This image is the cover for the book Hell in the Streets of Husaybah

Hell in the Streets of Husaybah

First-person accounts chronicling the 3/7 Marines engaging in intense street-by-street fighting to put down an uprising in Iraq in April 2004.

During the April 2004 fights throughout Iraq, most media attention was focused on the city of Fallujah. However, at the same time, out on the border with Syria in and around the city of Husaybah, fighting was equally intense.

This book tells the story of that period through many first-person accounts of intense fighting in the town of Husaybah, Iraq, during. It is based on interviews with Marines at all levels of the fight, from battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Matt Lopez, USMC, to infantrymen and squad leaders. When the Lima Company commander Captain Richard Gannon (Call sign Lima 6) was killed on entry to an enemy-held building, the company’s executive officer, Lieutenant Dominique Neal (Lima 5) informed his Marines that he had assumed command with the radio message, “Lima 5 is now Lima 6.” It also details the heroic actions of Corporal Jason Dunham who saved the Marines around him by covering an enemy grenade with his body.

Praise for Hell in the Streets of Husaybah

“The young riflemen do not sound like college professors, and the officers occasionally seem to be weighing their words. . . . The overall effect is mesmerizing, as the reader is transported onto the battlefield, firefight-by-firefight, and even granted a glimpse or two into how individual Marines felt about what was happening.” —The Journal of America’s Military Past

David E. Kelly

Lieutenant Colonel David E. Kelly received his commission in 1971, and served as an infantry officer with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion 4th Marines with an Amphibious Readiness Group (ARG) off the coast of Vietnam in 1972-73. Prior to retirement from the Reserves in 1999 he was Operations Officer for the Marine Field History Detachment. He volunteered to return to active duty to deploy to Iraq in 2004 as senior Field Historian in order to conduct interviews with Marines and Navy personnel at all levels in Iraq. He is a retired high school teacher living in Springfield, Pennsylvania.

Casemate Publishers