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Now all they need is good air support.

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Man, I am starting to want to talk to a recruiter.

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Anybody seen any pics/news about the 7th Marines?  I can't find anything and I'd like to get a handle on where he is.  

Public domain stuff only, of course.  

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Man, I am starting to want to talk to a recruiter.

Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, Commanding General of Ist Marine Expeditionary Force, second left, talks with U.S. Marine Lcpl Shane F. Strachan of Bloomfield, Iowa, with the 2nd Battalion 1st Marine Regiment, left, in the outskirts of Fallujah, Iraq, Wednesday, April 7, 2004. Hundreds of U.S. Marines attacked several neighborhoods in the western Iraqi city of Fallujah in order to regain control of the city. (AP Photo/Murad Sezer)

Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, Commanding General of Ist Marine Expeditionary Force, right, talks with U.S. Marine Cpl. Fabian Carbajal of San Diego, Ca., with the 2nd Battalion 1st Marine Regiment in the outskirts of Fallujah, Iraq, Wednesday, April 7, 2004. Hundreds of U.S. Marines attacked several neighborhoods in the western Iraqi city of Fallujah in order to regain control of the city. (AP Photo/Murad Sezer)

U.S. Marines with the 2nd Battalion 1st Marine Regiment in military vehicles leave from their base to patrol in the outskirts of Fallujah, Iraq, Wednesday, April 7, 2004. Hundreds of U.S. Marines attacked several neighborhoods in the western Iraqi city of Fallujah in order to regain control of the city. (AP Photo/Murad Sezer)

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Any news of the 1/5th Marines?  They are also in Fallujah, probably on the south or southeast side of the city?

GunLvr

Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, Commanding General of Ist Marine Expeditionary Force, right, talks with U.S. Marine Cpl. Fabian Carbajal of San Diego, Ca., with the 2nd Battalion 1st Marine Regiment in the outskirts of Fallujah, Iraq, Wednesday, April 7, 2004. Hundreds of U.S. Marines attacked several neighborhoods in the western Iraqi city of Fallujah in order to regain control of the city. (AP Photo/Murad Sezer)

U.S. Marines, while nominally in control of Fallujah and Ramadi, continued to face opposition. Witnesses in Ramadi said Marines who'd been fighting for 24 hours straight paused only to refill ammunition. Insurgents were getting the worst of it, as Marine snipers picked them off one by one.
...
The death toll for coalition forces in the last two days of fighting stood at 34, including 12 Marines who died Tuesday in Ramadi. Ten of those Marines were from a single company.

The Iraqi death toll was much higher, perhaps more than 500. Marine engineers patrolling near Ramadi on Wednesday reported coming across a mass grave containing up to 350 bodies of Iraqis who appeared to have been killed in the fighting. It wasn't clear whether the bodies belonged to combatants, civilians or both.

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Notice that all those 16s have rails?

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[img]http://cache.gettyimages.com/comp/3236856.jpg?x=x&dasite=MS_GINS&ef=2&ev=1&dareq=A1E61729D7EFD6DCF8988E9C9D4FF869[/img]

The battle to retake Fallouja began Tuesday where Marines least expected it: near a cluster of rye fields where the locals seemed friendly and children passed the day playing soccer. “It looks like Nebraska — with palm trees,” said Lance Cpl. Justin Howe, 25. Two days after cordoning off this restive city 30 miles west of Baghdad, Marines were beginning to view the quiet, residential neighborhood as relatively safe. Local farmers appeared receptive to their calls for cooperation and Marines had offered to pay compensation to a few whose property was damaged by their operations. So when a squad of Marines emerged from behind its covered checkpoint Tuesday to begin a foot patrol, hostile fire was not what it expected. Within seconds, everyone was diving for cover amid a barrage of bullets. “There was fire all around my feet,” said one of the Marines in the patrol. Three Marines were wounded, including one hit by a bullet that pierced his helmet and lodged in his head and another shot in the leg.

Tanks, Humvees and helicopters quickly arrived to attack parts of the neighborhood, destroying one building. After treating the Marine’s head injury, one serviceman grabbed his M-16 and joined the retaliatory strike. Insurgents, meanwhile, were demonstrating a resolve of their own. When Marines entered the neighborhood in tanks and helicopters, insurgents held their positions and fired back with rifles, mortars and small arms. Residents reported that insurgent cells, which had been lying low in recent days, had a higher profile Tuesday, openly carrying weapons and positioning grenade launchers in the middle of the streets. One carload of Iraqis was captured while attempting to plant homemade bombs in the road. “We will continue to resist them,” said Abu Khamis Khulaifawi, who described himself as part of the insurgency in Fallouja. “We have enough mortars, enough rocket-propelled grenades and enough light arms.”

Insurgents also appeared to have a strategy to defend the city. They have blocked streets with buses and other vehicles in an attempt to divert military vehicles and have used an antiaircraft gun — later destroyed — to try to shoot down helicopters. One copter was hit by small-arms fire but not seriously damaged. The insurgents are using buses to transport fighters around the city and have darted in with cars to retrieve their dead after battles. Falloujans set up a field hospital to stand in for the city’s main facility, which is close to Marine positions. The military estimated that at least 50 Iraqis were killed and 20 others were detained. Some residents praised the insurgents for their tenacity. “It seems that they have succeeded in preventing the Americans from entering the city,” said Ali Naif, a student at Al Anbar University.

But the Marines reported later that about 500 of their troops, backed by tanks and helicopters, had battled scores of insurgents to make it halfway to downtown. They said they were holding the area as a base from which they could try to retake the rest of the city. Maj. Brandon McGowan, executive officer of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Regiment, said the Marines’ mission was going smoothly, and he was not surprised by the insurgents’ willingness to attack. In fact, he said, he was counting on it. “If they want to come out and fight, that’s fine with us,” he said. “That way we don’t have to go house to house to find them. They’ll fall into our hands more easily.” Staff Sgt. Eric Perry, 34, who is on his second tour in Iraq after participating in the invasion last spring, said the battle for control of Fallouja has been more challenging. “It’s much more dangerous this time,” he said. “The other times at least you knew who your enemy was. Now you don’t know who is your friend.”

The fighting here started as a series of well-coordinated Iraqi ambushes of routine Marine patrols. It turned into a day of nonstop, house-to- house, roof-to-roof fighting with Marines at times surrounded and holding on desperately. It was a cacophony of fire for five or six hours, leaving the bodies of Iraqi attackers lying mangled in the dust, one with its head gone, but still clad in a vintage U.S.-made flak jacket.

Marines stepped warily around the Iraqi bodies, looking for their own comrades. American Cobra and Chinook helicopters thumped overhead, and Bradley Fighting Vehicles rumbled on the roads. At least 12 Marines were killed here, and 30 others injured. Ten of those killed were in Echo Company, which was the first unit attacked in Ramadi. “They did a very heroic, very courageous job,” the unit’s commander, Capt. Kelly Royer, said. The fierce daylong battle took place across this city of 420,000 people, 30 miles west of Fallujah, which is itself targeted and surrounded by coalition forces a week after four American civilian security guards there were killed, mutilated, burned and left hanging from a bridge. The ambushes were launched in bright daylight by what appeared to be four well-armed and coordinated groups of attackers in units of 10 to 15. Until yesterday, the recently arrived Marines in Ramadi said they had found two dozen makeshift bombs but encountered no open warfare, nothing like what erupted yesterday.

The patrolling Marines were slammed by M-16s, heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. The attackers appeared acquainted with the Marines’ patterns of patrol. The coalition forces responded with massive fire, armor and air support. Fighting raged around one street corner in particular and extended to other areas. At one point, Marines fought house-to-house, some even leaping from one rooftop to the next as they chased and caught some of the insurgents. As the fighting died off, at least four bodies were still lying in the dust while Americans went corpse-by-corpse looking first for their own. Near the decimated shell of a U.S. humvee lay the body of one attacker clad in what Royer called an “old-style” surplus U.S. flak jacket. An Iraqi man working for the Marines as a translator paced toward one of the bodies, kicked it, then turned away. This Sunni-dominated city lies along the Euphrates River. As part of the larger battle against anti-coalition forces, the Marines have set up a base here they call Camp Hurricane. By 2 o’clock this morning, the Marines of Echo Company, after a brief rest, were getting ready to set off again in search of the insurgents. “We are going to find these thugs, these terrorists, and we are going to destroy them,” said Royer.

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Go hide in your hole John91

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Screw you kitty boy, those guys looked scared or stressed.

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The combination of being shot at and not knowing if whatever you touch next is going to explode or not will tend to do that to a person.