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Marine Pantano Caught in a Crossfire Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com "Warlord, No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy" By Ilario Pantano with Malcom McConnell, Threshold Editions, $26.00 405 Pages You won't necessarily get combat fatigue from reading this book, but you'll get as close to it as anyone can.
That's due to following the day-by-day combat experiences of a United States Marine officer as he goes about his hectic – and lethal – routine in Iraq.
Ilario Pantano was a Marines' Marine, everything a member of that elite fighting force could be. He was also the victim of a terrible case of misguided justice, accused of a crime he did not commit.
Lt. Pantano was charged with murder, accused of killing two Iraqis in cold blood. He faced anything from the death penalty to long years in prison if found guilty, and for a long time the cards appeared to be stacked against him.
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The story of his ordeal would be a book in itself, but "Warlord" is much more than a mere account of his experience as a man unjustly accused of murder, although that story is both shocking and fascinating. It is the best and rawest account of the kind of combat our Marines and soldiers are fighting in Iraq – down and dirty, and as dangerous as any war America's armed services have fought.
Pantano was well prepared for what he would face in the streets and alleys of Iraq. Being always prepared is a trait that stood him well, and in this book he prepares the reader for what is to come by starting in the very beginning.
He was twice a Marine, having first enlisted at the age of 17. He fought in the first Gulf War, and later achieved the feat of making it through the grueling training to become a member of the Corp's elite band of scout snipers. When his enlistment ran out he went back to school, went into business, made lots of money and got married. On 9/11 he looked up at the columns of debris-filled smoke arising above the twin towers of the World Trade Center, went to a barber shop and had his sideburns shorn to Marine Corps length, and re-enlisted.
Just as he guides you through his daily routine in Iraq, he takes you through his months in the Officer's Candidate school, Basic School, and Infantry Officers Course. By the time he is through, you feel as if you've gone through the ordeal in each and you begin to realize that this is no ordinary Marine shavetail – this is that rarest of all military men – the born warrior. In his time in Iraq, he would strive to do two things, to prove what the legendary Marine Gen. James Mattis had pounded into his men – that there are no better friends, or worse enemies, than United States Marines, and to keep his pledge to bring his men home safely to their loved ones.
His account of street battles in Latafiyah and Fallujah more or less sum up what Lt. Pantano and his platoon went through day after day. On April 11, 2004, the convoy he was part of ran into an ambush of an army unit by a large, heavily armed insurgent force: "The huge, crackling oil tank blaze was off to our left front – the southeast – and we were taking small arms and automatic weapons fire from two industrial type buildings . . . Up and down our convoy, the .50cals and MK-19 grenade launchers were chopping into windows and roofs of those buildings.
"We were not some undermanned Army truck convoy that the Muj [Mujahideen – insurgents] could pick off at their convenience. I intended to slam right into that intersection and lay down such a wall of fire that [they] would have two choices, run or die . . ."
This was in keeping with the tactic he had developed – always attack into an ambush with everything he had.
"Our seven-ton [truck] slammed to a stop only 20 meters from the raw concrete wood-floor repair garage – the insurgents main position. They fired straight at us. We fired straight at them. "I would have put the truck right through the wall if it wouldn't have killed us in the process. The insanity of the day took on a splintered quality ripped free from the normal flow of time. Faleris stood behind his long-barreled gun, his face snarling as he emptied an entire can of .50 cal into the second floor window. "Streams of 40 mm MK-19 grenades whipped over our helmets to explode inside the building. My men rose and fired their M-16s, ducked to reload, and rose again to fire."
As the intense firefight went on, with bullets crashing all around, Pantano ordered his men to seize the enemy's position. Suddenly he was back at Camp Lejuene a month earlier, getting his men ready to ship out to Iraq. The families of his men were there to see them off.
"I had given those wives, mothers, and fathers more assurance than I had any right to offer. 'I promise I will bring your Marines home to you. Maybe a little bumped and bruised, but I will bring them home.'
"Who had I been to make that kind of promise? On that cool March morning who could have imagined a five-kilometer ambush, with belt-fed machine guns, IEDs and RPGs using shaped charge warheads. This was not security, not stability. It was f****** war."
That battle went on all day, with the insurgents threatening several times to overrun the Marine positions. It only ended after the Muj had fled and a sweep of the area resulted in a roundup of a huge arsenal of weapons found in the city's houses.
Later that month, his unit was sent into the outskirts of Fallujah to conduct what amounted to a combat patrol preliminary to an all-out assault on this enemy stronghold that never took place. Under intense fire all day, he and his men fought in the most difficult of all combat - urban warfare in street-to-street fighting. He brought his men out safely after skillfully directing the platoon under the worst possible circumstances.
Not long afterward he found himself suspected of having killed two Iraqis in cold blood. He was detached him from his unit, given months of make-work until he came back to the States to find himself formally charged with murder. He gives a full account of the hearing called to determine if he should be court-marshaled, providing transcripts that show in riveting detail how much of a farce the accusation turned out to be. His only accuser was shown to be an embittered vengeance-seeking sergeant he had previously demoted who could not stand up under cross examination. The case fell apart, but following it minute by minute is a fascinating look at justice gone awry.
Ilario Pantano was a heroic dedicated Marine, the best of the best. Instead of being decorated for his skill and courage under fire, he was subjected to a humiliating and totally unjustified ordeal. In the end, he had the last laugh, but that scarcely makes up for what he was forced to endure during months of uncertainty.
Said one of his lawyers, the brilliant and combative former Marine Charles Gittens, "Down at the unit level, there was never a question about Ilario's conduct and whether or not he did the right thing. It was up in the higher echelons. The people removed from combat situations needed to put more trust in their officers rather than assuming they're guilty."
Amen.
Editor's note:
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