Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greig Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is retired US Marine Corps Colonel Aaron Cunningham. Colonel Cunningham recently retired after twenty nine years of service, and today we're focusing on his time as a company commander in the Second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq in November and December two thousand and four. Then Captain Cunningham commanded Alpha Company, first Battalion, eighth Marines and was responsible
for nearly two hundred Marines. In this conversation, we will discuss his leadership, the other Marines, and the tactics involved in the Battle of Fallujah. Aaron Cunningham was born in the Midwest, but soon moved to the South, which he still considers home.
I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, but moved down to Georgia at about age of six six months. So I claim Marietta, Georgia as my hometown.
And had there been a history of military service and your family, my.
Father served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War, did that influence your decision to join to a degree? Just the service aspect of what he did in his stories?
Why did you choose the Marine Corps.
It's a good one. A lot of intangibles roped up into that one, but the Gulf, to simply put it, I was a senior in high school and that kind of fired up something in me about wanting to get
out there. I think me and Buddy actually tried to figure out how we could get out of high school early and joined the Marine Corps with our parents, you know, age seventeen waiver and that didn't work out well, probably for good, but that kind of started the look and just always inspired by reading books about history, books in US history, and just the idea of potentially, you know, being able to be part of something bigger than myself and that kind of drew me. Those intangibles of the services.
The Marine Corps does it better than anybody else can tap into that, rightfully. So so that's kind of the path I took.
And did you attend college? I did the intent of pursuing ROTC.
No, So I attended West Georgia College now it's University of West Georgia at the time was a small state school. Met my wife there, so it was a good pick. But freshman year, like a lot of freshmen, just kind of doing the freshman college thing, trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to do. The idea of service, whether it was law enforcement or military, was there, but I was, you know, I say, C plus kids rule the world. I was at C plus kids trying to
get through my freshman year of college. And then I met a Marine officer recruiter on campus who were masters at touching that intangible piece I just talked about and the ball got rolling and I participated in what was called Platoon leaders Course program where I went to Officer Candidate School the summer between my junior, sophomore and junior year and my junior and senior year. That's where a job interview for officer candidates if you can make it through.
And then I said, this is what I want to do, and was commission as a second lieutenant upon graduation in the summer in ninety five.
And where did you go from there?
So I graduated as college in the summer, waited a few months, and then attended the Basic School in Quantico, Virginia, which is a six month program where all Marine officers attend. It's a baselining. We say every Marine is a rifleman we also dictated every Marine officer is a rifle beatem commander if need be, which is proven to be quite beneficial in past conflicts. So that school a baselining for all officers, regardless of what you're going to do going forward.
About three corps of the way through that school, you get your military occupational specialty. It's part what you desire, part what you're capable of doing, and part what the Marine Corps needs you to do. And I wanted to be and it was chosen to be an infantry officer. So graduated the Basic School and immediate attend did the Infantry Officer Course, which is another three month school focused
on infantry specific officer requirements to lead Marines. Graduated from the Inftry Officer Course and then proceeded to go to my first Inftry battalion and assume the leadership role of my first infantry platoon.
And where was that?
That was at First Battalion, Second Marines at Campbell, June, North Carolina.
What other assignments did you have prior to nine to eleven?
So, as just discussed, I was at First Battalion, Second Marines from nineteen ninety six to nineteen ninety nine, pretty standard nineteen nineties era. The East Coast Intry Battalion did a Marine Expeditionary Unit deployment and ended up spending some time in Africa and Zaia and the Congo and conducted
a non combatant evacuation operation out of Freetown. Sier Leone came back, did some fun stuff at Bridgeport in California, left there in the summer of nineteen ninety nine, and was selected for captain at that point, which is pretty standard. I didn't do anything remarkable to get it. It's just if you don't screw up bad enough, you'll probably get the captain. And then got orders to the School of Infantry, which happens to be at Campel's Union as well, adjacent
to Campel's June, but geographically the same area. And spent the next three years at the School of Infantry as a company commander, a battalion operations officer, and then the director of a school. And in that time is when nine to eleven occurred.
Obviously, how did that day unfold for you? How did you hear about it?
I was in the office. I was the director of at the time, Advanced Infantry Training Company it's since changed names and grown in scope and complexity, But that was my job at the time, and we saw it on the news like everybody else in the world in our nation,
not sure what was going on. But at the time, I had some of my subordinate units in the field training, and all I could think to do was was just go out and myself and my first sergeant drove out there because they didn't have access communications or you know, cell phones weren't a thing, just to explain to them what was going on and giving them the information that we had that we knew to be true at the time, which really wasn't much so obviously a very somber day
for for everybody, but you know, like everybody kind of in the dark, even more so because most of us were out in the field training without access to the local news. Did your orders change quickly after that or did you finish mine? Did not. I was due to rotate in the summer of two thousand and two. Anyway, I had orders to the Expeditionary Warfare School, which is a school that's kind of a captain's career level school
that a lot of captains go to in Quarnaico. So I already had orders to that, and there was no reason for me not to execute those orders. The Service had the people the Service needed to do what the Service needed them to do, and didn't need me doing something different at that point. So I tended that year long school. While in school with all of my peers is when Operation Iraqi Freedom one kicked off. So as an infantry captain sitting in Quantico watching a lot of
my friends participate in that was a interesting experience. We all would rather have been over there than sitting in a classroom because we assumed that this would be, you know, over relatively quick. And you know, you joined the Marine Corps to do what the Marine Corps wants you to do, and there's a fight and you want to go to the fight. So interesting year, great year. Educationally, graduated in the summer of three, where there was a bit of a lull in Iraqi Freedom at that point had orders
to first Battalion, eighth Marines. In the summer of two thousand and three, I checked into Camp Le June and everybody was gone because everybody was overseas in Iraq starting to phase slowly phase back from I guess at the time we called itaf one. I was an eftry captain now without a battalion to even check into because one eight was still overseas, and an opportunity came up to deploy to the country of Georgia as part of a small training team doing foreign internal defense type of things.
So again, as a captain in the intra He's city at Campbell, Junion, while all my buddies were overseas, I raised my hand immediately to just get out of there. So I spent the last half of two thousand and three in the country of Georgia.
Anything in particular that comes to mind about that assignment.
Working with the Georgian and infter battalion was a fantastic learning and growing experience for me. Being in that part of the country, former Soviet part of the world was eye opening. Got to learn a lot from them about their experiences under Soviet domination, followed by their ability to break free, you know, in the early nineties, President the Chevronazi was overthrown during that time during the Rose or
Velvet Revolution. I can't keep up with all the names, but so that was interesting to just kind of be on the sidelines for that. Came back in December of three, and then after Christmas break January of four, checked into Alpha Company, First Battalion, eighth Marines.
What was it like to meet those guys who had already had a little bit of a history together.
In one eight. Yeah, it was interesting. But at the time, when you get back from a deployment, you immediately start to reset for the next thing, and marines that were staying in the unit would be assuming their new positions, whether it's a leadership position or just another billet. Those that were executing orders would be prepared potentially to go to their next job. So it's always a bit of
a transition period. So I came in during a transition period with a lot of other Marines and sailors coming into the battalion, So you know, you have this this mix of old and new, which is how it always is, and there's there's goodness to that. And then you start building the new team for the new mission, which is what we did from January till June.
Of four, and what specifically was the mission that you were preparing for at that point.
So at that time it was a bit ambiguous, at least again I'm speaking from a young captain's perspective, right, counterinsurtancy. Let's get the iraqi Uh leadership up on their feet and running and all the stuff. Everybody knows. I don't need to, you know, rehash what's what's out there a million times. But we weren't necessarily preparing for large combat operations.
I mean, that's what marines do. But the focus, if you know, if you had to pick a focus at the time, it was counter insurancy, stability, security, those type of missions.
What specific training did you do to prepare for that?
Getting the Marines in the mindset, you know, we train them from day one to be highly aggressive and to take the fight to the enemy. In the counter insurancy environment, you're you're you're working more of an influence type of environment.
How do we influence versus an adversary Influence which means dealing with all a lot of people and dealing with the locals in the country, whether just civilians or those in local civic leadership positions, trying not to make enemies, trying to make friends, but being prepared to deal with the enemies when they show themselves or interfere patrolling, urban patrolling.
The ID issue was starting starting to emerge at that point, it had not hit the crescendo like it would obviously in a couple of years, working through those issues, transitioning to foot mounted to vehicle mounted and covering potentially larger distances or your area of operations or your the area that you're assigned to operating in is going to be larger than you're typically used to. And you know, training at Camp Lejune in the woods, now we're in the
open deserts, all that stuff. Just getting the Marines prepared mentally, physically, emotionally to go into that situation and frankly be able to do whatever it is the Marine coordinated us to do.
That's Aaron Cunningham, a US Marine Corps veteran who commanded Alpha C Company of the first Battalion, eighth Marines in the Second Battle of Fellujah. In a moment, Cunningham and his company are off to Iraq, and he tells us all the things that we're going through his mind as he and his Marines prepared to enter Fellusha. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles.
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Thiss Veterans chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this addition is Colonel Aaron Cunningham. He's a retired US Marine Corps officer and in late two thousand and four, Captain Cunningham commanded Alpha Company, first Battalion, eighth Marines during the Second Battle of Fallushah. We now pick up his story of service as his marines are deployed to Iraq, and Cunningham says he knew they were ready.
I did. There's something beneficial or any unit, but in a Marine Corps Entry battalion, when you have a focus. Marines do better when you have a mission, a real mission. And we knew we were deploying to Iraq. We didn't know exactly what we do when we got there, but that enough was that was enough to focus the marines. Myself included on this. This is super serious. So yes, I think the Marines were or as prepared as they could possibly be, knowing what we knew at the time.
They were cohesive, they'd worked together. You know, Marines do better in adversity, so hard training builds adversity. Adversity builds cohesion. Cohesion enables those Marines to handle whatever, whatever gets thrown out.
So that was your first time in Iraq in the summer of two thousand and four, how would you describe the heat at that time of the year.
Hot, I meant to be honest, it's you know, we joke it to dry heat campus huns pretty hot too. It's different, but it's impressively hot. I mean, it's just that's that part of the world. Back to your earlier question, I missed the point. In April. You had the big fight in Fallujah as well, so that that was in
our minds as well. So trying to balance the counter incertaincy stability security type of operations vers a couple of battalions just go on toe to toe, so we need to make sure we're prepared to do that as well. So again a good focusing mechanism for the Marines going into that environment.
Did you have a feeling that, because of how the first operation in Fellujah went, that you might be involved in the second one?
Mike is probably the appropriate word. Again, I was a captain. I'm at the pointy end of our national security apparatus, right, So my focus is about two hundred marines down and in get down and in getting them prepared to do whatever the Marine Corps needs us to do. So trying to guess what our senior leaders are going to do is futile and I don't have time for it, right, so be prepared if they need us to. But you don't spend a lot of time speculating on that.
So at what point in two thousand and four did you start to hear from your higher ups that, yeah, you got to get ready for this, this is coming.
The interesting the young marines would routinely ask, because marines are marines, and if there's a fight over there, they want to go over to the fight, like, hey, so are we going back in? And I obviously do not know the answer to that. Just focus on what we need to do today. But but you know, that's what
you expect marines to do. I would say maybe a few weeks out I can't remember the timeline, and maybe a few weeks prior, maybe late October, mid October, you start to hear things that, hey, this something may may be going on. Again, I'm not privy to senior leader discussions. And but again, brain, just be ready, that's all you gotta do. You just be ready. We'll let we'll let the decision makers decide, and then we'll execute when the time comes.
From what I've heard from the other guys, it was just a couple of days before the operation started that they really were under the impression that something was going to happen, mobilized and then put in positions.
So we pushed from Alisad down the all endbar Problemnce towards Fallujah and again, I apologize can't remember the exact timeline they probably should done, but there's all the histories are out there you can you can see the dates. We pushed in to Camp Fallujah, just east of the city of Fallujah, and again not until sure if we would actually go or not. There were some things at the higher levels that were happening, to include elections and
all this stuff. But again for the Marines, Okay, this is now the environment we're in, so we're going to start focusing on combat operations in an urban environment. Whether we go or not is not relevant, but we're going to be prepared for that eventuality when it comes. So
that's what the Marines were doing. As an eighteen or nineteen year old, I can see how that is incredibly unnerving because despite you know, at our level pushing as much information down as possible, by the time that information often gets down to the youngest marine, it's modified itself because it's an iterative process, so you never have complete clarity nor should we expect to have complete clarity, right.
And so as you are in position and it seemed like this is going to be imminent, what's running through your mind? It's your first time heading into combat. But also you're in charge of two hundred marine and so making sure they're taken care of and they're in the right position to do what they need to do. I'm sure it's at the front of your mind. So what are you thinking about as you're getting ready to do this?
Thinking about a lot about two hundred and any marines, plus some attachments with tanks and light armor and constant vehicles and maybe some Iraqi forces. There's never a time to say stop, this is it? This is always It's constantly evolved. Mean, so you're constantly taking in information processing, analyzing, spitting out to your subordinates the latest and newest to keep them as prepared as possible. So to simply answer your question, getting the mission accomplished and doing right by
the marines at the same time. And that's that's a that's a tension. It always is for any any any leader in any any combat in situation is marines get the job done. If they tell me to do this, We're gonna do it. We're gonna and hard. We're going to go in as hard as we need to be to get it done. But we're going to do it right. We're going to do right by the Marines. We're gonna
take care of the Marines. Make sure that you take care of my making sure they're trained, making sure they're trained in the most realistic and most challenging environments possible, because that builds with their confidence in their personal skills. It builds with their confidence in their teammates, and that confidence in their teammates is what enables young Marines to be unsupperable.
That's Colonel Aaron Cunningham, a retired US Marine Corps officer who served as company commander of Alpha Company, first Battalion, eighth Marines in the Second Battle of Fallujah in late two thousand and four. When we come back, Cunningham takes us into the heat of battle. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus.
Our guest in this edition is retired US Marine Corps Colonel Aaron Cunningham, who served as commander of Alpha Company, first Battalion, eighth Marines in the Second Battle of Fallujah in late two thousand and four. Cunningham will now walk us through the intensity of this urban combat, but he starts with a bit of a correction for how the Marines under his command often characterize the start of the battle.
Tell me about the shock and a portion just before you guys went in and then getting there.
I keep hearing this term shock and all from the Marines. It's funny because I don't believe that was ever a term anybody used except the young Marines, which is fantastic. That's fine. I don't recall the term chock and all. What you had was some initial preparatory things happening to set some conditions for the force to go in. But I imagine, as a young Marine whose first deployment when you see a lot of airplanes dropping bombs and artillery shooting, that that is shock and all. So I get it.
So you know, from a human perspective, with that did for me and I guess all the other Marines is we knew this was going to be big, or at least for us, bigger than anything anybody of us had ever done. That solidified it. We did everything at night. So the eighth into the ninth, I believe, is when the initial kickoff happened and the division conducted some initial breaches and moved south into the city to do what
they needed to do. It was a tremendous amount of fire, I mean from coal US coalition, joint forces, joint fires going into designated targets to set conditions, and a lot of fire coming back out the other direction. So that was a mental click that I mean, we already knew it was going to be big, but that mental click just kind of solidified that. And maybe that was good for some of the Marines. Maybe it wasn't, but it certainly provided a focusing mechanism.
Now, your role on the first night was to push to the Mayor's complex.
Nope, So the first night Alpha company was the regimental or the division reserve. We stayed back the first night for the initial breach while the division breached through, gained an initial foothold, and we're attacking through the city and
just doing remarkable things. I'm able to listen in and hear what those warriors were doing, to include the army units with us as we pushed south and at a designated time our higher headquarters was going to have my company sentially penetrate through the front the deepest part of friendly lines and sees the Mayor's complex. And that was almost twenty four hours later. So we spent that first day watching, listening, preparing mentally tactically for the coming mission.
But for that first day, those young marines that you've been talking to were essentially spectators in this massive fight. And then on the night of the ninth, morning of the tenth is when Alpha Company mounted up and conducted that movement to secure the Mayor's Complex.
And that was a successful operation, correct.
It was the idea being that shocked surprise, middle of the night, overwhelming firepower. Get it, grab it, hold it. If it may get sen your way, you're knock them down, which is exactly is exactly what occurred. We were able to get into the complex relatively I'm like say, easy, but about as planned, which is rare because there was limited resistance from inside the complex because I think we
caught him by surprise. That lasted about an hour hour and a half until the enemy recognized that there was a relatively large force smack dab in the middle of the city. Well, the rest of the division was kind of north of us fighting south, so we were pushed forward now into almost a city block outpost. And then the enemy obviously, you know, we we have a plan,
we have goals and objectives. Well those are typically the exact opposite of the enemy's goals and objectives, right, So that became a competition there in the center of the city.
Tell me what happened when the sun rose the next morning.
We were getting attacked from all sides, which was not unsurprising. We were in enemy territory, which they probably thought, you know, going to bed that night, it would be theirs when they woke up, and it wasn't. So they wanted it back and we were not going to give.
It to them. And so describe the scene. How did you position your men and what was the enemy presenting.
The Mayor's complex at the time. I recently just looked on Google Earth. It looks a little different. I think there's some more structures potentially that have been built in the last twenty years. But at the time it was, there was a city block about three hundred you know, three football fields by three football fields, if you can imagine that. But it wasn't as built up as a typical city block in that area because it was you know,
municipal type type buildings. So my initial plan, which was iterated you know, with the lieutenants and Stephan CEO's, was to systematically isolate it and gain a foothold and then
start grabbing buildings. Platoons would support other platoons grab a building, support each other by either fire or observation, and the platoons, frankly and I pushed as much authority and responsibility down to the platoons as I possibly could, which is what what Marines do, and they did the same to their squdalators and team leaders because this was a highly decentralized fight and that's how you generate tempo. So we came in from the north. I didn't like the existing entrances
to the compound. If I was a bad guy he turned them up around. I would either booby trap those put mines or have something targeting that. So didn't want to use those entrances. So as we as we came in with our Meccanis armored fast Force and tracks LAV twenty fives and tanks, we conducted the explosive and mechanical breaches at different locations through the compound walls to stream
into this facility. The Marine spilled out and attack their pre designated objectives, grab buildings, secured them, supported each other, and we were just about through the entire complex within an hour hour and a half when the enemy woke
up and started started getting after us. At that point it was you know, consolidate, hold, start leveraging joint fires to target the adversar area where we could see them, and communicate back to higher headquarters because at this point the rest of the division is still in a massive fight in their own battalion, company, platoon, squad sectors moving generally from north to south, you know, from behind me, coming towards us, all right, So helping coordinate with them
to assist were necessary on enemy movements or what we're seeing. So that's kind of what was happening in the first couple hours.
Now, a difficult moment in this fight is the loss of Lieutenant Malcolm. Explain what happened in that situation and what his loss meant to the platon.
So mid morning on the tenth, the Marine Corps Birthday, we were on a rooftop, just still in the process of securing that facility. Mostly mostly there. Dan was my fire sport team leader, so he was my company represented and in charge of using term joint fires, but anything that's not coming directly from the extreme marine, so artillery or aviation fires kind of coordinating that in conjunction and support of the maneuver of the company. So it's a very
important job. So he's on the radio talking, coordinating with Ford air controllers and artillery forward observers, and the rooftop quickly became untenable just to the amount of fire came,
and so we pulled down off the rooftop. And I don't remember exactly how long after we pulled down, but I was down in a four year type area and Dan was coming down the stairs briefing me on the status of the aviation assets on station and all the things that we needed to know to to support the Marines and and get after the get after the bad guys. When he was he was shot in the upper upper back.
Uh So.
I heard the round hit his front sappy plate because we were talking to each other when it occurred. And yeah, and that was it.
Describe him as a as a leader and as a marine's.
I mean, like like like all of them. He was a patriot. It it's a great, great marine officer, a great person, I think, just smart will, willing to do whatever it took to take care of his marines and get the job done, and just I mean it's fantastic.
Explain how you were able to push away from the Mayor's complex, Who made that call, and then how is it executed?
So mid afternoon timeline gets a little blurry mid afternoon, maybe later towards the evening that the division has started to come on. I use the term online. It's not that simple, but online with the Mayor's Complex, which is not quite halfway down the south side of the city on a large east west running highway which we used as a phase line to help for command control for
different fires purposes. We were told that at some point in the near future, when conditions were set, which were going to be determined by those you know, much senior to me at the time, that the division was going to continue the attack south to clear and zone. You know, basically, we know most of the enemy are now south of us because we've killed the ones north of us, and we're going to go we go down and finish the job.
So the next morning, the eleventh, I believe yes, because the night of the tenth, I got permission to push a platoon south across that phase line. You know, with the goal being in any time you're in a fight, you want your decision cycle to be faster than the adversaries. You want to stay in their decision making loop. You want to keep them second guessing and thinking and concerned
about what your next move is. So we pushed a platoon south of the phase line, and at the time they were most likely the most further southernmost coalition force in the fight. And that night they grabbed the piece of train kind of honkered down and essentially we're going to be some eyes and ears for the regiment as the sun came up before we did this push. When the sun came up, Lieutenant Acimans platoon was essentially surrounded by a large number of enemy fighters who were I
wasn't with him. I was talking to him, but it sounded like they were in a staging area preparing for a big assault back to the north, and he was either you know, based on who you are, at the right place or the wrong place, at the right time and we had a little talk and then he laid into him and the Marines did some fantastically heroic things for a few hours. Once given the order, we were told to move out of the Mayor's complex south into
the rest of the southern portion of the city. Getting across that phase line was a challenge because south of the phase line was full of bad guys and they working to less just be aboup across the street. So we use heavy amounts of suppressive fires to cover the
marine's movement. And this is through coordinating with other companies and adjacent units and bringing in different capabilities, which is what we trained to do, and it worked out pretty well and pushed into the south side of the city and started our clearing operations south.
Now, in the clearing operations you talked about the decentralization of authority and leaving a lot of decisions to platoon squad and the team leaders. How does that unfold? What do you tell the platoon commander and what does he tell the squad leaders and.
So on, So everything you needed to tell them is already in their rearview mirror at that point. So going back to my comment about training realistically and training hard, you're in the fight now and you just hoped it. You trained hard enough, and I think these Marines were prepared. So when you look on a map, you know, in any battle, you'll see a maybe they call it the forward line of troops as the units move through their objectives.
The reality is in a fight like that, and just using our company as an example, which replicates lots of other Marines and other battalions doing the same essentially the same thing. You may have five, six, ten, three hundred and sixty degree firefights happening at the same time, so online on a map, in reality it's this and those platoons. Just like I pushed down authority to the platoons, say, you guys have to cross talk. I can't process analyze, give an order or an approval or an authority to
do something. We don't have time. That's going to crush our tempo. You guys talk, so they do the same thing. Squad leaders, you guys have to talk latterly. Fire team leaders, you guys have to talk laterally. To be honest, we didn't necessarily train for that, don't. You don't train to shoot towards each other in training. You know you don't in a fight like that if you look at it from a geometry perspective, their marine shooting north east west.
But that awareness, that spatial awareness and the geometries involved allowed them to think through what's behind that building where those bad guys are, what munition is appropriate? Then to kill them, but not bleed over into the unit next to them, which to me was fascinating that they were able to do that. And you know, at the team level, squad level, platoon level, and my role then was similar, but okay, joint fires, where can we employ joint fires
in support of this squad who's in this fight? But there's another squad forty meters over here? What can we use? And that was a discussion between the team leader, squad leaders, between commanders, me my higher headquarters joint fires assets. But it wasn't me leading to fight. I was providing injection when I because from my perspective, I may see something, Hey, no, here's why otherwise go or hey what about this? I've
got this asset? Or hey second platoon, first platoon actually moved quicker I can I can kind of see where they are and sent you guys hook up on the in this road alley whatever and figure it out. So highly decentralized, which means you have to trust those eighteen and nineteen year old warriors to make decisions that, frankly, I say, their way above their pay grade, and they're not. That's that's what they do, but it is absolutely friggin amazing.
Retired to US Marine Corps Colonel Aaron Cunningham served as commander of Alpha Company, first Battalion, eighth Marines in the Second Battle of Fallujah in November and December two thousand and four. In a moment, we'll discuss more of the battle and learn how Cunningham approached his leadership role during the battle. I'm Greg Corumbus, and this is Veterans Chronicles.
This is Veterans' Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is retired US Marine Corps Colonel Aaron Cunningham, who recently retired after twenty nine years in the Corps. During the Second Battle of Fallujah in late two thousand and four, he commanded Alpha Company, first Battalion, eighth Marines, and as we pick up his story, I asked him about some of the leadership qualities that the Marines under his command appreciated most, starting with his calmness even in
the most stressful moments of the urban fighting. Was it his natural demeanor, a product of training, or a concerted effort to keep his marines calm as they did very difficult work.
It's probably just, I mean, a bit of who I am. I certainly you know you want to do well, right, I'm a company commander in combat, so I want to get the job done. I mean, I spent nine years preparing for this moment. May mean not particularly this, but the Marine Corps trusted me with the privilege and the honor to command an entry company, which, frankly, it's about as good as it gets. It's the best job in
the world. It is because at that level you can still get to know your young marines much higher than that. It's just because of scope, scale and complexity, you don't, I mean just pragmatically. Obviously, being highly excited on the radio does not instill confidence, so I know that, right. So even if I was highly excited on the inside, and there were times where I was highly excited on the inside, that's not helpful to a marine who's in
a really bad spot. So I mean, that's leaders just, you know, commander to kind of know that it's just it's part of the way it is yelling. Frankly, the only supply for yelling is when it's a volume issue, and in a fight like that, sometimes you're yelling just to talk over the sound of machine gun fire. But I was just humbled to the stay, humbled to have the opportunity to be with them.
The other thing a lot of them said is that how often you were right up there at the front talking to guys and understanding what they were seeing and what they were going through. And I don't know if that's standard operating procedure for company commanders, but they were very impressed by it. So what value did you get from being up there? And how much do you think it meant to end that you were up there?
You know, my job was simply commanding control. That's what a commander does, the exercise of authority and direction by a command or over forces to accomplish mission right. And in order to do that, you know, control or command is you know, based on my authorities? Is a commander? Control is that erative feedback of information to make sure that under my command portion my objectives are being achieved that I outline, well, you have to assess how things
are going to know that. In an urban fight like that, I may have been only one hundred meters behind another, but I might as well have been five miles. So you have to push yourself up to the front. Not that I'll trust the Marines, absolutely trust them, But I also information back to my higher headquarters to help them do the same thing I'm doing, only theirs is more complex and scope and scale and time and distance. So it did a couple of things. It gave me situational awareness.
I never had great situational awareness, but certainly couldn't get it from the back. Most importantly, I could look at the Marines and I could listen to them and see in their eyes, and hear the inflection of mich platoon commander's voices, and see how they're doing, both just physically like hey, drink a bottle of water, devil dog like, come on all right, to take you thirty seconds, trust me, it will help you out, or just just it gave me a I think I can put my fingertips on
on the Marines that were in the fight. You can't do that from from the rear and that that type of fight. I'm not saying there's not a time and place where you need to be back for command control, but in that fight, I might as well not have been there if I wasn't in a position to have that situational awareness to make an assessment we on track,
not on track? If or not, maybe that's okay, you know, if we're beating the overall intent, shift resources around and just help the lieutenants so they can help their marines so we can get the job done.
I'll get your thoughts briefly on some of your subordinates. First of all, platoon leader Doug Barnes, what kind of a leader we'll see?
I mean, they're all fantastic, obviously, different different personalities, different upbringings, different backgrounds. They're different people. You can't treat them all the same. You can provide the same expectations on the back end, but you know, I mean, just like Doug Barnes would do with his squad leaders, right each one, the expectations are the same, but you may word it a little differently for this one. You may incorporate another little idea for this one. And that's just getting to
know your people, which is hard because we're busy. But Doug's fantastic. He's a great officer. He's done great things for the Marine Corps. I love him, and he's going to continue to continue doing great things for the Marine Corps, hopefully for a long time.
And then some of the squad leaders that the guys clearly revere, from Billy Leo to Anthony Martinez. How much interactions you have with them.
Yeah, I mean as much as I could, but never enough, right, I mean, definitely remember these guys both in training, before deployment and while we're there. It just it's inspiring to see these young men and women that are in their early twenties, and you compare it to society. And I'm not knocking anything, right, but these young men the amount of responsibility and the harshest, most chaotic, violent environment you
could possibly know. We're leaders, they're young men, and they're leading other young men with a life and death responsibility. So I mean, just frankly, for me, you know what would inspire me when I may have a moment of doubt or just not hesitation, But you know, after a couple of days of not sleeping and in a fight, it's it can be a bit exhausting. And then you watch you know, start at Leo or Martinez or Meadows, any anybody. I mean the squad leaders from Lieutenant Acrims Platoon,
Lieutenant Hunts Platoon, and the weapons, all of them. You watch these young leaders and you're like, well, shit, we can do this all day long and they're never gonna stop us, just because of them.
Another word that was used to describe you was methodical in the in the push South, it was slow but very steady in terms of clearing these neighborhoods and what you explained about the the geometric challenges there. It's understandable that it was not a sprint, but in terms of clearing and pushing.
That that was the idea. Of course, the enemy has a really big vote. Like I said, we have our objectives. They are the opposite of the enemy's objectives. And now you're a violent competition shrouded in chaos, complexity, friction, all the human element. All that's happening. So for me, for us, I mean the lieutenants, and we iterated on this is we can't just go You can't just go willy nilly into the city. I mean you, it will not work.
So a level of methodical even if it doesn't look methodical, because frankly it doesn't, it provided a stabilizing baseline I think for the company to ground you from a larger intent perspective, like you know, this is what we're doing. Just get that done and then we're gonna take care of this. It doesn't always work out that way, uh, because we have to shift resources or a fight happens over here and then just kind of shift shift the guidance if we need to. But you know, tell them
and this is I didn't make this term up. It's slow as smooth and smooth as fast and what we were trying trying to do, and I think the Marines did a great job as is generate tempo, and tempo is not just speed, it's you know, speed in relation to the adversary. We're moving quicker, but smoother with a purpose keeping the enemy on their toes. So we maintain the initiative, that's the idea behind it. It doesn't always work out in that environment for all the reasons we've we've talked about.
One of the toughest days of the battle was the loss of Bradley Faircloth around Thanksgiving of two thousand and four. What do you remember about that day?
So you know, prior to to Bradley, we we lost Travis Desiado as well. Both terrible days, both terrible days. It's not something you you try to prepare for it. The Marines try to prepare for it. I mean, especially at this point in the fight. The carnage and the violence made it a parent that plain Marines have been wounded at this point, I mean mostly small arms fire in close range. Some of them were already back in
the fight. Some of them were on their way on their way home to get their good care that they deserved. It takes a piece out of you. But his our team leader, his squad leader, his platoon commander. Me, We've got Harney other Marines that are still in the fight, and they need their team leader and their squad leader in the patun commander, company commander, and battanion commander to get them to the fight. So it's a it's a tension,
it is. Yeah, you leave, you leave a piece of yourself, at least I did in this city.
There's a few more minutes of our conversation. You just recently retired here in twenty twenty four, so twenty additional years since the Battle of Fallujah, nearly twenty nine years in the corps overall, How did your experience in Fallujah, the lessons you learned as a company commander there inform your future assignments.
I don't know if it inform my future assignments. That's an interesting question because I would say maybe maybe two things, and they're kind of combined. Many of my follow on jobs were in training, either as a future commander or in a school. I was the director of the Infantry Officer course for about a year and a half. So what this experience did was gave me a deeper insight
into risk. You take acceptable risk to accomplison objective. You assess the risk and you mitigate it, and you've got to be able to extend that out as far as you possibly can to be effective. But it gave me greater insights into to how far we could extend that out, because you have to. This is a risky business, right. If the best way to have no risk, we could all just stay home. But our nation doesn't need that
from us. I asked us to go forward, right, So it helped me think through through that, and I think at least, I hope it may be a better trainer. Like I said before, soft training doesn't do well in hard environments, and come, that's a hard environment. It's the hardest environment known to man, it is, right, So in ensuring that training is set up so it's as realistic and challenging and sometimes gut wrenching as possible. Again back to the risk discussion, how far can you take training
without plopping over the edge. That's bad, right, But you've got to be able to push that edge out as far as you possibly can so that when our nation calls, these marines are confident in themselves, confident in their teammates, and they're gonna go. They're gonna go kick ass, right. So I think I left with that, and you know, from a human perspective, just a freaking appreciation for those guys.
I mean, obviously I appreciated them before, but as I've gotten all, you know, my son is now a marine, right, just I love them, and I just hope our nation continues to produce these young men and women who will, you know, raise their right hand, wear the cloth of the nation, that rite that blank check and execute very often in a violent environment without hesitation. So the appreciation for that just it continues to grow.
Any particular advice based on your experience that you gave your son as he pursued becoming a Marine.
Officer, I think he's probably had enough advice for me over the years. But he had the opportunity to spend some incredibly valuable time with some of these young marines that I served with. And I did that on purpose because one, they're the best this nation has to offer, and their advice to him, just just watching him talk was was really price. You can't get that out of a schoolhouse. It's just, you know, like a Mason, just be genuine,
just be you and care. From that stems everything. Caring leads to incredibly realistic, challenging training and all the things. I just thought it was brilliant.
Last question, what are you most proud of from your distinguished twenty nine years in the corps?
Most proud that I had the honor and the privilege to I was in a leadership position, but frankly to serve alongside these guys, and I think most most officers would say something similar to that. I mean, it's absolutely you know, our privilege, Like I'm the probably the luckiest guy in the world.
Colonel, we thank you for your time today and we thank you very very much for your service to our country.
Thank you.
That's retired to US Marine Corps Colonel Aaron Cunningham, who commanded Alpha Company, first Battalion, eighth Marines in the Second Battle of Fallujah November and December two thousand and four. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus, and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For more information, please visit American Veteranscenter dot org. You can also follow
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