LGF reader Joe G. forwarded this letter from Marine Colonel Bob Chase, about his experiences in Operation Matador; note the section about his interview with NBC News:
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Was talking to Gino and he asked for some details on the MATADOR fight. Figured, by now since many of you might have caught some of the interviews, you’d like to hear, ‘the rest of the story...“
Matador is now officially over, supposedly, they were going to fight our way back and ”destroy“ us - guess they missed the turn at the dairy queen. We are back and the final tally was Good Guys - 125 enemy dead, many more wounded, and 39 detainees of some significant value. The bad guys, who talk a real good game - 9 Killed (6 in the one Amtrak) and 30 wounded (most will return to duty). Not a bad weeks’ work.
As we have said, our intent was to make ourselves big by leveraging our firepower and mobility. This area was a real sh*thole for AMZ criminals. We knew it, 1st Division knew it, but working it on a regular basis was tough. We kept some recon there and got the timing pretty well, brought up a bridging unit from the Army in Baghdad, then went across in the middle of the night (that was probably the only part that didn’t go on sked (the bank gradient was poorly assessed) but we had near and far-side security already in and a blocking position near the Syrian Border.
The enemy figured out after about 4 hours that we were there in force. They came down with about 100 fighters (no, scratch that - they were TARGETS) and made the poor decision to take on a battalion in open ground. They withdrew - we went after them into a place called Ubaydi. Many mounted boats and tried to escape N, we pushed Air, and the Cobras sunk a bunch of trash barges that night. Meanwhile, we continued to push west across the river. Our far-side units started to see pockets of insurgents move to key areas to emplace mines/IEDs. They came out, snipers took them out; their friends came for the bodies; they, joined them on the deck - permanently.
The force started getting the tanks and LAVs across later than we had hoped; but when they did! Our first casualties came at a high-rise where the enemy had prepared positions; a platoon moved in under fire, 2 Marines, a SSGT and a LCPL were first in the hatch and received a burst of MG fire. As the unit assumed they were dead (no additional fire/no one came out), they lit up the house and dropped it with a coupla 500-pounders. As we moved to recover our Marines (NONE LEFT BEHIND), we discovered that the LCPL, though wounded was still alive (he is serious, but stable). Unfortunately the SSGT had taken a round to the grape and had been killed by the initial burst"
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