In a firefight with insurgents in a house in Fallujah, although wounded by seven
7.62×39mm rounds in the legs and hit by more than 43 pieces of hot fragmentation from a grenade while using his body to shield an injured fellow Marine, PFC Alex Nicoll (who was also injured in the legs), First Sergeant Kasal refused to quit fighting and was able to return fire with a handgun, killing at least one insurgent. Kasal is credited with saving the lives of several Marines during the U.S. assault on insurgent strongholds in Fallujah in November 2004.
By the time he was carried out of the house by LCpl Chris Marquez and LCpl Dane Shaffer, then-First Sergeant Kasal had lost approximately 60 percent of his blood.
[2] The
photograph of Kasal, taken by photographer Lucian Read — blood-soaked and still holding his
M9 pistol and
KA-Bar fighting knife — being helped from the building by fellow Marines, has become one of the iconic pictures of the war.
[3]