Michael Pack

I've heard you talk with others about the power of the Marine Corps, what sets it apart as a branch. One of the tenets and foundations is that every Marine is a rifleman first. And so, as a combat correspondent, you have that skill set in addition to that. But you're carrying a long rifle and a pistol along with whatever video or camera equipment you might be assigned. And in the fight, in the push through Fallujah, I was a videographer. And so...

But in that circumstance, you know, anytime you're a part of a team, especially in a tense circumstance like this, you know, what's first on your mind is to be an asset and not a liability. And so you've got to be able to pull weight and contribute to the fight, but at the same time understand when and where you can capture the story without putting yourself or your buddies at risk. And so it's a bit of a delicate balance, but...

Yeah, it keeps you on point paying attention.

marines that would go back to the 60s, right? To the Tet Offensive. That's many decades. How did you guys, how were you guys ready for this type of intense urban combat? Well, I think, you know, we trained for that type of fighting. Now, that intensity and that longevity, I don't know that there's any training you can duplicate to mimic that kind of intensity, you know, for weeks on end.

door after door, house after house, rooftop after rooftop, street after street. It's a lot. But I can tell you, in my work as a combat correspondent leading up to that time, I'd been in country, so 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines was the unit I was with, India Company specifically. They'd been in country for four to five months at that time. I'd been in country for about two months, and I'd done a number of operations with them in and around

the suburbs, you might call it, or the satellite villages of Fallujah, doing shaping and feign operations, prepping for the big fight in the city. And I'd also been with a number of other battalions, and I could tell you that 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, having been longest in country at the time, and the most entangled with the enemy, they already had skin in the game. You know, they had not been... They had not pushed through the streets of Fallujah, but they'd been on the perimeter of it, and they'd taken...

a lot of losses, you know. Over 10 Marines were killed outside the city before we even pushed in. So they were bloodied as a team and they were ready to push into the hornet's nest and give what they had gotten, you know, and meet the insurgents in the safe haven that they'd been drawing strength from and coming out outside of the city to attack us on patrols and in our forward operating bases. So I think the psychology of

Having been in a counterinsurgency fight, you know, death by a thousand scratches were cuts. The tension, you know, the area was thick with the need for reckoning. So I think that at the end of the day, when you look at the tenacity and the level of violence that was unleashed inside the city, a lot of it was built up over the months preceding that.

And there was an elevating trend across the Anbar province with suicide vests and vehicle-borne suicide bombers hitting our forward operating bases. So we'd had taste of that. But to be in the same streets and potentially in the same houses with that same fanatic mindset is pretty daunting. And I think when we saw a few blocks into the city...

A few days into the city, as we started to press them, as Colonel Buell talked about in the film, into the Queens area of Fallujah, and a lot of your hardened fighters set their feet and knew that this would be their last stand. And the goal was to take as many Westerners with them as they could. Our tactics had to change as well. And Colonel Buell will tell you that, you know, we got orders from the top down, we should not be sending Marines into houses that we haven't already sent.

shoulder fire rockets, satchel charges, tank rounds, you know, whatever we've got, we should be softening the targets before we send in young Marines. In the midst of the shock and while the smoke is still rolling, we go in and mop things up. But that's, your tactics have to evolve in the face of that. When there is no surrender, when there is no, you know,

Undoubtedly, like AKs over the top of the roof, you know, clear signs that there was an enemy in a house. We did what we needed to do to soften that building before pushing Marines through the door. But you can't see them all. That's not going to happen.

It's exciting, it's fun, but you become somewhat of a bad luck charm. And it's important to integrate with your team and understand how they move and flow and communicate so that you can again be an asset, not a liability. And you know from experiences you've had in life, the last thing you want to do in the midst of a high-intensity situation is change things up. Hand somebody a new tool.

or, you know, change the plan last minute. And so these Marines are trained to fight in their teams the way they're constructed, and throwing the new guy in can sometimes create interesting scenarios. But I was really blessed in the sense that I had been out with 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines before. I knew a number of Marines that I ended up in the same squad and fire team as. And so I was able to integrate quickly. I think initially, you know, there would have been a belief that

transitioning from you know the fire team that I stuck stitched in with to maybe another squad or another battalion might have made sense or another platoon rather in the battalion what might have made sense but it became really clear to me and the team that I was with that this is not the time to change anything there's too many moving pieces there's too many external threats we got to lock in lock and load with what we've got and clean together to get it done

What did you learn about yourself in this fight? Yeah, I think, you know, it may sound cliche, but in the midst of, you know, when you face your mortality, it has a clarifying effect. And so I definitely forged

a deeper relationship with God and the men around me. I think nothing bonds like shared suffering or sacrifice for a common cause. And between that reality and the reality that you'll never feel more alive than when you're that close to dying, those things have a clarifying effect and serve to energize you with purpose

and clarity so I leaving the city I one was overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude and love for gratitude that I made it through you know physically unscathed which is pretty rare in that group of Marines and also bonded to the men around me and just a great admiration for

their courage and tenacity and their unwillingness to quit. So it's an incredible experience that I, you know, forever grateful for and changed by. Jan, do you have social media? Is there any way people can keep up with you or get your coordinates now? Or a website? I keep a pretty low profile. Not really out there.

Well, in fact, you're right, Steve.