Paul Wolfowitz pays tribute to the troops

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz followed General Hagee at the speakers podium at the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation banquet. He accepted the MCLEF "Most Distinguished Americans" Award and had these wonderful words to say about our Marines and other troops. It's worth reading, all of it.

Thank you. Jim [Kallstrom, MCLEF Chairman of the Board], it’s a real honor to be able to be here to accept that award on behalf of another great generation. I must say, as I heard my biography, I guess I’d like to point out one thing that wasn’t pointed out. Among many things I’m very, very proud of is eight years serving for President Ronald Reagan. And it was wonderful to see the outpouring of support and admiration from this country as the president made his final journey.

It’s truly an incredible privilege to be able to work in the Defense Department with the remarkable men and women who serve this country today. I’d also like to thank the leadership of this foundation inspired by and dedicated to the Marines who help keep order in the world and to the men and women who help keep order here at home. To paraphrase the ancient saying, when you give someone the gift of education, you forever change their life. And through your scholarships, you are helping to shape America’s future and to honor America’s heroes.

I feel especially privileged to be part of this evening, given your extraordinary mission and truly humbled to be in the presence of these nine special heroes. I recall Vice President Cheney saying once that when you have the privilege to meet one of America’s medal of honor recipients, “Remember the moment, for you’ve just met one of the bravest men in our nation’s history.”

At this point, it’s appropriate to recognize the many distinguished guests present, but it’s a task that has already been largely and expertly handled for me. So I needed an innovative and creative way to single out the people that I should recognize. That’s a delicate mission, to be sure. So naturally, for delicate matters, you turn to a Marine.

And for this one, I turn to our former commandant and now Supreme Allied Commander [General] Jim Jones. In true Marine fashion, this will include everyone I want to recognize and it budgets every word with an economy that would elicit even from Donald Rumsfeld his famous toothy grin, so here goes: Marines, former Marines and friends of Marines. I think I’ve just recognized about everybody here in seven words or less. Proving, once again, that Marines are not only masters at budgeting their resources, they’re unequaled in making every shot count.

When today’s invitation came to my office, I can tell you I would have said “yes” regardless. But it came with a handwritten note of gentle encouragement from our wonderful vice chairman, General Pete Pace, the first Marine to hold that high office. He wrote to tell me that this foundation is “a great group of Americans,” which I know is true. And he made a big promise: “If you can support this event, you will have a good time.” Right again. But he didn’t stop there. In typical fashion, he wanted to ensure that all his bases were covered, so he went on to tell me, “You won’t have to work too hard.” In fact, he promised, “You should look on your role as something like the dear departed at an old-fashioned Irish wake. That is to say, the party can’t go on without you, but no one expects you to say very much. Well, don’t get your hopes up."

I do feel a special kinship with Pete Pace. No doubt, a large part of that is because we’re both number twos. When I accepted this job, I remembered the tradition of number twos and thought, how tough can that be. Ambrose Bierce, in his “Devil’s Dictionary” has a definition of a deputy. The deputy, it says “is commonly a handsome young man with a red necktie and an intricate system of cobwebs extending from his nose to his desk. When accidentally struck by the janitor’s broom, he gives off a cloud of dust.”

But that hardly describes what it’s like to work for Donald Rumsfeld. When Don Rumsfeld welcomed me back from my third tour at the Pentagon, he said, “Paul, we’re going to keep bringing you back until you get it right.”

And there’s hasn’t been a dull moment since—and no cobwebs. No cobwebs on Pete Pace either. We number twos have got to stick together. Pete is a lot of fun to be around. And he’s just plain funny. Of his great lines, I think, my favorite is: “You should never let a promising career get in the way of a good joke.”

I thought of that line every time I’ve been tempted to ask Donald Rumsfeld why he was coming back for a second tour. But so far, I’ve been able to resist the temptation.

But no one understood the impact of a good joke or liked one more than President Ronald Reagan, to whom we said farewell this weekend. I think he would have liked this particular legend from Marine Corps lore. It’s about one of those Marines under the command of Captain John Paul Jones aboard the Bonhomme Richard in the great naval battle of 1779 against the British ship, Serapis.

It was a pitched battle, one of the most dramatic sea fights in our history. Not surprisingly, the hero of our story was a Marine, probably a gunny. He was loading and firing his gun without stopping. And in the middle of that great fight, John Paul Jones, his clothes tattered, grimy, sweaty and bloody, went below to change into a new uniform. As he came topside, a big section of the mast, along with the ship’s colors, came crashing down. And a voice boomed through the smoke, the fire, the fog of war. It was a British captain demanding of Jones, “Have you struck your colors?” He wanted to know was the burning, sinking ship finally surrendering. And our Marine, all sweaty and bloody, turned around to see the captain of the ship resplendent in his clean Navy uniform and then he heard Jones’ immortal reply: “Struck, sir, I have not yet begun to fight.” And the gunny said, “That’s the Navy for you, always the last to get the word.”

Well, true story or not, it does tell us this, the Marines’ special qualities have been evident since the earliest days of the Corps: their bravery, their skill, their panache, their way with words. This funny story happens to be true. One of our distinguished Marine generals--who had the misfortune of being asked to brief the press in the early stage of the Afghan war—described the Taliban as “eviscerated,” a couple of weeks before they actually were. People were all over him for that particular use of the word. A wonderful Marine, a colonel who worked for me said, “Well, we Marines may not know how to spell ‘eviscerate,’ but we know how to do it.”

Well, the real truth, of course, is that Marines know how to do both and extraordinarily well. And lots of other things, too. In my job, I’m fortunate to meet America’s soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen. We just lost, by the way, the first Coast Guardsman in combat since World War II, helping to prevent a disaster in the Persian Gulf. I’ve been fortunate also to meet many men and women from our law enforcement organizations. I was born in Brooklyn, back when there was still an Ebbets Field and the Brooklyn Dodgers. And my heart went out to each one of those responders who rushed into the Twin Towers on that tragic day in September 2001. These are men and women who choose service over self-interest and they stand for those American values that Ronald Reagan spoke about so eloquently, and which had been brought out this past week in the moving tributes to our 40th president: idealism and optimism, common sense and decency, professionalism, pride and courage.

I’ve worked with enough Marines to learn a thing or two about your special club. My former boss, Secretary of State George Schultz, who fought as a Marine in the Pacific in World War II, was the one who first educated me on the point that there’s no such thing as an ex-Marine. Marines never forget the Corps and they never forget their own. The same is true for those who serve in law enforcement. So I think it was probably inevitable that the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation would come to be—an organization that embraces fully Abraham Lincoln’s charge that American must care for “him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.” And what this organization has done and is doing is nothing short of extraordinary.

In the Department of Defense, we are especially grateful for what you do to help educate the children of our Marines, and for what you’ve done for the children who lost a parent in the Pentagon on September 11th. This year, you’ve extended your generosity to children who lost parents serving as part of the international coalition in Afghanistan and in Iraq, taking your generosity to a truly global level. That is America at its best and we thank you for it.

Last summer I had the honor of joining Pete Pace at the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Korean War. General Pace himself a veteran of battle in Hue City in Vietnam, told that audience, mostly made up of Korean veterans, that one thing that motivates every soldier or Marine in the heat of battle is the idea that their own personal actions might let our veterans down. General Pace concluded, “We’ll never, never let that happen.”

I think those words capture the essence of what this evening is all about. This is our generation’s hour of testing. The men and women who serve America today measure their own actions against a standard that Americans before them have fought and died to uphold in our nation’s hours of need. They have never let our veterans down. They have never let our allies down. And they have never let the American people down.

Those brave young Americans are the ones who deserve the recognition and the awards. So I’m happy to accept the foundation’s highest [Most Distinguished American] award with enormous gratitude and a full heart on behalf of all the men and women serving America today. They are truly our Most Distinguished Americans.

I had the privilege of serving with many distinguished Americans. Some of them are here tonight. You’ve seen them, General Jones, General Hagee, General Nyland, Sgt. Maj. Estrada, Sgt. Maj. McMichael. But they’re not all Marines.

Jack Keane is a great soldier whom I’m proud to call a friend. When Jack retired as the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army last fall, he spoke words that applied to every American who serves or has served. “Foreign terrorists,” General Keane said, “have no idea who they’re up against. They think that we’re weak, but they do not know our will, our courage or our character. To understand America and Americans, they need to understand the Marne in 1918 or Tarawa in 1943, Omaha Beach in ’44 or the Chosin Reservoir in 1950. They need to understand that a nation that produces Alvin Yorke and Audie Murphy; John Pershing and George Marshall; Chesty Puller and George Patton; Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon; produces heroes in every generation. They are out there,” the general said, “performing every day.” And he is right.

There are American heroes out there now performing magnificently on the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Afghanistan today, 25 million Muslims who have suffered from a quarter century of invasion and Civil War, are struggling now to have a chance at what we have—with the help of brave Americans. In Iraq, another 25 million people, mostly Muslims again, are working to build a free Iraq after 35 years of torture and abuse by one of the worst tyrants of the 20th century—again with the help of brave Americans. Millions of Afghans and Iraqis are grateful to those Americans for the sacrifices that had given them a chance for freedom after decades of tyranny. But it is we Americans who should be grateful most of all because these brave men and women have been fighting for us and for our children and grandchildren, so that we can live free from the fear of terrorism that showed its horrible face on September 11th two years ago.

As this organization appreciates so well, among the people that went to war to meet this threat, there are heroes who gave the last full measure of devotion for their country and their cause. In their memory, we must rededicate ourselves, as President Lincoln said, “to compete the work which they have, thus far, so nobly advanced.”

Contemplating the sacrifice of the heroes who’ve come to the aid of our country in every hour of need, President Reagan used to ask, “Where do we find such men?” And he would answer, “They come from places large and small across this great nation.”

With each one I meet, I am changed. They impart the certain knowledge that courage and heroism are not simply ideas, they live in those who are called to selflessness and sacrifice.

I’d like to tell you tonight about three heroes that I’ve had the privilege to know personally: men and women who’ve been to war, who faced its dangers and borne its wounds. Although each of these individuals is remarkable, like the other three that General Hagee told you about, countless other Americans share the same noble spirit. Each of these individuals has a different perspective about what’s at stake in Iraq where they fought. Their views are not necessarily the same as mine. But what I find so moving about the men and women serving in this war, as in every one past, is that no matter what their personal views, their devotion to duty and their love and dedication to one another and to their country, are unquestioned, unwavering and unsurpassed.

Army Spec. Danielle Green is 27 years old. She comes from Chicago. Even lying in a hospital bed with her arm gone, she had a beautiful smile that lit up her face. Before she joined the Army and became a military policeman, she played basketball at Notre Dame where she helped lead that team to four NCAA tournament bids. But she had a childhood dream to join the Army – a dream that helped her avoid the fate of her single mother who had become addicted to drugs. That dream never left her.

And so on May 25th, Spec. Green was in Iraq with the 571st military police company. On her shift that day, she volunteered to go by herself to the roof of a Baghdad police station to provide security. And not long after, she heard a rocket strike a building in front of her. Then a second rocket tore into her left hand and knocked her onto her right side. As she lay there, she first thought she might die. But her next thought was, “Oh, God, I haven’t done enough in my life. I’m going to live to tell my story.” So she fought to stay awake. And she did.

When she got to the hospital, she asked her sergeant if her hand was gone. “Yes,” he told her. It happens to be her shooting hand – the one she’d use to score more than 1,100 points at Notre Dame. But she never mentioned that in my conversation with her. Instead, she spoke of her two buddies who went back to the roof to search for her hand. “They knew they’d get in trouble,” she said, “but they went anyway.” They found Danielle’s hand and her wedding rings. That meant the world to her.

How did she survive that terrible moment on the roof alone? She said, “The Army teaches you how to be brave.” But always in her conversation, she went back to the two soldiers who faced not only the Army’s wrath, but the real dangers of that roof. “Those soldiers,” she said, “are the real heroes and I told them how proud I was of them.”

Army Sergeant Adam Replogle is from Colorado. He has a new wife and a new baby. He was recently promoted to gunner and has served on every position on a tank crew. On May 12th, he and his unit were fighting Sadr’s army near Karbala. As they moved to make contact with the enemy, Sgt. Replogle was shot and momentarily paralyzed. But he remembers getting up and firing again. Then an RPG slammed into his chest. He lost his left arm and the sight in his left eye. “I wish the injuries hadn’t happened,” he said, “but I’m going to get on with my life.”

Was the sacrifice worth it? Adam had this to say: “Of course, it was worth it. We’re fighting for everything we believe in. We’ve freed Iraqis from a dictator who was killing Iraqis by the millions. Saddam affected everyone in that country. Something had to be done.”

Sgt. Replogle had been part of a mission to remove that threat, to undo that harm and to rebuild a new Iraq. “We’ve done so much there,” he said. “You should have seen my sector after a year. There were two schools when we arrived, now there are 40.”

He has personally changed many lives in Iraq. He had made friends with interpreters. He had destroyed terrorist cells. He had helped people get back into their houses. He spoke about teaching Iraqi kids to say some words in English He even bought bikes for Iraqi girls and boys. “After all,” he said, “they only cost 5 bucks, and these kids didn’t have anything.”

“Ask 90 percent of the Iraqis,” he said, “and they say God bless America.”

Like Danielle Green and Adam Replogle, Corporal Eddie Wright, U.S. Marine Corps, is another impressive human being. Corporal Wright is 28 and from Seattle. His father is an Air Force colonel, currently a surgeon with Air Force Special Operations. Corporal Wright has been in the Marine Corps three and a half years. On April 7th he and his fellow Marines were escorting a convoy of Humvees and trucks to a supply point near Fallujah, looking for enemy mortar teams, when they were ambushed. As Wright was firing his weapon, it was hit by an RPG. His eardrum was ruptured, his femur was broken and both of his hands were blown off. Wright’s team leader and a machine gunner were hit also. One Marine had never seen combat before and another seemed to have forgotten what he was trained to do, even as he was trying to help Wright tend to his wounds. “I had to help him calm down,” Wright said. “I knew I was in bad shape and I had to keep calm myself or I’d die. Plus we were still in the kill zone.”

So, Wright told the Marine to relax, that he was fine—both hands missing, remember. He told them how to get tourniquets to help staunch the bleeding in his leg and arms. He directed the Marine in each step of his own first aid. He also directed the driver how to steer their way out of the ambush zone.

A couple of weeks ago, Corporal Wright was awarded a Bronze Star for valor. I’d like to read from the citation. “Corporal Wright,” it says, “was the epitome of composure, understanding the severity of his own injuries, he calmly instructed others on how to remove the radio, call for support and render first aid. He also pointed out enemy machine gun emplacements to his fellow Marines, assisting in the demise of 26 enemies killed in action.”

With a Marine’s typical bravado, Eddie Wright said, “Nobody fights as well as the Marines.” But he captured the essence of why all U.S. forces are so effective. “As an American,” he said, “you don’t have to know the guy next to you, but you’ll still fight to the death for him.”

Eddie wants to stay in the Marines where he’s wanted to be since he was a boy. My military assistant Brigadier General Frank Helmick who’s here tonight and, by the way, who spent seven months as Assistant Division Commander for the marvelous 101st Airborne Division up in Mosul in Iraq. General Helmick has a story that embodies Corporal Wright’s endowment of optimism. Eddie was telling the general about his team leader, the one who’d been injured in the firefight that same day. When the team leader saw photos of Corporal Wright’s Bronze Star ceremony, he told the young Marines that he’s training now down at Quantico all about Corporal Wright. And he told them about what happened after Corporal Wright was evacuated.

And with great enthusiasm, Wright repeated his team leader’s words: “We smoked their hindquarters” – only hindquarters isn’t the word he actually used.

Eddie Wright is moving on with his life with the same courage he summoned in that desperate firefight in Iraq. He’s determined to make his life every bit as useful to his family and his country as his service has already been. You may have seen Corporal Wright paying his respects to President Reagan in the Capitol Rotunda the other day. Seeing that gallant young hero whose life lies ahead of him salute the gallant old warrior who now belongs to the ages … in that moment, I was struck by this: great Americans come along just when we need them most, ready to risk what’s most dear to do the right thing. There is no question America is richly and deeply blessed.

Recent weeks have been marked by remembrance from Memorial Day in Normandy to the monument for the veterans of the Second World War and the passing of a great president. We remember each of those events for what we mourn. But we’re an optimistic people, as Ronald Reagan constantly reminded us. So we also remember them for what we celebrate: our freedom, our nation, our heroes.

And for each life lost, death never has the final word. Love has the final word, because it comes from Almighty God: love of country, love of duty, love of a buddy on the front line. Our wounded heroes will bear the marks of courage the rest of their lives, but they will see their wounds not as a burden or a scar, but as a reminder from God that they responded to a call that few may be able to answer.

“Something had to be done,” that’s what Adam Replogle said. In each generation, countless Americans have done it.

Green, Replogle and Wright and so many others stand for what is decent and good and true.

In recent days we paid appropriate tribute to the “Greatest Generation” that saved the world from the menace of Nazism. Then the burdens of war were enormous and had to be shared widely among the American people. Today most of us are spared those burdens, but that makes it even more important that organizations like yours help those who bear the greatest burden: helping mobilize Americans at large to help bind the wounds of war. This generation is every bit as great as that “Greatest Generation.” We owe them nothing less.

One veteran of the Second World War, Bob Dole, looking back on his youth said, “We were just ordinary young men and women who were asked in some cases to do extraordinary things.”

Well, the future belongs to such men and women – heroes who dream the oldest and noblest dream of all: the dream of peace and freedom.

May God bless our Marines. May God bless all the men and women who serve us so selflessly and so well. And may God bless America. Semper Fidelis.

Posted by Deb at 02:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 26, 2004

Critter Country

I find spiders in my bathroom from time to time (and carefully trap them and release them outside - in my neighbor's yard) but I've never seen anything like this scorpion found in a Port-a-John in Iraq:

and if I found a camel spider like this, I'd move. Somewhere. Anywhere.

These pictures were taken by "Doc", a Navy Corpsman who has a fascinating photo blog. Here are his comments on the critters:

It’s surprising how much wildlife we’ve ran into. Every night we find a bigger camel spider and the Marines gather around and say “Wow, that’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen”. They just keep getting bigger each day, really! Which leads to other sorts of fights, they’ll catch scorpions and other bugs and toss them in. They’re big and mean and they’ll eat anything, they tossed a mouse in once and you could hear the cheering from hundreds of yards away. Face it Marines are just big kids, take them to a body of water and they’ll be skipping stones for hours happy, give them a magnifying glass they’ll find an ant hole, if they invade your country expect silly stuff to be written on all the walls.

Posted by Deb at 09:26 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Sibling Revelry

Promotions are events to be celebrated. And it's always nice to have a significant someone available to pin on the new rank. When a service member is deployed, it adds a wrinkle to the event. However, recently promoted 1st Lt. Catalina Kesler, the executive officer for Alpha Surgical Company, 1st FSSG, was able to call on her brother, Cpl. Fabian Estrada, a personnel clerk currently deployed with the MAG 16, 3rd MAW.

Photo by Lance Cpl. Matthew Rainey, MAG 13

Lance Cp. Matthew Rainey reports:

Kesler said she wanted her brother to pin on her new rank insignia but wasn’t sure if he would be able to make the trip here. Word about Kesler’s upcoming promotion spread, and both commands worked quickly to unite the 21 year old with his sister.

“My sergeant major and (commanding officer) told me I should come down here,” said Estrada. “I think it’s great. How many people get to promote a family member in Iraq?”

Estrada’s in-country presence has one crucial effect on his sister, she concluded. “We talk on the phone about once every week or two,” Kesler said jokingly. “He reminds me to call my mom.”

Posted by Deb at 10:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fight Night

Photo by Sgt. Jose Garcia, information from Cpl. Macario P. Mora Jr., 1st MARDIV

Lance Cpl. Joseph T. Tardio from 3rd Radio Battalion jabs at Lance Cpl. Joshua L. Campbell, a heavy-equipment mechanic with Combat Service Support Battalion 7, during a June 11 boxing match.

When 1st Sgt. David P. Perry, a former Golden Gloves boxer from Maryville, Tenn, noticed that his 3/24 Lima Co. Marines were sparring with each other on concrete floors, he decided to give that pent up aggression a safe outlet.

He began training them and soon acquired the necessary equipment to get the event going. “I had to beg and borrow,” Perry said. “But I eventually got it up and going.”

At the first Friday night fight on June 11, nearly 500 Marines showed up to watch 28 amateur boxers participate in 14 bouts. This drew the largest attendance of any base event.

Perry added, “It took me about two weeks to get this thing started. I don’t think anyone here was disappointed.”

Posted by Deb at 09:27 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

On June 26, 1918 . . .

BGen James G. Harbord, the Commanding General of the 4th Marine Brigade, notified American Expeditionary Force Headquarters that Belleau Wood was "now U.S. Marine Corps entirely." After 20 days of combat, and at a cost of over 4,000 casualties, the 4th Brigade of Marines had proven its fighting heart. The grateful Commander of the French Sixth Army would soon decree that in all official correspondence, Belleau Wood would henceforth bear the name, "Bois de la Brigade de Marine."

Posted by Deb at 08:12 AM

June 25, 2004

A true American Idol

"I wanna cry like the rain...shine like the sun on a beautiful mornin'...sing to the heavens like a church bell ringin', fight with the devil and go down swingin'..."

TV viewers all over America applauded as LCpl. Josh Gracin, active duty Marine, performed each week on American Idol. He finished in 4th place but won the hearts of American Idolizers all across America. His self-titled CD debuted on June 15 at No. 2 on the Billboard's Top Country Album Chart and No. 11 on the Top 200 Album Chart. Nielsen SoundScan reports that the CD is the fourth biggest selling country debut album in its history. Cpl. Beth Zimmerman recently caught up with the rising star:

"It was exhausting," said 23-year-old Gracin. "We were going non-stop from 5 a.m. until 11 p.m. with no breaks," he said of his interview schedule. "Even when eating meals, we did interviews."

As the sales numbers and his popularity climbs, Gracin is still working his "day job." He finishes his four-year enlistment in the Marine Corps in September. Meanwhile, he used some of his annual leave time to visit New York from Camp Pendleton, Calif., for his Big Apple media appearances.

"Being able to go around and talk to all of the radio and television stations was definitely cool," Gracin said. "Everyone was really excited about what I'm doing."
Gracin was already well known from American Idol as a country singer-and as a Marine. Gracin realizes because of that, he represents the rest of the Corps to many people.

"Everyone was really enthused about the Marine Corps," said Gracin. "They had so many good things to say about the Corps and about my career afterwards," the Michigan-native said. "It was great to hear so much that was so positive."

According to Gracin, much of the credit for his success goes to the Marine Corps. "The experience helped define who I wanted to be and who I was going to be for the rest of my life," he said. "It's really helped prepare me for the rest of my life mentally, physically, and emotionally."

"I definitely hope that in the long run, people will still associate me with the Marine Corps."

Posted by Deb at 04:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A stitch in time

When my son was in the An Najaf province of Iraq last year, he asked me to send a supply of dollar bills in each letter and care package I sent. I assumed he needed a bit of walking-around money, much like he did back home, for sodas and other personal comfort items when the PX truck visited his base.

When he returned home last October, he explained that he had been supplementing the local economy by purchasing sodas from pint-sized entrepreneurs, and giving money to Iraqi women who had been widowed or divorced and who had no way to eke out an existance other than begging. Society is not kind to Iraqi women who lack the protection of a male head of household. However the Marines, with some help from Spirit of America, are doing something to help. Cpl. Paula M. Fitzgerald reports from Camp Blue Diamond:

According to Abdul Hameed Ibraheem, women were treated poorly during Saddam Hussein's regime. They were discouraged from attending school and finding employment.

Ibraheem, the Al Anbar Province director of economic programs, said all that has begun to change.

After the fall of the dictator, Ibraheem and other members of Iraq's newly formed government began working on plans for centers that would benefit the country's female population.

"The women will be able to make clothes for their families or to sell their products to make money for themselves and their families," Ibraheem said.

He said women who were fortunate to have jobs during Hussein's rule were paid less than $5 per month.

"Now the wages will be very good compared to before," he added. "The women will be able to afford food and transportation with the money they earn working at the centers."

Photo by Cpl. Paula M. Fitzgerald

With assistance from the Los Angeles-based charity Spirit of America, the 1 MARDIV recently donated nearly $27,000 worth of equipment to the Ar Ramadi Sewing Center.

According to Lt. Col. John Lutkenhouse, 1st Marine Division plans officer for economic development, this is the first wave of sewing machine donations throughout the Al Anbar Province.

"The commander of the division understood that sewing machines would be a great way to improve Iraq's economy," Lutkenhouse explained. "The country's women will especially benefit because this will give them the opportunity to earn money and gain social empowerment."

Currently, there are two sewing centers in the province. One is located in Habbaniyah, and the other is Ar Ramadi. Both were renovated with funds donated by 1st Marine Division.

"We hope to work with the Marines in the future to get more of the centers open," Ibraheem said. "We're looking to eventually have eight in the province."

Besides sewing, the women working at the centers will also be taught several other valuable skills.

Computer, English, art and teaching classes will be available. The follow on classes will be funded by profits generated from sewing.

"We want to give the women of Iraq a place to work away from home," he explained. "And we want the women to have a chance to express themselves and have a place in society."

He expressed his gratitude to the Marines and Spirit of America for their help getting the centers up and running.

"I want to thank all of the men and women of America for making all this possible," he said. "It really is like a dream of ours is becoming a reality."

Lutkenhouse said the United States is willing to do whatever it takes to secure the country's future.

"We are here to help rebuild Iraq as a nation," Lutkenhouse said. "We'll use any method that will help us help the Iraqi people."

Each sewing machine costs $475.

Tax-deductible donations can be made to Spirit of America here.

Posted by Deb at 04:14 PM

June 24, 2004

More from Major Dave

The Green Side has a new letter from Major Dave to his father. Here is an excerpt but go here to read the entire missive.

Instead of describing more about this target, I wanted to share some observations about how the Marine Sergeants make these kind of operations go. On this particular mission, try and imagine the Sergeant's thinking as he has just spent hours/days in preparation for the operation, stressing to his Marines the sensitive nature of what they are going to do and all the do's and don'ts on objective. Once he finally gets his Marines on the objective, he is non-stop positioning and repositioning the men, keeping civilians at arms length, watching the detainees and coordinating his tasks under the search, knowing that one small mistake could get someone killed or will at least be fodder for the insurgents continued message of fear and hate.

It is about 110 degrees outside, he has had about 3 hours sleep the night prior and he is wearing about 75 pounds of body armor, weapons and ammunition. By the way, he is listening to at least one radio constantly and is controlling around 10-15 guys while coordinating with his adjacent squad leaders and platoon commander.

As all of this is going on, he watches weapons and propaganda being taken from the mosque and maintains his and his Marines' humanity toward the detainees and local civilians. He stays on the objective as long as it takes in the hot sun, treats the Iraqis fairly and firmly while he constantly moves among his Marines and checks their position and ensuring that they are watching their sector. He waits for an RPG to come whistling in or an automatic weapons to open up on his Marines at any time. He is also thinking with every tick of the clock, some guy may be out there right now digging in an IED on his exfil route or laying in an ambush so even as he leaves the target, his Marines remain at significant risk. They are not "safe" until they get back to their patrol base. Even there, mortars can be expected around their position daily.

The mission lasts for hours. He gets all of his Marines back safely where he is responsible for checking to make sure everyone is healthy, all gear and weapons are accounted for and everyone is cleaning their weapons while the squad is debriefed. Once the debrief is complete and the weapons and equipment is cleaned he might get a chance to sit down in the shade for an hour or so until he goes over to the platoon command post and gets his order for that night's patrol. From that point on, it is back to work. You rarely will catch this guy saying anything negative (when he does so, he is careful to do it to his peers or maybe the Staff Sergeant or Lieutenant but not in front of his Marines). He is 23-27 years old and has been a Marine for about 5-10 years.

There's more and it's all good.

Posted by Deb at 02:16 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

One more reason to shop Home Depot

I learned how to replace a valve seat in my bathroom faucet and rewire a malfunctioning lamp from their patient sales force. I built a corner shelf and a birdhouse at the Girl's Night Out carpentry clinics. It's one of my favorite places to hang out, even if they will never stock pink Milwaukie drills. In a statement Wednesday, the Atlanta-based Home Depot said that it is donating nearly 100,000 tools and materials in all to support the U.S.-led mission in Iraq.

Shovels, table saws, concrete mixers, power generators, light bulbs, jackhammers and other tools and materials were to be loaded on nine tractor-trailers in San Diego to be taken by military transportation to U.S. installations in Iraq. Home Depot has more than 1,800 employees serving in the current military efforts.

Ooh-rah!

p.s. I'd like shopping at Home Depot better if they changed the color scheme. But I'm willing to overlook the orange since they are so awesome at troop support. This looks better though.

Posted by Deb at 01:33 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Meet Lucky

Photo by Cpl. Matthew S. Richards

He broke his neck, back, and ankle in a tumble off a 380 foot California cliff that killed a fellow Marine and injured 4 others.

He was butted by a buffalo on the Camp Horno rifle range.

In Kenya, his company was instructing Kenyan soldiers when he was attacked by a gazelle.

His convoy was attacked in Saddam City and shrapnel narrowly missed him.

He's got more metal holding his elbows and shoulders together than many of us wear on the outside of our bodies.

And they call him Lucky.

His real name is Sgt. Brian Phipps and he serves with the 1/4 Marines. "Everyone says I’m God’s little plaything,” he said. “He’s testing me for something.”

Or, his guardian angel must be a former Marine.

Posted by Deb at 12:40 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Links in the Chain

Read this article on Blackfive's site. It's an excellent reminder that every Marine plays a vital part.

Suddenly, the faint sound of a medical officer?s voice asked a young Marine ?what is your name?? The Marine replied LCpl Phillips sir.? Next came a series of questions and answers that could only describe a far too common sight.

First, the doctor asked the LCpl Phillips how he sustained a deep burn on his lower back. The young leatherneck replied that he and his team were receiving small arms fire, when a rocket impacted the area close to his and a piece of hot shrapnel became lodged under his body armor which cut and burned him. Unfortunately, the doctor was not done.

The second question inquired about the LCpl?s broken arm. Again, the young Marine told his story. ?After having recovered from the 1st impact, another rocket came zooming in and killed a buddy to the left and knocked me to the ground.? By this time Master Sergeant Adams was feeling pretty selfish. The ?Top? completely expected a General Patton type of Marine to walk into ?his field hospital? and kick him out saying that his hospital is for fighting Marines, not Marines with a runny nose! As the MSgt was preparing to walk out, the doctor asked about LCpl Phillip?s third injury.

Continuing with his description, Phillips exclaimed ?after the corpsman patched me up and put my arm in a sling, another rocket or rocket propelled grenade (RPG) impacted near me and killed another buddy and projected shrapnel into my hand. Finally, MSgt Adams, filled with guilt, then got up and started to make his way for the hatch. Just at that moment a Navy Lieutenant greeted him and he asked, ?Where are you going MSgt?? MSgt Adams then explained to him that there were Marines here that needed his attention much more. The lieutenant then told him to sit down so he could have a look.

Read the beginning and end of this remarkable story here.

Posted by Deb at 08:43 AM

June 23, 2004

On board the USS Belleau Wood

Photo by Cpl. Daniel Fosco

Marines and sailors with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), play Bingo on the mess deck here, June 19. Bingo is just one of the ways to pass down time and have fun aboard ship.

Photo by Cpl. Daniel Fosco

1/4 Marines play spades on the mess deck. Playing cards is one of the most popular ways to pass the time while deployed for long periods of time, it keeps their minds busy and increases camaraderie.

Posted by Deb at 06:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

His DI would be proud

Photo by Cpl. Shawn C. Rhodes

Lance Cpl. Rob A. Noceda, 2/1 Marine, corrects a new Iraqi recruit.

From Camp India:There aren't any of the famed yellow footprints, but Iraqis are learning the basics of soldiering, courtesy of the U.S. Marines.

More than 30 Iraqi men, 18-to-37-years-old from the city of Zadan, got their first taste of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps boot camp. The seven-day basic training package is taught by Marines.

The first day of boot camp began with a speech from the commanding officer before the recruits are introduced to their drill instructors - Marines ranging in rank from privates first class to sergeants.

"I respect you for what you're doing for your country," said Maj. Kevin P. Collins, officer-in-charge of the training camp. "By doing this, you are making Iraq a stronger place with your presence."

After the speech, the recruits were introduced to their drill instructors and the training began.

"About ninety percent of the guys we see come through here have prior military experience in the old Iraqi army," said Sgt. Rick A. Wiggins, a 26-year-old from Wiggins, N.Y., who serves as the training noncommissioned officer. "We're not teaching them a lot of stuff they don't already know. We're just tightening up what they do know to make them a better unit."

Tightening up what they know is a difficult process for the Marines in charge of training the future ICDC soldiers. They have to overcome a language barrier and teach military skills from an Iraqi perspective instead of an American one.

"All the commands we give are in Arabic," Wiggins explained. "Everything from simple drill commands to firing their weapons. The drill instructors have to learn them in Arabic so they can be better teachers."

The first days of training involve the same things Marine Corps recruits go through - mostly a lot of stress. Marines abide by the same code as do drill instructors at the Corps' two depots. That doesn't mean stress can't be applied, though.

"It takes a lot of work to bring these guys up the standard we want them at," said Sgt. Brandon G. Guthrie, a 27-year-old senior drill instructor for the platoon, from Riverside, Calif. "When we get done with them, they'll be acting and thinking like a team. That's what they'll need when they get out on the streets."

The use of stress and military training forms the men into a cohesive unit. Most of the Iraqi recruits haven't participated in organized physical training, so the incentive training is effective. By the end of the seven-day period, the Iraqis feel like they have overcome an obstacle and accomplished something for which they can be proud.

"Going through this training makes them credible on the streets and binds them as a team," explained Collins, a 40-year-old from Gainesville, Fla. "The first class we trained here felt like they were such a good team they didn't want to be separated for their assignments. That's what we're looking to do with the boot camp here."

There are hurdles the Marines find tough too. Marines work through differences in techniques, such as movements during drill practice, which are much different and more exaggerated than the drill the Marines know by heart.

"Even though they do things differently than us, we still try to teach them everything they'll need," Guthrie said.

He added that training package was all-inclusive - from how to shoot weapons to brushing teeth. That way, Marines brought all the Iraqis up to same training standards.

"The whole boot camp is a really big shock to their systems," Guthrie said. "Getting these guys to work together as a team is hard to do sometimes, because they've never had to work together with a large group of people in this kind of environment before."

After the seven days of basic training, a graduation ceremony is held for the troops. They are then sent to two weeks infantry training where they learn about tactics, squad and individual movements. After they graduate from their infantry training, they are put on the street as Iraq's first line of defense - Iraqi Civil Defense Corps soldiers.

Posted by Deb at 05:57 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Happy Birthday Navy Hospital Corps

Celebrating the history and heritage of military tradition is important to all branches of the armed forces. The following speech was given at a 106th birthday celebration of the Navy Hospital Corps by Lieutenant General Wallace C. Gregson, Jr. who currently serves as the Commander, U.S. Marine Forces Pacific/Commander, Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific/ Commander. It's an excellent overview of why Marines hold Navy Corpsman in high esteem.

Good evening. It is indeed an honor and a privilege to be here with you tonight as we celebrate the 106th birthday of the Navy Hospital Corps. Thank you for allowing me to share in this auspicious occasion, and for allowing me a few moments to speak to you tonight.

The Navy and Marine Corps share a long history – and we each have a rather checkered heritage. The Marine Corps was founded in a bar, and we've been fighting ever since. An itinerant Scottish sea captain, on the run from the British, founded the Navy. Our first medical and dental personnel were drawn from those aboard ship deemed unsuitable for other shipboard tasks.

In spite of these humble beginnings, the respect for corpsmen is evident throughout the sea services.

On April 6th of this year, Hospitalman 3rd Class Fernando Mendezaceves was serving with the 3rd Platoon, Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment in Ar Ramadi, Iraq. After completing a patrol, the platoon was returning to their base when they were ambushed and their small convoy of Humvees was split up by heavy small-arms fire. Mendez' Humvee came under particularly deadly fire, and by the time the remaining Marines had beaten back the ambush, it was too late for all but one Marine from that vehicle.
HM3 Mendez' body was found alongside that of the 3rd Platoon's platoon sergeant. By all accounts, it appeared that this brave Corpsman died trying to treat the mortally wounded staff sergeant.

I'd like to ask you all to please stand and join me in observing a moment of silence in memory of 27-year old Hospitalman 3rd Class Fernando Mendezaceves of Ponce, Puerto Rico; killed in action April 6, 2004, in Iraq, while trying to save the life of a Marine.

Thank you.

I'm going to try to be brief tonight; after all, you're here to celebrate more than 100 years of history, tradition and service, not listen to me ramble on.

In that one hundred plus-year history, the Navy Hospital Corps has seen more than its share of heroes. It was 205 years ago, in 1799, that Congress recognized that the Navy needed to care for the sick and injured, and made provisions to assign surgeons to Naval vessels. Some 15 years later, Navy regulations first referred to the "loblolly boy," who served the ship's surgeon and surgeon's mate. In 1843, that position became known as the "surgeon's steward."

In 1863, the Navy Department began allowing the deployment of male nurses, and in 1866 they added the requirement for an apothecary, or pharmacist. In 1873, the designation was changed from steward to "baymen."

It finally took an act of Congress on June 17, 1898, to officially create the Navy Hospital Corps we know today, and establish the Hospital rating.

During the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900, Hospital Apprentice Robert Stanley became the first member of the Hospital Corps to receive the Medal of Honor. Three other Sailors were likewise awarded Medals of Honor prior to World War I. During the first World War, there were 94 officers and some 16,000 enlisted men in the Hospital Corps. Of them, 15 corpsmen were killed in action, and another 146 were wounded or gassed. There were two Medals of Honor and 55 Navy Crosses awarded to corpsmen in that conflict.

The Hospital Corps continued to distinguish itself during the second World War, with seven enlisted Corpsmen receiving the Medal of Honor, while other members of the Hospital Corps received 820 major awards and citations, including Navy Crosses, and Silver and Bronze Stars.

What makes these awards for valor so unique is that they went to men who did not bear arms – their only purpose was to save the lives of their fellow Sailors and Marines.

One of the most visible examples of the Hospital Corps' service with the Marines in combat is indelibly burned into our nation's vision. Often cited as the most recognized picture in history, Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal captured Pharmacist's Mate John Bradley and five Marines raising the United States' flag over Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, on February 22, 1945. If you didn't know which of the six was Bradley, you'd be hard pressed to tell which wasn't a Marine. This photograph captures in an instant the unbreakable bond our two services share.

In 1944, a new chapter was added to this growing history, when women were first allowed to serve in the Hospital Corps. The "Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service," the WAVES, joined the ranks of the Hospital Corps that year as 230 women reported for training at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Four years later, they were fully integrated as a regular part of the United States Navy.

Also in 1948, the ratings were created for the Dental Division of the Hospital Corps, and the red cross logo was replaced with the caduceus still in use today.

The 1950's saw America facing down Communism on the Korean Peninsula, and once again, Navy Corpsmen were more than up to the task.

During the Inchon-Seoul Campaign, corpsmen attached to the First Marine Division cared for nearly three thousand casualties during just three weeks of September and October of 1950. Corpsmen serving on Hospital ships treated more than 20,000 battlefield casualties, 30,000 non-battle casualties, and another 80,000 outpatients. Side-by-side with the Marines throughout the Korean War, Navy Corpsmen accounted for five of seven Medals of Honor bestowed upon Navy personnel during that conflict.

Corpsmen once again answered their nation's call throughout Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. This was a truly bloody time for the Hospital Corps, as 620 corpsmen were killed, and another 3,353 were wounded in action. This time around, Corpsmen accounted for an astounding 3 Medals of Honor, 29 Navy Crosses, 127 Silver Stars, 290 Bronze Stars, and more than 4,500 Purple Hearts.

Since the fall of Saigon some 29 years ago, hospital corpsmen have continued to serve with honor and distinction. Among the more than 200 killed in October of 1983 in the bombing of the Marine Barracks, Beirut, Lebanon, were 15 corpsmen.

In Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, more than six thousand active duty Sailors deployed to provide medical support to coalition forces. More than 10,000 additional naval medical reservists were called to active duty to support the war effort. Of these more than 16,000 corpsmen, nearly six thousand served side-by-side with Marines. All told, they treated more than 32,000 patients, including coalition forces, enemy prisoners-of-war, and Kuwaiti refugees.

Once again, our nation is fighting the enemies of peace and freedom, and once again, the Navy Hospital Corps has risen to the considerable challenge of caring for the ill and injured. More than 8,000 Navy corpsmen participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom during late 2003 and early 2004. Three of them, HM3 Michael Johnson, HM3 David Moreno, and Hospitalman Joshua McIntosh made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of our great nation.

Two Sailors were also honored with the Bronze Star with Combat "V" for heroic action while serving with Marines. HM2 Alan Dementer was with the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines last March when the Command Operations Center came under intense attack near An Nassariyah. Wounded himself, Dementer scaled a wall to reach six wounded Marines.

After stabilizing their condition, and with disregard for his own injuries, he directed the movement of these men back over that same wall and to safety. His courage under fire that day led to the treatment and safe evacuation of 31 Marines.

HM3 Kenneth Ball was assigned to 2nd Platoon, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines during that same time. With complete disregard to his own safety, he moved into a mined area to treat and retrieve a wounded Marine. His efforts stabilized that Marine's condition – were it not for his selfless actions, that Marine would have almost certainly had his foot amputated.

These are only the first of what are certain to be many, many stories of heroism to come out of Operation Iraqi Freedom, as you and your brother and sister corpsmen continue daily to add to your illustrious history.

Today, nearly 2,000 corpsmen are again deployed to the Central Command region in support of ongoing operations there, including some friends of many of you in this room tonight:

HM1 Richard Torres, HM3 James Dill and Hospitalman Jamar Bing are with the 1st Light Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion.

HM3 Joseph Santos and Hospitalman Joseph Collins are with the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines.

HM3 Hugh Powell is with the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines. These are all Hawaii-based Sailors, doing what you do best – caring for and treating our Marines.

Which brings us back full circle to HM3 Mendez. Even in death, he stands a shining example of what it means to be a Navy corpsman, especially those we Marines have the privilege of serving alongside: putting all others before himself, serving selflessly, caring ceaselessly, he goes into harm's way with only one thought: saving the life of his fellow man. He has carried Marines from the battlefield, and has himself been carried reverently by Marines who mourn his passing like that of a brother or sister. We know him simply as "Doc," and we love him.

Thank you all for everything you do for us, for our brothers- and sisters-in-arms, and for our families. We could not do the job we do without you, nor would we ever want to try. Happy Birthday, and Semper Fidelis!

While the Marines have a good-natured rivalry with other branches of the armed forces, they consider the "Docs" assigned to their battalions as equals. Lt. General Gregson commented, "If a Marine gets wounded in combat, the unit continues to go forward. If a corpsman gets wounded all the Marines stop, because you’re not going to go forward without a corpsman. We learn a lot from the corpsman, and it enriches the whole organization. It makes it one cohesive whole."

Posted by Deb at 05:44 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 22, 2004

Guard Duty

Photo by Cpl. Daniel J. Fosco

PFC Christopher M. Brennan, a rifleman with the 1/4 Marines stands post guarding the various MEU vehicles on the well deck of the USS Denver on June 19, guarding the MEU’s High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles, Assault Amphibian Vehicles and Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement or 7-ton trucks.

“It’s my job to make sure no one messes with the vehicles and to make sure Marines have the proper authority to be down here,” the Northville, Mich., native said. “It’s also good practice for us so when we get to Iraq we're used to standing post and our bodies are adjusted to that.”

Posted by Deb at 05:28 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Update from the 11th MEU

Here's the latest from on board the USS Belleau Wood and Denver, both en route to to Iraq this summer where they will replace elements of the Army’s 1st Armored Division.

Training as usual continues aboard the USS Belleau Wood. Marines spend their time practicing skills they will need during their tour in Iraq. In one area of the ship, the hangar deck, you can see Marines practicing Marine Corps Martial Arts while young corporals practice sword manual for the Corporals Course. Other Marines practice rapidly changing magazines on their rifles and pistols during immediate action drills and yet others unobtrusively clean their weapons in secluded corners.

Here's a picture of an immediate action drill:

Photo by Cpl. Dick Kotecki

Staff Sgt. Ian W. Bonnell shows Pfc. Jeremy A. Smith, mortarman, what to do with his weapon during an immediate action drill class in the hangar deck on board the USS Belleau Wood.

Immediate action drills, designed to train Marines to reload their magazines quickly and efficiently from any shooting position, are conducted for one hour every day in order for them to maintain their combat skills.

“It’s really designed to take them out of the rifle range mindset and put them in a quick reaction, combat mindset,” said 1st Lt. Lamar D. Breshears, platoon commander.

The update continues:

The ship is a hotbed of activity.

If you climb up topside in the early morning you'll see Marines in body armor jogging around the outskirts of the flight deck while groups of Marines in green on green do calisthenics near CH-46E Sea Knight helicopters and AV8B Harrier jump jets that sit silently on their chained down positions. To you at home all this may sound somewhat strange, but to us it's a daily routine.

Aboard the USS Denver, Marines huddle together learning Arabic during language classes. They shuffle from place to place in full gear with blank-loaded rifles. Their physical training (PT) is no less vigorous, when the ship isn't rocking too much, and the Marines pass their spare time playing card games and bingo.

We will be acclimated to doing strenuous activity in the heat before we even get to the Middle East. Preparing for the mission ahead is a never-ending job.

No matter how much training we do or how busy we are we haven't forgotten our friends and loved ones at home. Happy Father's Day!

And a slightly belated Happy Father's Day to all Marines who are separated from their children as they protect and defend the rest of us.

Posted by Deb at 05:25 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

A columnist's reaction to The Green Side

Mike North is a columnist for 6 papers in the northwest GA, southeast TN, and northwest AL area. After reading Major Dave Bellon's letters to his father on The Green Side, he wrote a two part editorial. Below is an excerpt from the first installment.

Maj. Bellon writes his Dad regularly. In his letters, we get a glimpse of the conflict not described by the media. In a letter dated April 14, 2004, Bellon writes, “The real story here that the media is ignoring is how brutal the enemy has been on the Fallujans and other locals who have chosen not to fight. I cannot tell you how many reports I have gotten about insurgents threatening civilians at gunpoint telling them that they will be killed if they try to leave the city or do not let the enemy use their land/homes for attacking us. The enemy takes over houses at gunpoint and tries to draw fire hoping that we will kill innocents so they can exploit it.”

He continues, “I could go on and on about the treachery of our enemy here, smuggling weapons in humanitarian rations under Red Crescent banners, moving arms and ammunition via ambulances, bombing civilian vehicles in order to alienate the people from the coalition....However, the worst are reports that these foreign fighters have snipers in the city that engage the women and children as they try to escape the fighting. It sounds too horrific to be true but nothing is off the table to this enemy. Daily, they fire unguided rockets into the city and then get on the mosque loud speakers to blame the US. On, and on and on....”

I wonder if the reporters and writers back home understand how they undermine the efforts of these soldiers and Marines. Do they even care? Their reportage isn’t going unnoticed. Maj. Bellon told his father, “I sincerely doubt that the Marines have passed by a mosque/minaret where they have not taken fire. We return fire and it is the lead story. The hypocrisy and lies are exasperating. Almost as exasperating as some of our own media's seeming eagerness to believe it or at least report it as fact. I can hardly bear to read CNN as it just disappoints me to know when the heroism and suffering of the Marines in that town has been twisted for political agendas.”

The picture painted for us at home by the networks and major market newspapers may be bleak, and our forces are sometimes portrayed as callous and trigger happy. But Maj. Bellon describes a different picture. “Many people have died during this offensive and during the moments when the adrenaline/anger dies down, it is clear that we have an obligation as human beings to spare as many lives as possible. We also have an obligation to encourage the Iraqis to take some responsibility and ownership of their own destiny.”

These do not sound like the words of a man whose sole goal is to kill Arabs, as some critics have stated.

To the contrary, this is a man who along with his fellow Marines, is risking his life to help the Iraqi people help themselves. The Major also believes that a democratic Iraq means a safer America. “There has been so much bantering,” he writes, “over the past two years about whether or not we should be involved in Iraq as ‘it has nothing to do with Terror.’ Nonsense. Terrorism is what is going on right now, today in Iraq. Al Qaeda and other extremist/terrorist organizations are active in Iraq making it their primary battleground.”

The second part will be published next week. It's refreshing to read a columnist who gets it.

Posted by Deb at 05:20 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 21, 2004

"I ain't got time to bleed"

Via Cassandra, here's another day in the life of a Marine. Corporal Billy Wallis was on patrol with the 3/24 Marines, Weapons Company when

Insurgents attacked a squad from the reserve infantry battalion with roadside bombs, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire.

The unit, which provides security for 1st Force Service Support Group here, was patrolling the area around the camp.

The mission was not new. The Marines were familiar with the task and the road; they had traveled down it numerous times on the same kind of mission.

The routine suddenly changed when a homemade bomb exploded next to the lead vehicle, thrusting Weapons Company into its first of two firefights since it arrived here in March.

The bomb blast knocked Wallis, who was manning a grenade launcher mounted on the roof of his humvee, back inside the vehicle.

Unaware of the shrapnel lodged in his face, neck and arm, the 22-year old from Springfield, Mo., popped back up and continued firing grenades at the attackers.

When other Marines told him he was losing blood, he replied, "I ain't got time to bleed."

Wallis, who was also awarded the Purple Heart, insisted he did no more than any other Marine in the fight.

"Everybody out there reacted the same way," he said. "We just did our job."

Well, yes. But most jobs don't involve being shot at with RPGs.

Immediately following the explosion, the Marines darted from their vehicles, took cover behind a house and fired at a nest of insurgents inside two houses about 400 meters away.

When an enemy bullet punctured the helmet of 20-year-old Aurora, Mo., native Lance Cpl. Curtis Hensley, Cinelli, 33, a corpsman from Haverhill, Mass., braved the fusillade and put his own safety aside to bandage the injury before Hensley, with the bullet lodged in his brain, was medically evacuated.

"If it had been one inch lower, there would have been nothing I could do about it," said Cinelli.

Cinelli directed his comrades, who were distracted by Hensley's injury, to keep their focus on suppressing the enemy attack.

He and two others dragged Hensley to a vehicle and rushed him back to the base. After dropping him off at the battalion's medical station, Cinelli "turned around and went right back out there," rejoining the Marines in the fight.

Meanwhile, reinforcements arrived.

One of the company's mobile quick reaction forces was in the vicinity of the patrol and rushed over to assist the ambushed Marines.

Woodward, 25, a squad leader with the reaction force, ordered Smith to move to a position that would enable him to kill insurgents in a nearby field and also put the Marines in place to attack the house from the side.

To accomplish this, Smith, 26, dauntlessly led his four-man team across about 500 meters of farmland with very little cover from enemy fire.

The task wasn't easy, Smith said, adding that the enemy fire was uncharacteristically accurate for insurgents.

"It was getting pretty hairy there for a little while," said the Springfield, Mo., native.

The worst part was slithering on his back across a shallow ditch to reach a nearby berm for cover while enemy rounds impacted all around him and his assistant fire team leader, Lance Cpl. Buckley C. Cain, a 22-year-old also from Springfield.

This firefight resulted in 14 insurgents killed and Purple Hearts for injuries to Lance Cpl. Patrick S. Henderson, Lance Cpl. John K. Tinsley Jr., Lance Cpl. Curtis Hensley, and Corporal Wallis.

Cpl. Zachary D. Smith received a Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with a combat "V". Petty Officer 2nd Class Greg Cinelli, Sgt. Jason D. Woodward, Cpl. Billy B. Wallis and Lance Cpl. Cody J. Wilson were all awarded Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals, also with the "V."

Thanks, 3/24 - you are amazing!

Posted by Deb at 02:32 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Welcome Home, Greyhawk

A warrior is home.

Posted by Deb at 12:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Another update from the 3/7 - India Company

Here's the latest from India Company - congratulations to those promoted!

Your Marines out here in western Iraq are doing well and continue to do great things all around. This last month was a pretty rough one with a great deal of activity and some difficult losses in our Battalion. Through it all, our Marines have continued to remain focused on the mission at hand and are determined to stay the course.

Operations in our zone have continued to achieve great success and we are preparing ourselves for the long hot days ahead. Things around the camp are right in line with the upcoming summer heat. We have just gotten new living quarters constructed for the Marines that will include brand new air conditioners when finished. Not too many other changes to report with regards to camp life. We certainly will be glad to get home to a regular shower and a little more variety at meal time.

We were fortunate to receive four new NCOs into our company within the past few days. Corporals Smith, Gilbertson, Larsen and Wentworth joined us from Weapons Company 3/1 and are jumping right into the mix of things like true professionals. We are glad to have them aboard and welcome all the assets that they bring to the team. Additionally, 1stLt MacGregor joined the company from Headquarters Company, RCT 7, and has assumed command of 2nd Platoon.

We were able to recognize the achievements of several of our Marines this last month. Lance Corporal Jensen was awarded a Certificate of Commendation for his action during an operation that netted several high value targets. PFC Barnett was also awarded a Certificate of Commendation for his contributions to the establishment of the company’s living quarters. We were also fortunate enough to deliver a combat meritorious promotion to now Sergeant Hirz of 2nd Platoon. Congratulations goes out to all these Marines and their families. Job well done!

The company saw a few other Marines promoted over the past few weeks. LCpl Spears and Stansbury from 2nd Platoon were promoted to their present rank this past month. Additionally, LCpl Tristan and LCpl Ordonez of our Headquarter and Service Platoon were also promoted on 1 May. These Marines have received the rank that their performance has indicated for some time now and are to be congratulated.

As always, I want to tell you all how much I appreciate the support that you give to us, while we are deployed. You all provide the foundation for our success. As we run this race marked out for us, we do so under the grace of a loving God and the support of loving families. Thank you all for what you do and who you are. Take care and God bless.

B. W. TIPPETT

Posted by Deb at 11:41 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

June 19, 2004

Happy Father's Day to all Marine Corps Dads

Frank Schaeffer, father of LCpl John Schaeffer and author of Keeping Faith, was recently interviewed by Jim Lehrer . Here's what he had to say about his feelings as the father of a Marine.

FRANK SCHAEFFER: The military records of the presidential candidates are hot topics. But as the father of a member of our military, I'm less interested in the candidate's past service than in asking "Where are their children?"

From March through December of 2003, my son, a corporal in the United States Marine corps, was facing roadside bombs and random bullets in Afghanistan. I was proud of John's service, and terrified. What our political leaders said about "supporting our troops" didn't comfort me. In one crucial respect, they and I had nothing in common. Almost none of their children were in harm's way

SPOKESMAN: Yesterday, December 7, 1941...

FRANK SCHAEFFER: At one time, many of our leaders were also military parents. Jon Meacham notes in his recent book, "Franklin and Winston," that Eleanor Roosevelt wrote, "I think my husband would have been very much upset if the boys had not wanted to go into the war immediately, but he did not have to worry very much because they either were already in before the war began, or they went in immediately."

Roosevelt's most influential advisor, Harry Hopkins, also had children who volunteered. His youngest son, Stephen, was killed in the Pacific. Many members of Congress had sons or daughters serving. Some were wounded, and others killed. A lot has changed since our political elites were encouraging, even expected, their children to volunteer.

According to an article by Tom Ford in the "Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune" wherein he cited two experts on trends in military service, only 30 percent of the 535 members of congress have a military background. This number is down from 1969 when more than two-thirds had served. And only six representatives and one senator are known to have children serving.

I never served in the military, and I was dismayed when my son volunteered. And I don't mean to single out individuals, but several examples illustrate a serious dilemma: When it comes to service, our ruling class no longer puts its money where its mouth is.

President Bush refers to the U.S. Military as our finest young men and women; his daughters did not volunteer. As First Lady, Senator Hilary Clinton often said that she looked to Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt as role models. But there is no evidence Senator Clinton is "very much upset" by the fact that her service-age daughter did not volunteer to fight in the war that Senator Clinton voted for and Senator Kerry's children did not volunteer. Yet the fact that he did not inspire his children to serve is not seen as a disqualification for his seeking the office of commander- and, in these days of the all-volunteer military, recruiter-in-chief.

Leaders on the right talk about the need to project American power. Where is their practical patriotism? Where are their children? Leaders on the left talk about fairness to working people. Where is their practical solidarity with the working people defending them? Where are their children?

In Pericles' funeral oration, he says, "for a man's counsel cannot have equal weight or worth when he alone has no children to risk in the general danger." To me, this summarizes a serious moral problem: The unfairness of being led by a class that only sends the sons and daughters of others to defend us.

Eleanor wrote of her wartime farewell to her sons, "I imagine every mother felt as I did when I said good-bye. Life had to go on, and you had to do what was required of you, but something inside of you died." I wish we were still led by women and men who could honestly identify with "every mother" and father who has experienced the heart-stopping mix of pride and sorrow attending a farewell to a son or daughter who has volunteered to defend us. If we were, this country would be fairer. If we were, our leader's words about war and peace would have weight.

Happy Father's Day to Frank and all other faithful fathers who wait, watch, and worry along with all Marine Corps Moms. It's not easy for either parent; moms may express their feelings more easily but dads love their children just as much.

Posted by Deb at 11:30 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Tribute to Robert Stethem, USN

Jen Martinez called attention to this comment left on her tribute to Flight 847. where USN diver Robert Stethem was beaten and killed by terrorists on June 14, 1985. His body was dumped on the tarmac of the Beirut airport. Here is an eyewitness account of Stethem's last minutes:

Over the couse of time we are told that we will forget the pains that have been inflicted upon us.

I was one of the Navy Seabee Divers who had to endure the pain of hearing and seeing SW2 (DV) Robert Stethem go through the brutality of terrorism on June 14, 1985. It has been 19 years since that day. I will NEVER FORGET what he sacraficed. I was lucky/blessed to be able to return home after 17 days of captivity. The mental and physical pains which we all endured during that time will heal, but will also be forever etched into our memory. Bobby was a close friend who is deeply missed by many. Let us all remember what has been taken away from us by EVIL and call it what it is. Many people ask me the question of, are we doing the right thing in waging a world wide war on terror, as if I am some type of an expert on the topic. I can only respond by saying,"If you can answer that question buy saying NO, you have not personally felt the pain of the enemy. Only a casual observer can say that we are doing the wrong thing, someone who lives in a bubble".

Let us not just remember the events of Sept. 11,2001, but remember all of what has happened over the course of many years. Remember we are not the bad guys in this fight. It is right for us to take a stand and support the cause of freedom and to do our best in preventing these acts of barbarism.
I have no doubts that if Robert Stethem were still alive what his answer would be.

As the gunman fired the fatal shot into my friends head, he cried out to God. That is the example I will always remember and try to follow. Never give up, endure all that is pressed upon me, and cry out to God for strength when I have done all that is within my power. We as a Nation can respond to evil in this same way. The motto of the USS Stethem DDG-63 is, "Steadfast and Courageous". This very applicable to the way Bobby lived & died.

We can honor him and all the other 5000+ Americans who have fallen to terrorism by applying this creed to our support of our Armed Forces and President of this great nation.

May we endure as Bobby did untill the end and always "Keep the Faith"

Posted by Deb at 10:30 AM | Comments (11)

Update from the RCT-7

Here's the latest from Col. Tucker:

Elizabeth (my wife) has counseled me on my use of swear words in these newsletters. It was one of those sweetly spoken, nice, loving "subtle-but-you-better-get-the-message" kinds of counseling, and I've been around long enough to know I ignore those at my peril. So. For the time required to write these things I will remove myself from the nether regions inhabited by 4500 males alone in a combat zone and ascend to the lofty heights of Wives and Moms who have spent the best years of their lives training their men and by-god have certain expectations that the training will hold. Or else.

There is, of course, a regression that takes place when you send your sons and husbands off into this all-male world of Marine Infantry. It's probably the thing about deployment that frustrates Elizabeth the most, because the regression is not linear…its exponential. You don't send him away for, say, 7 months, and know he is going to come back having forgotten only 7 months of lessons. Nope…doesn't work that way. Elizabeth and I have been married 20 years, and when I left I was just starting the 100-level doctoral classes (Lesson 23,456: "Why it is ok for your 15 yr old daughter to go on a date without you"). But she knows when I come home she is going to be right back at the year 14 lessons, having to explain---once again---why it matters which side of the flat sheet is facing up on the bed.

First weeks of June saw a spike in IED activity in the AO. Still not a very successful tactic for the enemy in these times, and we have had some great successes capturing or killing the ones making or planting the IEDs. The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) continue to make great strides forward and we are seeing more cooperation, professionalism and competence in the Iraqi Police, ICDC, and Border Guards as equipment comes on line, training continues, and their leaders look towards the challenges assumed when Iraq becomes responsible for itself on 30 Jun.

Pretty heartening to watch the ISF and Marines working together. Brothers-in-arms attitudes and perspective forms, they begin to assume responsibility for each other, and cultural barriers disintegrate. Spent (once again) 6 hours or so at a Sheiks house waiting for them to kill and cook the goat last week…and the guys in my Detachment spent that entire time engaged with a group of ICDC soldiers speaking the common language of infantrymen with a group of men they couldn't talk to. Mostly they show each other pictures of girlfriends, wives and kids or take turns showing off weapons systems. But they leave friends. And when they come back they are remembered and welcomed.

The RCT executed a very successful operation in the central part of the AO in early June…captured a couple of the terrorist cell leaders we have targeted for 4 months and 3d ACR targeted for 7 months previous. Amazing to see the communities open up when those who intimidate and torture are taken away.

Ok…picture time.

	This is "Korean Village"…built years ago for the Koreans who constructed the portion of the 6-lane highway that runs from the Jordan/Syria border. There is also a Germantown further east. 1st LAR and F 2/7 live here. About as far west as you can get in Iraq. Also normally 10-15 degrees cooler than Al Asad.
City of Rawah on the far bank. Picture doesn't do it justice…a very pretty place. Sight of the June operation I spoke to above.
	TF 3/4 Marines asleep following the initial stages of operations in Rawah. These young men had been fighting for about 36 hours before collapsing for a few hours rest.
LCpl Puente, Machine gunner on my vehicle, Rawah. Promised I'd put him on so his Mom and girlfriend could see him.

There are interesting days ahead as Iraq moves towards the transition of authority and we await the enemies response. We do live in interesting times, but every day the Iraqi security forces and the mechanisms necessary to a rule of law progress. Every day we see the results of the $6 million invested in Iraqi schools and irrigation ditches, and water facilities and swing sets. Little by little, step-by-step, we see victory moving towards us.

An Iraqi truck driver asked me the other day how long it took the U.S. to establish itself as a democracy. Had to think about it. The war itself lasted 7 years. Then 5 years to get the Constitution ratified. Then another 77 years to get the whole states versus federal rights thing straightened out. Then after another 45 years we finally got around to letting women vote. His remark: "We're probably not going to get all of this done before January are we."

Probably not. Speed of information, ubiquitous talking heads and political imperatives are not going to speed up the demands of history. This is a patient fight, and victory will require patient, persistent attention to those demands.

Nothing further to report.

Share your courage.

Little by little, step by step. Thanks for the reminder.

Posted by Deb at 05:56 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 18, 2004

Update from Camp Fallujah

The following excerpts are from the last newsletter from the 9th Communication Battalion at Camp Fallujah, Iraq.

I hope this e-mail finds all of you well and enjoying spring, wherever you may be. I would like to say that we are enjoying spring in Iraq, but it was only here for two days and has since been replaced with whatever season is marked by heat and sudden nasty sandstorms. I am glad that we don't have this season in the United States. The Iraqis can keep this country. We have one that is much better than this.

The heat of an Iraqi summer was described by my son last year as like sitting in front of a sandblaster that happens to be located in a blast furnace. Add full Kevlar to that and it's no wonder there were rumours among the Iraqi people that the Marines were issued air-conditioned underwear. My Marine said he would have spent two month's pay on something like that.

Since I last wrote, a great deal has happened on the news. Unfortunately, it has mostly been very disturbing news. The photos of the prison, the murder of Mr. Berg...it's all just disturbing. We have taken the opportunity to talk to the Marines about the importance in this environment and in this mission of the actions of the individual. Just one unit...one very bad unit, has put the President of the United States on report and caused people around the world to question this mission and, more importantly, the values of our country. Folks, here's the thing; we ask a lot of Marines. We push them harder and ask more from them. This situation out here right now is why we have to do that. This cause here is just. The murder of Nick Berg demonstrated once again that the mission here is real and just. I believe that if we don't deal with murderers on their own turf, they will bring the fight to us. Things like discipline and duty and leadership and just doing the right thing can never be taught and talked about too much. This is why we push Marines...so that when no one is watching or in the absence of good leadership, good family upbringing, Marine training and core values will all kick in. When I look at what happened at that prison, I am just glad all over again that I am a Marine.

Aside from what has been on the news, it has been quiet here on Camp Fallujah for a few weeks now. There have been signs of enemy hostility at camps all around us, but things have been quiet here on this camp. We are watching with interest the developments out in Fallujah, but that has really quieted down...well, maybe it's even been a bit too quiet. We'll see. It would be good if those infantry battalions could shift their focus to other areas of this province, but for now, they are still here...in Fallujah working with the Fallujah Brigade. We just pray that this all ends well.

In the past couple of weeks, they have opened a third chow hall for the Marines. This third chow hall is in a hardened building, so that Marines can safely enjoy a meal even if it does get exciting around here again. The food really did take a dip in quality for a while, mainly because the food trucks couldn't get through to us. Now, it seems like it is getting much better again. For the past two days, in fact, we have even had fresh salad again. There has also been fruit available for the past week or so. It's all good. The Marines are getting plenty to eat.

Here's a request that I'm sure a lot of folks on the home front will be happy to comply with.

Please keep praying families. Our completely successful convoy this week proved to me again that we have been given a hedge of protection that only be explained by fervent prayer. I don't believe in luck. Please stay in touch with each other. Thanks for all that you are doing at home to allow your Marines to work so hard here. We all appreciate your sacrifice.

And we appreciate your sacrifice, more than words can say.

Posted by Deb at 01:25 PM | Comments (249) | TrackBack

Update on Teen Spirit

I've received a number of e-mails from folks who would like to help get "Steve-O" out of Iraq and into a safe place. The first step seems to be public awareness of his situation and I wondered if folks from each state would write to their Congressional Representative and also send a letter to their local paper. The original story is no longer available online but it was published in the June 14 edition of the Wall Street Journal. You can find a copy at your local library or I can e-mail a copy of the text - request it at:

deb at marinecorpsmoms.com

There is nothing that a group of determined bloggers cannot accomplish. Let's get this moving. I'll cover Oregon.

Posted by Deb at 09:31 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

More from the 3/7

Captain Mills from H&S updates us on life in Iraq:

“Honor to the Soldier, and Sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country’s cause. Honor to also the citizen who cares for his brother in the field, and serves, as best he can, the same cause – honor to him, only less than to him, who braves, for the common good, the storms of heaven and storms of battle.”

- President Abraham Lincoln

I know that some of the news that is written about in these letters is some times not new to some of the families who have already been informed. My goal with these newsletters is to ensure that the entire family of Headquarters and Service Company, those deployed and those supporting us back home, is aware of our experiences. Hopefully, no day will ever be darker for 3d Battalion, 7th Marines than 17 April. On this date, the battalion lost five outstanding Marines in actions against the enemy. One of those fine Marines was Captain Richard Gannon. At the time he was serving as Commanding Officer for Lima Company, but during Operation Iraqi Freedom I, he served as the Commanding Officer for Headquarters and Service Company. Many of you may remember reading his newsletters from last year.

Rick was a true professional and a brother to us all. There are many Marines and sailors serving today who owe a lot of thanks to him for his steadfast leadership and courage. I often consulted with him and sought his advice in how to better execute my duties. He has left our side here, but will always continue to be with us.

Over the weekend of 17 and 18 April, the battalion took to the streets of the town of Husaybah and swept enemy forces out of that area. There are still certainly dangers present and the enemy is still working to disrupt our mission of peace, but things have settled down considerably over the past month to allow somewhat more routine things to take place. The Marines and sailors at Camp Al Qa’im now have three basketball hoops located around the base. Almost immediately upon their receipt, competition amongst base personnel started. There have been two tournaments held thus far and many more are expected in the future. Athletic competition is always great to keep the time moving and the camp is hoping to have more such events with softball and flag football in the future. A battalion soccer team is being put together under the guise of First Lieutenant Michael Kaniuk to play some local Iraqi teams. The battalion was soundly beaten last year in Karbala, so we hope to perform a little better this time around.

The personnel of Headquarters and Service Company continue to perform exceptionally well and are properly being awarded for their efforts. Lance Corporals John J. Frawley III, Robert J. Millar, and Brian A. Bova were awarded Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals for their continuous and untiring efforts to support the Battalion Operations Section. Petty Officer Demetrius M. Hartsfield, for his superb actions in supporting the Battalion Aid Station’s mission during our short stay in 29 Palms after the last deployment, and then-Corporal Robert J. Matthews, for his initiative in preparing vehicles to support the battalion’s operations in Iraq, were also awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal. Two Staff Noncommissioned Officers were awarded medals for their inspired efforts with their previous commands. Staff Sergeant Omar Mombille was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal and Gunnery Sergeant Timothy Perez was presented the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal.

Much deserved promotions were given to a number of Marines. Robert J. Matthews’ dedication to mission accomplishment resulted in his meritorious promotion to Sergeant on 15 May (his date of rank will be 2 May). New Corporals as of 1 May are Eric R. Holomon and Pablo Deleon Jr. Also on that day, Jason R. Barter, Justin S. Holt, Michael A. Ordonez, and Lonnie F. Vega were promoted to Lance Corporal.

Last year when the battalion deployed, the Marine Corps had put into place the policies of Stop-Move and Stop-Loss. These policies meant that Marines who had orders to report to new units or had reached the end of their obligated service were required to remain with their current units and deploy to support operations. This time around, those policies are not in effect. Each month we will begin to say goodbye to a number of Marines as they depart to start a new phase of their life. The command’s goal is to get these individuals back to 29 Palms at least one month before they are scheduled to move or depart the Marine Corps. I’d like to extend my appreciation to Staff Sergeant Tylon L. Wilder, Sergeant Michael K. Podbevsek, Corporals Jimmie B. King and Daniel Ramirez, and Lance Corporal Gerald M. Cobian for their service to their country as United States Marines. Staff Sergeant Wilder was a recent addition to us from Lima Company and was instrumental in improving convoy execution for the Logistics Section. He will be departing the Marine Corps after eight years of dedicated service in order to look after his two young girls. Sergeant Podbevsek is looking to get back on his farm and get a job at the county jail. Corporal King will be looking to transfer his skills from working with 7-ton trucks to working on Caterpillar Engines. Corporal Ramirez is looking forward to going to college part-time while working as a welder for an oil company in Texas. Lance Corporal Cobian is excited about having a little more freedom in what he does and enjoying life with his wife. Good luck to these warriors and a special thanks to their families for allowing them to be a part of the finest military unit in the world.

I would also like to say a fond farewell to Gunnery Sergeant Jimmy Cortez. Although, I guess it’s not that much of a farewell. He is still living in the room next to mine, but he has now been assigned as a Platoon Sergeant with Weapons Company. He has replaced Staff Sergeant John W. Kelley who is now a welcome addition to the Battalion Operations Section. Another new addition is Captain Rory Quinn. Captain Quinn is an Infantry Officer who just finished a tour as an instructor at The Basic School. He is currently serving as a Watch Officer in the Battalion Operations Section. Without a doubt, the most significant addition to our company is Staff Sergeant Kevin F. Kersey. Staff Sergeant Kersey is an electrician on loan to us from Okinawa. Since his arrival, many potential electrical hazards have been fixed and many Marines and sailors now have lights and air conditioning to boast of because of his tireless efforts.

Last year in Karbala, the battalion did not have any air conditioning. This year everyone is much better off. We recently purchased 98 window units and are in the process of getting almost 200 more. The temperatures are now starting to top 120 degrees, but it is a dry heat and has not become unbearable, yet. Recently, some Marines and sailors had a chance to beat the heat when an unplanned pond appeared on the camp. Somewhat funny story: The Marine Corps has a very large armored bulldozer that is known as the D-9. Some of the engineers on our camp were using the D-9 to loosen up dirt that was used to fill protective barriers. The wrong place was picked for digging. The D-9 broke a water pipe that supplies our camp with water, but no one knew this because we were having problems with getting the water on a regular basis at that time and no water was flowing. Once we finally fixed the problem with getting the water sent to us, we still weren’t getting much water and swore that we were getting played with by the local water plant. Turns out the water was coming to us. It just happened to be collecting where the D-9 had previously dug and not in our water tank. A pond the size of a Winnebago was created and Marines like Staff Sergeant Joseph Mallicoat and First Lieutenant David M. Casey were brave enough to test it out and let everyone know that the water was fine. Once the problem was found, we set to drain the pond and have local Iraqis come in to replace the pipe. We are happily receiving our local supply again, although to the dismay of some recreational swimmers.

There are actually too many changes in the camp to address them all, but they are all for the better. The Marines of 8th Engineer Support Battalion that are attached to our battalion have built a small village of long sea huts (made out of 2x4s and plywood) where tents used to be. The Post Office and Post Exchange are moving into their permanent homes (sea huts) as well. Life keeps getting a little better here and a lot of it is directly due to the continued great support from all of the families and friends. I can never say it enough. Your support is a combat multiplier and makes it much easier to accomplish and enjoy mission success. Keep up the good work on the home front. . . .

It is a true honor to serve your sons, husbands, and fathers as their Commanding Officer.

– Captain Barron Mills

P.S. Rumor has it we are getting ice cream tonight for the first time, chocolate and strawberry.

Posted by Deb at 09:15 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

". . . So they are never forgotten"

Cpl. Paula Fitzgerald is a combat correspondent with the 1st Marine Division. Here's her view of her part in honoring fallen Marines.

I’ve been in Iraq for three months and reported on a handful of memorial services. They never get any easier to cover, and I never want them to.

There’s a misconception about Marines in mainstream media. They know our Marines die. Press agencies report the names, ages and hometowns. They clamor to the families’ homes and get the quotes of the bereaved.

They make it in by deadline, and it’s off to cover the next firefight. What they
miss is the humanity. That’s what I’ve seen. That’s what I’ve reported — too many times.

After the fighting ceases and the adrenaline rush is over, the surviving Marines are left to mourn their losses and pick up the pieces. That means tending to wounds, cleaning weapons and refitting for combat. It’s also the time to honor the fallen.

That’s where I come in. As a combat correspondent, it is my duty to tell the Marine Corps story, good and bad. Many of my stories are less than hard-hitting news stories and border on fluff . These stories are welcome breaks for deployed troops’ family members and friends who spend much of their time watching civilian news network’s coverage of the killing that goes on here.

My stories help remind America that Marines are not the killing robots the media builds them up to be. They are human beings. They have names. They have friends. And they bleed and sometimes die.

Their names are printed and wire services up the body count. News agencies read their names, calling it “patriotic,” reminding America of their sacrifices.
It makes good headlines. It gives them a reason to sell their stories.

But what they don’t see is the quiet dignity of their fellow Marines. They don’t see how Marines honor their fallen, simply, without fanfare or chest thumping. These events are solemn, noble ceremonies for Marines who didn’t die fighting for patriotism. They died fighting for each other.

Every service follows the same regimented display: an M16-A2 service rifle topped with a helmet and adorned with identification tags, placed bayonet-down into a box or sandbag behind a pair of combat boots. The memorial symbolically represents the contribution the Marine gave to the Corps. It represents his fighting spirit and how he gave his life for all that we stand for in the Corps and America.

First, the National Anthem is played followed by the chaplain’s invocation. A close friend speaks about his relationship with the Marine. They are haunting words. Men this young shouldn’t know these horrors, but they do. They know them without shame or pride, without boast or reservation. They know them so others may never understand.

Most of these Marines have seen hell at an appalling young age. Some were even there when their 19- and 20-year old buddies were killed. Some might have held them as they died. Some might have known they couldn’t help them in time.

These men don’t try to hide their pain. No one does. For that brief half-hour ceremony, no one is trying to prove anything.

During all of this, I’m moving in and out of the crowd trying to capture the images and scribble the notes that will best tell this story. Marines, for the most part, understand my mission. They tend to be wary of the media, but the fact I wear the same uniform as them puts their minds at ease.

Still, there are those few who look at my camera and me with contempt. They view these ceremonies as private affairs, something the outside world couldn’t possibly understand. Anyone who hasn’t called their Marine “friend” and isn’t silently honoring the sacrifice of their Marine is an outsider.

There’s not much I can do to change their views of my fellow combat correspondents and me, so I go on about my business trying to get unnoticed.

All I can do for these Marines is make sure America knows their names, so they
are never forgotten.

They are quiet, somber and proud affairs, these memorials. The wounds are
still raw. The emotions run high. Capturing it takes a certain amount of connection and detachment at the same time. Telling the world about the contribution of one Marine in a short news story is tough.

Understanding that a life given for a cause greater than oneself is never easy. I hope it never is.

This editorial was originally printed in the Chevron at MCRD San Diego.

Posted by Deb at 08:54 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

An Iraqi's view on why this war is good for America

Ali provides a great perspective on "occupied" Iraq.

Some people think that the American officials didn’t expect such fierce fight from the Islamic groups that keep flowing into Iraq from almost all directions after toppling Saddam. They say that the American army have fell into a trap in Iraq. I want to say that I agree on Iraq being a trap, only it’s a trap for the terrorists not the Americans.

Given their belief in that the war on Saddam and establishing democracy in Iraq was the key stone in combating terrorism, the American administration surely had expected (not planned) this situation as a result of freeing Iraq. The American administration said it more than once that it’s better to fight terrorism outside America than wait until being forced to fight it inside her borders.

This war is good for America in many ways; it eliminated a potential danger, it gives America a good and very much needed ally in the heart of a hostile area, one that is a ‘member of the family’, unlike Israel and Turkey, it secures American interests in the region and makes America safer by attracting the main efforts of the terrorists away from her borders and by building a sort of a nucleus for a democratic Arab Muslim world that will surely diminish the dreadful threat of a combined terrorism and WMDs.

Read the rest here. His walk-away line is worth reading twice:

We didn’t take the decision of the war, that’s right, but we’ve accepted it with full knowledge of the consequences and that’s why you cannot see one large demonstration asking the coalition to leave. We gained our freedom, after Saddam’s fall almost for free, as most of the enormous losses we suffered before that time were not the result of real attempts to gain freedom; they were in most times the result of mere disapproval with the Ba’athists or were part of the systematic killing to maintain the paralyzing fear at a maximum. Maybe it’s time to pay and this time we are ready because we are free from that fear after seeing the weakness of our enemies and we have seen what we were missing and are not ready to lose it no matter what happens. We will pay the price and we will not surrender or compromise, we will fight and we will win.

Posted by Deb at 08:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 17, 2004

Unfair and Unbalanced Reporting

Here's an editorial written by LCpl Oscar Gonzalez for the Chevron at MCRD-San Diego:

If you haven’t heard about the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal, then you must have been in a cave for the past month and just recently emerged. Unless, of course, you shared that cave with Osama bin Laden.

It seems that these days all the media giants ever talk about is how bad things are going for the military in Iraq. The media have framed events in ways to make the American public feel like things in Iraq are going terribly wrong. Every time the president or the defense secretary speak about developments in Iraq, the media emphasizes on negative quotes and keeps repeating the same thing, over and over. But the most disturbing thing of all is that we never hear about service members going above and beyond the call of duty, performing incredible acts of heroism, and putting their lives in harm’s way to protect their fellow troops and accomplish the mission.

In a recent article by John D. Banusiewicz from the American Forces Press Service, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said, “I suppose that for whatever reason, people seem to think that news isn’t news unless it’s bad news … because that’s essentially what’s getting reported.”

That is exactly what’s happening right now; the media is painting a biased report of the war while ignoring other sides deserving of national attention. Recently, two Marines from 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, received the naval service’s second highest award for heroism. Capt. Brian R. Chontosh and PFC Joseph B. Perez were awarded with the Navy Cross; the last Navy Cross awarded was during Desert Storm in February 1991. To earn a Navy Cross, a commendable act must be performed in the presence of great danger or at great personal risk and must be performed in such a manner as to render the individual highly conspicuous among others of equal grade, rate, experience, or position of responsibility.

Another thing most people haven’t heard about is the story of Cpl. Jason Dunham, a Marine from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, who was recently nominated for the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award for heroism. If awarded the medal, Cpl. Dunham would be the first service member to receive it since it was last awarded posthumously to two soldiers in Somalia in 1993. But apparently this doesn’t deserve national media coverage; after all, the only thing Dunham did was jump on a grenade so his body would absorb the explosion and save his fellow Marines.

There are countless more newsworthy stories of troops who go above and beyond the call of duty and more stories concerning the construction of new hospitals and schools. All of these things are examples of what we as the public are not hearing about from the media giants.

Whatever the reasons the news media have for keeping the public in the dark should not excuse them from showing the American public another set of pictures: those of their fellow Americans who gave more than demanded for
their country.

Posted by Deb at 09:41 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

June 16, 2004

In the Line of Fire - More From Robert Kaplan

Here's an interview with Robert Kaplan who wrote Five Days in Fallujah in this month's Atlantic Monthly. It's an excellent look at his journey through a war zone with the Marines - and there are a number of interesting questions with illuminating answers. Here are two.

How did the Marines among whom you were embedded respond to your presence in the battalion?

The particular Marine grunts with whom I was embedded had the impression at first that journalists are violent people. I'm not kidding. After all, two reporters who had been embedded with them in 2003 during the war had gotten into a fistfight over a satellite phone, and a Marine captain had had to break it up with a body block. Aside from that, it was a typical situation for me. I've had long embedding experiences before with the Army Special Forces and the Marines. In the first few days you go through a sniff test, where the guys try to figure out whether you're an asshole or not. Once you're pronounced okay, the bonding can get intense. I email all the time with soldiers and Marines I've met in my travels. If you spend several weeks in close quarters with a bunch of guys under awful conditions, there is something deeply wrong with you if you don't make fast friends. Whereas Army Special Forces guys are in their thirties, Marines are a decade younger, so that makes it a bit more challenging for someone in his early fifties like me. The trick is to ask them nuts-and-bolts questions about what they do, not about how they feel. Profound, touchy-feely questions get you nowhere.

and

You describe much of the strategic planning for the Marines' attack on Fallujah as having been undertaken at the Abu Ghraib Combat Operations Center. Since then, the problem of detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison has emerged as a major scandal. At the time you were there, did you have any inkling of what was going on?

The Abu Ghraib Combat Operations Center, at the Abu Ghraib Forward Operating Base, is a completely different place from the Abu Ghraib prison, which is some miles away. I did visit the prison a few times, however. A good part of the prison grounds is not a prison at all, but a base for Marines who help the Army's 1st Cavalry patrol the town of Abu Ghraib, which is one of the most crime beset in Iraq. The Marines I was with had no contact with the prisoners. They were told in no uncertain terms by their commanders that they shouldn't. I did see some of the living quarters where the Army units who did have contact with the prisoners lived. They had been defaced by soldiers' graffiti, and there was garbage and old food lying all around. A Marine commander ordered the place whitewashed before any Marines moved in, intimating that you can tell the character of troops by the way they live. He then berated what he called "the non-infantry part of the Army." His point was that the Army has great fighting divisions with real espirit de corps, like the 82nd Airborne, 10th Mountain, 1st Cavalry, etc. But the Army is vast, and there are all these units that fall between the cracks, like those later implicated in the prison scandal, which at the time we had little inkling of.

Read the rest.

Posted by Deb at 09:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Ahoy from the 11th MEU

On board the USS Belleau Wood:

11th MEU Families and Friends,

Today is June 15. Our destination gets closer every day and every Marine and Sailor is staying busy. There is a lot of training going on in preparation for the challenging months ahead. Every morning there are countless Marines on the flight deck exercising, most in full combat gear. Marines also continue to brush up on their combat skills with live fire exercises, immediate action drills, vehicle and aircraft maintenance and a variety of other things Marines do.

During this leg of our journey, life aboard ship is becoming somewhat routine, but we're not losing sight of the importance of our mission. Morale remains high. We will not become complacent. Our resolve remains firm and true. We will go, do our job, do it well, take care of ourselves and take care of each other, then return to our families safe and sound.

Photo by Cpl. Daniel J. Fosco

Lance Cpl. Billy J. Clark, flight equipment operator with Combat Cargo, 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), passes the time in troop berthing by watching a movie on his personal laptop computer here, June 14.

“Marines have to get used to living in close quarters with very little personal space,” the Savannah, Ga., native said. “CDs, books and DVDs are a must have for any Marine living down here.”

Posted by Deb at 08:09 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Update from the 3/7 Marines

3/7 Marines: Corporal Cervantes and Corporal Bill Riecke

Update from Lt.Col. Lopez, up by the Syrian border.

Greetings from Al Qaim,

The Marines, Sailors and Soldiers of Task Force 3/7 are doing an incredible job establishing security and bringing a better life to the people of Al Qaim. We have seen a very violent and dangerous area develop into a relatively peaceful area where governance, Iraqi Security Forces and a blossoming new freedom have been born. This is still Iraq, so we will still face danger and uncertainty in the months to come, but we are well on our way to accomplishing our mission.

On Memorial Day, we were able to pause for a short memorial service held at the 7th Marines Headquarters at Al Asad. We paid tribute to those brave Marines who have been killed in action. We said a prayer for the families and loved ones back home. We asked God’s blessing for our continued mission and safe return.

I cannot express in words the absolute dedication and professionalism that the Marines and Sailors of this Task Force have demonstrated over the past four months. The ability to go in harms way on a daily basis yet maintain the compassion and integrity of our values has been truly awe-inspiring. The performance of the individual and small unit leaders has been superb. The ability for the Marine, even while being shot at, to provide security for the children and noncombatants has been the bedrock of our success. The people of Al Qaim know they have no better friend than the Marine. Those that want to disrupt freedom know they have no worse enemy.

I am very proud to be a part of 3/7.

As rumors of our return abound, I assure you - we will keep you informed. All indicators are still pointing towards this being a 7-month deployment. We are still planning our return for mid to late September. Our return will always remain mission dependent!

The highlight of the week is still mail call. It is a little like having Christmas once a week. Everyone seems to know when the convoy roles in with mail. We all appreciate the packages and letters from home. Now that we have been eating tray rations for 4 months, many Marines subsistence comes in those boxes from loved ones.

Congratulations to all of our newborn! Many of our proud new fathers have been busy showing off pictures.

Until our return!
God, Family, Country And Corps
M. A. Lopez
“Blade Six”

There have been reports that the current length of deployment for Marines (7 months) may be extended to one year. General Hagee opposes this and I hope he prevails over Rumsfeld.

Posted by Deb at 07:30 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 15, 2004

Kids in Al Kaladiyah

Photo and report by Sgt. Jose Garcia

Sgt. Brandon Kovach, a Civil Affairs Group team leader with the 2/7 Marines, pushes kids higher and higher during a groundbreaking ceremony in Al Kaladiyah held June 9. The 2/7 Marines arranged for a new playground with monkey bars, swing sets, balance beams, see-saws, and a merry-go-round. The CAG team delivered pallets of bottled water, toys, clothes, and Spirit of America bags with school supplies and refreshments for the children and parents of the city.

"These are darling little kids," said Sgt. Brandon Kovach, a CAG team leader. "This is what it's all about, seeing smiles on their faces."

There's been too many years of tyranny and suffering for them," Villa said. "It's a new beginning for the little kids as well, not just the Iraqi people."

The Marines will refurbish one school each week for the next twelve week. Last year in the An Najaf province, the 1/7 Marines opened 13 Marine Legacy schools. This legacy of education left by our Marines is in sharp contrast to the heritage of war and destruction left by Saddam.

Posted by Deb at 08:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 14, 2004

On this Flag Day

This memory by Army Cptn. John Rasmussen was original published in the Army Link News as a Memorial Day tribute 2002. It's new to me, and perhaps to you as well, and I thought it was also appropriate on this Flag Day.

It was raining "cats and dogs" and I was late for physical training. Traffic was backed up at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and was moving way too slowly. I was probably going to be late and I was growing more and more impatient.

The pace slowed almost to a standstill as I passed Memorial Grove, the site built to honor the soldiers who died in the Gander airplane crash, the worst redeployment accident in the history of the 101st Airborne Assault Division.
Because it was close to Memorial Day, a small American flag had been placed in the ground next to each soldier's memorial plaque. My concern at the time, however, was getting past the bottleneck, getting out of the rain and getting to physical training on time.

All of a sudden, infuriatingly, just as the traffic was getting started again, the car in front of me stopped. A soldier, a private of course, jumped out in the pouring rain and ran over toward the grove.

I couldn't believe it! This knucklehead was holding up everyone for who knows what kind of prank. Horns were honking. I waited to see the butt-chewing that I wanted him to get for making me late.

He was getting soaked to the skin. His Battle Dress Uniform was plastered to his frame. I watched as he ran up to one of the memorial plaques, picked up the small American flag that had fallen to the ground in the wind and the rain, and set it upright again.

Then, slowly, he came to attention, saluted, ran back to his car, and drove off. I'll never forget that incident. That soldier, whose name I will never know, taught me more about duty, honor, and respect than a hundred books or a thousand lectures.

That simple salute -- that single act of honoring his fallen brother and his flag -- encapsulated all the Army values in one gesture for me. It said, "I will never forget. I will keep the faith. I will finish the mission. I am an American soldier." I thank God for examples like that.

And on this Memorial Day, I will remember all those who paid the ultimate price for my freedom, and one private, soaked to the skin, who honored them.

Posted by Deb at 01:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

These Colors Don't Run

Honoring the American Flag

From a speech by Leo K. Thorsness, recipient of The Congressional Medal of Honor.

You've probably seen the bumper sticker somewhere along the road. It depicts an American Flag, accompanied by the words "These colors don't run."

I'm always glad to see this, because it reminds me of an incident from my confinement in North Vietnam at the Hao Lo POW Camp or the "Hanoi Hilton," as it became known. Then a Major in the U.S. Air Force, I had been captured and imprisoned from 1967-1973. Our treatment had been frequently brutal.

After three years, however, the beatings and torture became less frequent. During the last year, we were allowed outside most days for a couple of minutes to bathe. We showered by drawing water from a concrete tank with a homemade bucket.

One day as we all stood by the tank, stripped of our clothes, a young Naval pilot named Mike Christian found the remnants of a handkerchief in a gutter that ran under the prison wall. Mike managed to sneak the grimy rag into our cell and began fashioning it into a flag. Over time, we all loaned him a little soap, and he spent days cleaning the material. We helped by scrounging and stealing bits and pieces of anything he could use.

At night, under his mosquito net, Mike worked on the flag. He made red and blue from ground-up roof tiles and tiny amounts of ink and painted the colors onto the cloth with watery rice glue. Using thread from his own blanket and a homemade bamboo needle, he sewed on the stars.

Early in the morning a few days later, when the guards were not alert, he whispered loudly from the back of our cell, "Hey gang, look here."

He proudly held up this tattered piece of cloth, waving it as if in a breeze. If you used your imagination, you could tell it was supposed to be an American flag. When he raised that smudgy fabric, we automatically stood straight and saluted, our chests puffing out, and more than a few eyes had tears.

About once a week, the guards would strip us, run us outside, and go through our clothing. During one of those shakedowns, they found Mike's flag. We all knew what would happen. That night they came for him. Night interrogations were always the worst.

They opened the cell door and pulled Mike out. We could hear the beginning of the torture before they even had him in the torture cell. They beat him most of the night.

About daylight, they pushed what was left of him back through the cell door. He was badly broken; even his voice was gone.

Within two weeks, despite the danger, Mike scrounged another piece of cloth and began another flag. The Stars and Stripes, our national symbol, was worth the sacrifice to him.

Now whenever I see the flag, I think of Mike and the morning he first waved that tattered emblem of a nation. It was then, thousands of miles from home, in a lonely prison cell, he showed us what it is to be truly free.

Posted by Deb at 01:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Five soldiers awarded medals

The awards included two Navy-Marine Corps Commendation Medals and three Navy-Marine Corps Achievement Medals. Each of the medals included combat "V"s for valor. And, BTW, they were Iraqi soldiers.

“I was walking beside the Marine, then we heard gunfire, and I saw that the American Marine was shot. Then I realized it was just me and him, so I quickly started shooting at the enemy." — Private Imad Abid Zeid Jassim, Iraqi Civil Defense Corps

Portions of Iraqi Private Imad Abid Zeid Jassim's citation for bravery reads: "...[A]s the firefight ensued, under a hail of enemy fire that was accurately targeted on the wounded [U.S.] Marine, and without regard for his own safety, Private Imad Jassim moved forward into the enemy fire and came to the aid of the wounded Marine. He dragged the wounded Marine out of the line of fire to a covered and concealed position...reengaged the enemy...aggressively pushed forward...dislodged the enemy fighters.... His efforts clearly saved the life of the Marine...."

On the evening of May 30, 2004, Jassim and his fellow members of 4th Platoon, India Company, Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC) were jointly patrolling the streets of Al Karmah, near Fallujah, with leathernecks from 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. All at once, the patrol was ambushed from the rear by enemy insurgents. A U.S. Marine was instantly struck down with a gunshot wound to the leg.

Reacting as they had been trained to do by their U.S. counterparts, the Iraqis swung into action.

Jassim, who was standing closest to the Marine when the latter was hit, immediately returned fire.

Sergeant Abdullah Sadoon Isa, Corporal Eiub Muhamad Hussane, and Private Ahmad Lazim Garib raced toward-and-beyond the downed American. Constantly under fire and simultaneously returning fire, Sgt. Isa quickly positioned other members of his platoon between the wounded man and the enemy.

Jassim and another private, Kather Nazar Abbas, stopped shooting long enough to begin dragging the American to a position of relative safety. Bullets and at least one rocket-propelled grenade zinged past their heads as they managed to pull the Marine behind a wall. A U.S. Navy medical corpsman rushed forward to render first aid. The Iraqis and the Americans continued battling the enemy force.

The response to the ambush was textbook. "The ICDC ultimately assaulted through the enemy's position and pushed them out," said 2nd Lt. Charles Anklin III, of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines.

Posted by Deb at 12:55 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Teen Spirit

This is an incredible tale of bravery on the part of an Iraqi who risked his life to provide information to the coalition forces. And he's only fourteen.

One day in December, a smooth-chinned 14-year-old approached American soldiers at a checkpoint here and asked surreptitiously to be arrested. He told the soldiers that his father, an Iraqi Army officer under Saddam Hussein, led a 40-man cell of insurgents, and he agreed to show the troops where to find the men and their weapons. . . .

With the handover of sovereignty to an Iraqi government less than three weeks away, the troops who have used and befriended the teen are desperately seeking a way to get him to the U.S. The soldiers aren't sure how they can legally take the boy -- who isn't an orphan -- out of the country without it looking like Americans are stealing Iraqi children while there is no local government to stop them. It isn't likely he would qualify for entry into the U.S. without special governmental dispensation. And even if soldiers get him to the U.S., they'd still have to find an American family willing to take in an illiterate, street-hardened youngster who speaks little English.

Insurgents in Iraq know the teen's identity and that he has provided information to the Americans, according to the U.S. military. While U.S. commanders asked that his name and tribal affiliation not be disclosed, they are eager for publicity that might help the boy gain entry to the U.S. His story has been pieced together from interviews with him and U.S. military personnel, and from military records. While aspects of his personal history couldn't be verified because people involved are either dead, in U.S. custody elsewhere in Iraq or have moved, soldiers and Marines who have dealt with the teen say information he has provided about the insurgency has been accurate. . . .

These days, he spends his time lifting weights, watching war movies or action films on DVDs owned by the troops, and hanging out with the seven Marines with whom he shares a plywood-walled sleeping area. He wears his hair Marine-style, tight on the sides and high on top, and sports a set of fatigues the Marines gave him. His bunk is curtained off by a zebra-patterned blanket, and he has wedged a stuffed bulldog into the metal footboard.

In a wooden ammo box, he keeps his belongings: an American flag folded with military precision into a triangle, deodorant sticks given to him by soldiers, a box of Crayola crayons, fingerless gloves for weightlifting, a digital camera and First Sgt. Hendrex's floppy hat. If all else fails, some Marines say, only half-jokingly, they will hand Steve-O a rifle and march him onto the plane when the battalion leaves Iraq, in late summer or early fall.

At night, the teen says he sometimes wakes up in tears, thinking about his mother. For comfort, he assures himself all that has happened has been God's will. "If they don't take me to the States, I'm definitely going to be killed," he says matter-of-factly. He says he would like to return to school and one day enlist in the Army or Marine Corps. "I just want to be one of the American troops," he says.

Read the full story here. And consider whether this is worth a letter to your congressional representative. Mine will be hearing from me.

UPDATE: The link to this article is no longer available online. It was originally published in the June 14 WSJ and I have a copy of the text downloaded that I will send to those who would like to read the rest of the story - e-mail me at deb at marinecorpsmoms.com. I've heard from quite a few readers who would like to help get this kid to the United States. We can start by making sure our Congressional representatives know about this situation. I'll cover Oregon - can we get at least one letter out to reps in every state?

Posted by Deb at 12:37 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

June 13, 2004

Winning Hearts

When the Marines returned to Iraq earlier this year, it was with the intention of winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. The tables have been turned. At Camp Al Asad, the hearts being won belong to the Marines and Navy Corpsmen and the attraction is a small girl with a heart that needs a bit of repair. Asma Muhana has a hole in the upper chamber of her heart and several heart valve defects, according to information from Sgt. Matt Epright. She needs surgery and while it cannot be performed in Iraq, there are plans to send her to the United States for treatment.

Asma recently spent some time as an inpatient at Alpha Surgical Company as she battled pneumonia. While there, she learned about the tooth fairy when one of her baby teeth fell out. And a number of Marines from the 1st Force Service Support Group snuck in with gifts and candy during off hours to avoid losing their "tough Marine image", according to Cmdr. Rebecca V. Sparks.

Photo by 1st Lt. Catalina E. Kesler

Lance Cpl. Mariko A. Harman painted Asma's fingernails and toenails while they watched a Disney movie.

Posted by Deb at 09:27 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

D-Day, revisited

Via VodkaPundit, this D-Day observation in France:

On the eve of D-Day ceremonies, an association dedicated to the memory of Saint-Lô as it was before the destruction of the city organized a debate in the local theater involving two veterans, survivors of the bombing of the city and high school students aged 15 to 17.

The title of the debate, suggested by questions from the students, was "The Battle of Normandy, Invasion or Liberation?" It was the first troubling sign of the deterioration of the knowledge and understanding of the past.

The questions from the students were even worse. It was clear they were reading D-Day through the filter of Iraq. Their conversation with the survivors of the bombing of the city was most revealing. How could you welcome Americans as liberators, asked the young boys and girls, after they had reduced your city to ashes? Because "it was a sacrifice for France," replied their elders, shocked by the question.

Read the rest here.

Posted by Deb at 09:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Update from Major Dave

The Green Side has been updated:

Dear Dad -

The past week has seen both an increase in temperatures and an increase in violence here. Unfortunately, the violence has been particularly deadly for the Iraqi citizens who have not picked up arms against the coalition. It is pretty obvious here that the insurgents have determined that their best course of action is to kill any Iraqi who assists the coalition in any way. This means that even if a man hates Americans with every fiber of his being but takes a job pulling weeds around a US base, he is subject to be killed. The mujahadeen literally wait outside the bases near the highway and watch for Iraqis leaving a base. They either flag them down or they simply pull up along side of them and empty a magazine from an AK47 in to the vehicle. This occurs daily - many times a day here. Of course we are out there patrolling and trying to interdict these murders but it simply pushes the muj back and they wait further down the road. The amazing thing is that the Iraqis keep coming to work because they want to feed their families. Lately, the workers have started to arm themselves and there have been full blown shoot outs in the streets.

The following is a recap of events that have happened in our zone in the past week. Early in the week, one of our translators (Iraqi guy out of Baghdad) left one of our outposts and walked into a local restaurant to get some food. Three masked men came in to the restaurant and took him out. He has disappeared. We have made every effort to recover the guy but of course, no one knows anything.

Two days ago, a couple of boys that do odd jobs around one of our positions came in upset. They saw three dead bodies in Falluja on their way out of town that morning. We sent the Iraqi Police in to investigate and they brought the bodies out to our position. All three were Iraqi contractors who worked on American bases. One was a generator technician on our base. All three had their hands tied behind their back. All three had been beaten severely. One was shot in the face and another was shot in abdomen. The third was beaten and stabbed to death. Just like that, these criminals went out and picked up three men, all with families and then proceeded to torture and kill them, leaving their bodies in an alley.

What is even more outrageous is that no doubt that the people who are extolling the muj to go out and commit these crimes are the same ones who later in the day demand that we provide "more jobs." However, the jobs that they want are simply hand outs. They want us to give them large sums of money so that they can hire their own people. Of course, only a fraction of the money (if any) gets to the people. The majority go to the same band of criminals who have been running this society for decades. There is one local imam who is deeply involved with the insurgents who we suspect gets 30% off the top of all contracts! Again, the hypocrisy is astounding. This same guy will get up during Friday prayers and claim that we are trying to steel Iraq's oil and subjugate its people, meanwhile he is stealing a third of the money going into the town.

We have had some successes this week that you should know about. Earlier in the week, the muj mortared the same small town that I wrote about last week. Tragically some women and little girls were grievously wounded. As the Marines in the area responded to the attack, the mujahadeen attempted to ambush them. They set off a car bomb on the patrol and then opened up with RPGs and machine gun fire. Three Marines were wounded. All will recover. However, the Marines fought through the ambush and during a running firefight that lasted for hours and several kilometers, they hunted down and killed 7 mujahadeen and captured 2. That alone is another example of the heroics that the young Marines are executing daily. However, the truly encouraging element of the firefight was the response of a few Iraqi security forces guys who were operating with Marines in the area at same time.

At one point, the firefight was ongoing near an Iraqi Police station that was attacked at around the same time as the patrol above. A truck load of muj drove up and opened up on the police station. A small group of Marines were in the Police station in a joint position with Iraqi Police. The few Marines held firm and returned fire. Most of the Iraqi police fled. However, a handful stayed and fought with the Marines. While the Marines and Iraqi police held, the joint patrol of Marines and ICDC moved in to support. The ICDC soldiers did great and actually attacked a building where the muj were firing from. They are led by a Marine lieutenant who, along with his platoon has lived with them for months (another great story).

The Marines captured an Iraqi on a nearby rooftop who was videotaping the attack on the police station so the muj could use it for recruiting purposes. Imagine that, they want to record and gloat over attacks that target innocent Iraqis who are trying to raise their country up and maybe make better lives for their children. Of course, they do not have the courage to acknowledge the mortar attack that hurt the women and children. Inevitably, they blame it on the US.

There is so much shame in this society that the people cannot believe that fellow Iraqis would do such a thing. The people simply deny such an attack occurred without bothering to reason through the facts. However, when their fellow countrymen respond courageously and with honor, the message resonates. On these occasions, the lights come on and people talk openly about how much they hate the muj. Maybe even for a little while they see that a better future is possible. Unfortunately, when this happens, the insurgents recognize it immediately and act out brutally against the people in order to re-install the atmosphere of fear and instability that is required for them to succeed.

Slowly but surely, it feels like we are gaining ground. The heat and environment take their toll but you would be amazed at what the young men and women are doing out there every day.

I am copying the text of an article printed in Baghdad that clearly illustrates the chasm that is the cultural divide here. We get a kick out of these incidents when they happen. Inevitably, we stand slack jawed during moments like this. Doubt that you get a chance to hear about them but they serve as good entertainment. Have a great vacation,

Love,

Dave

To read the article, check out his website.

Posted by Deb at 07:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

From the 1/6 Marines

Chaplain Hoke from the 1/6 Marines had this observation about life on board ship in the Persian Gulf before the Marines landed.

"Even the Navy-side of the 22MEU has been very nice to us in the BLT 1/6 these past few days. I said to some Navy folks the other day, ‘I guess you will be glad to have some extra space on the Wasp and be happy to see us get off.’

They responded, ‘No, I will miss the Marines and all I am concerned about is that they all come back in good shape.’ They also said they would be praying for us all.

Just a few minutes ago I was coming back from seeing those Marines who are scheduled to take off today. On my way back I saw a Marine trying to fight his way through a narrow passageway, he had gotten some of his gear stuck on part of the ship. Behind him was a Sailor who reached out to help him. I told the Sailor to stay with the Marine until he got all the way through the passageway.

The Sailor said with great sincerity, ‘ I will and I wish I could go all the way with him.’

Posted by Deb at 05:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Update from the 3/11 Marines

here's a semi-recent update from Lt. Col. T. J. Connally, Battalion Commander for the 3/11 Marines.

Dear family and friends of 3/11,

Today is Memorial Day, a day on which I have made a practice of wearing my uniform to church to commemorate our fallen service members of battles past. Inevitably I discover all of the veterans in the church as the uniform tends draw them like a magnet, and inevitably I learn something of their experiences in the service and sometimes a funny story. I've observed that they are proud of their service but humble about their accomplishments, even stoic when it comes to discussing the toughest battles unless around those with whom they shared the experience. These veterans often are of the "Greatest Generation" but all marvel at the level of training our Marines receive and they universally acknowledge that our Marines are carrying on the traditions of honor and courage passed on by them. After 20 plus years of service, I'm starting to understand, it is personal and familial. The men you fight with become your family, and the pain of loss is that of losing a family member. So while we each observe Memorial Day in our own way, it will always be personal but just as I tell our Marines, we remember and then we get back into the fight.

I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day complete with barbecue and good weather. We didn't barbecue as missions continue, but I did see horseshoes being tossed and Marines going to church. It was a rather nice day despite the 110-degree heat. It has been rather warm of late, averaging 109 degrees the last week and cooling down a little in the evening. Most PT is now done in the early morning or early evening. Of course we are adapting to the heat, but it is still pretty uncomfortable riding in a Humvee wearing body armor.

Our support and morale service continue to improve. We now have several small washers and the laundry service is operational again. Some Marines still prefer to wash by hand for a variety of reasons. Our logistics shop has taken a bombed out building and turned it into our Morale Center. There is a room each for phones, e-mail, video games, TV and lounging. Our phones and e-mail will be operational in a few days. To top it off several Marines in the battalion, under the instruction of Chief Warrant Officer Habiger, built several Adirondack lounge chairs out of shipping pallets. It is a sight to behold and should improve our ability to call home. Additionally, we have procured another building in our area and some exercise equipment and turned it into a gym. These endeavors required a significant amount of effort by our logistics Marines, and they make a big difference in morale. Additionally, KBR contractors opened a set of 32 showers in our area that will make life easier and hopefully hot water more abundant, of course with the heat I don't hear many complaints about cold water.

Down in Mudaiysis life continues to improve with every passing day. All the work is done by the Marines and for the Marines. They have regular showers, and we are still pursuing a phone and Internet package for them. At Ar Ar they have a generator and air conditioning, and they continue to improve their own house. The border guards have almost adopted them.

Operationally, your Marines and Sailors continue to perform magnificently in all of our respective missions. I was at the division headquarters the other day, and people I didn't know were complimenting the battalion for the great job your Marines and Sailors are doing. Of course I am humbled daily at the dedication and professionalism demonstrated by all of the Marines and Sailors of 3/11.

Remember, if you have any concerns about your Marine or Sailor I encourage you to call our Rear Party Officer in Charge, and he will contact us directly to answer your concern. Of course, your best forum for information is your Marine or Sailor. I am very proud of these men, I am very proud of you all at home, our courageous families. Keep us in your prayers; I know St. Barbara is with us.

Semper Fidelis,
T. J. Connally
LtCol of Marines

Posted by Deb at 05:15 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 12, 2004

Six shopping months until Christmas . . .

. . . and it's not too early to be thinking about Toys for Tots. This program that collects new, unwrapped toys during the fall and winter months to distribute as Christmas gifts to needy children around the communities in which the campaign is conducted. Last year, over 5.7 million children benefitted. According to the Toys for Tots Web site "The 2003 U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Campaign was the most successful campaign in the 56-year history of Toys for Tots. Local campaigns were conducted in 456 communities covering all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. This was 42 more local campaigns than the previous record."

Last year in the 29 Palms region, Toys For Tots collected more than 29,000 toys to distribute to 13,000 children throughout the high- and low-desert communities.

Photo by Lance Cpl. Heidi E. Loredo

It's not too early to think about this Christmas - I'm buying one or two new gifts each month for the Toys for Tots campaigns in my area. With all the deployed and transferring Marines, there will be an increased need this year for help. "We anticipated a multitude of fundraising challenges based on our experiences during 2002," said retired Lt. Gen. Matthew T. Cooper, president and CEO, Toys for Tots, in a letter to the volunteers. "Concurrently, we were uncertain about the availability of Marine Reservists to conduct the annual campaign due to impending mobilization and deployment to the Middle East for combat operations. This apprehension gave us a special sense of urgency about the 2003 campaign."

2003 was a success but 2004 will also be a challenge.Military and civilian volunteers will be needed for collecting and sorting toys, and fundraisers. Last year, private businesses in our area put out collection barrels for toys that were then delivered to reserve Marine units. I buy a couple new toys each month for Toys for Tots - it's a good thing and deserves support.

Posted by Deb at 04:36 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Change of Command

Photo by Gunnery Sgt. Frank Patterson

Lt. Col. Scott Mykleby, commanding officer of the Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 1, prepares to pass the flag to Lt. Col. John M. Neumann, a New Ulm, Minn., native, during a change of command ceremony at Twentynine Palms on June 9. Lt. Col. Mykleby had these parting words for his men;

"Watchdogs, when you go back down range you stick close to Lt. Col. Neumann; pay attention to what your leaders are telling you and remember your training. You guys are going to continue to set records like you have during the last few years here. My spirit goes with you when you go back down range."

Posted by Deb at 04:33 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Battlefield Medics

My son, currently training at MCAGCC at Twentynine Palms for his return to Iraq this summer, called last night to describe his most recent adventure. He went through a couple days of combat first aid training - one of the tasks involved learning how to insert IV lines. The Marines practiced on each other - Shane's partner missed the vein the first time, hit it the second time, and drained a pint of saline into his arm muscle the third time. Shane said he felt like Popeye.

When it was Shane's turn to practice, he hit the vein the first time but when he removed the tube, the needle stayed in the vein. He said the place looked like a slaughterhouse as the patient said, "Hey, let's see just how much blood I have." I asked Shane what lesson he took away from this and he replied, "The human body is like a balloon and it can burst."

Photo by LCp. Joseph Bush

Marines in Iraq are practicing too. Here, Sgt. Donnie A. Crumley, a mechanic with the motor transportation section, IMEF HQ, waits as fellow mechanic Cpl. Carlos Santiago inserts an IV into his arm during the combat life savers course held at Camp Fallujah.

Posted by Deb at 04:28 PM | Comments (2)

This is what an IED explosion looks like

Photo by Cpl. Chance Haworth.

MWSS 374 Marines take cover as an IED is detonated in Khaldiya, Iraq in a cooperative operation with Iraqi police. The Marines, from the MCAGCC in Twentynine Palms, CA have been in Iraq since early this year.

Posted by Deb at 04:02 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

New MilBlog

Via Blackfive, here's a new weblog worth reading: GI Jill's Adventures in Baghdad.

Posted by Deb at 03:43 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 10, 2004

Five Days in Fallujah

If you haven't picked up the July/August edition of The Atlantic Monthly, add it to your shopping list. And, pick up a few extra copies to send to deployed Marines - there is an excellent article by correspondent Robert Kaplan who describes the courage of the 1/5 Marines who went into Fallujah under the command of LtCol. Brennan Byrne, following the horrific ambush and murder of the civilian contractors. Here are a few excerpts from the article.

The briefing on April 2 at Abu Ghraib's Combat Operations Center was low-key and terrifically businesslike. The taking of a middle-sized city of 285,000 is an amazingly complex affair. Was there enough barbed wire on hand to create makeshift detention facilities? "We need wire, wire, and more wire", Byrne said, "and that means we needs lots of stakes and pile drivers." Were there enough interpreters, MREs, mineral-water bottles, ammo, power amps, blue force trackers, and so on?

This would be an incredibly complex operation without the complications of enemy combatants. But the Marines were up to the task.

The process was like writing and performing a symphony; its complexity demanded that the main briefings be "fragged" out into smaller ones dealing with different aspects of the task. . . . All the elements came together fast, owing to a factor largely missing from civilian life: the incontestability of command. Meetings quickly resulted in priorities that in turn quickly led to decisions. As soon as the ranking officer decided on something, the debate moved on to the next point.

The strategy was clear to Kaplan.

One officer told me, "This is a flash-bang strategy. Stun the bad guys with aggressive fire, then Psy-ops the shit out of them, always coming back to the theme of the inevitability of the superior tribe."

And the Marines were clearly the superior tribe.

"Gents, let me tell you what this is really about," Byrne said. "It's about killing shitheads." He made reference to the Commanding General, or CG, of the 1st Marine Division, Major General James N. Mattis. Mattis, who constantly drilled humanitarian concerns into his men, nevertheless knew when the time had come for pure aggression. "The CG", Byrne went on, "has changed the Op Order from 'capture or kill' the enemy to 'kill or capture. He wants the emphasis on 'kill'".

At 1:00 a.m. on April 5, the Marines stepped off. A few hours later, Kaplan wrote:

At dawn, coughing and freezing, I walked over to Byrne's Humvee. He was sitting in the backseat, his head half hidden inside a balaclava, shivering and coated with dust like the rest of us, and listening and talking to three different radio nets at once. Military command is about making split-second executive decisions, the consequences of which might psychologically immobilize your average CEO - and making those decisions during periods of extreme physical discomfort.

Leadership lessons learned in the Corps translate well to the outside world. I've lost count of the times that, upon seeing my Proud USMC MOM sweatshirt or pin that proclaims My son is a U.S. Marine, that a CEO or industry executive has come up to me and quietly said, "Semper Fi".

Kaplan was preparing a MRE when the Marines he was with came under RPG and small-arms fire.

The fire directed at us did not let up. Over the ICOM, Smith learned that it was coming from a mosque on Michigan, about 300 yards away. The mosque was promptly targeted for a possible air strike and everyone began a fast march towards it.

Smith did not have to order his Marines straight into the direction of the fire; it was a collective impulse - a phenomenon I would see again and again over the coming days. The idea that Marines are trained to break down doors, to seize beachheads and other territory, was an abstraction until I was there to experience it. Running into fire rather than seeking cover from it goes counter to every human survival instinct - trust me, I was sweating as much from fear as from the layers of clothing I still had on from the night before, to the degree that it felt as if pure salt was running into my eyes from my forehead. As the weeks had rolled on and I had gotten to know the 1/5 Marines as the individuals they were, I had started deluding myself that they weren't much different than me. They had soft spots, they got sick, they complained. But in one flash, as we charged across Michigan amid whistling incoming shots, I realized they were not like me; they were Marines.

Later, a large Iraqi family was ordered to leave their apartment so that Marines could search the building. Through his interepreter, Captain Jason Smith explained why to the head of the family:

"Sir, we are truly sorry that we had to ask your family to leave the building. You can all go back in now. We will compensate your for the inconvenience. We are United States Marines, a different breed than you are used to. We do not take kindly to people shooting at us. If you have any information on the Ali Babas, please share it with us. If you know any of the Ali Babas personally, please tell them to attack us as quickly as possible so that we may kill them and start repairing sewers, electricity, and other services in your city."

That's part of the first day. Buy the magazine and read the rest.

Posted by Deb at 10:56 AM | Comments (1)

Family Day with the 6th ESB

Last Sunday, Janise, Connie, and I spent the day hanging out with a few good Marines during Family Day for the 6th Engineer Support Battalion, 4th FSSG at Swan Island in Portland. We enjoyed lunch, connected with Marines and their families, and visited with dedicated volunteers from various support groups (Key Volunteers, Marine Corps Auxiliary, etc.) The Marines work hard and they also play hard – this day was a chance to unwind and share a bit of their lives with family and friends. We had a wonderful day and are appreciative of the hospitality shown by the 6th ESB. Here are a few pictures and Janice’s summary of the day’s events.

The 6th ESB stands in formation as colors are presented during Family Day.
	Hungry Marines and their families line up for BBQ hamburgers and hotdogs. There was plenty of food and it was all good.
LCpl David Martin and his younger brother Mark.
	Many Marines are dog lovers and English bulldogs top the list of favorite breeds. The character traits of strength, perseverance, and tenacity are common to both Marines and their four-legged friends.
Connie and Deb selling sweatshirts and t-shirts as a fundraiser for troop support activities.
	A Young Marine playing with her baby sister.
Janise with her son, Lance Cpl. David Martin.

Opening of Family Day with the 6th Engineer Support Battalion, 4th FSSG at Swan Island, June 6, 2004 began at 10 am sharp, with a "Family Formation" The colors were posted and the new Presidential Unit Citation colors, awarded to this unit in support of the 1st Marine Unit, were added to the Unit Flag. The 6th ESB was recognized for providing instrumental support for the success of the 1st Marines for operations between March 13 and April 22, 2003 during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Captain Renaldi asked the Marines to remember their contributions they made in freeing a country from 30 years of tyranny as they wear the Unit Citation Ribbons on their uniforms.

During the opening ceremony, awards were presented to 4 Marines for their outstanding contributions during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The families of fallen Marines from our local Portland/Washington area were recognized. These Marines and their families will never be forgotten - they are "our family". As the Sgt. Major read the names, there was a moment of silence.

* Captain Aaron Contreras, died March 30, 2003 in a helicopter crash in Iraq
* L Cpl Cedric Bruns, died May 9, 2003 in a vehicle collision in Kuwait.
* Cpl Travis Bradach-Nall, died July 2, 2003 from a land mine explosion in Iraq.
* Sgt. Curtis Jones, died April 4, 2004 of leukemia in Oregon
* L Cpl Bob Roberts, died May 17, 2004 due to hostile fire in Iraq.

Before the unit command was turned over again to squad leaders, we were told that this unit stood just as thousands of others did this very day in 1944, doing the very thing they have been trained to do. He was referring to defending freedom on foreign soil,. Today marked the anniversary of D-day, when France was liberated from Nazi Germany, and over 1,000 US Marines lay down their lives. The opening remarks expressed sentiments and similarities in what was needed to keep freedom, and the highly skilled and trained men and women who carry out that duty. On Monday, nine US Marines from the 6th ESB left for Iraq to join others already redeployed from the unit to continue this quest. We wish them well and God's Blessings!

Posted by Deb at 10:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 09, 2004

Courage Under Fire

This is another epic tale of battlefield bravery. One Marine down. Another Marine who realizes he's wounded when the sweat running down his face turns out to be drops of blood. A third Marine who, although shot, elects to stay and fight with his men. And, a Marine who drops his flak jacket and carries the first Marine through inaccessible terrain. These are awesome men.

With bloodstains visible on the lower portion of his left trouser leg, Sgt. Anthony Viggiani of Strongsville, Ohio, pauses to look at the camera moments after a fierce firefight with anti-coalition militia in central Afghanistan. "Despite recommendations from his fellow Marines, Viggiani refused to leave his platoon and seek aid at BLT 1/6's mobile command post. With a small dressing and a few aspirin, Viggiani shouldered his rifle and trudged further into the rugged mountains in pursuit of Taliban and ACM fighters."

Photo by Gunnery Sgt. Keith A. Milks

Photo by Gunnery Sgt. Keith A. Milks

1/6 Marines, Charlie Company, First Sgt Ernest Hoopi carries Lance Cpl. James Wood of Tampa, Florida over rough Afghan terrain . Moments earlier, Wood was shot in the leg by anti-coalition militia in central Afghanistan.

Lance Cpl. James Gould says the 7.62mm round that punched through his right calf felt like a sledgehammer blow.

Several meters away, Gould's fire team leader, Cpl. Randy Wood, watched in horror as Gould fell to the ground as additional rounds impacted around the fallen Marine, pinging off rocks and kicking up small geysers of dirt. Unmindful of the enemy fire, Wood raced to his Marine's side and together, the two took cover behind a rock both described later as looking a lot bigger than it actually was.

"It didn't really hurt that much at first," said Gould, a 20-year-old native of Tampa, Florida. "I thought I'd been hit by a piece of rock or something and the next thing I knew Corporal Wood was right there with me."

As Wood began tearing at Gould's trousers to get at the wound, he felt warm liquid pouring down his face and at first discounted it as sweat until he saw drops of blood plunking to the ground.

"That's when I first felt it," said Wood, who until then was unaware a ricochet had sliced through his cheek below his left eye. "As soon as I saw the blood it started to burn."

The two Marines, riflemen in Charlie Co., Battalion Landing Team 1st Bn., 6th Marines had just earned the dubious distinction of being their company's first wounded in action since the unit's arrival in Afghanistan as part of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable).

Advancing along a steep, rocky hillside in pursuit of anti-coalition militia (ACM) fighters during the latest offensive against enemy fighters in south-central Afghanistan, the two had been shot by an enemy sniper hidden in a cave on the hillside opposite a small valley.

"All the other Marines started returning fire to cover us," said Wood, who hails from Cowpens, S.C., "and we started looking around for doc [Navy corpsman attached to their platoon]."

"I raised my head one time and the guy [ACM fighter] hit the rock right in front of us so we were pinned down pretty good."

Further up the hill, Hospitalman Brian Imber braved the incoming fire to reach the two Marines, but it was slow going.

"I knew I had to take care of my Marine," said Wood.

While Wood was digging bandages out of Gould's first aid kit, Imber reached the two wounded Marines.

"There wasn't enough room for all three of us behind the rock so we ordered Doc to stay where he was," said Gould.

With Imber shouting instructions, Wood hastily treated Gould's wounded leg as rounds continued to impact around them. Checking to ensure there was both an entrance and exit wound, thus verifying the round had passed through the leg, Wood wrapped a bandage around Gould's leg.

Meanwhile, other Marines from 2nd Platoon poured rifle fire at the ACM sniper's cave until the matter was finally settled with a hand grenade. A closer examination of the cave later revealed there were in fact three ACM fighters in the cave. A fourth ACM fighter was discovered killed by rifle fire approximately 50 meters up the valley and another was found badly wounded. A third Marine was also slightly wounded in the fight.

With the enemy dispatched, the full focus of the platoon turned to the wounded Marines. While the third injured Marine, Sgt. Anthony Viggiani of Strongsville, Ohio, was allowed to remain in the fight with his platoon, both Wood and Gould were ordered back to the operation's mobile command post for further treatment.

The subsequent evacuation of the pair became perhaps the most difficult part of the day.

In their pursuit of the enemy, Charlie Co. had pushed far up and into a rugged mountain pass and with Gould unable to bear weight on his wounded leg, the area inaccessible to helicopters, and the use of a stretcher down the steep and rocky slopes out of the question, the solution lay on the shoulders of Charlie Co.'s senior enlisted Marine.

Pukalani, Hawaii native First Sgt. Ernest Hoopii, without hesitation, dropped his flak jacket, handed off his rifle, and picked up the wounded Gould. With elements of Sgt. Ryan West's rifle squad providing security and escorting two battlefield detainees, Hoopii carried Gould down the mountain on his back, stopping only once or twice for small breaks.

"That was the hardest hump of my life," said the 42-year-old Hoopii.

For nearly two hours in the sweltering Afghanistan afternoon sun, Hoopii carried Gould down the mountain, until he passed the duty off to 2nd Lt. Michael Keller and a pair of Afghan Militia Force (AMF) soldiers. Eventually, Marines would hire a local farmer's donkey to carry Gould on the final leg of his journey.

"Hey, you do what you gotta do to take care your boys," Hoopii said humbly as he chugged water from a proffered canteen.

In time, Wood returned to 2nd Platoon while Gould was evacuated to Forward Operating Base Ripley and then Kandahar Air Field where he is well on his way to a full recovery.

Thanks to Gunnery Sgt. Keith A. Milks for his battlefield reporting. I wonder how many acts of bravery go unreported because no one writes them down.

Posted by Deb at 11:58 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

It's about time

Check out this story in the June 14 issue of The National Review.

Ask Americans to name some of our soldiers in Iraq and chances are they'll readily identify Lynndie England, Charles Graner Jr., Jeremy Sivits, and Ivan "Chip" Frederick II. The three major networks have run over 200 stories on the detainee-abuse scandal, making the seven disgraced soldiers assigned to Abu Ghraib the most recognizable faces of American service in Iraq. The media's line of attack against the war is revealed in its selective coverage of our soldiers: All villains and victims, no valor. Not one of the heroes decorated for bravery in Iraq has received a minute of coverage from ABC, CBS, or NBC. National newspapers have run hundreds of stories on the scandalous service of the Abu Ghraib seven, but have made no mention of another seven whose stories of service could be recounted with Steven Seagal cast in the lead. In early May, Marine Captain Brian Chontosh, Marine Lance Corporal Joseph Perez, and Marine Sergeant Marco Martinez were awarded Navy Crosses for extraordinary heroism, an award second only to the Medal of Honor. Army Sergeant Gerald Wolford, Army Sergeant Major Michael Stack, Marine Staff Sergeant Adam Sikes, and Marine Corporal Armand McCormick ? and 123 others ? have been awarded Silver Stars for outstanding valor in combat. The stories of these courageous men represent the dedication of the tens of thousands of soldiers serving bravely and honorably in Iraq far better than the actions of a derelict nightshift in two isolated cell blocks.

The stories of that outstanding valor follow. Read it all.

Thanks to digital-marine for the link.

Posted by Deb at 09:27 AM | Comments (3)

Commitment is love acted out

Chaplain Steven P. Unger has been on the ground in Iraq for 4 months, caring for the souls of our troops. Here are his Memorial Day observations.

30 May 2004

Dear Friends,

This is my third letter from Iraq. I have been working myself into the right mood to do this. Today is the day. In my last two letters I have leaned toward being as upbeat as possible. This time will be different; today I want to talk about Memorial Day, but I will start off by giving my perspective on the Abu Ghraib prison problem.

First off, the investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib began back in January. That is why the first court martial was ready for trial in May. The senior people here knew about the investigation; the rest of us didn't. By the time the media "broke" the story, the investigation was almost done and the soldiers who had committed the abuses had already been rotated home.

Second, I (we) don't see all the news coverage that you in the states see. I do see some Fox News and CNN. Fox editorializes toward the right wing; CNN is the voice of the anti-war movement. I wonder that if CNN had been around in 1942 we might all be speaking German and Japanese. I can tell you this, everything I have heard on CNN is so biased, negative, and out-of-touch that I will never watch CNN for the rest of my life. That being said, when the rest of us found out about the abuses we were shocked and sickened. I think maybe more so than people back home because we are here; these are the people I see every day. The people I see every day who are going out to fix: schools, hospitals, reservoirs, power plants, and sewer systems. They do these things risking sniper fire and hidden explosives. These soldiers are not a handful of bad apples like those at Abu Ghraib, these soldiers number into the thousands. Now think for a second, how much have you seen about that on the news? I believe Abu Ghraib should have been reported, but when I see the fixation of the media on the actions of a few, when the courage shown in reconstruction and the restraint shown in combat by thousands of our people is never shown, I
believe this is inexcusable. For the real story of what our people are doing here, go to www.cjtf7.com/index.htm. Click on Coalition News and then Humanitarian Efforts.

Third, what happened on that cellblock of Abu Ghraib is what happens when leadership is not out walking around. That is true in the military or in college dorms. I haven't seen it reported in the news, but other soldiers turned in the soldiers who did this. If the dirt bags that committed those abuses had been turned loose among the troops here it would've been ugly. I haven't heard any comments about them coming from soldiers that didn't express a hope that they would get the maximum punishment. A few leaders need to get demoted too.

As per the "outrage", if you were "outraged" by this, good. I was. However, I would like to ask Arab governments and our own media elites, "Were you just as outraged by what happened under Saddam? If so, you didn't show it."

Here is what people need to understand: the interrogation of prisoners of war is a little tougher than what the typical thug gets by the local police. I went to Survival, Evasion, Rescue, and Escape (SERE) School back in 1995. I am more proud of completing that course than anything I have ever done. Also, I would never do it again. After playing hide and seek with "bad guys" in California in March, we all got caught, knocked around, froze, went hungry, sleep deprived, threatened with worse, and then interrogated. Here's the deal: when interrogation is done correctly, people don't break so much as they leak. (The purpose of SERE is to teach you how not to leak. That is the classified part of the school.) The interrogator wants them to leak in a way so that the prisoner doesn't even know he is leaking. When someone breaks, as opposed to leaking, they usually give out a data dump of gibberish and then physiologically shuts down. A good interrogator avoids that. If you hurt them or scare them too badly, they quit leaking. Interrogators ask the same question about ten times, ten different ways. Disoriented people leak and they don't even know it. What most Americans think of when they think of POWs being interrogated is what they remember of our pilots in North Vietnam. The abuse our people went through in Vietnam wasn't to get intelligence; it was to exploit them for propaganda purposes. I mention this to put the term "abuse" in context. When a terrorist here in Iraq or jaywalkers back in the states report jailhouse "abuse," what does it mean? When we catch a guy red-handed restocking his weapons stock and question him, withholding his TV privileges isn't enough. He won't be happy, but neither will he be destroyed or scared for life. He will tell his buddies, "I didn't tell them anything." In fact he will have told us a lot.

As I said, I had to work myself into a mindset to talk about this. To work around horror without out letting the horror seep into your soul is a spiritual battle. This week I worked with a National Guard soldier who had to clean up after a convoy of civilian aid workers were killed when an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) went off on the road into Baghdad. He is a carpenter in civilian life, but this week he was out on a highway picking up arms and legs while watching out for snipers. He was cleaning up after monsters. Some other young Americans were put in charge of guarding monsters and then became monsters. Care of the soul is serious business. That is part of the reason why I became a Navy Chaplain.

The other reason is the people. The folks I have known in the military are more interesting to be around than anybody else I know. This leads me to Memorial Day. Earlier this month I went to Camp Cooke at Taji. (To lend perspective, Taji is really north Baghdad; I am in west Baghdad.) The 39th Brigade (Arkansas National Guard) is stationed there. I didn't know any of them, but I wanted to see my home-state Guard here in Iraq. So I badgered my way into flying up there for two days. They are stationed in the old Iraqi army air defense school. Unlike downtown Baghdad, the old air defense school was turned into rubble. It is getting better, but it was like living in a junkyard.

Their first month in Iraq was tough. These soldiers patrol the roughest part of Baghdad. While I was there, the Chaplain of the 39th told me this story: One of the old troopers who came was a 52 year-old Sgt. who had already done his 20+ years and had retired. But his son was in the 39th, and when the father found out they were coming over here, he reenlisted. On their first week in country, Camp Cooke was attacked by rockets and the first rocket that landed killed the father.

I was born in 1958 and came of age when the Vietnam War and the anti-war movement were both in full swing. It has taken me years to put this into words, but I believe that as bad as that war was, the legacy of the anti-war movement was worse. The anti-war movement gave rise to the moral superiority of non-involvement and non-commitment. While that may have worked to help draft-dodgers sleep at night, it's not much of a strategy of how to go through life. Taken to its logical conclusion the message is: don't commit to your county, don't commit to your spouse, and don't commit to your kids, church, or community. Don't commit to cleaning up your own mess or any cause that demands any more from you than rhetoric. This was the mindset in which our country was firmly stuck. Until 9/11, some woke up. Kids came down and joined the service. To the dismay of some of their teachers, parents, and the media elites, they came down here and raised their hand in front of the flag. And they are still coming to the shock of the non-committers. The Marines have more enlisting than their two boot camps can handle.

And we are all here together for Memorial Day 2004. Old National Guardsmen, grandfathers, and single moms, Texans and Mexicans, Surfers and Rednecks. A few weeks ago an Illinois National Guardsman, mother of three, was hit six times, saved by her body armor, but lost part of her nose. She stayed on her 50 caliber, firing on the bad guys, protecting the convoy. She said she was thinking of her kids and the guys she was with. Commitment is love acted out. It is sad that the non-committers missed that. They and their moral high-ground haven't been near a mass grave. The kids I see and eat with every day still want to help this country, in spite of getting shot at while doing it. That is love acted out. You either get it, or you don't.

During my time in Iraq I won't be able to see any of the Biblical sites that are here. But a few weeks ago in Taji I got to stand on some holy ground, where a father died when he went to war just to be with his son.

Sincerely yours,

Steven P. Unger
LCDR, CHC, USN
Multi National Corps-Iraq

Posted by Deb at 08:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 07, 2004

He'll always be 28

Sgt. Allan Walker and Sgt. Scott McLaughlin served together as drill instructors at the San Diego Marine Recruit Training Depot. They drank together, served together, shared their lives. Then, Sgt. Walker went to Iraq with the 2/4 Marines. On April 6, he was killed in the Al Anbar province of Iraq. A day later his best friend, Sgt. Scott McLaughlin, wrote these words.

He said he wanted to be a writer, and he drank Tullamore Dew in his barracks room. His favorite pair of shoes has been high-top Chuck Taylor's for as long as I can remember. He loved The Templar's, Pennywise, Bad Religion, and Dropkick Murphy's. Allan was the only person I think I'll have ever met who was able to sleep through the fire alarms in any of the squad bays on the Depot or up at Weapons and Field Training Battalion.

He would quote such random authors on such random subjects, that I often wondered what he actually preferred. He never told any of us when his birthday was, but he always seemed to know it was ours. The posters on his wall always
fell down, were ripped beyond repair, and were borderline pornographic at times, but he kept putting them back up, as if changing them, or throwing them away would somehow lessen his worth.

He never expected to get paid back, and he'd spend his last $7.50 to buy the two of you Irish Car Bombs, or pints of Guinness. He always sent his hats home early, and never missed a series duty. His laundry was always on his couch — always. And who owns a 13-inch TV these days? His driving skills left much to be desired; in fact, I have never felt more in danger than when he was driving. The guy was no Fittipaldi.

I have to pause and say that I don't write. I never have, and I don't really have plans to after this. I'm not sure why I'm saying this. Maybe it's the wine. Though this is an alien thing for me to do, I have to do it, and I have to share some things with you all.

If you say you knew Allan, you're a liar. I can't even say that I knew him. Leonard didn't know him, and neither did Leo, April, Stephanie, Zeke, Andy, or anyone else whose heart he touched. It would be selfish of me to even suggest that I knew Allan. You see, Allan was so much more than any of us could ever imagine.

His heart and his soul were larger than … Well, I can't even think of what they're bigger than. He was always the first one to back you up, or say he'd back you up, or stand by your side when you thought you might need back-up, or lurk somewhere near when it was possible that there might arise the occasion for back-up to be necessary. His love for his "Friends" (those of you who allowed him into your heart, and likewise yourself into his vast love) seemed to be unending. Every time he allowed himself into our lives, he allowed us to truly live.

Allan was always the first one to throw down what he was doing and focus on what was going on with us. He came to my apartment all the time. And now, even though it's only been one day, I've looked at my back gate where he used to wait for me to let him in, and I can't help but start to cry. I drive in my car, and every CD I listen to is a CD we listened to. I barbecued chicken last night and I cried because I barbecued chicken for the two of us all the time. We drank beer on my balcony and played Cranium with my wife and her friend. I hummed a song, and he guessed it right.

I always talked to him about my problems. Allan never was judgmental, and he was such a voice of reason that my problems paled in comparison to the bigger picture only he could see. When I walked into the Locker Room, the first person I saw was Zeke. For those of you who don't know Zeke, he's definitely not the person you'd expect the following to come from. He wrapped his arms around me and held me in an embrace that leveled me. And there we stood – two Marines, two warriors, drill instructors, men, whatever you want to categorize us as, we stood there and didn't say a damned word, and we cried in each other’s arms. Two men crying in each other’s arms. Our wives watched us, and our friends watched us, and strangers watched us, but we didn't care.
I only went to the Depot to use Mapquest that day. I never expected it to turn out the way it did. As I was driving by the base theatre, I saw some friends walking from RTR and only slowed to say “Hi.” In the next seven seconds, my life was rocked, and I'll never be the same again. I don't need to tell any of you who read this what I was told. It's the same thing many of us wish we’d never known.

I actually told Laurie I wish I never knew Allan died. I wish I just thought he forgot me somehow and went on with his life and got married, had babies and touched more lives. I wish I could imagine him making someone happy when his bald head should have been gray. I wish I could have imagined Allan sitting in his garage listening to Pennywise on a vintage cd player at a time when music is beamed into your head through radio waves. Or going to a bookstore and seeing a book with his name on it. Or reading in a newspaper, when my eyes aren’t so good anymore, that Allan Walker, who was born April 9, 1975, died from complications of something or other, in such and such a place and was survived by so many grandkids. I wish I could read about him starting such or such company, or him being the recipient of such and such award.

You know, I really don't care anymore. I miss him damn it. I'm sitting here trying to help myself deal with this by writing this to all of you, and sharing my life with Allan, however short it was.

I always imagined that my friends from childhood would be my groomsmen, but here I was, asking him. I didn't even give it a second thought. Somehow I just knew it would be right. Somehow I just knew that he was right. And on the big day, even though he wore the disco outfit the night before, Allan was an hour late to the suite to get ready. It was classic Allan though. He was late the day that my life with him started, and he was late the day my new life would start. I could only laugh and give him a hard time about it. He felt really bad though, and you could tell. He held himself responsible for everything, big or small.

April just told me his birthday was tomorrow. He would've been 29 tomorrow. Well, by Iraqi time, he would be 29 as I write this. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROTHER. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROTHER. HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

I'm staring at the cursor blinking, and I'm suddenly grasped by the thought that somehow my life will be that of the cursor. Forever blinking, waiting for him. It’s silly. We went to Plum Crazy in Pacific Beach and got really drunk. I put about two hours of songs in the jukebox, and NOFX and Van Halen played forever. Alan and I played pool poorly and gave each other play punches in the arm when we'd make or miss a shot. It really didn't matter. I think it was just the contact of two friends that drove us on.

I can hear my wife in the other room talking to a friend about Allan’s death. She said, "Out of all the Marines, it was him."

The new Spiderman trailer just premiered, and it features a line from Tobey McGuire, "No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, it'll always be the ones I love who will pay." Allan and I watched the first Spiderman movie all the time during our last cycle as seniors.

Is this going to get any easier? Mack's Ally was supposed to be the bar we were going to open when we retired. It combined my nickname, Mack, with a play on his first name, Ally. Outside his barracks room we even mapped out the floor plan. Johnny Cash, NOFX, and Pennywise were going to be the first CDs on the jukebox, and no Will Smith was allowed. We had plans, man. We had plans. How do you expect me to go on? You never said goodbye.

The news is talking about tragedy this and conflict that. Laurie's crying on the couch, and I'm holding tears back as I type. I am a selfish bastard. I am more concerned with how Allan's death will affect me than I am with how his loss will affect the rest of the world. He had so much to give and so much to contribute and so much kindness and understanding and wisdom and love and heart and friendship and laughter.

I just saw that one of my recruits died with Allan. Isn't that something. Maybe Allan died trying to save him. Maybe I failed somewhere. But that's just me being selfish again.

I am not a writer, and I didn't know Allan, but I was his friend, and he was mine, and indirectly I am yours and you are mine. The cursor still blinks on my screen, and as hands shake over the keyboard, the news keeps spewing unimportant crap, and Allan is still 28, forever. I'm 29, and one day I'll be 70. Allan is 28. Every April 9th, he'll be 28. I miss you brother. We had plans; we had plans. Happy Birthday Brother. Happy Birthday.

At a memorial service for Sgt. Walker, Sgt. McLaughlin, a bandsman when not on the drill field. played Taps on his trumpet in honor of his fallen brother. “I hadn’t touched my trumpet in years,” said McLaughlin. “But I wanted to do this for Allan and his family. I wouldn’t have the ceremony any other way.” Photo by Sgt. Ethan Rocke

Posted by Deb at 01:07 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

June 06, 2004

A moment in the life of an Iraqi

Ays reports in:

Yesterday, my brother saw the American soldiers passed through a man whose car was trapped in a hole and the man was looking left and right and bewildered, the American soldiers stopped there and got down their vehicles and started to lift the car helping the poor Iraqi who was alone, my brother stopped beside them immediately, took the camera and said: ‘ can I take a photo’ they said: ‘ OK’ then my brother clicked the camera’s button..click..click click.. What’s up? Nothing happened ! He opened the camera....... NO BATTERIES!! ..GOD.. He said ‘ I looked like an idiot’! ‘I forgot the batteries at home..’..!!

However.. Imagine that..

‘It was so wonderful’ my brother said.

Posted by Deb at 08:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Camp Blue Diamond update

Civilian casualties are an unfortuate aspect of any war, but this one had a happier ending than most. A few weeks ago, Marines and enemy forces were engaged in hostilities near a Ramadi farm. The family cow got caught in the crossfire and was killed - a bad situation made worse since the farmer was a on a special dairy diet and the cow kept him alive by providing milk and cheese. In most cases, the military compensates civilians for damages caused, but this case was a bit different. The farmer needed a new cow instead of cash, but there are rules against direct buying of goods. However, the Marines came though - with a bit of help from Jim Hake at Spirit of America.

Lt. Col. Alan G. Burghard Sr., the commander of 1MARDIV Government Services Team knew that Spirit of America had donated school, dental, and medical supplies as part of nation building activities. And the Marines are good at asking for what they need. But they'd never asked for a cow.

“I related the story to Jim and I got a one-sentence response,” explained Burghard. “He said, ‘Buy the cow.’"

Photo by Navy CPO Ron E. Heinen

So, the farmer now has a cow that provides the dairy products he needs. Extra milk and cheese can be traded or bartered. The cow may be the start of a small herd.

Photo by LtCol Burghard

“What we’re doing isn’t just building bridges,” Burghard added. “It’s building bridges between people. Creative solutions are being found by units.”

Posted by Deb at 07:41 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

June 05, 2004

1/6 Marines in Afghanistan

Marine Sgt. Ryan West, of Lafayette, Indiana, a squad leader with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) screams for his Marines to take cover as sniper fire impacts around them during a fight with anti-coalition militia in central Afghanistan. Photo by Gunnery Sgt. Keith Milks

On June 2 and 3, these Marines engaged in "the bloodiest fighting in Afghanistan since last fall". The 22nd MEF killed at least 25 anti-coalition militia. Three marines sustained minor injuries. Gunnery Sgt. Keith Milks describes the action:

Moving forward to the attack's point of origin, the Marines found and engaged Taliban insurgents hidden in the rocks of a nearby mountain. The Marines used fire and maneuver to fix the enemy and then called in air support to augment their attack.

During the ensuing four-hour firefight, troops on the ground were supported by Marine AH-1W Super Cobra and UH-1N Huey attack helicopters, AV-8B Harrier attack jets, and Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopters and Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II ground attack aircraft."

PFC Riley Hubert keeps an eye on an alleyway in a village in Afghanistan's Oruzgan province as his fellow Marines search surrounding houses for Taliban insurgents and weapons caches. Hubert is an automatic rifleman assigned to 1/6 Marines, the ground combat element of the 22d Marine Expeditionary Unit
Photo by Gunnery Sgt. Keith Milks

Posted by Deb at 05:30 PM | Comments (1)

Memorial Day message

The Commanding Officer of RCT-7 gave this Memorial Day message to his Marines:

"Americans across the globe pause today to remember and honor our nation's war dead. Back home, in cities, county parks, farming towns, and backyards amidst parades, picnics and speeches our country remembers millions. We gather here today, in a dusty courtyard on an airbase in Iraq, to remember 23.

Many have told me over these last few days that this short talk should reverberate with words linking those we remember today to great causes and purposes. I do not have those kinds of words in me today. I don't need them. The truth has nobility enough.

Our families and friends assemble today at their picnics and parades free of fear and terror. They assemble as the normal commerce of life in the U.S. proceeds apace, their children safe from the terror that stalks this globe. That sense of security and freedom from fear does not, however, make this enemy any less dangerous or any less real. This is a war against terror, fighting an enemy whose strategy is to focus his death and destruction on our families, our neighbors, and our citizens; an enemy whose tactics are designed to instill fear by killing our children in their homes as we stand helplessly by. That horror has moved away from our shores because men like you, and those men we remember today, are willing to endure the sacrifices required to engage this enemy here.

Each man we honor today paid the ultimate sacrifice, and when that moment of sacrifice alighted upon each Marine's personal battlefield, his feet stood fast, he stood to his duty, and he honored the loyalty of his friends and his fellow Marines. They were worthy of their country, of their forefathers, and of their buddies. We can pay them no greater honor than to paint each of them into our memory and to promise, each in our own way and each to our own thoughts, that we will never forget them.

And for as long as any here live, their memorial day will not be the last Monday in May; their memorial is their lives sculpted into the hearts of their friends, a memorial enduring for the generations all of you have left to live, a memorial that comes to life when we speak of them, laugh over their antics, cry over them, talk to our family and friends about them, or sit quietly and feel the pain of their loss to our fellowship.

As for me, I knew few of them personally, but I remember all of their names; I remember the hour and date of their death, I remember how and where they died, I know the names of those they left behind. And for the remainder of my days their memorial will be that remembering: that these young men I counted as my sons have far exceeded the honors of their fathers. "

In Memoriam

LCPL ARIC J. BARR
2ND Bn, 7TH Marines
Died as a result of wounds received in Hit, Iraq
On 3 March 2004

PFC RICKY A. MORRIS
3rd Bn, 7th Marines
Died as a result of wounds received Husaybah, Iraq
On 17 March 2004

PFC BRANDON C. SMITH
3rd Bn, 7th Marines
Died as a result of wounds received Husaybah, Iraq
On 18 March 2004

CPL DAVID M. VICENTE
2ND Bn, 7TH Marines
Died as a result of wounds received in Hit, Iraq
On 19 March 2004

PFC DUSTIN M. SEKULA
2ND Bn, 7TH Marines
Died as a result of wounds received in Al Anbar Province, Iraq
On 1 April 2004

LCPL CHRISTOPHER B. WASSER
3rd Bn, 7th Marines
Died as a result of wounds received in Husaybah, Iraq
On 8 April 2004

CPL NICHOLAS J. DIERUF
1st LAR Bn
Died as a result of wounds received in Al Bu Jardin, Iraq
On 8 April 2004

LCPL ELIAS TORREZ III
3rd Bn, 7th Marines
Died as a result of wounds received in Sa'dah, Iraq
On 9 April 2004

CPL DANIEL R. AMAYA
3RD Bn, 4th Marines
Died as a result of wounds received in Fallujah, Iraq
On 11 April 2004

LCPL TORREY L. GRAY
3RD Bn, 4th Marines
Died as a result of wounds received in Fallujah, Iraq
On 11 April 2004

1STLT OSCAR JIMENEZ
3RD Bn, 4th Marines
Died as a result of wounds received in Fallujah, Iraq
On 11 April 2004

CPL JASON L. DUNHAM
3rd Bn, 7th Marines
Died as a result of wounds received in Husaybah, Iraq
On 14 April 2004

CAPT RICHARD J. GANNON II
3rd Bn, 7th Marines
Died as a result of wounds received in Husaybah, Iraq
On 18 April 2004

CPL CHRISTOPHER A. GIBSON
3rd Bn, 7th Marines
Died as a result of wounds received in Husaybah, Iraq
On 18 April 2004

LCPL MICHAEL J. SMITH JR
3rd Bn, 7th Marines
Died as a result of wounds received in Husaybah, Iraq
On 18 April

LCPL RUBEN VALDEZ JR
3rd Bn, 7th Marines
Died as a result of wounds received in Husaybah, Iraq
On 18 April

LCPL GARY F. VANLEUVAN
3rd Bn, 7th Marines
Died as a result of wounds received in Husaybah, Iraq
On 18 April 2004

LCPL BOB W. ROBERTS
C Co, 1st CEB
Died as a result of wounds received in Al Asad, Iraq
On 17 May 2004

CPL RUDY SALAS
1st LAR Bn
Died as a result of wounds received on MSR Tin, Iraq
On 20 May 2004

SSGT JORGE A. MOLINABAUTISTA
1st LAR BnDied as a result of wounds received in Al Anbar Province, Iraq
On 23 May 2004

CPL MATTHEW C. HENDERSON
C Co, 1st CEB
Died as a result of wounds received in Hit, Iraq
On 26 May 2004

LCPL KYLE W. CODNER
C Co, 1st CEB
Died as a result of wounds received in Hit, Iraq
On 26 May 2004

In April, Connie and I attended the funeral of LCpl Gary Van Leuven in Coos Bay, Oregon, the 12th Oregon Marine to fall while serving in Iraq. He died in the battle of Husaybah, trying to move another Marine who had been hit to safety. Connie's son was fighting with Cpl Van Leuven when he fell, and reports that he died a hero and a warrior.

In May, Connie, Janise and I attended the funeral of LCpl Bob Roberts in Portland, Oregon. He also died with valor, fighting for democracy and peace in a land that has known neither. This was the 13th funeral for an Oregon Marine. It does not get easier to attend these funerals.

Neither of us knew these brave young Marines before they died. Now, we will never forget them.

Posted by Deb at 09:04 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Memorial Day by a Marine Corps Mom

Janise, another Marine Corps Mom, attended the Memorial Day service at Willamette National Cemetary last week. Here are her thoughts.

I began this Memorial Day by putting the finishing touches on cleaning my "Veteran's" apartment. Then I headed to the cemetary for a Memorial Day Service. I have been to the Willamette National Cemetary 3 times in the last year and I still have trouble getting there. I think most of my trouble comes from not paying attention to how I get there, mostly because I always find myself lost in thought about why I am going there. Today was not any different, I found myself thinking about my dad,a WWII Army veteran, my sons, my family and how very lucky I am. I was invited today by Debbie Bruns, Cedric's mom,to today's service. We decided to meet around 9 am. I had flowers for Cedric's grave. I parked where Debbie suggested and then walked and walked looking for Cedric's grave, #126 in section C or D near Mt Hood Dr. All around were little flags waving from the grassy grave sites of those military we were here to honor. As I walked I couldn't help but feel a little frustrated that there were so many graves that seemed to prevent me from finding Cedric's, It hit me as I read name after name how many tears must have fallen and still fall for these men and women. Willamette National Cemetary is one of 120 such in the United States, the rolling grassy hills are covered with memorials, flags, flowers and tears. Today was the 54th Annual Memorial Day Observance. I abandoned my search until after the ceremony, I needed help, I needed to find "my family". I found Peter, Debbie and Nick just before the ceremony began and we sat together. I met Lynn Bradach and Katie Bradach, Cpl Travis' Mom and Aunt for the first time. There were two Fly Overs by the Air National Guard 142nd Fighter Wing out of Eugene, Portland PD Bagpipers, keynote speaker, guest speaker, dignitaries, etc. As I sat and listened, I thought about my dad and wondered if he and others were looking down at us, the gathered mass, and what their thoughts and words might be. It was a very nice ceremony but I much more appreciated and enjoyed the company of the families I was there to honor. Seated on my left was Nick Bruns, Cedric's brother, whose arm I held and on my right was a lady I had never met. During the ceremony, when the bagpipers were playing Amazing Grace, she and I looked at one another, I took her hand and she held mine. After the song,she thanked me for being there and told me her husband was killed during the Korean War and her name was Judy. After the ceremony, we talked and I asked her what her husband's name and what branch of service he was in. She told me his name was Jack and he was US Army and also fought also during WWII. Judy told me he had gone into the service in 1944 when he was 16, just like my dad! I took this as a sign that my dad wanted me to know he was still watching out for me! After the ceremony, I got to visit with Bobbie Jones, Sgt Curtis Jones' wife, and his mom Claudia and Dad Jack. It was so very nice to talk with her. Bobbie is expecting their son Devon in October. We had a good laugh about some of Curtis' character traits. Sgt Curtis Jones was my son David's Sgt from the 6th ESB, 4th FSG. Of all of the deaths, perhaps his was the closest since he was one of David's mentors. When he was diagnosed with leukemia just before they shipped off to Iraq, David shared his sense of great sadness knowing he would not join all of them in the sandbox. He was unsure at the time if they would see each other again. Sgt Jones waited to get married until his unit returned, his wedding was a mere two weeks after they all got back last year from Irag. He wanted to celebrate the happiest day of his life with his "men". His death, like all of the others was sudden and unexpected.

	Sgt. Curtis Jones died earlier this year from leukemia.
Family of Sgt. Curtis Jones, 6th ESB. Wife Bobbi is due to have baby Devon in October of this year. His mom is Claudia and his dad is Jack.

I also got to visit with Katie Bradach, Cpl Travis Bradach-Nall's aunt and his mom Lynn.

We visited the graves of four USMarines, the first Marine that was killed was L Cpl Seth Jones who was killed in a helicopter crash in the year 2000. His mother Michelle was not there, but Debbie met her last year and puts flowers on his memorial all the time.

The next was LCpl Cedric Bruns. He was killed just before Mother's Day last year in Iraq.

Lance Cpl. Cedric Bruns, 22, of Vancouver, Wash., was a Prairie High School graduate who arrived in Kuwait in January 2003 for his first tour of duty overseas. Bruns was a combat engineer in a unit trained to do "anything from demolition to building," said Gunnery Sgt. Rick Nelson.
	LCpl Bruns died May 9, 2003 in Kuwait, when the pickup truck he was driving collided with a logistics support vehicle, similar to a flatbed truck..
Cedric's family: parents Peter and Debbie, brother Nick and Cousin Kelly with husband Mike and daughter Amanda. .

Cpl Travis Bradach-Nall was killed in July last year just as most of his unit was returning home to Portland.

	Cpl. Travis J. Bradach-Nall, 21, of Portland, Ore., was remembered as a dedicated Marine who volunteered to stay in Iraq for an extra three months because there was more work to be done.
Cpl. Bradach-Nall was killed during a mine-clearing operation July 2, 2003, near the south-central city of Karbala.
	Family of Cpl. Travis Bradach-Nall include mom Lynn (front left), Aunt Katie and family

The last memorial was that of Sgt Curtis Jones; he was a Persian Gulf War Veteran who died this past April of Leukemia.

All of the memorials need care, all of the families need support. I keep thinking about those men and women still serving, As Chaplain Horace Duke said, "I pray God will Bless America, bring them home safely, help us help those who need our support."

Posted by Deb at 09:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 04, 2004

Marines at Normandy

So, where were the Marines on D-Day? Check out this post from Eric at Straight White Guy.

Marines were present in the planning of Operation Overlord… most notably, General Harold D. Campbell, USMC…. he was an advisor to the British Staff of Combined Operations… he was awarded the Legion of Merit for his help in planning the amphibious assault…. Marines had been landing troops by sea in some of the bloodiest battles on the Pacific… so, their grim expertise was put to good use…

… one of the Men that I had a chance to read about in my quest for ETO Marines, was Col. Peter J. Ortiz, USMC… he wasn’t at Normandy…. but, he was one of 51 US Marines who served with the OSS in Europe… seriously… follow this link, and read the whole page… he was one impressive Legionnaire AND US Marine… and, this article tells of various USMC exploits in the ETO... including D-day.... hearing of USMC sharpshooters during the invasion.... climbing onto the highest poing of their ships, and exploding surface mines with well-aimed rifle fire... well, that just harks back to the Birth of the Corps.. quadrafoil and all... but, back to my point…

Read the rest.

Posted by Deb at 07:40 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Good news from Iraq

It's working. Our Marines are winning. Here's another update from Major Dave Ballon in Iraq. A snippet is excerpted below; go here to read the rest.

One town in particular that we have been successful in is near Falluja. During the April fight in Falluja, the muj took the town over and used it as a base of operations of sorts. From all reports, they were brutal on the people and very quickly subjugated the town. During one of the ordered pauses in the Falluja fight, we chopped a rifle company off the line with a very aggressive battalion commander. Basically he was told that we thought the muj were running lose in the area and that he should head up there and "develop the situation." I have gotten to know this guy pretty well here. He is a very good commander and a tough guy. In fact, I remember telling him that if he went past a certain point, he would be decisively engaged. We had estimated that if he got into a decisive engagement, he could be outnumbered by as much as 5:1. You can imagine what he did. He took his Marines right to that point.

Sure enough, the fight was on. It was a 360 degree engagement that lasted 8 hours. An 8 hour firefight is an eternity. To put it in perspective, this guy was in both OIF 1 battle for Baghdad as well as the Falluja fight. He states that the firefight up near this town was the toughest he has been in. We fired quite a bit of artillery and brought in a number of sorties of close air for them. By the time it was over, the estimates (now confirmed) are that they killed over a 100 muj. We could not understand why they kept coming but they did (more on that later). Throughout it all, very accurate mortar fire up to 120mm was falling inside the Marine position. Automatic weapons and RPGs were crisscrossing through the perimeter. The Marines just laid their in the micro terrain and squeezed of well aimed shots.

The Battalion Commander stayed that day until his guys broke the muj and he "owned the field" (his words). He then withdrew back to his original position. In the same town, we now have Marines living 24/7. They are conducting joint patrols with the Iraqi Police and the ICDC (Iraqi Civil Defense Corps). When they first arrived, the people were very standoffish and even hostile. Now we are getting more and more walk up intelligence (where the locals literally risk their lives in order to walk into our lines and tell us where the muj are). The reason for the turnaround is simple. We have pushed through the bow wave of intimidation and terror that dominated the town when the muj were there. The Marines did it through aggressive raiding and downright obstinate refusal to budge regardless of the costs. The people were watching the entire time and have made up their own minds where their best future lies. It has gotten to the point where the mujahadeen are now firing mortars indiscriminately into the town as it is the only effective means of maintaining any kind of influence over the people. Yesterday, they grievously wounded to citizens doing just that.

That is not to say that the town is a bed of roses for the Marines as we still have plenty of contact in the area and it is very dangerous but we are grinding them down and are about to put a good pounding on the enemy in the next few days. The people are talking and we are about to pay some more visits in the middle of the night. I could give you a couple more examples but it is a good illustration of what kind of work the Marines are doing every day.

There's more and it's all good.

Posted by Deb at 07:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 03, 2004

The Home Front

At eleven minutes after midnight on June 6, 1944, British Lieutenant Noel Poole jumped from a Stirling plane flying over the Cherbourg peninsula, the first of nearly 175,000 British, Canadian, and American forces to enter Normandy by air or by sea. A few hours later, people all over America listened, transfixed, to their radios as an announcer proclaimed, ?Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force has just announced that the invasion has begun. Repeat, D-Day has come.? In Britain, the announcement was just as terse; ?Under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval forces supported by strong air forces began landing Allied armies this morning on the coast of France.? These messages were confirmation of what had been widely surmised ? an immense invasion of the European continent from Britain had begun. By that evening, three airborne divisions of the allied air forces had joined the battle, bombed relentlessly in preparation for ground assault forces and provided protection for over 5,000 boats and ships (from small landing crafts to large battleships) in the English Channel. That armada provided essential cover for the allied troops who fought their way across the beaches of the Normandy coast.

And, all across America and Britain, those who waited at home listened, held their breath and prayed for a swift victory. A Montana news reporter having breakfast in a Helena café °ut it this way. ?The news was first met with unbelief and then rapt silence. Food was forgotten. Not a single voice was raised in request for service; no one wanted anything. They only sat and listened, and wondered.?

No one group wondered more than parents, relatives and friends of deployed troops. Unlike the current war on terror, many more people were directly impacted. With the draft, almost every family had a husband, son, daughter, nephew, niece, or friend serving. And, folks back home were willing and ready to do their part. They bought war bonds. Women rolled bandages and knitted socks and hats. Men who could not fight worked in defense plants, making rifles, airplanes, ammunition, and uniforms. Families planted Victory Gardens. Sugar, gasoline, and other commodities were rationed so that precious resources could be diverted to the troops.

In contrast, many current families have no direct connection with the current military operations taking part primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan. No one in their immediate or extended family is part of the armed forces. They are disconnected from the conflict. There are few sacrifices; indeed, there seems to be a concerted effort to make this war as painless as possible for folks back home. However, people want to be part of this. In the days following September 11, 2001, blood banks were standing room only. They?ve donated almost $2 million to the Spirit of America effort. Volunteers in Oregon and all over the country are sewing neck coolers and knitting socks and hats to provide comfort and a bit of home.

The warriors who fought the battle of Normandy had thoughts of home. The Band of Brothers HBO documentary included interviews with surviving heroes. Quite a few of them described their mothers as an inspiring force. Nights in foxholes were spent writing letters home.

During the major hostilities of Operation Iraqi Freedom, many of our troops carried pictures of their mothers, wives, and family members into battle. And, evening news clips showed tanks rolling into Baghdad with Marines and soldiers holding up signs that read Hi Mom!. Embedded reporters lent satellite phones to injured soldiers so that they could call family. E-mail brought instant communication. But the emotions of war do not change. Mothers and fathers of deployed troops worry as much today as they did 60 years ago.

On D-Day, America shut down. Macy?s Department store closed early. The president of Lord & Taylor announced, ?The store is closed. The invasion has begun. Our only thought can be of the men who are fighting in it. We have closed our doors because we know our employees and customers who have loved ones in battle will want to give this day to hopes and prayers for their safety.? Wall Street opened, following a two minute silent prayer. And the Wall Street Journal focused on the economic impact of the invasion. The headline on June 7 read,

?Invasion?s Impact
Marks Beginning Of End Of War Economy
New Problems for Industry.?

Broadway closed its doors and actors performed for stateside troops. Donations were collected to benefit enlisted men and women. Not all entertainers stood in solidarity. A New Yorker correspondent noted that radio actors were upset that the day?s soap opera programming had been pre-empted by war news.

On the first day of Operation Iraqi Freedom, families all over America with loved ones in Iraq and Afghanistan held their breath and prayed for the safety of our troops. At the same time, large anti-war rallies broke out in cities all across America. Business continued as usual. Some stores gave discounts to families with military ID. And the Academy Awards went on as scheduled, although celebrities eschewed glitter and jewels. And Michael Moore used his platform as a bully pulpit to denounce our troops' Commander in Chief. To the audience?s credit, there were boos throughout the crowd. That didn?t faze the boor on the stage, who owed his opportunity to speak freely to our troops who, for the past 230 years have bravely fought to preserve liberty for all.

On June 6, 1944, families and friend waited breathlessly for news. And there were far few reporters on the scene. None were embedded. Correspondents on board various ships could report what they saw, planes overhead, smoke on the beach, other ships, but could only guess at what was happening on shore. That did not stop broadcasters from reporting. If there were no news, they repeated previous reports. They mangled pronunciation of the French towns and regions. They provided armchair quarterbacking of the military effort. Sixty years later, some things haven?t changed much.

The cost, in human terms, was staggering. Almost 5,000 casualties, including approximately 2,000 dead on that one day, D-Day. One day. Families all across America received that dreaded knock at the door where a Western Union telegram notified them of their ultimate contribution to the war effort ? a beloved husband or precious son. Was it worth it? Twenty years later, General Eisenhower stood on Omaha Beach, looking out at the English Channel. He commented,

?You see these people out here swimming and sailing their little pleasure boats and taking advantage of the nice weather and the lovely beach, Walter, and it is almost unreal to look at it today and remember what it was.

But it?s a wonderful thing to remember what those fellows twenty years ago were fighting for and sacrificing for, what they did to preserve our way of life. Not to conquer any territory, not for any ambitions of our own. But to make sure that Hitler could not destroy freedoms in the world.

I think it?s just overwhelming. To think of the lives that were given for that principle, paying a terrible price on this beach alone, on that one day, 2000 casualties. But they did it so that the world could be free. It just shows what free men will do rather than be slaves.?

Sixty years after D-Day, American troops once again fight along brave British forces to bring those same freedoms to another part of the world. Will it take twenty years for their bravery and sacrifices to be recognized as a ?wonderful thing??

Connie Riecke and Deb Conrad with William ?Wild Bill? Guarnere who fought at Normandy on June 6, 1944 with the men of Easy Company, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, U.S. Army.

Don?t make them wait. Thank a soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine today ? those who are serving or have served in the past. And, if you know of a family with a deployed service member, thank them too. Each of the thousands of men who fell on June 6, 1944 had loved ones at home. So do the troops of today. Instant communication has brought the battlefield into our living rooms but we worry about our loved ones as much as the families in 1944.

On November 15, 2003, the women behind the Marine Corps Moms website met several members of Easy Company. We shook the hands of Don Malarkey and Wild Bill Guarnere. They are true American heroes and it was a privilege to meet them. And, sixty years from now, people may be shaking the hands of our sons who serve with the 7th Marines. As mothers, we are filled with pride. As citizens, we are profoundly grateful.

Thanks to Matt from Blackfive
for sponsoring this blogger?s tribute to this defining day in American history. Check out his list of all participating bloggers here. Much of the information in this post was derived from Stephen Ambrose?s bestseller, D-DAY, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II.

Posted by Deb at 08:42 AM | Comments (2)

June 02, 2004

Overheard on a Marine Base

I visited the Marine Base at 29 Palms over the Memorial Day weekend and met several young 1/7 Marines, all friends of my own son. At one point, they were discussing the current lottery jackpot and what they would do if they won. One Marine noted that such a bonanza would mean a "material change in lifestyle" and that an enlisted winner could probably get out of deployment. I asked if any of them would do that and, to a man, they all said no. They have lived together, trained together, bonded as brothers, and none of them would let their buddies go back to the sandbox without them.

Posted by Deb at 09:27 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Update from the 2/7 Marines

Here's an update from the Battalion Commander and Sgt. Major of the 2/7 Marines, currently in Iraq.

By the time many of you read this, you should be returning home from the Memorial Day weekend. We hope you had a great time, wherever your travels may have taken you.

In this update, we can again say that we are steps closer to having the Iraqis prepared to take responsibility for their communities?which means we are winning. All of our efforts in the near future will be focused on training, equipping, and supervising the Iraqi security forces. The brave Iraqis we see on a daily basis are sincerely committed to their future. It is a sight to see. The people in the area welcome the fact that Iraqis are starting to take the lead on security responsibilities.

The biggest news out here is that there?s less and less BAD news. More and more Iraqis understand what the coalition is doing for them and they also know that they have to take care of their country?s security in the near future. The most dangerous encounter most of your Marines and Sailors are having is with the heat! It is starting to top 100 degrees regularly and the mercury continues to rise.

Before going too far in this letter, we?d like to take a moment to discuss (we had no idea people actually were waiting for this?) the, ?pigeons doing back flips,? comment we made a few updates ago. We were on an operation and one evening, before it became too dark, we observed a small flock of pigeons flying and doing back flips! The birds would fly, flip, and keep flying. As they were doing their flips, they would lose the air under their wings and appear to drop straight to the ground. But once the flip was complete, they continued to fly. Iraqis are fond of birds and they train birds to do tricks. We happened be located next to a house that trained such birds. It was an enjoyable end to a somewhat nerve-wracking day.

Put this story in the, ?Tell it to the Marines,? category.

Marine Corps lore holds that if a civilian does not believe a story about something or other in the world, his best bet to find the truth is to ask a well-traveled Marine. Your Marines and sailors have definitely been getting their fill of seeing things you would not believe. Sometimes we wonder what planet we are on here in Iraq. Many unique things take place on ?our streets.?

By the time you read this note, the long awaited 2/7 playground equipment will be delivered to several local schools. As the Iraqi public learns to trust us and perceive us as helpers and not conquerors, the less motivation they have to help the violent minority that live among them.

The good news only gets better! Slowly, but surely, the living conditions in all locations improve. There?s more hot food, better living conditions, and more air conditioners being installed (just in time). Most importantly, the mail is consistent. Keep those letters and care-packages coming! We love them!

Iraq is still a dangerous place, and yes, there is some instability. However, everyday Iraq grows more stable and peaceful. Everyday more Iraqis lean towards democracy and against terrorism as a means of change. The local newspaper we helped start shows that free speech is alive and well where your Marines and Sailors are serving. Your Marines and Sailors are key players in this democratic process. Remember: As Iraq grows more stable, America benefits, since Iraq becomes one less breeding ground for terrorism.

Thank your for continuing to share the courage? and thank you for all of your wonderful support. It means more than you know.

Posted by Deb at 09:12 AM

More on the "Wedding Party"

Via Jen Martinez, here's another report on the "wedding" that wasn't, from USMC LTCOL Bill Mullen:

Just reviewed a classified brief on the supposed wedding - no way it was. Here are some unclass details I can provide (brief had lots of pictures to back up the details):

- Weddings traditionally held on Thursdays in Iraq to take advantage of Friday as a day of rest - raid took place on Tuesday night.

- Only permanent dwelling at the site held large stocks of food, bedding, medical supplies (lots of these - was the wedding going to be a cage match of some sort or were the caterers just bad cooks?), ammunition and weapons, as well as an apparent document forging set up.

- Meat was still frozen solid, not prepared for a wedding feast and there were no stocks of dishes, plates, etc.

- Contrary to media reports, no "Nuptial Tent" was found and a 1KM area around the site was searched - any further away than that would just be too far for the catering staff to walk carrying all those huge platters of food.

There's more. Read the entire e-mail here.

Posted by Deb at 09:03 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack