The second invasion of Iraq had just started, and Marine Platoon Commander Brian Chontosh
had been placed in charge of Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marines Division.
Only three years earlier, Chontosh had been living the college life in Rhode Island, studying
mechanical engineering, but duty called - and now he was half a world away, with his men
relying on him.
Soon, they would be fighting for their lives.
It was March 25th when Chontosh’s battalion was approaching Baghdad.
Suddenly, they came under heavy enemy fire.
It was an ambush!
The attack had been highly organized.
They were hit from all sides by mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and a constant hail of bullets from
automatic weapons.
The driver in the humvee next to him was killed.
The only chance was to keep moving forward and hope that their vehicles’ armor could
hold out.
But as the unit moved down the road, Chontosh saw a horrible sight.
Their way was blocked by enemy tanks.
They were in a kill zone - with no way out.
Staying put would get them killed.
Turning back would get them killed.
First Lieutenant Chontosh knew they would have to take the enemy head-on.
He motioned to his driver to move through a narrow breach, knowing this would expose
them.
The vehicle came under immediate machine gun fire, but held out - giving Chontosh the chance
to plan his own attack.
As they charged straight ahead towards the enemy, Chontosh’s machine gunner was able
to get off a burst of ammo and take out the enemy gunner.
But the attack was just beginning.
The car drove into the enemy trench, but there was no way to see where the enemy was hiding
from there - and they were still under heavy fire.
The trench would have to be cleared personally - and Chontosh was not the kind to order a
subordinate to do something he wouldn’t do himself.
Packing his service rifle and a nine-millimeter pistol, he exited his vehicle and started
firing, taking out every enemy he saw.
He dodged death multiple times, but made every kill.
He was backed up by several of his men, and when his own weapon jammed, he traded with
Lance Corporal Robert Kernan and kept his place at the front of the assault.
There was only one problem - he was soon out of ammo.
He only had seconds to make a move before an enemy found him a sitting duck.
But there was another source of ammo on the field - in the hands of the enemies he had
just gunned down.
He charged into enemy territory and grabbed a rifle from the ground, using it to return
fire.
When that one ran out of ammo, he did it again, narrowly dodging enemy fire and continuing
to take out enemy forces.
But he didn’t have the manpower to turn the tide of the battle.
But that opportunity was about to present itself.
Rifles and machine guns weren’t the only weapons the Iraqi soldiers had hit the Americans
with.
There were also the powerful rocket launchers - and when Chontosh had shot one of their
wielders, that game-changing weapon had become available.
One of Chontosh’s Marines who had joined him in the fight found one on the ground,
and was smart enough to turn it over to his relentless commanding officer.
The problem was, none of them knew how to use it.
They fiddled with it, Chontosh pointed it in the right direction - and successfully
unleashed an explosive ball of fire.
He was now able to deliver powerful missiles directly to the enemy - and it made all the
difference.
But there was still a long way to go.
The trench was over six hundred feet long, and enemies could be anywhere.
One wrong move could spell death for Chontosh and his men.
So he led them, slowly, as they kept an eye out for any sign of hostile movement.
When they saw an enemy, they sprung into action.
The rocket launcher soon ran out of ammo, and Chontosh was forced to use stray rounds
of unused ammo he found on the ground - using them to carefully take out enemies, making
every bullet count.
The enemy might have been on their home turf, but Marines were trained to fight on any turf,
and by the time they were done, they had cleared more than six hundred feet of trench - and
eliminated more than twenty enemy soldiers in one of the greatest charges in military
history.
And they had escaped the kill zone with most of their men.
It was a stunning act of heroism, but when Chontosh was questioned about his actions,
he was humble - instead saying the men with him were the ones who saved his life.
While he led the charge, it was their relentless fighting that let him succeed.
Without them, he would have been a cautionary tale rather than a victorious hero.
To the career military man, it was just another day in the trenches, and he simply did his
job by leading his men out safely.
The United States Military disagreed with his humility.
It wouldn’t be long before word of Chontosh’s heroic feat spread, and while it didn’t
get the attention of other military feats like those of Dakota Meyer and Salvatore Guinta,
the people in charge noticed.
They moved quickly to award him the Navy Cross, the second-highest honor possible for sailors
and Marines, only second to the Medal of Honor.
Awarded for extraordinary heroism in combat against an armed enemy force, the citation
praised him for his leadership, courage, and devotion to his duty.
Brian Chontosh had earned a great honor - but he wasn’t done yet.
The war in Iraq was far from over, and a year after his heroic feat in the trenches, Chontosh
would be deployed once again, now as a Captain.
This time he would be taking part in one of the biggest operations of the war - the Second
Battle of Fallujah, better known as Operation Phantom Fury.
By this point, Saddam had fallen and the United States were fighting alongside British forces
and the Iraqi interim government against an army of militants.
The combat was dense, urban, and highly dangerous.
But Brian Chontosh was no stranger to dangerous close-quarters combat.
Chontosh led a group of 158 marines into the urban center, where they could come under
fire from guerillas at any time.
Because of the dense quarters, this would turn out to be the bloodiest battle of the
entire war for the coalition forces - with over one hundred soldiers being lost, and
over a thousand insurgents being killed and 1,500 being captured.
Complicating things, the city was full of civilians caught in the middle of the combat,
and it was often difficult to judge who was a civilian and who was a gunman in plain clothes.
This led to many close calls - and many tragic mistakes.
But there was one exception to the high casualty rate.
Chontosh never had the need to pull off another stunning feat like his charge of the trench
on the road to Baghdad, but he still gained a reputation as one of the finest commanding
officers on the ground in Operation Phantom Fury.
His platoon had one of the best rates of survival of any on the ground, with 155 of the 158
surviving the mission and only 25 of the survivors suffering injuries.
He even got profiled on a Fox News documentary about the war titled Breaking Point: Company
of Heroes - while live in the field.
It would be a second act of heroism for a military man who was never comfortable with
the title of hero.
Once again, the military disagreed, and awarded him two Bronze Stars for his leadership during
Operation Phantom Fury.
Chontosh would eventually retire after twenty years in the Marine Corps, but he wasn’t
resting yet.
The warrior would find a host of interesting passions during and after his service.
Being a Marine meant you had to be a fit and trained athlete, so it wasn’t a surprise
when he signed up for the 2009 CrossFit Games - and came second in the Southern California
Regional Qualifiers.
But even out of combat, he kept serving.
After his second deployment, Chontosh became an instructor - serving as the 8th Company
Officer at the United States Naval Academy and helping to create the next batch of warriors.
He even worked with the Naval Academy’s women’s ice hockey team as their military
liaison.
While other war heroes chose to make the most of their sudden fame, writing books and even
having movies based around their feats, Chontosh was never comfortable with the spotlight.
That led his fellow soldiers to come forward and tell their tales of his heroism, including
his machine gunner on that fateful trench battle, Thomas Franklin.
And some people started asking the question - does Brian Chontosh have all the honors
he deserves?
One Congressman said no, and in 2019, Rep. Tom Reed of New York dug up the heroic feats
of Brian Chontosh from sixteen years earlier and proposed he should get the highest honor
available - the Medal of Honor.
While it was a longer wait than usual for Medal of Honor recipients, some war heroes
have waited many decades before they were recognized.
And while there has been no movement on the bill for Chontosh yet, he’s sure to have
a long list of people testifying to his worthiness - starting with every Marine he led through
that trench.
For another heroic one-man charge, check out “How a Soldier Single-Handedly Liberated
an Entire German-Occupied City”, or watch this video instead.