"A light switch went off," Bellavia said. He heard their screams as they were hit by bullets and shattered glass. Inside the tenth house, they were met by a blast of machine gun fire from two insurgents hiding under the stairwell.īellavia's troops were trapped inside the house and in mortal peril. The first nine houses they entered produced only stashed weapons. It was a second attempt by U.S., British and Iraqi forces to seize control of the city of 360,000 that was an insurgent stronghold.īellavia and his squad had been searching an abandoned block of houses for a half-dozen or more insurgents believed to be hiding out in the area. The battle in which Bellavia's actions won him the military's top decoration was part of Operation Phantom Fury, popularly known as the Second Battle of Fallujah. He is also the first living Iraq war veteran to receive the prestigious medal five others who also fought there were awarded theirs posthumously. "I'm glad that it was and I think it demonstrates, at least in this case, the system works."īellavia's award upgrade to the Medal of Honor is the fifth of its kind to be made under a three-year Pentagon review of valor awards involving post-9/11 conflicts. "I'm not sure why or how or what the reasoning was that it was looked at again," Walter says of the decision to boost Bellavia's battle award to the Medal of Honor. Doug Walter, says it was he who pushed since 2005 for the upgrade of Bellavia's Silver Star. "Honestly," he adds, "I always considered my award just being able to come home."īellavia's company commander, Army Col. "You focus on your family, you focus on work, and, you know, my life was 100 percent perfect without a valor award of any type." "Fifteen years goes by and you move on with your life, you put the war behind you," says the 43-year-old resident of western New York state. The medal was a turn of events Bellavia says he had no role in bringing about. "Alone in the dark, David killed four insurgents and seriously wounded the fifth," Trump declared, "saving his soldiers and facing down the enemies of civilization." ![]() Tucker et al., eds., The Encyclopedia of Middle East Wars: The United States in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq Conflicts Volume II: E-L (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2010), 441-442.Before draping the medal around Bellavia's neck, President Trump praised him for defying almost certain death to free squad members trapped by enemy fire. The American forces involved had considerable experience in urban combat. About 10,000 American soldiers and marines and 2,000 Iraqi troops participated in Operation Al-Fajr. ![]() The American military focused on the importance of killing as many insurgents as possible while keeping coalition casualties low. The operation's main objective was to demonstrate the ability of the Iraqi government to control its own territory, thereby bolstering its prestige. Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi, however, renamed it Al-Fajr (New Dawn). ![]() The Americans initially labeled the assault Operation Phantom Fury. The Iraqi interim government, formed on June 28, 2004, then requested new efforts to capture and secure Fallujah. During the summer and autumn months, the Fallujah police turned a blind eye as the insurgents fortified positions inside Fallujah and stockpiled supplies. The Fallujah Brigade failed dismally in this task, giving the insurgents another chance to claim victory and attract additional recruits. marines had withdrawn from the city and turned over security to the so-called Fallujah Brigade, an ad hoc force of local men who had formerly served in the Iraqi Army. Following the decision to halt the coalition assault on Fallujah in Operation Vigilant Resolve (the First Battle of Fallujah) during April-May 2004, the U.S. Major battle fought in and around the city of Fallujah, some 42 miles west of Baghdad, between U.S., Iraqi, and British forces and Iraqi insurgents (chiefly Al Qaeda in Iraq but also other militias).
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