Shaffer
03-12-04, 07:21 AM
CAMP UDAIRI, Kuwait ---- Another battle-hardened Marine unit from Camp Pendleton has arrived in Kuwait and is waiting its turn to cross the border for a seven-month mission in one of the most dangerous regions of Iraq.
The nearly 1,000 Marines of 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, who hail from the San Clemente side of Camp Pendleton, continued Thursday to arrive at this bustling desert outpost from their previous posting in Okinawa, Japan, where they have trained since December.
The troops from "1/5," as they are known, were some of the key players in the invasion of Iraq a year ago. The battalion took a key oil pumping station just across the Kuwaiti border in the opening days of the war and later fought its way up the central highway north to Baghdad, Iraq, where they were ambushed in one of the biggest battles of the war outside one of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's main palaces.
"You could just look down the line of vehicles and see RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) whizzing everywhere. And you could see all the guys (enemy fighters) running around on the rooftops," recalled Lance Cpl. Travis Courtney, 21, of Palm Springs, as he waited in line for lunch this week at Camp Udairi's massive mess hall.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/03/12/news/top_stories/3_11_0422_57_18.txt
The nearly 1,000 Marines of 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, who hail from the San Clemente side of Camp Pendleton, continued Thursday to arrive at this bustling desert outpost from their previous posting in Okinawa, Japan, where they have trained since December.
The troops from "1/5," as they are known, were some of the key players in the invasion of Iraq a year ago. The battalion took a key oil pumping station just across the Kuwaiti border in the opening days of the war and later fought its way up the central highway north to Baghdad, Iraq, where they were ambushed in one of the biggest battles of the war outside one of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's main palaces.
"You could just look down the line of vehicles and see RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) whizzing everywhere. And you could see all the guys (enemy fighters) running around on the rooftops," recalled Lance Cpl. Travis Courtney, 21, of Palm Springs, as he waited in line for lunch this week at Camp Udairi's massive mess hall.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/03/12/news/top_stories/3_11_0422_57_18.txt