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Length: 7:54
ANDERSON COOPER: Well, no matter what's being said
about Iraq, no matter what you think about it
politically, the reality is, young Americans are
there right now, true heroes, just trying to do their
jobs, trying to get home safe, and protect their
buddies, and trying to make it out alive.
Tonight, you're going to see these heroes on the
front lines. They are Marines given one of the most
dangerous missions of the entire war. And our cameras
were there to capture it all.
CNN's Michael Ware takes us to the battle zone.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The
angry debate over the war in Iraq -- does it stop or
actually create brand-new Islamic militants -- means
little to these guys. No doubts here; their enemy is
al Qaeda.
LANCE CORPORAL BEAMER DIAZ, U.S. MARINE CORPS: Most
people here are willing to die for each other. So,
pretty much, it's -- it happens over here.
WARE: This is where it happens: Ramadi. At this
moment, Marines closing around a fallen comrade. It
began 30 minutes earlier, a patrol watching the al
Qaeda-controlled streets from a rooftop, when an
insurgent sniper surprises them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, you see where that came from?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, directly in front of me.
WARE: Next, the Marines pushed home, only 600 feet
back to their outpost, when they're hit, caught in a
killing zone, crossfire from two directions. Somehow,
only one Marine, Lance Corporal Phillip Tussey, is
hit.
DIAZ: It -- it gets pretty crazy. So, there's a lot
-- a lot of times you're just sitting around, nothing
is going on. And, all of a sudden, two seconds later,
you're in a big firefight, just fighting, trying to
stay alive.
WARE: This was the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine
Regiment's war: 600-plus men ordered to go head to
head with al Qaeda in downtown Ramadi, in a battle
their general admits he does not have enough troops
to win.
CORPORAL DONALD BRIER, U.S. MARINE CORPS: Definitely
that I -- I lost one good friend. And -- but I have
talked to his wife. I have talked to his family. And
they're all coping well. So, I know I can cope well.
If they can, I can. So...
WARE: These Marines fought day in, day out, repelling
al Qaeda assaults from their outpost. A flew blocks
down, the men draw an ambush in another street. The
fight moves to a rooftop. In seven months, this
battalion suffered 17 dead, more than many brigades
of 5,000 in Iraq lose in an entire year.
MAJOR EDWARD NEGLOVSKI, U.S. MARINE CORPS: We're
going to leave the blood and the lives of several
Marines, the memory of their lives here. We won't
forget them. But all of us will leave something here.
WARE: Their presence made a dent in al Qaeda.
CAPTAIN ANDREW DEL GAUDIO, U.S. MARINE CORPS: But the
dangerous -- you know, how dangerous the mission is
hasn't changed. We have stopped a lot of attacks. We
-- we stopped them cold in their tracks, never really
took any great pride. And, you know, how many people
we have stopped, I have no idea.
WARE: But, listening to them, from the kids in the
gun pits to the officers who lead them, you hear, in
their own words, how the real price of this war is
being paid.
BRIER: You get nervous when you come over. But, once
you're here, you're nerves are just-- Of course
you're nervous. I mean, you're coming into a combat
zone.
DEL GAUDIO: It's a -- it's a hell of a thing to come
to grips with, but, yes, we -- that's what we are.
You know, that's the -- the meaning of who we are as
Marines, is be prepared to do that, if necessary.
And, in my perspective, in my mind, there was no
greater calling.
BRIER: I think it's still -- still not reality for
me, even though I'm here. I see everything that goes
on. I have seen things, you know, that you don't --
because you're here, your mind state isn't -- isn't
what's going on here. You just -- it's day by day.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're taking fire!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where else are we taking fire
from?
DEL GAUDIO: And when I -- when I think of my men,
when I first brought them out here, before we came
out here, the -- you know, you could see the young --
the young faces, you know, naive to the world, and,
you know, just -- just grasping for an understanding
of exactly what they were about to get themselves
into.
NEGLOVSKI: I don't think you could come here to a
place like this and not forget it. You would want to
forget it, but you're -- you're not going to. It's
just not going to happen.
DEL GAUDIO: The blood that we have shed here, we will
certainly never, you know, forget the pain, the
suffering, all the emotions, the -- the bleeding, the
crying, the sweat, the tears. None of that will ever
-- it's never going to leave us. And we will -- we
will never leave it, because that's the legacy of our
-- our fallen comrades.
I will do my duty. We'll be here. You know, we will
-- we will do what has to be done. We will do it. You
know, whatever it -- whatever it takes, we will keep
doing it.
WARE: Away from the politics on the home front, to
these Marines, it's about surviving what their
commanders call the meat grinder.
DIAZ: And it's not easy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: You know, Michael, you talk about a lot of
these guys feeling like they don't have enough troops
to win the battle.
Do they feel like their reports are getting heard,
like their voices are getting heard, like that people
know what the situation is like where they are?
WARE: Well, I do remember one of the younger Marines
saying to me, you know: Tell our story. You know, "we
do not want to be doing this in a vacuum. We want
people to know."
But, I mean, the thing is their own general says
that, as his mission stands for that province, the
heart of al Qaeda in Iraq, it's only to train the
Iraqi security forces. He said, he does not have
enough troops to win against the al Qaeda-led
insurgency. Yet, these are the guys at the tip end of
that spear, at the core of the worst of it.
So, in some ways, you know, their own commanders are
saying: We don't have enough forces in this place to
win this battle. These kids have to hold the line --
Anderson.
COOPER: You know, there was also a lot of talk
before, I mean, the last couple of times I was there,
especially in the beginning of the war, you know,
about building schools and refurbishing things, and
civil affairs work, the kind of stuff they're doing
in Afghanistan, essentially what they used to call
winning hearts and minds.
Is that stuff still going on? Or has it gotten to the
point where the security situation is so bad, they're
basically just focused on, especially, you know, in
this area, surviving?
WARE: Well, a departing civil affairs chief that I
spoke to some months ago said that, essentially,
"Well, we have given up. I mean, there's no way to
deliver civil affairs."
And, quite frankly, there was doubt about whether
they would ever win the hearts and minds.
Nonetheless, the brigade that's out there in Ramadi
is attempting to do what it can. There's
consideration of setting up a provincial
reconstruction team.
But, most importantly, they're just trying to prop up
the governor, make sure he can get to work and back
each day alive, despite repeated assassination
attempts, and despite the fact al Qaeda has
penetrated what little stands of that government --
Anderson.
COOPER: Michael, a very real look at the war.
Michael, thanks.