Quote Originally Posted by MikeF View Post
Thanks for the update VMI_Marine.

Initially, after bypassing the main town and seizing W Nassiriyah (11th ID HQ, Talil airfield, and the bridge), we were told that Marines would relieve us in place. On the 20 or 21st, we were told to push west to As Samawa without a relief. I always wondered what happened to the Marines when they eventually pushed through.
I reread some excerpts from Marines in the Garden of Eden this morning. TF TARAWA was briefed by COL Allen before the war that his brigade was going to secure the Hwy 1 bridge and etablish a blocking position on Hwy 7 south of An Nasiriyah. Somehow this got translated down to my level that you guys would clear the city ahead of us. According to the book, 3ID never set up the blocking positions on Hwy 7, but told the TF TARAWA staff when they conducted final coordination at Talil on the night of the 22nd.

120mm, TF TARAWA may have been moving slower because 2 out of the 3 battalions in the TF Ground Combat Element were mounted in trucks, not AAVs. In addition, our entire move from Kuwait to Hwy 7 near Talil was cross-country, which slowed us considerably.

I watched Episode 2 last night - it was about as close a depiction of An Nasiriyah as I think you're going to get. It was interesting that they showed Hwy 7 through Ambush Alley being a narrow 2-lane road, when in fact it was a 4-lane divided highway. It was nowhere near as tight through Ambush Alley as the show depicted. In addition, there were no destroyed AAVs on the bridge itself, they were all north of the Euphrates bridge. Marines were not clearing houses as RCT-1 pushed through the city - 3/1 was strong-pointing the major intersections in the city to allow the rest of the RCT to pass through.

Richard Lowry posted some criticism of the episode on OPFOR that, while I agree with on a factual basis, I think misses that the show wanted to portray the "grunt's eye" view of the war. Yes, the show has many factual inconsistencies about Nasiriyah, but I think it accurately portrays what the Marines of 1st Recon Bn believed about the battle at the time depicted in the show.