Captain William Rockefeller was the commander of Bravo Company, 1-26 Infantry during the Easter Sunday Battle of Samarra in April 2004. Stationed at FOB Brassfield-Mora, Rockefeller describes the actions of his company upon hearing that Charlie Company, 2-108 Infantry had been ambushed. His company and C/2-108 had received orders to conduct joint cordon and search operations in Samarra, and his unit had begun establishing their initial cordon when his interpreter noticed a bunch of kids running off in another direction, alerting him that something was going on. Five minutes later, Rockefeller could hear Charlie's contact with the enemy. Rockefeller recounts the difficulties he encountered trying to go to its assistance. Having received separate operations orders, he did not know the other company's specific scheme of maneuver and was unsure of their location. He was not able to locate them with Blue Force Tracker and Charlie was not at the grid they had provided over the radio. Rockefeller managed to turn around his company in the tight urban quarters of Samarra, but his company column was broken when his trail platoon made contact with the enemy and spotty communications on his platoon commander's vehicle prevented a timely situation report. He came to the aid of this separated platoon with a platoon of tanks, drove off the enemy, consolidated the company, and reoriented the unit on what appeared to be the center of enemy activity, the Green Mosque. According to Rockefeller, "To us it looked like the Green Mosque was the center of gravity for the whole thing. At that point, I told my folks that if they identified fire from the Green Mosque then they needed to fire back because we were taking some pretty significant RPGs. We went ahead and gave them the order to engage the mosque because we were positively identifying guys firing from in and around it." Following the engagement at the Green Mosque, casualties were evacuated and the decision was made to reenter the city. Rockefeller says, "We decided to go back to Brassfield-Mora, refuel, rearm and come back. We knew what was going on and we couldn't just let it lie at that point. We were seen rolling out of the city and we didn't want to present weakness, so we decided we'd go back in and spend the night in the city. If need be, we'd be there in the morning when the sun came up and they'd know we didn't run away." His company returned to Samarra around 0200, exchanged fire with the enemy, and remained in the city until sunrise. Rockefeller closes by stating that accurate reporting is everything in combat, and better communications would have allowed his unit to concentrate on the enemy.

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