Entry 14

1900 hours                  May 20th 2007

Today left everyone with a false sense of security and hope. After wake up, roll call, and my morning watch, the 3^rd Infantry soldiers arrived. It was about 1200 hours when suddenly we all heard footsteps running towards us from behind, then abruptly hundreds of 3^rd Infantry soldiers dropped into the trench. We gave them a warm reception cheering, exchanging stories, and shaking hands. 500 3^rd Infantry soldiers were now in our trench. That number added to the now 115 operational men of our trench. The surgeons had worked tirelessly around the clock to save and heal as many as they could. The sickbay was now empty, 133 of the wounded were shipped home deemed too wounded to continue fighting, 15 wounded died from their wounds, and 33 were fixed up and sent to fight with us. The surgeons and Mod 16 artillery crews now slept off duty in their trench barracks. Then at about 1330 hours, a large bombardment of Fallujah was conducted. The Air Forces B-1B Lancers and F/A-18C Hornets swarmed over Fallujah dropping bomb after bomb pounding the city into a pile of bricks and sand. All of us dropped what we were doing and stopped to watch the fireworks. 1000-pounder after 1000-pounder fell on the city. Hopefully this bombardment would strangle and weaken the Arabs. Our battalion was responsible for over 2,000 dead Arabs so far. Our trench was the center, to the left of us was the 1^st Marines and to the right the 82^nd soon to be replaced with the 1^st Infantry. The center the 100^th, that’s us, and the 3^rd Infantry. Later today a runner arrived with the recon photos from the U-2 mission Voght had originally sent for. There were 6 concrete bunkers on the Arab trenches; they also had gained more artillery cannons. While the Air Force pounded Fallujah, the Arab trenches remained untouched and unbombed. Lt. Street called up an Apache gunship fire mission. Time to stick it to these Arabs.