Word: pantano
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...better friend, no worse enemy." The words echoed through 2nd Lieut. Ilario Pantano's head on the afternoon of April 15, 2004. That was the motto of Lieut. General James Mattis, at the time the commander of the 1st Marine Division in Iraq. Like many junior officers, Pantano looked up to Mattis as the consummate warrior-general. The phrase had stuck with Pantano as he tried to keep his men alive in some of Iraq's meanest neighborhoods, where friends are hard to find...
...into the southern edge of the city to destroy two bunkers that insurgents were using to fire on their positions. Easy's Third Platoon moved in to inspect one of the buildings, which had been hit the day before by a 500-lb. bomb. Platoon Commander 2nd Lieut. Ilario Pantano reported back that they had found gun emplacements and binoculars and that the building was still usable by insurgents. Another Marine later recalled the smell of death. Tank fire would finish the house off. Then, to their north, they spotted the movement of three or four men. Some of them...
...security, the Marines felt angry, frustrated and deeply skeptical that the deal would work. As they packed up their equipment and cleared out from their forward operating base, they were fuming. Despite the agreement, the Marines were still taking heavy fire from the insurgents. "This is so surreal," says Pantano, after being briefed on the agreement. "I had to write it down in my journal to make sure I wasn't making it up." This is how the war looks to the Americans on the front lines...
...next morning. The Marines are temporarily diverted by the arrival of care packages from home. Staff Sergeant Chris Bailey, gruff and tattooed, opens a massive parcel of honey buns, potato chips, Winn-Dixie sugar drink and cigarettes. "I miss my mother," he says. He is interested only in cigarettes. Pantano, a former commodities trader and television producer from New York City, receives clippings from the New York Times and cigars "rolled by a Cuban guy on Ninth Avenue...
...allow the new Iraqi force to enter the city. U.S. commanders insist that the Marines will maintain a presence around the city. Many in Easy Company view the decision as a retreat from the U.S. pledge to drive the "bad guys" out of Fallujah. "Does this remind you," Pantano says, "of another part of the world in the early...