A forward observer attached to Combined Arms Team-A - a mobile reconnaissance unit part of Combined Arms Platoon, Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Marines - Sergeant Jason McManus arrived in Kuwait in February 2003 and participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) through September of that year. In this first of two interviews reference his two OIF deployments, he discusses the main drive north in great detail, including fights in Nasiriyah, Al Gharraf, Ash Shatrah, Al Kut and finally Baghdad and their assumption of the cigarette factory in Sadr City, along with a subsequent tasking to an area just west of Karbala. There, his company staged at a power plant and ran increasingly hazardous patrols on the roads between Iskandariyah and Haswah, particularly Route Cleveland.

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