LANDSTUHL, Germany, 16 November 2004 — US troops injured in the battle for the Iraqi insurgent stronghold of Fallujah yesterday recalled harrowing street fighting before their wounds took them out of action and to a military hospital in Germany for treatment.
Four wounded servicemen described coming under heavy fire in a city teeming with masked, well-armed snipers who roamed the streets in small teams and fired from rooftops.
“They were ready to fight to the death,” Lance Cpl. Travis Schafer, a rifleman with a Marine battalion, told reporters at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.
Like the others, Schafer was flown out to the US military hospital after being injured. Some 70 wounded soldiers have been arriving daily since the battle to oust militants from Fallujah began a week ago — about twice the normal number of casualties from Iraq.
Schafer’s right hand was bandaged from where he had been hit by shrapnel after a rocket-propelled grenade exploded 15 meters to his right on a deserted marketplace.
“It’s house to house fighting,” he said. “Rooftop to rooftop.”
Lance Cpl. Ryan Chapman, with the 1st Marine Regiment, wore an ugly scar over his left eye as a reminder of his encounter with an insurgent sniper. As his unit came under sustained fire from rocket-propelled grenades and snipers, Chapman had been tracking a sniper with the telescopic sight of his wire-guided missile launcher.
But he was hit first, the bullet meant to kill him wounding his forehead just below the edge of his helmet.
Chapman, 22, acknowledged he had been lucky. But he said he was eager to get back into action.
“It’s nothing too serious. It cracked my skull but I think it looks worse than it is,” he told reporters. “I want to go back — my buddies are out there.”
US forces have fought for the last week to wrest Fallujah from insurgents after an unsuccessful attempt in April.
Chapman, of Lawrence, Kansas, was among 419 patients admitted to Landstuhl in the last week, 233 of whom had combat-related injuries, according to doctors. The most common wounds have been from bullets or blast injuries from rocket-propelled grenades.
The Fallujah insurgents appeared well-organized and surprisingly heavily armed, soldiers said. “They had their own little plan of what they were going to do, a pretty set idea of where they were going to fight,” said US Army Spc. Kris Clinkscales, 22, of San Antonio, Texas, his right arm in a sling with shrapnel wounds.
Schafer, of Puyallup, Washington, said he was surprised by the fighters’ firepower.
“It seemed like they have a pretty unlimited amount of RPGs and mortars. They seemed to fling those about wildly,” he said.
Schafer, with the 1st Marine Regiment, said his unit had only pushed 400 meters into the city before it started taking heavy fire from small arms, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.
“They were locking on us with RPGs and mortars from buildings all around us,” the 20-year-old said. “Even from mosques they were firing — from all over the place.”
