The Army personnel who had occupied our camp before us belonged to the Eighty-Second Airborne Division. There was also a small element from the Third Armored Calvary Regiment attached to them. They were a mechanized infantry regiment that was almost identical to us. Instead of light armored vehicles, they had the more common and well-known Bradley. The crews of the Bradley’s were similar to the LAVs in that there was a gunner, a driver, and a vehicle commander. However, the scout compartment in a Bradley was able to hold six scouts, whereas the LAV could only hold four scouts comfortably.

We had only about two or three days to get ourselves situated before we had to start conducting missions. The first few were called left-seat-right-seat missions. These missions were to get the incoming relief (us) familiar with the territory, citizens, and patrol routes. The only people involved with these patrols were key personnel from the Outlaws: the platoon commanders, platoon sergeants, scout squad and section leaders, and some vehicle commanders. The Outlaw personnel would shadow their Army counterparts on the patrol and receive advice from them in everything from previous hostile encounters to the most common areas where improvised explosive devices were found. These missions lasted for about the first week to allow us to get accustomed to the area of operations and acquire a basic understanding of how everything worked.

The company’s first taste of action came on one such mission. The Army personnel from the Eighty-Second Airborne Division decided it was time to introduce the Outlaw staff to the mayor of Fallujah and a few other key members. All of our officers went to this meeting except Lieutenants Walker and Rowell, who stayed behind to be the acting company commander and executive officer. If it weren’t for sheer luck, they would have actually become the company commander and executive officer and the only officers left for the Outlaws.

The Eighty-Second Airborne Division would go into downtown Fallujah once a month to visit the local leaders of the community to discuss a variety of topics. In order for these meetings to take place with the maximum number of participants, they would have to announce the day and time a few days beforehand. This gave the insurgents ample time to set up ambushes. As a result, the Eighty-Second Airborne Division would bring a company of soldiers to secure the meeting place, placing snipers in strategic locations and setting up roadblocks, sentries, roving patrols, and aerial surveillance to provide maximum protection.

During the visit, Delta Company was allowed to bring one Humvee. Captain Shepard determined it would be best to bring a driver along with Lieutenants May, Snipes, and Nunnally. On the drive to the meeting place, it seemed as if the talk of ambush was a bit overdone. The townspeople seemed friendly, kids were playing in the street, and there were no signs of insurgents anywhere. Once they arrived at the meeting area, the soldiers from Eighty-Second Airborne Division set up a defensive perimeter. As it was believed we would be conducting similar missions in the future, Captain Shepard and the lieutenants took notes on how everything was being done.

Two hours passed, and it seemed as if all the security measures were for nothing. Captain Shepard and the lieutenants became a bit bored and let down their guard. They broke open a few MREs to snack on and smoked a few cigarettes to kill the time.

Lieutenant Nunnally looked around at all the snipers that were positioned around the perimeter of the meeting place.

“This sure is boring,” he said in a slight Texan accent. “I sure hope it gets a bit more exciting, or else these are gonna be really boring missions.” The other lieutenants nodded in agreement.

Within a few seconds, the sound of mortars being fired in the distance could be heard.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The mortars began impacting around the meeting place. One landed just outside the defensive perimeter where a little boy was selling sandwiches, killing him instantly. Another round hit closer to home, landing on top of an outpost that housed a few Army and Navy snipers, wounding several of them. A third mortar landed harmlessly in a courtyard nearby.

After the mortars landed, all hell broke loose. Gunfire erupted from the south side of the defensive perimeter. The soldiers from the Eighty-Second Airborne Division began to engage them. With a desire to see some action, the lieutenants began to run toward a nearby building to get a better view of the firefight.

“Stop fuckin’ running,” Shepard yelled to the lieutenants. “The Army is gonna think you’re a bunch of pussies if they see you running.”

The lieutenants brought their run down to a brisk walk and continued toward the building. They had just stopped running when a mortar landed about twenty-five feet in front of them.

BOOM!

The sudden impact shocked the group of Outlaws and threw them off balance. A small piece of shrapnel kicked up and hit Lieutenant May in his eye. Fortunately, he was wearing his sunglasses, so the shrapnel lodged itself in the lens, just short of his eye. Nunnally felt a slight sting near his groin and looked down to see blood soaking his pants. Fearing the worst, he quickly began grabbing his crotch to make sure everything was still in place.

An Army medic who was nearby happened to look over in the direction of Nunnally and saw his blood-soaked pants. He ran over to Nunnally and began applying first aid.

Suddenly, gunfire erupted just north of their location. Lieutenants May and Snipes ran over to engage the insurgents while the medic continued taking care of Nunnally.

While Snipes and May were engaged, the medic had Nunnally position himself behind a Humvee for protection. Once they relocated, the medic had Nunnally stand up and remove his pants so the medic had better access to the wound. It just so happened that at that particular moment, Snipes and May looked back and saw Nunnally standing up with his pants down and the medic on his knees with his head close to Nunnally’s crotch. It definitely provided a little humor in a tense situation.

The medic was eventually able to stop the bleeding by removing a small piece of shrapnel from Nunnally’s thigh and plugged up the hole with a piece of gauze and a bandage. Later on, Nunnally would receive a Purple Heart for his wound, the first of many for the Outlaws.

When the entourage got back to the camp, they gathered us all around the COC (command operations center—the company office), to inform us of what they learned in Fallujah and what had happened during their brief encounter with the insurgents. Nunnally changed out of his blood-soaked pants and stood before us with a grin on his face. We broke into jokes about the situation, and eventually the staff gave us words of encouragement. Once the laughter died down, Captain Shepard told us what they had learned from their first engagement. We truly believed the enemy to be inaccurate and weak, unable to defeat us in battle.

The officers had their piece of the action, and now we wanted ours. We wanted to show these insurgents who was boss. We did in the long run, but we also came to respect our enemy. They weren’t as brainless as we initially believed, and unfortunately it took lives to make us realize it.