Although they have been in hundreds of engagements and campaigns since 1775, only a handful of fights are noteworthy enough to have shaped the Marine Corps for generations and echo throughout history, becoming as much bywords among those who have earned the Eagle Globe & Anchor as “Valhalla” was to Norse warriors.
The storming of Chapultepec Castle in 1847 (“From the Halls of Montezuma”), Presley O’Bannon’s Marines at Derne in 1805 (“To the Shores of Tripoli”), Belleau Wood in 1918 (“Teufel Hunden“), Guadalcanal in 1942 (The Southern Cross constellation), Iwo Jima in 1945 (raising the U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi), the “Frozen Chosin” in 1950, Hue City in 1968 (the Dong Ba Tower and the later personification of “Animal Mother” and the gang) will endure with the Marines much as the Royal Scots will always mark Waterloo, the Rifles (Gloucestershires) will remember the Imjin River, the Legion will celebrate Camerone Day, and the 101st/82nd Airborne will “own” Overlord.
Operation Phantom Fury, the six-week so-called Second Battle of Fallujah fell broadly on the shoulders of four Marine rifle battalions (3rd Bn/1st Marines, 3rd Bn/5th Marines, 1st Bn/8th Marines, and 1st Bn/3rd Marines) and a LAV company (Charlie Company “Warpigs,” 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion) in November-December 2004, will surely join that pantheon.
With that in mind, check out the most current 88-page USMCU history on the subject, and these deep dive videos (some over an hour in length and very well done) that were recently dropped in the past week.