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After pulling out of Fallujah, Kilo returned home, but by last summer it was gearing up for another tour in Iraq. The unit remained about 65% intact from the year before. In October it moved as part of a roughly 900-man Marine battalion into Haditha, a Euphrates River--valley farm town that had been in insurgents' hands for half a year. At first, the Marines encountered almost no resistance. According to Read, Kilo took up residence in a municipal building as other Marine companies spread out around town. But over time, the other units were called to duty elsewhere, and Kilo was left to pacify the city on its own. During its daily weapons sweeps and vehicle checks, the unit found dozens of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) rigged to blow up all over town. The insurgents grew bolder: Marines on patrol would go around a corner and then come back an hour later and find two IEDs in a trash can. Read told TIME that Kilo was well led in Fallujah and Haditha. But he says Marine squads sometimes went on patrol without an officer because there were not enough officers to go around.
Read, 31, reports that Kilo was the "most human" of the numerous units he was embedded with. "They were never abusive," he said. "There was a certain amount of antagonism and frustration when people didn't cooperate. But it's not like they had KILL 'EM ALL spray-painted on the walls." Most of Kilo's members had at least one Iraqi tour under their belt, Read noted; several had two, and one was working on his third.
What is impossible to know is whether the same lengthy experience that made the Marines more attuned to the challenges of fighting in Iraq also made them more prone to snap if provoked. As TIME reported in March, a 13-man Kilo unit was on patrol in a residential part of Haditha on Nov. 19 when its convoy of four humvees was attacked by an IED. The explosion killed Miguel Terrazas, 20, a beloved member of the unit, who was driving the fourth humvee. Terrazas had a record of being cool under fire. His brother Martin reports that Terrazas once earned a letter of commendation for singling out--and killing--a bombmaking insurgent in a roomful of sleeping children. Another time, from a distance of about 200 yards, he killed an insurgent armed with an AK-47 who was standing next to a boy about age 4. "He was a great shot," says Martin, "and he had good judgment."
The mystery of Haditha hinges on whether the others in the unit showed the same kind of sound judgment after Terrazas was killed. As the IED exploded, a taxi carrying five men rolled past the Marine convoy. The taxi stopped, and the men inside got out. The Marines, who suspected that the men were spotters for the IED, ordered them to lie on the ground. When they ran instead, the Marines shot and killed them. The unit then swept through four nearby houses, and in the space of the next few hours, killed 19 more people, only one of whom was armed. Among the dead were five women and four children. Could the death of an adored comrade have been enough to turn a few well-trained Marines into cold-blooded murderers? James Crossan, a Marine who was injured by the blast that killed Terrazas, told ABC News, "I can understand because we are pretty much like one family, and when your teammates do get injured and killed, you are going to get pissed off and just rage."