On Patrol with Team Gator (Blogger Bill Ardolino embedded

Last Wednesday I rode along on a mounted patrol with members of Bravo Company, Second Assault Amphibious Battalion, aka "Team Gator." As my recent predecessor Bill Roggio described their mission:

The traditional mission of an Assault Amphibious Battalion is to land Marines on the beach, using their huge Amphibious Assault Vehicles (or AAVs), which hold up to 20 Marines and a crew of three. Here in Iraq, the mission has changed. The Gators have been assigned to patrol Route Mobile, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Route Mobile, which, along with Route Michigan, are the two largest roads running east-west through Anbar province.

Route Mobile is an essential supply line for the Iraqi Army, US Military and al-Anbar as a whole, as well as a main conduit for civilians and insurgents traveling between Syria, Ramadi, Fallujah and Baghdad, among other stops. It's undoubtedly also one of the most explosive stretches of highway on the planet.

Bravo Company is commanded by Captain Eric "Disco" Dominijanni, 34, a charismatic officer originally from Queens, NY. I scratched my head when Dominijani greeted me as a "fellow paisan," until he explained his Chinese, black and Italian heritage. A talented chef who was offered his own show on the Food Network (turned down because of deployment to Iraq), he fed me with a gourmet stash of provolone, prosciutto and salami while conducting a briefing on the Gators' mission.

"Our job is to patrol up and down MSR Mobile, provide route security and convoy security. Basically anything that happens on Mobile is my responsibility," he explained. "We clear it of IED's and provide security for ourselves, anyone who is transiting: military convoys, contractors, IP's (Iraqi Police), the IA's (Iraqi Army), everyone who runs down mobile."

SSgt Mendoza.

I then sat down with SSgt Mendoza and asked what defines a successful mission:

"Successful missions for me ... bottom line is bringing everyone back into the wire, alive, with all of their fingers and toes attached, and everything working the same way it was when we left. If I can do that, it's a successful mission for me. If I can find things, that's like bonus. And that's really what keeps us going. It's like the ultimate Easter Egg Hunt, except you're not getting candy or money out of it, it's just the satisfaction of a good day's work.

I have to go find these IED's, but I don't want to do it recklessly. Leading these guys out here looking for these IED's, and to make it successful, you really have to do two things - that's ... to trust your gut instinct and your brain, you really need to know what's going on out there. I can teach you 300 different ways to look for IED's out of textbooks, but if it doesn't feel right, then that's the best indicator of all."

I asked why he liked being a Marine:

"My favorite part about being a Marine is just being with my fellow Marines. Being with those young kids ... I call them kids, but they're men, but... they're (a little over) half my age so a lot of them were in grade school when I started out. Almost all of them were in high school when Septemer 11th happened. 90% of my Marines in my section watched the invasion of Iraq on TV, and I look back and think about Desert Storm, how I watched Desert Storm on TV - these kids are out here for a reason."

"They knew what they were getting into and I don't want to let them down."

"(I like) just being around them, being with them. Going out there every day with them. There have been a couple of times where they left the wire without me because of injury and it killed me, ate me up inside. I couldn't stand it. But both times I sat there right in that radio room, listening to that mission. I have a wife and two kids back home, that's back home. Out here I have nine young Marines who depend on me to not take them out there and get them killed."

I asked him how Fallujah is doing and how he regards the progress of his mission:

"I like to think I'm making a difference. We have to be doing something right, with how the IEDs are going down. Now, with the bad guys shooting at us? We almost invite them too, because it gives us a chance to do some killing ourselves."

"I keep hearing Fallujah is a safe haven, it's an oasis compared to what it was last year. It's such a huge change between last year and now, we must be doing something right. We're working on the security issue, but the Iraqis have to stand up and do that for themselves, as we're not gonna be here forever."

"But we'll stay as long as necessary to get the job done."

Everyone should follow Bill's blog. Get the facts, not the bullsh*t.

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