Cpl. Timothy Connors - SYSK

SYSK - Someone You Should Know

Massachusetts native Timothy Connors comes from a family with a long military tradition. Both grandfathers served in the Marine Corps, one in Korea and one in World War II where he saw the flag-raising on Iwo Jima close-up. An uncle served in Vietnam and a cousin is in the reserves. After graduating from high school in 2001, Tim Connors decided to follow suit and he has done his family’s traditions proud.

In November 2004, Connors was serving in Iraq as a squad leader with the 1st Marine Division when the division was ordered to help in the liberation of Fallujah.

For the next two weeks, the 21-year-old Connors was in almost constant combat. He participated in numerous firefights against the insurgents and was involved in 12 house fights to clear entrenched insurgents out of buildings—a record.

In one effort to clear a house, one of Connors’ men, Lance Corp. Travis Desiato, plunged through the door and was instantly killed by a hail of bullets fired by the insurgents inside. The insurgents kept firing at Desiato’s dead body, riddling it with bullet holes.

Fearing a repeat of the battle of Mogadishu when a Somali mob dragged the naked, mutilated body of a dead Marine through the streets, Connors was determined to retrieve the Marine’s body.

Connors slowly edged into the foyer of the house when a burst of AK fire whizzed by his face.

Connors yelled for a SAW, and grabbing the weapon, sprayed the hallway and back room with a hail of bullets. When no returning fire was forthcoming, Connors pulled the pin on a grenade and “milked” it, waiting until the last second to throw it. Looking around the corner as he hurled the grenade, Connors saw a man with a full beard and bushy black hair, his arm cocked back to also throw a grenade. As the two grenades crossed paths, Connors pushed the platoon mate with him, Lance Corp. Matthew Brown, into the room on his left as both grenades went off, filling the room with smoke and dust.

The two Marines stumbled out into the courtyard just as Corp. Camillio Aargon fired at an insurgent crawling on the roof, killing him instantly.

Connors crabbed sideways down an alley next to the house. Reaching a window, he stuck the barrel of his rifle in the window and sprayed the room with a burst of bullets. When insurgents inside answered with a withering volley of AK fire, Connors grabbed a stick of C-4 explosive and hurled it down the hallway of the house and then ran into the courtyard.

Before the C-4 exploded, however, an insurgent stuck his rifle barrel out of a hole in the roof and raked the wall above Connors’ head with rifle fire.

Connors prepped another grenade and threw it into the hole, where it exploded. A human foot wearing a sneaker flew by the Marines. The rest of the Marines had taken positions in a house about 30 feet away, leaving Connors and his buddy Corp. Eubaldo Lovato out in the open where they came under fire from two directions. Scooping up grenades thrown to them by the Marines, they pulled the pins and threw them while running into the house under heavy cover fire.

Later Connors, leading Corporals Lovato, Aragon, Danaghy and Longnecker, re-entered the house where Desiato’s body lay. Initially they could not find it, but at length noticed that it had been pulled into the back of the house as a lure for the Marines.

Then an insurgent firing an AK-47 ran down the corridor and into the back room. Two Marines lobbed grenades into the room and the firing ceased.

Another insurgent started firing Desiato’s captured SAW gun, getting off a 200-round burst at the Marines. Lovato pulled a pin on a grenade and lobbed it in the direction of the jihadists but the grenade bounced off the wall and rolled back, striking Connors on the foot. Connors threw himself into an adjoining room just as the grenade exploded, knocking the wind out of the Marine, temporarily leaving him unable to see or breathe. He revived, however, and, with Marines providing covering fire, he managed to get out of the house.

Connors later called up a tank, which fired rounds into the concrete house, opening a hole through which the Marines could pass.

Moving inside, they saw an insurgent running and Donaghy dropped the man with a round to the head. Another insurgent started to fire and Longnecker put three rounds into his chest.

Connors, Lovato and Aragon then sprayed the nearby room with rifle fire and, hearing nothing, entered the room where they saw the bodies of six dead jihadists, including the older man with the bushy hair and black beard whom Connors had killed with the grenade.

The battle for the house had lasted five hours.

Following the liberation of Fallujah, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi issued a statement mourning the loss of his trusted lieutenant, Omar Hadid, who he said had martyred himself in Fallujah. The description matched that of the man with bushy hair and black heard Connors had killed.

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