Battle for Baqubah
Killing Our Way Out
by
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Everyone’s adrenaline was pumping and their senses were on high: vision crisper, hearing sharper, minds focused on getting through that door.
I sat watching as the breach team moved into position, stacked on the wall, then took a millisecond to get set and SLAM! The door went flying open and the entire squad poured into the house.
I secured the entrance and the squad went through the house gathering up the occupants and consolidating them into one room. The same thing happened to four other houses simultaneously. We put the wife and the kids in one room and the men into another room to ensure they wouldn’t talk to each other. Once everyone was separated, we searched the house, room by room, drawer by drawer, rooftop, outside, cars, sheds, outhouses, trash piles, and goat pens.
EVERYTHING got searched.
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About the Book
The Battle for Baqubah: Killing Our Way Out is a firsthand account—and sometimes a minute-by-minute tale—of a raw, in-your-face street fight with Al Qaeda militants over a fifteen-month span in the volatile Diyala Province of Iraq. This story is presented through the eyes of a first sergeant serving with B Company 1-12 Cavalry (Bonecrushers), 1st Cavalry Division, out of Fort Hood, Texas.
The author takes the reader into the midst of the conflict in and around Baqubah—Iraq’s “City of Death”—a campaign that lasted most of 2007. The author and his fellow Bonecrushers watched as the city went from sectarian fighting amongst the Shiite and Sunnis, to an all-out jihad against the undermanned and dangerously dispersed US forces within Baqubah and the outlying areas.
About the Author
Robert S. Colella was born and raised in Levittown, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Harry S. Truman High School before joining the US Army and serving throughout the world, including multiple tours of duty in Iraq. He retired as a senior military instructor with the University of Central Florida’s ROTC program. He lives in Florida with his wife, Jennifer, and two daughters.