Marines search houses in Fallujah’s Shuhada district
FALLUJAH, Iraq - (Oct. 29, 2006) Marines from C Company, 1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment staged cordon-and-knock operations in the Shuhada district in southern Fallujah as part of Operation Seminole Oct. 28.
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Story by 2nd Lt. Lawton King
"I have done a lot of cordon and searches, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of enemy activity, so I wouldn't be surprised if we find nothing," said 1st Lt. Lane Mandel, the 25-year-old platoon commander from Houston, the night before the operation. Nevertheless, "It's definitely worth doing. We get to know the people better. We'll do census ops."
Marines set out early in the morning and arrived on the scene in the Shuhada in amphibious assault vehicles shortly after dawn.
Quickly dismounting from the amtracs, Marines assumed their patrol formations and initiated their search of the largely residential area house-by-house.
Marines cordoned their sectors of responsibility and knocked on the exterior gates that bar entrance into most Iraqi homes. They notified residents Marines wished to visit to ensure no weapon caches were concealed.
The Marines also snapped photographs of the residents with their registration badges for the ever-expanding Fallujah database.
"We're doing census operations, and in the process of that we're looking for weapon caches," said Cpl. Shawn Wilson, a 27-year-old squad leader in the platoon from Lake Orion, Mich.
House after house, the Marines were greeted by cooperative Iraqis accustomed to such visits. Local residents permitted Marines to search the various rooms of the houses and apartments without offering any resistance.
"This is the first person to ever tell us to knock the lock off," said Navy Seaman Bryan Huffstutler, the platoon's 20-year-old corpsman from St. Louis, after an Iraqi invited the Marines to "jimmy" the master lock to an auxiliary room when he could not produce the key.
Needless to say, the Marines obliged.
No weapons cashes were uncovered on the day as forecasted by Mandel. Still, his Marines did confiscate several toy replicas. According to recent reports, the insurgents distributed scores of toy weapons to children in an attempt to glorify violence and to provoke an incident with the Coalition Forces since some of the models can easily be mistaken for authentic firearms.
"They are given to the kids for Ramadan," Mandel said. "They point them at the Marines, which can be a problem since they look real. We collect them."
Following the conclusion of the patrol, Mandel guided his Marines to a rally point within the walls of an Iraqi residence where the platoon rendezvoused with other units and settled into a security posture to await extraction with the company's two detainees.
After overhearing several transmissions crackling from his personal radio, Mandel revealed that the executive officer of the company, Capt. Lance Day, had chanced upon improvised explosive device-making components within the home.
The find followed on the heels of Day's discovery of a bullet-scarred Daewoo in the driveway he recognized as the insurgent vehicle his Marines had fired upon earlier in the week in self defense.
"Today looked like it was going to be a dry hole," said Day, a 28 year old from Fullerton, Calif., "but the fact that we found a high value individual and discovered this is worth it."