Word: battalion
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...Colonel Ben Hodges, Commander of the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne, climbed a 150-foot tower, standing on a recently abandoned electrical plant. He was going to watch the opening phases of the brigade's first offensive operations. In the morning chill, he saw the brigade's 3rd Battalion form up behind a low berm south of the An Najaf Airport. At exactly 6:30 AM the battalion, supported by five tanks, swept across the airfield in almost textbook fashion. By 9:00 AM one of the largest airports in southern Iraq was declared secure and Army engineers were...
...Even before daylight, one of Colonel Hodges's other units, 1st Battalion, had moved out on a separate mission to assault a large infantry training complex being used as a rallying point for paramilitary forces. After quick initial gains the battalion came under heavy automatic weapons, RPG and mortar fire. By dusk, the battalion had killed 44 Iraqi paramilitary soldiers and captured a storehouse filled with weapons...
...Brigade's 2nd Battalion that faced the toughest assignment. Their mission was to silence harassing fire from the Tomb of Ali without seriously damaging one of the holiest sites in Islam. They drove Iraqis off, but their return is considered a certainty...
...dawn, Hodges rushed off to the tower to be in position to watch the seizure of the airfield by his 3rd Battalion. After watching them for an hour, Hodges left to check on reports his 1st Battalion was meeting enemy resistance at the military complex it had been told to seize. By the time he arrived Lt. Colonel Marcus DeOliveira had called in an air strike, which killed or at least silenced the 3-4 Iraqis holding up the advance...
...Moments later though, the lead company came under heavy mortar, automatic rifle and RPG fire that made further movement impossible. Using all the weapons his battalion could bring to bear brought a quick end to enemy fire. Iraqi attempts to send more troops to the area by pick-up truck ran into the 120mm main guns of tanks sent to reinforce the 2nd Battalion. They fared no better then their compatriots who were killed by the 3rd ID days earlier...