything.
1:16.7	It was a fight.
1:19.8	Tim, thanks very much for making some time for this episode of the Spear.
	...

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