IRAQ: A death in Fallouja remembered

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There are spots like it throughout Fallouja: places where young Marines died in the fight with insurgents. The only difference with this place is that I was there when it happened.

It was early in the April 2004 clash. A mob had murdered Blackwater employees. The Marines were ordered to rout the insurgents from the city.

The Humvee I was in stopped beneath a freeway overpass as fighting raged several hundred yards away. I watched as a Navy doctor, corpsmen and Marines worked feverishly to save a Marine who had been shot in the head by an insurgent sniper from his vantage point in a mosque.

Finally the doctor declared the Marine dead and led a prayer. The body was zipped up in a large rubber bag. Within a few minutes a vehicle arrived with then-Col. John Toolan, the plain-spoken Irishman from Brooklyn who was leading the assault.

He walked over to the body bag and stood there silently for a long time, looking down. His body language spoke of grief. He wiped his eyes and went back to his vehicle.

Now Fallouja is recovering. The road where the doctor tried to save the Marine’s life is swept clean. Cars carrying shoppers whiz by.

There is nothing to note the death that occurred there, no marker, just memories, one of which is mine.

— Tony Perry in Fallouja