Popaditch, or "Gunny Pop" as his Marines called him, commanded a tank platoon during the first Battle of Fallujah in April 2004. Fighting only a week after four American contractors from Blackwater USA were captured, killed and their bodies hung from a bridge, Bonecrusher and Popaditch's other tank were working with Marine infantry in clearing insurgents out of the city's northwest outskirts.

Popaditch thought that day's fight might be different. Usually the enemy shot a few rocket-propelled grenades and ran; this morning Popaditch heard a higher-than-usual volume of AK-47 fire, along with the deeper bursts of a Russian-made machine gun launching rocket-propelled grenades. Maybe this meant the Marines would be engaging a larger force.