Operation Arrowhead Ripper began the end of June in 2007. It was a few days before my birthday and I was hopeful that we could finish the mission so I could be on the base for my birthday and eat at the chow hall and maybe call home, but that didn’t happen. The purpose of the mission was to finally take the fight to the bad guys, and destroy them on their own ground to send the message that we were in charge and that we were in control of the city. But they were not prepared to let it go without putting up a fight. Because we were unable to drive into the neighborhoods, many soldiers were airlifted by Chinook helicopters to a far edge of the area, and the rest of us drove to the other edge of the city. At this point we’d finally received some reinforcements so we were no longer outnumbered. While we positioned ourselves in a big line to start pushing through the neighborhoods a larger perimeter was formed around the area with Bradley fighting vehicles, Stryker vehicles, and the big Abrams tanks.

It didn’t take long to encounter resistance. As soon as everyone was in place we started pushing forward and the first group of houses entered we started taking fire but we were prepared and had an unbelievable arsenal of weapons to assist our advances. The push forward started at about 1 in the morning. We didn’t move much during the first night because as soon as the shooting started our air support and artillery started, and from the roof top it was the most incredible thing I have ever seen. The precision and earth shaking destructive power of the weapons that were used were something that I can’t accurately describe in words. And the bombs were so close to us that we had to take cover because of the debris landing on us from the explosions.

The next day was also something to see. When day broke and I looked over the city from a rooftop, hundreds and hundreds of people had attached white flags to sticks and put them on their roofs. Several hundred white flags flew from people’s roofs, but they were extremely happy that we were there. The ISIS fighters had been imposing a very strict form of Sharia law meaning the innocent people in the area were being tortured and murdered for the most trivial of things. But our push into the city gave them some form of hope that someone was finally going to kill or capture the people that basically held them captive in their own homes. As we pushed through the neighborhoods we found some pretty horrendous things which only served to reinforce my belief that the people we were fighting needed to be removed from the world. We found several houses that were controlled by ISIS fighters that were turned into torture houses. They contained things that were used in the torture, mutilation, and murder of innocent people, and it wreaked of death and rotting flesh. We found multiple houses where murdered people had been buried in very shallow graves or dismembered and stuffed into the trunk of a car or some other container big enough for a body. There were a lot of things like that that become seared into your memory and make you question humanity and good and evil.

In the end, Operation Arrowhead Ripper was successful, but also came with some pretty steep costs. Our forces, which included some other units as well as Iraqi Army and Police personnel had about 25 people killed and over 40 wounded. However, we also killed over 300 ISIS fighters.

I didn’t get to enjoy my birthday in the way that I had hoped for, but it is definitely one that I’ll never forget. I didn’t get to eat a good meal from the chow hall or call home, instead I ate cans of Chef Boyardee Beefaroni that I chose to carry instead of the Army’s MRE’s. And the 4th of July provided me with one of the most incredible fireworks I’ve ever seen, but would never care to see again.