Part two of the interview with Sergeant Jason McManus covers his June 2005 return to Iraq. This time, he went with the 81 millimeter mortar platoon, part of Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, and begins by discussing the much more extensive predeployment training his unit received as compared to their first Operation Iraqi Freedom tour in 2003. McManus talks about their initial move to Diwaniyah and then their being sent to An Najaf amidst a Mahdi Army uprising. Describing the intense fighting in Najaf that was waged in and around the Wadi al-Salam Cemetery, McManus provides a wealth of firsthand, on-the-ground details of a Marine squad in combat, from responding to a downed UH-1N helicopter to receiving and dispensing heavy fire while taking cover behind tombstones. The climax (or perhaps nadir) of this fight, for McManus, came on 5 August when the shockwave from an enemy mortar blast slammed him into a wall and down into a crypt, causing injuries to his back that required him to be medically evacuated off the battlefield. "They called the corpsman up," McManus recalled. "They didn't know if I was hit. That was when the pain just hit hard. I thought my back was broken. I had absolutely no feeling in my legs. They rolled me over and we started getting small arms fire. He took my boot off, ran a syringe down my foot and I couldn't feel it." Although wanting to be treated in country and eager to return to his platoon, McManus' injuries were such that he was sent to Landstuhl, Germany, and then placed on convalescent leave for the remainder of his unit's time in country. "It really busted me up for a long time because I didn't have any shrapnel in me," he said. "I went from a wheelchair to a walker to a cane. I was doing physical therapy three or four times a week. I was heavily medicated and it just crushed me that my guys were still there." McManus later returned to full duty. His next assignment was with the Foreign Military Training Unit at the new Marine Special Operations Command at Camp Lejeune.

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