'They had a bead on me'

Sgt. Aubrey McDade Jr. knew there were three Marines in the alleyway pinned down and quickly bleeding to death.

Reaching them meant three trips from the cover behind his unit’s up-armored Humvees deep into the enemy’s shooting gallery, and three trips back out carrying the wounded while dodging bullets.

“(My gunnery sergeant) said if I got hit, he wasn’t going to be able to come out and get me,” the squad leader said. “I told him ‘OK, just don’t let me die.’ ”

McDade’s company had been fighting in Fallujah for almost a month, but none of the previous encounters with insurgents was very intense.

But on Nov. 11, 2004, another company with the First Battalion, Eighth Marines was ambushed while pushing through the center of the city, and Company B with McDade’s machine gun squad was called in to back them up.

As they arrived at the fight, enemy fighters dressed as Iraqi security forces caught them off-guard. McDade was manning a gun a few blocks away when the three Marines were shot trying to drop back and regroup.

Under cover fire, McDade took his first trip into the alleyway, running a few hundred feet toward the closest injured Marine.

“They had night-vision goggles or something, because they had a bead on me,” he said. “They started firing into the bushes. It was so dry, the bushes caught on fire on top.”

Still, he made it unharmed to Lance Cpl. Andrew Russell, whose leg had nearly been severed by machine gun fire. In order to lift him he took off most of Russell’s gear, just like he had dropped his own moments before.

“I kept on the flak jacket and the Kevlar (helmet) and my weapon,” the 25-year-old Marine said. “I had heavier stuff, and a pack, and magazine of extra ammo …

“The gear will protect you, to a point, but it wasn’t going to be able to stop all the stuff they were sending downrange. So, I just took it off and hoped that if I moved fast enough, they wouldn’t be able to hit me.”

Once he had Russell slung across his body, he lumbered back toward the safe zone. The insurgents followed each step.

“The rounds were getting real close to me, so I just tossed Russell as far as I could and just laid down in the road,” he said. “When it lightened up, I drug him the rest of the way to the CCP.”

He paused for a moment before heading back for a second time.

It was the same story: sprinting then diving then crawling to cover, then repeating the process again and again until he reached Lance Cpl. Christian Dominguez, who had a less severe leg injury.

“He was a little-bitty fellow, so I made him take off all of his gear, had him keep his weapon, put him on my shoulder and ran as fast as I could,” he said.

They reached safely. As McDade prepared for another trip out, tank reinforcements arrived, and helped clear a path down the alley to where Cpl. Nathan Anderson had fallen. After the first two bullet-dodging sprints, the third one was literally a stroll down the street.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t fast enough for Anderson, who died before the help arrived. Troops on the scene believed he was dead before McDade began his heroic work, but said McDade insisted on trying to save him.

McDade, now a drill instructor at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in South Carolina, was awarded the Navy Cross earlier this year for his courage that day. His citation reads that his “quick thinking and aggressive actions were crucial in saving the lives of two of the three casualties.”

He still wishes all three trips had been successful.