Liberate Sadr City and Defeat the Mahdi Army
By 2007, the Jaish al-Mahdi — a Shia militia funded and equipped by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps — had effectively governed Sadr City for years. The district housed 2.4 million people in the most densely populated urban environment in Iraq. JAM enforced their authority with Iranian-manufactured weapons, sophisticated IEDs, and an organizational structure capable of massing hundreds of fighters anywhere in the city within twenty minutes of contact.
When President Bush announced the troop surge in 2007, the 1st Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment deployed to Baghdad with a specific mission: kill-or-capture raids against JAM high-value targets, pushing the militia back to the border of Sadr City while Coalition forces built a wall to cut off their supply lines.
For six months, 1/2 SCR conducted high-speed raids under the most restrictive rules of engagement of the war. Then, in April 2008, JAM broke the ceasefire. The battle — one of the largest engagements of the Iraq War — began in earnest.
For three months, Bull Company and the rest of 1/2 SCR fought block-by-block through a city of millions, against a well-armed, Iranian-backed militia that had spent years preparing for exactly this fight. They were outnumbered, spread thin, and operating under command conditions that would have broken lesser units.
They won.
Upon returning from Iraq, the men of 1st Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment received the Valorous Unit Citation for their role in Operation Stryker Denial and Operation Gold Wall — the two most significant engagements of the 2008 Battle of Sadr City.