And so at the battalion level, I was given very specific guidance that my goal was to is shape as far ahead of the front line of troops as possible.

The way I interpreted it and the way that it was delivered was

shapement destroy. And so with AC130 Specter gunships we destroyed every single car

along the road in our path to prevent VBIEDs.

But the enemy did change their tactics at that point. And instead of putting up a more straight-up fight against,

you know, mech infantry and armor,

they reverted to what became known as hellhouses as a primary tactic.

And they would hunker down and wait for somebody to come and get them.

And that proved to be very difficult and casualty producing to go in and do that.

Hi, and welcome back to The Spear, a podcast by the Modern War Institute at West Point.

I'm John Amble, editorial director at MWI, and The Spear is our platform to explore the combat

experience.

Each episode includes a single one-on-one conversation with a guest who walks

us through a particular event and their role in it. A battle, a firefight, a mission. It's

a first-person account of combat. In this episode, MWI's Major Jake Moraldi sits down

with Lieutenant Colonel Koli Tyler. In late 2004, he was a captain serving as a battalion fire support officer in Iraq.

That meant that when the Marines asked for his battalion to take part in the second battle of Fallujah,

he had an important role to play.

He coordinated artillery, mortars, and fire from supporting aircraft to do something that

in the army we call shaping the

battlefield. As he describes it, in Fallujah, that meant destruction. Lieutenant Colonel Tyler

offers a really unique perspective on one of the most significant single battles of the war in Iraq.

...