The initial assault on Fallujah was finally over, and we were allowed to go back to Camp Baharia to clean up and get some chow. Everyone seemed to be happier. We were back to a semi-normal routine of showers, food, internet center, and games. On top of it all, we were all now officially combat veterans with loads of stories to tell and things to brag about.

The company mission went back to the normal routine of vehicle checkpoints and MSR patrols. However, this particular day and this particular patrol would be the first of many to remember.

Third Platoon had gone out on a routine patrol. While on patrol through one of the small towns outside of Fallujah, one of the scouts noticed artillery guns lying on the side of the road with spent artillery shells all around them. Near the artillery pieces, the scouts noticed a couple of Iraqi civilians using torches to cut up the guns into pieces, which they would take back home. It was brought to the attention of the platoon commander, Lieutenant Rowell, who then gave the order to halt the patrol. Lieutenant Rowell directed his scouts to dismount the vehicles and take pictures of the artillery guns and ammunition to send to back to the COC. He had the vehicles pull off to the side of the road and set up a defensive perimeter around the site.

Sergeant Leuba, the scout squad leader, directed his scouts to fan out to survey the area. Leuba had Corporal Afraidofbear take pictures of the guns while Corporal Justin Hall spoke with the Iraqis to figure out what they were trying to do. The platoon sergeant, Staff Sergeant Ron Ducharme, had placed his vehicle at the far end of the site closest to the road. Rather than have his scouts deploy with the rest of the platoon, Ducharme instructed his scouts to stay put and provide vehicle security.

About ten minutes went by with no sign of any car traffic. Little did they realize there had been a car trailing their patrol for quite some time. Afraidofbear was taking pictures of the guns and was wrapping it up while Hall was still talking with the Iraqis. One of the Iraqis said they had permission to cut up the guns and presented a piece of paper to Hall. Still suspicious, Hall went up to one of the guns and tried to open up the breach to see if there was still a round in the gun. The last thing he wanted was one of these guys taking home an artillery shell to use as a future IED. He could hardly budge the hatch open, so another one of Hall’s scouts came over and began banging on it with a rock in hopes of prying it open.

Suddenly, the car that had been following them from a distance began to get closer. It seemed as if it was going to continue on a path past the platoon until it made a left onto the street Blue Platoon was near.  Staff Sergeant Ducharme made his scouts aware of the situation and told them to stop the vehicle. The scout section leader in the vehicle, Corporal Scott “Vinny” Vincent, put out his right hand in the stop gesture (showing your left hand is considered rude and offensive). The driver of the vehicle came to a halt by the side to the LAV and started yelling something. Vincent informed Staff Sergeant Ducharme that the driver was trying to say something. Ducharme leaned over slightly in his turret and propped the right side of his helmet off of his head so he could hear what the driver was trying to say.

Those unforgettable words were "Allah Akbar" (God is great).

In the split second it took for the driver to yell those words, the vehicle disintegrated into a ball of flame. A vehicle suicide bomber, our company’s worst fear, had come true.

Hall heard the explosion in the distance. For some reason though, it didn’t register that it was one of their vehicles. He thought that the artillery shell in the gun had gone off from them banging on it and presumed that he was dead or dying. When he realized that wasn’t the case, he turned around and saw Ducharme’s vehicle destroyed. The engine block was skidding down the road and shrapnel from the explosion was flying everywhere. One of the Iraqis began screaming in pain because a piece of shrapnel had hit him. Hall took off running back toward Ducharme’s vehicle to try to provide any help he could. Unfortunately, it was too late. His good friends Vincent and Wilfong were killed by the blast.

In the meantime, Lieutenant Rowell instructed Botty to get his vehicle into communication range of the company headquarters to begin reporting the incident, request backup, and get a medical evacuation to their location as soon as possible.

That day, at that particular time, as it seemed with almost every horrible incident, our platoon was the react force. It took our platoon about thirty minutes to gear up and get out to the site. When we got there, it was one hell of a sight to see.

Blue Platoon's scouts were in defensive positions around the incident. The destroyed vehicle was still smoldering. There was a deep sadness that filled the air.

Lieutenant Snipes ordered the vehicles to set up a defensive 360 around the scene. He then had all the scouts dismount and take up the defensive positions of Blue Platoon's scouts and halt all vehicles that tried to come within range of the incident. My squad leader, Sergeant Jones, and I met up with Blue Platoon's scout leaders to get a rundown of what happened. We then walked the area to see what damage had been done. I saw one of my buddies, Lance Corporal Paul Valliere, a scout from Third Platoon and a guy I had gone to infantry school with, in the prone position with tears welling up in his eyes. A few others were doing the same. Valliere kept on saying something about another friend of ours, Lance Corporal Thiel, being hurt. He was about to say something else but was called away to load up onto his vehicle. Two other friends I had gone to infantry school with, Lance Corporal Patrick Walsh and Lance Corporal Jason Wheeler, were set up in a defensive perimeter around the scene as well. I could see that they were in disbelief and greatly saddened. It looked as if they didn‘t know what to think, as if the whole situation was so sudden and forceful that they were shaken and in shock. I tried talking to them and some of the other Third Platoon scouts, but it was as if whatever I said was just a distant echo to them.

Sergeant Jones and I approached the scene of the explosion, and it was shocking, to say the least. The vehicle that had been hit was destroyed. The whole right side was burned and poked full of holes. Pieces of the armor on the left side looked as if they were peeled back like a sardine can. The interior was charred and smoking. The turret was shredded. There were spots of blood running down the turret and the inside wall of the scout compartment. About ten feet away, there was a fifteen-foot-wide by six-foot-deep hole in the ground. Part of the engine of the car was about twenty feet away from the vehicle. The engine block from the LAV was a good hundred feet away. The rest of the car was scattered in pieces along the road for about a hundred yards. Among those pieces were bits of charred human flesh, most likely that of the suicide bomber.

From what we were told, Corporal Vincent, the scout section leader for Third Platoon, and Corporal Joshua Wilfong, one of the combat engineers for the platoon whose other job was a scout, were the ones standing up in the scout compartment at the time of the blast. They were instantly killed by the blast. Staff Sergeant Ducharme was riddled full of shrapnel and his face was completely burned, but fortunately, he lived. Some shrapnel hit the navy corpsman, Doc Ferguson. Lance Corporal Thiel, another friend of mine who had gone to infantry school with me, was missing a piece of his skull. Supposedly, the sight glass, which allows the scout to look outside when sitting down inside, blew inside and slammed into the side of his head, breaking a piece of his skull off. Another scout, Private First Class Williamson, was slightly burned and wounded from some shrapnel too. Fortunately, the gunner and the driver remained relatively unharmed compared to the others.  The whole thing was a horrible sight to behold. It took about another hour for a support team from MEF headquarters to come out and clean up the mess.

That was my first experience with death. Up until that point, I had never lost anyone close to me. I’d never attended a funeral or been to a wake, so the experience was completely unfamiliar. I never really knew how I would handle death. But suddenly, I didn’t have a choice.  Death was going to teach me its lesson whether I wanted to learn or not. I just went completely numb inside. Maybe it was the numbness or just the shock of the incident, but I didn’t shed a tear, I just went numb. I never really knew Vincent and Wilfong that well, but I did know they were both good Marines and they were my Outlaw brethren. Others in the company dealt with it a bit differently, especially those who were truly close to the fallen. Sergeant Alfonso Nava, one of my good friends and an engineer attached to our platoon, was close to Wilfong and I could tell he was visibly shaken by the whole thing. There were some days when we were still stateside that you could catch Nava and Wilfong sitting outside the barracks drinking beer, with Wilfong busting out some tunes on his guitar while Nava sat back and enjoyed the music. Sergeant Leuba and some of the other scouts had served in Alpha Company with Vincent, and you could see on their faces that they were deeply hurt. But, for me, I just went numb. I internalized the loss and pushed it to the back of my mind, hoping to forget it forever. I think that was how I have come to deal with death since that day. I keep a special place in my memory for those who are lost, but I refuse to dwell on it for too long because I’m afraid it might hurt too much. However, Vincent and Wilfong were someone’s best friends, brothers, or sons. So for some, that tragic incident will be forever burned in their memory and a constant source of pain.

That was just the beginning of the blood that the Outlaws would shed before we came home. Little did we know we had a lot more coming.