‍Cpl Nick Ziolkowski: "The Angel on my Shoulder"

‍"Fallujah wasn’t hell, but it’s in the same area code."

‍Sgt. Monty Davenport, USMC

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‍"Operation Phantom Fury" was among the fiercest urban warfare battles in American history, fought in Fallujah, Anbar Province, Iraq. Fallujah was the stronghold for insurgents in Iraq at the time the operation was launched. The battle in November and December 2004 was non-stop. It has been said that it was the fiercest and bloodiest urban battle since the Battle of Hue City in Vietnam.

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‍This story is about Cpl. Nickolas Lee Ziolkowski, USMC, a Marine scout-sniper, assigned to Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, the “Tarawa Division.” The shorthand for all that is B/1-8 Marines. The regiment was assigned to Regimental Combat Team 2 (RCT-2) along with the 2-2 Infantry (Army) and elements of four Iraqi Army battalions.

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‍Assignment to a RCT frustrated families back home, who were trying to follow their sons in battle. For example, they knew their son was with the 1/8 Marines, but news reporting would often identify only RCT-2.

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‍Ziolkowski was one of the Fallen while fighting in Fallujah, Iraq, on November 14, 2004. All hands believe an enemy sniper killed him.

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‍"Sgt. Monty Devenport, 1-8 Marines, said the anger he had while serving in Fallujah is still with him, though he said it’s mostly due to a nation that doesn’t seem to know or care about what he and his 'brothers in arms' did during that month in late 2004. He hopes Americans come to understand and appreciate what coalition troops did while serving in Fallujah." Christopher Thomas

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‍In telling Ziolkowski’s story, I will interpolate other stories to create a picture of what he and his colleagues endured in this battle.

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‍Nick was from Towson, Maryland. He graduated in 2001 from the Boys’ Latin School of Maryland in Baltimore. This is the oldest, independent, and nonsectarian college preparatory school for boys in Maryland, founded in 1844. The school emphasizes integrity, courage, and compassion for others. The school typically has approximately 640 students enrolled from kindergarten through 12th grade. 

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‍“Despite their youth, the marines seemed to tower over their peers outside the military in maturity and guts. Many of Bravo Company's best marines, its most proficient killers, were 19 and 20 years old; some directed their comrades in maneuvers and assaults.” Dexter Filkins, embedded with 1/8 Marines

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‍Ziolkowski was the captain of the school’s cross-country team in his senior year. At 17, he completed the Navy SEAL Odyssey program, the 24-hour version of the Navy’s “Hell Week,” finishing in the top ten among several hundred participants and the youngest man to finish.

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‍Ab Logan taught English when Ziolkowski was a senior. He said:

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‍"He was just real clear -- the reason he was so envied by the other kids, he seemed so clear about what he wanted to do … They didn't want to be Marines, they just wanted to be Nick."

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‍Nick left for active duty with the Marines less than a month after graduation, on July 2, 2001. He was said to be intensely patriotic, having planned to join the military since ninth grade, when he selected the Marine Corps in 10th grade. He began running and lifting weights daily to get himself into shape.

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‍While in the Marines, he frequently returned to the school to speak with students enrolled in military history classes. Butch Maisel, the military history teacher, said:

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‍“I let him teach the whole class. The kids were spellbound ... He really seemed to love what he was doing … People respected his decision to join the Marines … When he came back, he always drew a crowd."

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‍Ziolkowski was trained to be a Marine scout-sniper and became a team leader with B/1-8 Marines. He did not grow up with guns. His passion was surfing, and he spent a lot of time doing it while training at Camp Lejeune, NC.

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‍After training, he and his outfit went to Iraq and participated in the Battle of Fallujah.

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‍This map shows the location of Fallujah in central Iraq. It is in Iraq’s largest province, Anbar. It lies at a crossroads. It is also located on the Euphrates River. Its population ranged from 250,000 to 300,000 at the time, with some estimates suggesting as many as 500,000.

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‍These people all lived within a roughly nine-mile square area, depending on how you measure it, probably 3 x 3 miles (some say 3 x 4 miles or 12 square miles), while others estimate about 5 square miles; the latter seems too small to me. Regardless of which figure you choose, the city was small but densely populated. An average city block measures approximately 330 feet by 660 feet. There are approximately 1,000 of these blocks. The density presented a significant challenge to the forces fighting through it, often house to house, door to door, rooftop to rooftop.

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‍This photo provides a clearer sense of the city's density. Bing West described the city this way: 

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‍"(Fallujah was) comprised of two thousand blocks of courtyard walls, tenements, two-story concrete houses, and squalid alleyways. Half-completed houses, garbage heaps, and wrecks of old cars cluttered every neighborhood." 

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‍“Fallujah became the new world capital of terror … The terrorists … welcomed thousands of international 'jihadis' and used the city as a base to spread terror across central Iraq … Hostage slaughterhouses, butcher shops for human cattle. Stockpiles of ammunition and explosives in mosques. And a city scarred by all the marks of an Islamic reign of terror.” Ralph Peters

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‍James Warren wrote "The Vicious Battle to Capture Fallujah in 2004 Was a Close-Fought Nightmare," and he noted, 

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‍"The jihadists had spent the better part of half a year constructing bunkers, strong points, and laying out avenues of retreat and ambush sites. Hundreds of rooms and entire houses had been expertly booby trapped, and IEDs (improvised explosive device) had been liberally planted in the streets and alleys. Road blocks of Jersey barriers and junk cars designed to funnel the attackers down lethal avenues of approach seemed to be around every other corner."

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‍This graphic reflects the battle plan. It shows how six battalions, comprising four Marine and two Army units, were lined up on the north side of the city. Their objective was to go all the way to the southern end of the city. I have marked a red line indicating how the 1-8 Marines were to proceed on Phase Line Ethan directly through the city center to the Shuhada neighborhood in the southeast sector. Phase Line Jenna was the southern line to reach.

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‍Captain Read Omohundro, USMC, commanded B/1-8. He said:

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‍"Bravo was the first in and led the Battalion all the way through the city. We were the first to encounter the enemy at each juncture as we pushed through each phase line.”

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‍RCT-7 was responsible for driving through the eastern half of Fallujah. The 1/8 Marines were in the western flank of RCT-7. 

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‍The line of departure was just off the east-west railway tracks in the north. Colonel Craig Tucker, USMC, commanded RCT-7. He described the terrain,

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‍“The terrain sucked. It was hard to move around in and hard to find a place to penetrate.”

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‍"This is all going to come down to that young man, that 19- 20 year 20-year-old corporal, lance corporal, whether he's a soldier or a marine, leading his particular fire team or his squad through the city, house by house, block by block, room by room."  Major Francis Piccoli, USMC

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‍The 1/8 Marines pushed off the line of departure at 7 pm on November 8, 2004. Navy SEAL and Marine reconnaissance teams preceded them to soften the targets and enable the 1/8 to get its foothold. The 1/8 Marines were dismounted. It rained.

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‍I’ll give you a glimpse of what the B/1-8 encountered during the first six days, November 7 through 13. I’ve drawn from “The Battle for Fallujah,” by CWO4 Timothy McWilliams and Nicholas Schlosser. My glimpse will give you a look at the environment our forces faced in this battle.

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‍The Marines had trained to fight in urban layouts. Fallujah’s layout differed; it was more random. Residential, business, and industrial areas were all merged. Marines moved from houses to factories to stores and back and forth between them all. The streets were narrow and usually lined with walls, which meant that the streets channeled the movements of troops on the ground. The houses were densely packed, and most were made of brick and mortar, forcing the Marines to work room to room in each building.

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‍Bars, blinds, or cardboard covering usually restricted visibility into the houses. Exterior doors were of metal and wood, with two or three locking points. There were usually multiple entry and exit points for each home, and each home was next to another, making it easy for enemy forces to slip out one door and into another. In short, an enemy could be virtually anywhere in any building.

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‍These Marines said they encountered two kinds of enemy, both of whom were committed to killing as many Marines as possible. The first were classic guerrillas, engaging at a time and place of their choosing, and then evading out of sight of the Marines using pre-planned evasion routes, including tunnels, that seldom exposed them in the streets. The second were martyrs, who died at the hands of Marines, but only after a tough fight where time was of no significance to the martyr. They were usually barricaded and dug in to their fortification, whether it be a home, a shop, or a factory, and they fought until they were dead.

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‍The city had approximately 200 mosques, many of which were utilized as fighting positions and storage facilities for enemy forces. After-action reports from several quarters proved that the city was a repository of well-placed weapons caches, bomb making factories, and safe-haven hideaways, many of which were linked by tunnels. There were also multiple slaughterhouses where hostages were tortured and murdered, often in the most gruesome ways.

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‍In sum, Fallujah was an enemy fortress. Several thousand enemy were in the city, and they were heavily armed with extensive caches of weapons and munitions.

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‍Bravo Company was the first in its battalion to face the enemy, tasked to push down Phase Line Ethan, making it the most vulnerable. It encountered heavy sniper fire. A USAF AC-130 gunship was aloft, but the close quarters made it hard to separate the good guys from the bad.

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‍This graphic shows the track of the 1-8 Marines through Fallujah. While the distance might have only been about three miles, like the other forces, they traveled through highly dense neighborhoods. You can see 10 running east-west through the middle. Depending on your driving skills, it was a four- to six-lane highway, wide, making it very difficult to cross safely on foot. 

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‍“It all comes down to the grunt. Our military assault on Fallujah employed spectacular military technologies and innovative teamwork … But the Infantry squad still decides who wins or loses … In Fallujah, our tools are advanced, but the key remains the creativity our troops bring to the battlefield. Left to his own devices, the American soldier will figure out a way to get the job done the generals never considered." Ralph Peters

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‍The 1/8 Marines walked through the city dismounted, on foot. They were on their own in the heart of the resistance, though there were tanks nearby, an artillery battery supported their advance, as did AC-130 gunships and fighter aircraft.

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‍Each of the Marines carried a 75-pound pack on his back. Their objective was to force the enemy south, where allied forces were waiting for them. The idea was to trap the enemy in the south and destroy it.

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‍The plan was for tank units to lead the way and create as much chaos as possible, followed by the men on foot. It was common practice for an assault team to dash out from its cover and fire a rocket into the wall of an enemy stronghold. After the smoke cleared, another assault team would pop out and move through the hole in the wall and clear the house. The movement was foot by foot, yard by yard, but always pushing to the south.

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‍“I said that Satan has a face and it's in Fallujah; we found torture chambers, chemical labs and terrorist training facilities. This operation had to take place … Our Marines and Sailors took part in a very noble endeavor in which they can forever take pride. They directly contributed to a safer world and carved out a piece of history in the process." Corporal Greg Nichols, USMC

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‍Bravo Company crossed the six-lane highway headed for the Islamic Cultural Center and then waited to support Charlie Company’s assault on the al-Hadrah Mosque. The Marines found numerous weapons, ammunition, and IED-making ingredients inside the Cultural Center. There was a sniper spotted in the mosque. A tank fired rounds and eliminated that threat. Inside the mosque, the Marines found rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), hand grenades, rifles, load-bearing vests, and AK-47 magazines.

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‍Major David C. Morris, USMC, a forward control officer, described how hard it was to get the Marines extracted from their positions,

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‍“The problem was that we didn’t know where everybody was. So we couldn’t call in CAS [close air support], because we’d get on the top of the building and I look over, 100 meters to our east, there’s a squad of Marines sitting on the top of a building. I look up 150 meters to my northwest, and there’s another squad of Marines . . . I look up a couple of 100 meters to the north, and there’s another group of Marines on the building.”

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‍"When you go into a fight, you fight for each other. You fight for your fellow Marines. Those are the things that really matter. You have the right to protect yourself … Take the fight to the enemy, but fight with firmness, dignity, and respect. You are warriors, not criminals." Colonel Michael Shupp, USMC

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‍Once the Marines stepped out of their positions, they attracted hostile fire every step they took. One officer commented that when they could stop, they would redistribute their ammunition, take some swigs of water, devour some food, and then move on.

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‍Bravo Company proceeded to attack the Iraqi National Guard complex, at which point its men received hostile fire from a mosque’s minaret. An AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter silenced that fire. The company then became engaged with the enemy, who were held up in and firing from the rooftop of a five-story building. Bravo received artillery support to help dispense with that. 

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‍The Marines at this point were clearing building by building, corridor by corridor, one home after another, and confronting sniper fire often from mosque minarets.

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‍The next objective was to cross Highway 10, cutting east-west through the center of the city. I believe it was called Phase Line Fran. RCT-1 and RCT-7 were to control both ends of Highway 10, while other units handled the bridges across the Euphrates River. The attack force took control of Highway 10 by November 10.

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‍Bravo Company continued moving down Phase Line Ethan from the National Guard complex. The entire battalion now found itself encircled and engaged in a 360-degree fight.

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‍The fighting ensued into the night, and the Marines had to clear homes house by house. They received support from tanks, assault vehicles, AC-130 gunships, and F/A-18 fighters. They were able to continue their advance.

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‍I’ll stop this blow-by-blow glimpse of the intense fighting and note that the Marines found documents in buildings and among the dead indicating fighters from Syria, Sudan, Jordan, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Palestine, and Iran were fighting against them.

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‍Somewhere in this melee was Corporal Ziolkowski. This is a photo of him in action, serving as a team leader and scout sniper.

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‍As a sniper, he spent hours peering through his scope, looking for enemy to shoot and kill. He had to remain quiet as he moved through tight alleys, careful to avoid getting too close to his prey. He often positioned himself to provide overwatch for the other Marines.

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‍Tom Foreman, a CNN correspondent with Bravo Company, said, 

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‍“Ski is a tall, handsome surfer from near Baltimore. Everyone seems to know and admire him, his calm professionalism and easy manner, an oasis in the turmoil.”

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‍Ashley Gilbertson was a New York Times photojournalist. He described Ziolkowski,

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‍“Cool, (Ski) was really cool, a really nice guy. Ski said that he had been looking for a particular sniper, one that he had been, one that had been firing at him, and he had been looking for, for the whole battle."

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‍Dexter Filkins, embedded with the B/1-8 Marines for the New York Times, said Ziolkowski had a premonition that an enemy sniper would find him and kill him. He knew American snipers were among the most hunted. He knew he would be a target. 

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‍"You know, I can't speak for anyone else, but I certainly - I planned on dying. I mean, you just do the math, and you say, well, there's 3,000 insurgents that are well-entrenched. They've, you know, lined up IED chains of 25 IEDs on a road to take out an entire platoon. You know, they've fortified compounds. You say, OK, well, that means, you know, that I'm probably going to die here. So, I just kind of accepted the fact that hey, this is probably it. So, let's do it." Corporal Greg Nichols, USMC

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‍In a conversation, Foreman asked, "How could he identify this (premonition that an enemy sniper was hunting him)?" Gilbertson responded, "I have no idea." Sgt. Aubrey McDade, B/1-8 then interjected, 

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‍"He knew the sniper was trained. He didn't know if he was Chechnya or Serbian or whatever, but he knew that." 

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‍Foreman then asked, "But he had a real sense that there is a guy out there that was trying to get him?" McDade responded, "Yes, sir."

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‍B/1-8 Marines pushed almost to the southern edge of Fallujah. Bravo Company had fought its way through about 75 percent of the city heading south. It was to meet up with the 2/7th Cavalry and 2/2 Infantry at the Shahada neighborhood. Once the three battalions, one Marine, two Army, met up in this neighborhood, the expectation was that it would become a killing zone where enemy forces had been trapped. 

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‍The enemy was dug in, having created a stronghold. Shahad became a focal point in the Battle of Fallujah. The enemy was trapped, but its forces had moved men and weapons to this area and were prepared for this fight.

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‍Foreman then talked more about Ziolkowski: 

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‍"They are exhausted, edgy, and in need of any relief. So, as they hunker down for another sleepless night, it helps that Ski sits easily among them, talking about home, college plans, surfing. When morning comes, Ski, the sniper, climbs back to the roof with his rifle to scan the horizon." 

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‍There is then a quick exchange in the interview among several B/1-8 Marines:

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‍Lt. Chris Wilkins said, “All of a sudden, we hear a single shot ring out.”

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‍Lance Corporal Blake Benson said, “I remember sitting there, and I hear, you know, one crisp shot.”

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‍Wilkins, “And then they carried him (Ziolkowski) out on the stretcher right in front of everybody."

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‍Benson, “That totally destroyed me there. That was very hard to see."

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‍In his book On Call in Hell: A Doctor's Iraq War Story, Lt. Commander Dr. Richard Jadick, USN, talked about Ziolkowski's last moments:

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‍"Bravo Company was still heading south. They held up momentarily at about seven thirty a.m. on the fourteenth (of November 2004), along with some members of Scout Sniper platoon, waiting for forces from the Army's 2-2 Task Force to link up for a joint advance. The Marines went firm, posting security at the perimeter and along the rooftops. 

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‍“The sun was just coming up as Corporal Nicholas L. Ziolkowski, everybody called him Ski, one of the friendliest, most popular guys in the battalion, raised his head above his high-powered scope for a moment. A skilled sniper, the twenty-two-year-old from Towson, Maryland, was scanning the surrounding area for movement; in a firm situation like that your snipers are one of the most important aspects of force protection. Maybe it was a glint from his scope, or the movement of his head, I don't know. But something attracted the attention of a counter-sniper on the other side. One crack, one shot, and Corporal Ski went down.

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‍"HM2 Kevin Markley, Bravo Company's senior company corpsman, was there on the roof with him right away, and he saw, he knew, there was no way with a head shot like that. But you do everything you can, always. First Sergeant Whittington wanted to get his wounded Marine off the roof, so Markley did what he could to stabilize the man, and they moved him down."

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‍The men rushed Ski to the aid station. Dr. Jadick was there and saw the nametag. He asked his staff to leave.

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‍Jadick said, 

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‍"(Ski) had some significant, massive trauma to his head, and he wasn't going to make it. And I didn't want the memories to -- to hurt the corpsmen."

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‍Lt. Wilkins said,

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‍"It was like, I didn't have that angel on my shoulder anymore, you know, because Ski wasn't there."

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‍At the time Ziolkowski was killed, he was after an enemy sniper. He took his helmet off to get a better look, the enemy sniper fired, and shot Ziolkowski in the head, killing him instantly. 

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‍“On the average American … what is a Marine battalion other than a gang of unfortunates and semi-literate savages, all of them hailing no doubt, from the unwashed, Jesus-addled, gun-loving middle of the country, colliding head-on into the hard facts of life for the non-college-bound? Sacrifice is for saps, so the thinking goes, God knows why people go into the service these days and to take anything more than a passing interest in the whole awful show is to somehow be complicit in it … (Yet), a greater depth of life is possible … sacrifice can have meaning." David Morris

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‍Filkins wrote: 

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‍"The bullet knocked Corporal Ziolkowski backward and onto the roof. He had been sitting there on the outskirts of the Shuhada neighborhood, an area controlled by insurgents, peering through his wide scope. He had taken his helmet off to get a better view. The bullet hit him in the head." 

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‍An officer would later comment that it did not matter if he had his helmet on or off; the enemy bullet would still have killed him.

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‍Ziolkowski felt enemy snipers were after him. He was right.

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‍"How you die matters … Whenever a Marine is killed, we pause for a moment to remember. Memorial services 'in-country' are different than most people think. First, there is no body or casket … What serves in its place are a pair of boots and a rifle stuck into the ground by its bayonet, a set of dog tags hanging from the pistol grip of the rifle and a kevlar helmet resting atop … In one service … a corpsman of a reconnaissance team … spit out his most meaningful line: 'He died a warrior's death.' Soldierly virtue above all else. 

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‍"A nation’s treasure is in its youth, and their loss is beyond measure because it is irretrievable. They were singularly trusting. They solicited no assurance on the prompt surrender of their lives. They demanded no social privileges, no distinctions, as they willingly walked into the valley. 

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‍"Oliver Wendell Holmes reflected … 'we are in the presence of the dead. … Young and gracious faces, somewhat remote and proud, but with a melancholy and sweet kindness. There is upon their faces the shadow of approaching fate, and the glory of generous acceptance of it … But grief is not the end of all. … Our dead brothers still live for us, and bid us think of life, not death — of life to which in their youth they lent the passion and joy of the spring.' He sees war as a part of the human condition, yet he sees nobility in living life to its top, spending youth in a worthy cause."

‍Scott Cooper, USMC (Ret.)

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