Real Place of the Day...Fallujah Candyshop?

Last night the History Channel showed a special on the Battle of Fallujah in Iraq in November 2004. A particularly brutal battle, 90 U.S. soldiers and just over 1,000 insurgents killed. Marines and Infantry moved like wave, pushing all insurgents into a killzone at one end of the town. Insurgents were well dug in, caches of weapons and mouseholes hidden everywhere. Insurgents were even said to have injected themselves with syringes loaded with stimulants to lessen physical pain and increase intensity. There for one reason, to kill American soldiers, insurgents were prepared to die.

The battles were reenacted with actual footage and dramatizations. Very well done. Very intense. One of the first American squads to break into the killzone found an abandoned convenience store under cover of night. Soldiers were quoted as saying that insurgents attacked only during the day. The night was quiet and still. The squad used the time to dig in and fortify.

They nicknamed the abandoned convenience store the Candy Shop, and from the Candy Shop the U.S. squad prepared for dawn. Turns out they were the only U.S. squad to make it into the killzone, the others waited on the fringe. From the Candy Shop the squad could see they were in the middle of a large group of insurgents awaiting the next American attack.

All together now. The squad began its attack from the Candy Shop and reportedly inflicted severe casualties on the insurgent gathering. Soon they were surrounded and were forced to blow a whole in the back wall of the Candy Shop and fight their way back to the fringe of the killzone. No losses reported by the squad.

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