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Recording History - Part XV - LtCol Patrick Malay

By Richard S. Lowry

Colonel Patrick Malay hails from a traditional western New York Irish-American family, with a long heritage of military service. His great uncle died in the trenches in World War I. His father and four uncles all served at various times in the military during World War II, Korea and Vietnam. His three older brothers have also served, or continue to serve their country in the Navy and Marine Corps. They are all cut from a similar bolt of cloth. Service to their country is an important tradition in the Malay family.

Pat Malay enlisted in the Marine Corps in May of 1981. Upon completion of recruit training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD), Parris Island, he was assigned to I Company, 25th Marines, USMCR, Buffalo, New York. After earning his Bachelors Degree in Sociology from the University of Buffalo in 1984, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant via the Platoon Leaders Course. He has served in the infantry, recon and light armored reconnaissance. He has instructed Marines in MOUT warfare techniques. Today, Colonel Malay is the Regimental Commander of the 5th Marine Regiment in western Anbar Province. But, in the summer of 2003, LtCol Malay had assumed command of 3/5. The Darkhorse Marines would be hard pressed to find a better battalion commander.

Richard S. Lowry is the author of Marines in the Garden of Eden and The Gulf War Chronicles.

In 2003, the battalion moved into central Iraq to conduct what is known as Security and Stability Operations (SASO), following the charge to Baghdad. Malay became the military governor of Diwaniyah and the province was relatively quiet, but it wasn’t unusual to see the local civilians firing weapons into the sky during weddings and other celebrations. The gunfire was sparse and usually concentrated to a single point in the city.

When the people in this primarily Shia city learned of the death of Uday and Qusay Hussein, the celebrations started immediately. A trickle of shooting into the air quickly picked up to a volume of fire that Malay had not seen before or since. “If an airplane had flown over the city, it would have been shot to pieces.” One Marine was hit by a falling bullet, scores of people were injured in the city and some were killed by rounds coming back down to earth. As Malay watched the massive demonstration of celebratory gunfire emanating from Diwaniyah, he thought to himself that if that amount of fire were ever directed in anger at his Marines, the enemy would have shot the walls down and the Marines would have had everything they could do to get out of there alive. That was a mind-boggling thought, considering the amount of combat power available within a Marine infantry battalion. That night he thought to himself, “We have not seen the end of this yet.”

Haunted by the images of Diwaniyah, Patrick Malay had intently followed the rise in violence in Iraq. In early 2004, when he learned that his Marines would return to Iraq, he had a feeling in his gut that this next deployment was going to get ugly. He immediately began to prepare for another fight. The Darkhorse Marines trained from before dawn until after dark. Malay wanted to prepare his Marines as thoroughly as possible for what he knew would be a difficult deployment. First, they concentrated on the basics – assault, security and support. Malay believed in Ron Christmas’ mantra that attention to detail would save lives in urban fighting.

He stripped his infantry of their supporting arms. They trained without machine guns or rockets. Squad leaders prepared their Marines to fight as if they would be the only ones on the battlefield. They trained to fight as an independent team—no Marine ever making an uncovered move or operating alone. The Marines worked day and night to hone their basic infantry skills. Colonel Malay knew that the coming fight would be placed squarely on the shoulders of his infantry squads, so he initiated a qualification process for each of his squad leaders. He trained them, tested them and hand picked them. No one would lead a squad without first having proven his abilities to his peers and to Colonel Malay. Final approval only came after a personal interview.

When it came time to conduct their MOUT training, the Marine Corps’ training centers were strained to capacity. The Darkhorse Marines could not find a facility to conduct their urban warfare training. So, Pat Malay turned to Stu Segall Productions, San Diego’s only full-service TV and movie studio.

Pat Malay heard about this TV studio-turned-training-ground through some of his Marines. Malay met with Segall and soon his Marines were attending training exercises on Stu’s Mean Arab Street. Shockingly, Stu’s actors started out beating Malay’s Marines in the faux urban fights. A handful of actors and truck drivers repeatedly won the firefights. The shock of Stu’s actors defeating Malay’s Marines could have caused a lesser leader to discontinue the exercises, but it only made Malay, and his staff, stand up and take note. The Darkhorse Marines could learn much in this environment. So, Colonel Malay expanded the training at the studio. Soon, everyone in the battalion was included.

Stu broke out his make-up artists and amputee-actors. He found Iraqi immigrants who lived in the San Diego area and together they created Hyper-Realistic environments where the Marines had to deal with distressed civilians, gruesome casualties and enemy fighters, all at once. Some of the Marines did not do well under the pressure of the exercises, others excelled. Assignments were adjusted, Marines who excelled, Like Corporal Terrence vanDoorn, were given additional responsibilities and those who didn’t get it were moved to where they were better suited.

Soon, the Darkhorse Marines were running scenarios and winning. Squads and fire teams were moving through the urban environment on muscle memory. They were dealing with insurgent fighters, civilians and casualties in a professional manner. They could adjust to situational changes with little or no conversation. The squads and fire teams worked in concert with only a nod or hand gesture commanding a change in focus. Stu Segall’s facility provided the venue to hone Malay’s Marines into an urban fighting unit. The training psychologically prepared them for what they were going to see. Malay credits this training for saving uncountable Marine lives.

Having prepared as best they could, the Marines on 3/5 returned to Iraq in September. Lead elements began arriving in Camp Fallujah on the 10th of September but most of the Marines left San Diego on September 11th. The entire battalion was in place by the 14th and they quickly started relieving Greg Olson’s 2/1 Marines, veterans of the first Fallujah fight. It was ‘game on’ from day-one for the Dark Horse Marines. They immediately assumed responsibility for TCP-1 and twenty-two miles of MSR MOBILE as they began detailed planning for their participation in the fight to free Fallujah.

Colonel Malay recently reflected on his planning philosophy,

"You got to plan and then you create an order. You tell the men what to do, not how to do it. You push that stewardship and empowerment – that decision-making – down to the lowest level and give them their boundaries, give them an end state and then turn them loose. They will usually do stuff much, much better than you would have ever envisioned."

Colonel Malay and his Marines’ participation in the fight in Fallujah was essential to the success in clearing the city. Soon, I will post Part II of this discussion on the 3d Battalion, 5th Marines. The entire story will be in “New Dawn.”

Richard S. Lowry is the author of Marines in the Garden of Eden and The Gulf War Chronicles.

April 20, 2008 07:17 AM Recording the history of Fallujah