11th MEU's ACE saved lives

[thedrifter]

11th MEU's ACE saved lives
Submitted by: 11th MEU
Story Identification #: 200497135919
Story by Cpl. Annette M. Kyriakides



AN NAJAF, Iraq (Sept. 7, 2004) -- In a large tent, a uniformed man sat watching television. Another sitting in the corner of the room was reading a book. A young corpsman looked at his hand, deciding what card to play as his friends around the weathered card table laughed and joked.

Suddenly, the relaxed environment exploded with urgent movement as the radio blared, "Attention all shops... Attention all shops... Troubleshooters on the line... Casevac! Casevac!" Dropping their cards, the game forgotten, the corpsmen scrambled to don their gear. Crew chiefs and pilots ran to the helicopters, quickly preparing for liftoff. Speed and precision were of highest importance -- somewhere, someone was severely injured and his or her life, saved or lost, would be decided by minutes.

Adrenaline rushing through his veins, 24-year-old HM3 Christopher Pair took his seat behind the crew chief in the back of the CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter. Ten minutes from the first call, they were in the air and on their way to the landing zone for a casualty evacuation. Pair received little information as to the severity of the wounds. All he knew was that one Army soldier, two Marines, and three enemy militia members were in need of aid. Upon landing, three casualties were loaded into each helicopter.

Years of medical training, both routine and trauma, have become instinct for these 'docs.' Their driving force? That oftentimes the difference between life and death for their patients rests in their hands. There is no time to think, only time to act, and these corpsmen only have minutes until the casualties fly to a level two hospital for further treatment.

"It seems impossible when you look back on it," said Pair, a Hickory, N.C., resident attached to the MEU's avaition combat element. "Your training becomes second nature. You do so much at once, you're stunned by what you just did when it's all over."

Speed and clear thinking saved lives during fighting between Muqtada Militiamen and 11th MEU and Iraqi security forces in August. Getting the casualties evacuated safely and treated so fast required the efforts of every squadron member. Fuelers, radio control tower operators, mechanics, crew chiefs, corpsmen, and many others diligently worked around the clock to provide 24-hour service. The team constantly ran a 30-minute strip alert. From the first call for help, they had a 30-minute window to get two helicopters off the ground. No job at HMM-166 was small.

"We pride ourselves in speed," boasted Lt. Col. John "Will" Guthrie, commanding officer of HMM-166. "We have 30 minutes, but we do it in about 10. I am proud of my entire 500-person team. It takes all of them to make this happen. They (did) an amazing job under difficult times and difficult situations."

Though they were presented with huge obstacles, they overcame them.

"It has been challenging to get the people we (needed) for this program," said HM2 Ryan W. Dilkes, 24, corpsman. "The Marine Corps is not corpsman billeted for this job. Usually, this is the Army's mission, but right now they are limited as to where they can fly into because of lack of defense on their aircraft."

According to rules set forth by the Geneva Convention, a bold white cross marks helicopters dedicated strictly to medical services so they can be identified in a combat environment. They are not allowed to have offensive weapons on them as they are considered non-combatants. However, it becomes dangerous for the crew and the casualties of such Army helicopters when they fly into hostile situations where terrorists do not play by Geneva Convention rules.

To overcome this challenge, the Marine Corps flies 'designated medevac' helicopters -- those not bearing the white cross. They can also be used for other missions and are allowed to carry weapons. Called a "phrog" because of its blunt nosed resemblance to the little amphibian, the CH-46 is anything but harmless. This helicopter carries .50-caliber machine guns and is very capable of defending itself.

Dedication is truly a common bond through HMM-166, evidenced by their success rate.

"I like casevac because we can save the lives of those who risk their lives for us," said Lt. Douglas Blume, a 33-year-old flight surgeon from Laguna, Calif. "We are doing something worthwhile for the world."

"So far," he added, "everyone not KIA (killed in action) has survived the flight."

Those KIA, or “angels" as they are reverently called, are given the same deference as any patient on the flight.

"Out of respect for fallen Marines, we treat angels like those patients still with us... with priority," said Blume.

During fighting in Najaf, the team ensured that all angels were safely transported to mortuary affairs where they are taken home to their families.

"It was an eye opener when on a return flight, an angel's hand fell from under the poncho covering him," recalls Dilks. "I saw the hand of a 20-year-old Marine wearing a wedding ring. It was very sad. If it weren't for the line company, or 'grunt' corpsmen, we would be sending home more angels and fewer casualties. They (did) a great job saving lives on the ground."

Not a part of the squadron, yet very much members of the team, these heroic corpsmen travel with infantry units and render life saving treatment needed until casevac arrives.

"The grunt corpsmen have the hardest job of any medical personnel out here," said HM3 Matt Schmall, corpsman. "They have a very high stress level but still stay motivated. They are doing a great job and we couldn't do ours without them."

Esprit de corps radiates from the entire crew at HMM-166. Their discipline and dedication to teamwork saved nearly 30 lives during the fighting in August.

"We love saving lives but hate to see the injuries," said Pair. "This is a bitter-sweet job."

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/image1.nsf/Lookup/200497141220/$file/040819-M-1726K-008lowres.jpg

HM2 Ryan W. Dilkes, 24, corpsman, Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 166 (Reinforced), 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), does a pre-flight medical inventory inside a CH-46 Sea Knight while on a 30-minute strip alert for Casualty Evacuation in Forward Operating Base Duke, Iraq, Aug. 19. Photo by: Cpl. Annette M. Kyriakides

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/main5/05F01EE1D368BD6585256F080062D08B?opendocument


Ellie

[thedrifter]

U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq Pass 1,000

By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. military deaths in the Iraq (news - web sites) campaign passed the 1,000 milestone Tuesday, with more than 800 of them during the stubborn insurgency that flared after the Americans brought down Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and President Bush (news - web sites) declared major combat over.


A spike in fighting with Sunni and Shiite insurgents killed eight Americans in the Baghdad area on Tuesday and Wednesday, pushing the count to 1,003. That number includes 1,000 U.S. troops and three civilians, two working for the U.S. Army and one for the Air Force. The tally was compiled by The Associated Press based on Pentagon (news - web sites) records and AP reporting from Iraq.


Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld cited progress on multiple fronts in the Bush administration's global war on terrorism and said U.S. enemies should not underestimate the willingness of the American people and its coalition allies to suffer casualties in Iraq and elsewhere.


"The progress has prompted a backlash, in effect, from those who hope that at some point we might conclude that the pain and the cost of this fight isn't worth it," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference. "Well, our enemies have underestimated our country, our coalition. They have failed to understand the character of our people. And they certainly misread our commander in chief."


The Bush administration has long linked the Iraq conflict to the war on terrorism. The Sept. 11 Commission, however, concluded that Iraq and al-Qaida did not have a "collaborative relationship" before the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, and some have questioned to what extent foreign terror groups are involved in the anti-U.S. insurgency in Iraq.


Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) issued a statement saying the United States joined the friends and families of those who died in mourning their loss.


"Today marks a tragic milestone in the war in Iraq. More than one thousand of Americas sons and daughters have made the ultimate sacrifice. Our nation honors their service and joins with their families and loved ones in mourning their loss," Kerry said.


"We must never forget the price they have paid. And we must meet our sacred obligation to all our troops to do all we can to make the right decisions in Iraq so that we can bring them home as soon as possible."


The 1,003 figure includes deaths from hostile and non-hostile causes since the United States launched the Iraq campaign in March 2003 to topple Saddam's regime. The vast majority of U.S. deaths — all but 138 — came after Bush's May 1, 2003 declaration of an end to major combat operations. "Mission Accomplished," read a banner on an aircraft carrier where Bush made the announcement.


The U.S. military has not reported overall Iraqi deaths. The Iraqi Health Ministry started counting the dead only in April when heavy fighting broke out in Fallujah and Najaf. However, conservative estimates by private groups place the Iraqi toll at at least 10,000 — or 10 times the number of U.S. military deaths.


"It is difficult to establish the right number of casualties," said Amnesty International's Middle East spokeswoman, Nicole Choueiry. She added that "it was the job of the occupation power to keep track of the numbers but the Americans failed to do so."


The grim milestone of 1,000 American military deaths was surpassed after a surge in fighting, which has killed 17 U.S. service members in the past four days. A soldier was killed early Wednesday in when a roadside bomb struck a convoy near Balad, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. Two soldiers died in clashes Tuesday with militiamen loyal to rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Five other Americans died Tuesday in separate attacks, mostly in the Baghdad area. Seven Marines were killed Monday in a suicide car bombing north of Fallujah. Two soldiers were killed in a mortar attack Sunday.


West of the capital, U.S. warplanes swooped low over Fallujah on Tuesday in airstrikes after seven Marines and three Iraqi soldiers were killed the day before in a car-bombing near the Sunni insurgent-controlled city.


A group linked to Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — Tawhid and Jihad — posted a statement on a militant Web site claiming responsibility for the attack, describing it as "a martyr operation ... that targeted American soldiers and their mercenary apostate collaborators from the Iraqi army."


Fighting between U.S. soldiers and al-Sadr's militiamen erupted Tuesday when U.S. officials said the cleric's gunmen fired on Americans carrying out patrols in the Sadr City district of Baghdad. Two Americans died in the fighting, U.S. officials said.


A senior Iraqi Health Ministry official, Saad al-Amili, said 35 Iraqis were killed and 203 wounded in the Sadr City clashes. An al-Sadr spokesman, Sheik Raed al-Kadhimi, blamed "intrusive" American patrolling for provoking the fighting.


"Our fighters have no choice but to return fire and to face the U.S. forces and helicopters pounding our houses," al-Kadhimi said in a statement.





Late Tuesday, the militia announced a unilateral cease-fire but said it would fight back in self defense. It was unclear whether the statement had any meaning since the militia routinely defends its actions as legitimate self defense.

U.S. Army Capt. Brian O'Malley said he was unaware of the cease-fire offer but that the area was quiet in the early evening. "We only fire when we are fired at, but we will not stop our patrols or withdraw from our positions," he said.

At the Pentagon, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, blamed the spike in U.S. combat deaths on an insurgency that "is becoming more sophisticated in its efforts to destabilize the country."

"We are aggressively seeking and capturing those insurgents who are not willing to do so themselves, but are encouraging people to commit suicide attacks," Myers told reporters Tuesday. "Make no mistake, we will continue to pursue those who seek to disrupt progress in Iraq."

During the Sadr City fighting, U.S. warplanes flew over the sprawling neighborhood — home to some 2 million people. American tanks, their turrets spinning, deployed in key intersections. Ambulances with sirens wailing rushed the wounded to hospitals as plumes of heavy, black smoke rose over the mainly Shiite neighborhood.

U.S. forces appeared to be carrying out most — if not all — of the fighting. No Iraqi security forces were seen during the clashes, though U.S. spokesmen talked of "multinational forces" involved in the operations, a term that sometimes includes Iraqi troops.

Small groups of al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army fighters pounded on the asphalt with hammers to plant mines and explosives in the streets. Fighters in their teens and early 20s trotted toward the clashes — rocket-propelled grenades in hand — as children scampered behind them.

Other militiamen, rifles in hand, gathered on street corners. Fighters using rocks and tires blocked roads leading to the area. By afternoon, most stores in the neighborhood were shuttered.

Elsewhere, a bomb exploded Tuesday near the convoy of the governor of the Baghdad region, killing two people. Gov. Ali al-Haidri escaped injury, Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdel Rahman said.

In another part of the capital, armed men in olive green uniforms stormed the office of an Italian aid group and seized two Italian women and two Iraqis. It was only the second known kidnapping of foreign women since a wave of hostage-takings began this year. A female Japanese aid worker was captured in Fallujah in April but was released a week later.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040908/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq&cid=540&ncid=716


Ellie

[thedrifter]

LAR Marines protect Iraq's borders
Submitted by: 1st Marine Division
Story Identification #: 200496235533
Story by Cpl. Randy Bernard



Syrian Border, Iraq (Sep. 2, 2004) -- For the past six months, Marines with 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion have come to know a featureless expanse of desert as home.

Here between the countries of Syria and Iraq, these Marines have been keeping a watchful eye out for smugglers and any other possible threats to security.

"We've been patrolling, getting the Iraqi Police to start doing their job, finding weapons caches and smugglers," said Pfc. Daniel F. Stark, a light armored vehicle mechanic with the battalion.

Stopping the smugglers is one of the main reasons that the Marines are out patrolling along Syria, according to the 21-year-old of Webbeville, Mich.

Without any established border crossings into Iraq, smugglers traffic sheep, cigarettes, and other black market items into Iraq.

"One time when stopping a group of smugglers coming into the country, they had to corral hundreds of sheep with their LAV's," said Stark.

Smugglers and anti-coalition fighters are not the only concern that these Marines face.

"It seems mundane stopping sheep from entering the country," said Lance Cpl. Neal Walker, a rifleman with combat replacement company, "granted we aren't getting ambushed in cities, but we are still getting hit by (improvised explosive devices) and mines."

IED's and mines are a part of life out on the border for these Marines.

Neal, 21, of Orlando, Fla. said that they will discover an IED or mine at least every other day, sometimes the hard way.

"We were once escorting a higher-up, showing him the border forts out here, and the patrols, and we had five mine strikes," said Neal. "And another time, we had nine mine strikes in nine days."

Although some might not see these patrols as glamorous as sweeping terrorists from populated cities, Neal gives himself the credit that he feels he deserves.

"With all of the media focusing on Ramadi and Fallujah, there is a strong importance in what we are doing out here," he said. "These smugglers are hurting (Iraq's) economy."

With the end of their tour in Iraq coming to a close, some of the Marines feel that the memories of this mission will remain with them.

"It's been a lot of fun," said Stark, "We've run over mines and IED's, and it's a lot of work. But now I have to figure out how to spend my money when I go home in October."

"All around, it was an experience in itself," said Walker. "I spent the last three and a half years in the jungles of Southeast Asia, and now I've been to Iraq. I feel like my experience with the Marine Corps is complete. Now I've got some stories to share when I go (home)."


http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/main5/146227A430B16CF685256F08001590C1?opendocument


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Grief-stricken father recalls Marines' visit and painful aftermath <br />
By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff | September 8, 2004 <br />
<br />
Carlos Luis Arredondo cannot remember setting himself ablaze as horrified...

[thedrifter]

Posted on Mon, Sep. 06, 2004





Bush challenges Kerry over latest Iraq comments

BY MARK SILVA

Chicago Tribune


POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. - (KRT) - President Bush, landing at a Labor Day picnic with a duo of Marine Corps helicopters in a small town that has overwhelmingly supported him, challenged Democrat John Kerry's shifting stances on the war in Iraq.

As he has for months, Bush cited Kerry's vote for invasion of Iraq and then his vote against supplemental funding for Iraq and Afghanistan. But this time, Bush twisted the screw tighter as he repeated Kerry's oft-quoted comment about first voting for $87 billion and then against it.

"I suspect, here in Poplar Bluffs, not many people talk that way," Bush said.

"After voting for the war but against funding it, after saying he would have voted for the war even knowing everything we know today, my opponent woke up today with new campaign advisers and even a new position ... Suddenly he's against it again."

The president's remark seemed in direct response to Kerry's comments earlier Monday that he would try to bring American troops home from Iraq by the end of his first term in office.

"Wes want those troops home, and my goal would be to try to get them home in my first term," Kerry said in Canonsburg, Pa., calling the conflict "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time."

But the president tried to parry Kerry's remarks and refashion them into another illustration of a shifting position by the Democratic nominee.

"No matter how many times Sen. Kerry changes his mind," said Bush, hammering his campaign's theme that Kerry is a flip-flopper, "it was right for America then, and it is right for America now, that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power."

If Bush has spent the past few days stumping in places that voted Democratic in 2000, the president chose as sole venue for his Labor Day campaigning a town of 16,600, in a county, Butler, that overwhelmingly supported Bush in 2000 by a vote of 9,111 to 4,996.

He chose a town in southeastern Missouri that had petitioned the president to come - issuing a 10,700-signature invitation - and turned out several thousand people to a hilly park down a dirt road from the Bluff City United Pentecostal Church.

The trailer of the "Evangelical Task Force" was parked among the barbecue trailers and carnival rides, and a man warmed up the crowd with the questions: "Do you want a president who is pro-life ... a president who is pro-Second Amendment ... a president who also is pro-marriage?" They cried, "Yes."

Bush's message clearly has taken hold in Poplar Bluff.

"What he's doing is taking the war to them, and not letting it come here," said Joe Farmer, an insurance salesman and Army veteran who served in Germany in the 1960s. "I'm hoping we won't have another 911 by doing that."

"When we choose a leader to protect us against terrorism, I want a strong president," U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., told the crowd. ... "I want a president who agrees that marriage is between a man and a woman."

Reeling off Kerry votes against defense spending - "Strike One" - and Kerry's vote against the Defense of Marriage Act - "Strike Two" - Emerson concluded with Kerry's opposition to a ban against late-term abortions: "Strike Three, you're out, John Kerry, you're out of touch with Missouri, you're out of touch with the heartland."

"You think John Kerry is coming to Poplar Bluff?" asked Gov. Matt Blunt, who in October 2001 became the first statewide elected official in Missouri to be called into active military duty - serving six months.

The crowd cried, "No."

---

(National correspondent Jill Zuckman, traveling with the Kerry campaign, contributed to this report.)

---


http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/special_packages/election2004/9596393.htm


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Army MEDEVACs save Marine lives in Iraq
Submitted by: 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing
Story Identification #: 2004973298
Story by Cpl. Paul Leicht



AL ANBAR PROVINCE, Iraq (Sep. 3, 2004) -- One hundred feet above the barren terrain, zipping across the Iraqi desert in total darkness, an Army UH-60 Blackhawk medical evacuation helicopter is on its way to downtown Baghdad, Iraq.

Inside the aircraft, amidst a crowded stash of medical gear, supplies and four patients, an onboard flight medic moves about the dark, cramped cabin to check their vital signs. One bloodied Marine desperately asks where he’s being taken while wincing in pain from multiple wounds.

“How long ‘til we get there?” cries the Marine as he clenches the stretcher above him.

Travelling from Al Asad, Iraq, the speeding Blackhawk will get there in around one hour.

With a calming touch, the flight medic leans over to tell him he’s going to be okay while an extra passenger on board holds the Marine’s hand. A dose of morphine is then skillfully administered through a needle in the shifting helicopter, easing the Marine’s anguish.

The wounded men, whose lives are hanging in the balance, are being flown to an urgent medical care facility by dedicated Army soldiers with the 507th Medical Company (Air Ambulance) here, who put their own lives at risk to save others.

“Before a flight, what goes through my head is making sure that I have the necessary medical supplies that I need to keep a patient alive,” said Army Staff Sgt. Spencer Howell, flight medic, 507th Medical Co. “One of the first things I do is get a set of vital signs and a rapid trauma assessment. On board my situational awareness goes way up.

“When I am not treating a patient during a flight, the crew chief and I watch for any power lines and any suspicious activity on the ground in the event that we receive fire,” he added.

Even when not flying in darkness with night vision gear, MEDEVAC missions in Iraq present many hazards.

For an enemy that has no qualms about shooting at the symbol of the Red Cross, especially over Iraqi cities such as Baghdad, Fallujah and recently Najaf, it is unfortunately a very common occurrence, said Army Maj. Jack Leech, commanding officer, 507th Medical Co., and a native of Louisville, Ky.

“We have some really great Soldiers in this unit and most of them were here last year during the big push to Baghdad in Operation Iraqi Freedom I,” said Leech. “They are some of the most experienced, best trained air crews and medics I have ever worked with.”

Showing a deep concern for his patients, Spencer, a native of Pontiac, Mich., said he makes a point to ask them where they are hurting so he can make their time with him as pain-free as possible.

“Talking to the patients, if they are conscious, is very important,” explained Spencer. “Many of them are very disoriented after the often violent experience that caused their injuries and then moving from the aid station before getting on our aircraft. They are on their backs, in pain and do not know what is going on or where they are, so I tell them it will be alright and give them a ‘thumbs up’ or touch them to reassure them.”

Supporting Marines day and night since they left Fort Hood, Texas, seven months ago has been the ‘507th Dustoff’s’ role here.

“We have one mission,” said Army Capt. Joshua Stuckey, UH-60 pilot, 507th Medical Co. “We are here to help save lives. If there is a wounded person, – be it a Marine, Soldier, civilian or even an (enemy combatant) – we will pick them up from the point of injury on the battlefield, take them aboard our helicopter and deliver them to a treatment facility, where they will receive the critical care that they need to survive.”

With more than 1,300 flight hours and hundreds of MEDEVAC missions behind them, the Army unit handles two types of patient delivery, according to Leech.

“More routine or priority patients are typically loaded aboard our aircraft from a vehicle ambulance,” said Leech. “We also do ‘tail-to-tail’ transfers where we take urgent patients directly from another Blackhawk that picked them up at the point of injury or an aid station.”

Stuckey, a native of Katy, Texas, near Houston, said that once airborne, their strength is speed, low altitude and unpredictability of route on the way to Balad, Iraq, or a more dangerous destination, such as Baghdad.

For trips to and from the Iraqi capitol, the 507th is often escorted by Marine AH-1W Super Cobras, but they sometimes have a difficult time keeping pace with the lighter, faster Blackhawks.

Returning from the nighttime flight from Baghdad, the MEDEVAC crew takes off their flight gear as they exit the aircraft. With another mission behind them, they wind down and prepare for the next mission.

“I love this job and wake up every day knowing that I am going to help save the life of a Marine,” said Stuckey.

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/main5/E6017400E5C052CF85256F0800291ED4?opendocument

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/image1.nsf/Lookup/20049733438/$file/040903-M-0484L-507th-money1LR.jpg

After landing in Baghdad, Iraq, during a night medical evacuation mission Sept. 3, Army flight medics and a crew chief from 507th Medical Company (Air Ambulance) help deliver wounded Marines from a UH-60 Blackhawk into the hands of emergency trauma specialists. Photo by: Cpl. Paul Leicht


Ellie

[thedrifter]

September 07, 2004

Families of wounded struggle with long road to healing

By Stephen Manning
Associated Press


WASHINGTON (AP) — Heather Pepper pulls a cigarette out of her husband’s pack, lights it and takes a drag to get it burning.
“Here, honey,” she says, holding it in front of Staff Sgt. Jason Pepper, 27, and moving an ashtray to a spot near him on the table. His face and his blank eyes turn toward her, following her voice, his hand groping the air to find hers.

Blinded four months ago by a roadside explosion in Iraq, Pepper is almost completely dependent on his wife. She helps him bathe, dress and eat. When he walks, he throws his hands over her shoulders, shuffling along behind her. She has become his eyes.

“It has been a huge challenge for us,” says Heather Pepper, 26, sitting on the patio of a Fisher House group home at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. “I had to do everything as if he was a brand-new child, except bigger.”

Most families at Fisher House have similar stories. A mother who showed her brain-damaged son photos of his family to revive his blurred memory. A Colorado man who kept a vigil by his son’s hospital bed during the 19-year-old Marine’s three-month coma.

Nearly 7,000 men and women have been injured since fighting broke out in Iraq in 2003, more than half wounded badly enough that they could not return to duty. Many are sent to Walter Reed in Washington, D.C., or the National Naval Medical Center in nearby Bethesda, Md.

They undergo surgeries, rebuild withered muscles and learn to use artificial limbs. Their days become structured around doctors’ visits and therapy sessions. This routine can last from several months to as long as a year.

It is a stressful time for the soldiers, who struggle to recover from their injuries, come to grips with the changes to their bodies and often worry about uncertain futures. It can be equally hard on their relatives, most of whom put their lives on hold to spend seemingly endless months at the hospital.

Many came to Walter Reed on just a few days’ notice and have been there since. Some have quit jobs, left children behind with relatives and even risked losing a home to be there. Suddenly, they are thrust into the demanding role of caretaker.

“It’s not just the soldier, it’s also the family that is absolutely in shock and has no idea how to deal with this,” said Vivian Wilson, manager of the three Fisher House group homes on the post.

Resembling large homes, the Fisher Houses are meant to give outpatient soldiers and their families some semblance of a normal life during their long stays at Walter Reed. The Rockville, Md.-based Fisher House Foundation runs similar houses at every major military medical center.

The red-brick buildings have a total of 27 suites for soldiers and their families, large communal kitchens and dining rooms. Priority is given to soldiers with long stays at Walter Reed, often amputees learning to adjust to prosthetics. Private donations allow them to stay and eat their meals for free.

Fisher House and Walter Reed schedule a host of trips into Washington, visits from veterans and social activities as a diversion from the regimen of hospital visits.

Relatives can go to the hospital for counseling. But most choose not to, Wilson said. Instead, they seek each other out for an informal sort of group therapy. They gather on the spacious patio of Fisher House III when the weather is good, over morning coffee or in the evenings. They talk about how physical therapy is going, trade stories, and sometimes, share their pain. Some have formed close friendships with other soldiers and families.

“You’d think you would be 100 percent engulfed in your own grief,” said Michael Carroll of Idaho Springs, Colo., who is at Fisher House with his son, Lance Cpl. Sean Carroll. “But people go outside their own tragedies to connect with each other.”

Sean Carroll, 19, lost a leg, several fingers and was riddled with shrapnel in March when his unit was attacked. Doctors gave him just a 50 percent chance of surviving a flight from a hospital in Germany to the United States. He spent 58 days in a coma and now moves around in a wheelchair.

When his grandmother, Phyllis Schmidt, learned he was hurt, she immediately went into her the bedroom of her home in Payson, Ariz., to pack. The retired nurse has spent most of the past five months with her grandson, her sole focus helping him recover.

“I was with him when he took his first steps as a baby,” she said. “And I was with him when he took his first step with his prosthetic leg. It was wonderful to see that.”

Lee Pingleton of Sacramento, Calif., said she wept almost every day when her son, Charles, first arrived in December at Walter Reed. A suicide bombing blew a door into his head, damaging his brain. When his mother first saw him, he couldn’t remember anyone in his family. She showed him pictures for weeks to remind him who he was.

Charles Pingleton’s memory is coming back, slowly. But his mother is anxious that he may never fully recover. She frets when he is out of her sight.

“Every time he goes someplace and doesn’t come back on time, I worry,” she said. “I don’t sleep through the night anymore.”

The long stay at Walter Reed has been a culture shock for Sgt. William Kyle Colvin, 26, and his family. His wife is German and had spent only a few weeks in the United States before her husband injured his leg in a truck accident.

The Colvins have been at Walter Reed five months, long enough for their 2 1/2-year-old daughter to grow out of some of her clothes. His wife, Nicole, is headed back to Germany to pack up their house to prepare for a previously unplanned move to Kentucky, Colvin’s home state.

“To go from living in a whole different culture to the U.S. is such a big change. I can only imagine how hard it is on her,” he said.

The Peppers have also seen the future they had plotted out disappear. He planned to serve 20 years in the Army before retiring with a full pension. Now, totally blind, Pepper will be forced to leave the military with a medical retirement.

The couple isn’t sure what they’ll do when they leave Walter Reed. Heather quit her job to take care of her husband, and left their young daughter behind in Germany, where Sgt. Pepper was posted, with her parents.

Pepper is gradually learning to do small things for himself, like make his breakfast and shower by himself. Doctors have given him a prosthetic eye and he is awaiting a second. But Heather still has to be with him at almost all times.

It doesn’t bother either of them, though. The time they spend together, the reliance they have built on each other has brought them closer than they have ever been in their six-year marriage.

“If she wasn’t here to support me, I’d probably still be in the hospital,” said Pepper, between puffs on his cigarette. “She’s my everything right now.”




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-comnews-339956.php


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marine Lance Cpl. Jonathan Collins <br />
<br />
<br />
One of the last images Jonathan Collins' parents have of their son is a picture of the Marine surrounded by laughing Iraqi children.&quot;Here he has this huge...

[thedrifter]

September 08, 2004

Iraq deaths reach 1,000; planes pound Fallujah

By Hamza Hendawi
Associated Press


BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. warplanes hammered suspected militant strongholds in Fallujah on Wednesday after a suicide bombing there and a spate of attacks in Baghdad pushed the number of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq campaign past 1,000.
Sporadic explosions lit up the sky throughout the night and several buildings were razed to the ground. A thick plume of smoke rose from the city early Wednesday after American jets struck a suspected militant stronghold used to plan attacks on American forces, the military said.

Hospital officials said at least six people were killed and 11 wounded since the strikes began late Tuesday.

Residents huddled in their homes as planes repeatedly swooped over eastern and southern neighborhoods of Fallujah, a hotbed of Sunni insurgents, witnesses said.

Wednesday’s airstrikes targeted a militant “command and control headquarters that has recently been coordinating attacks” against coalition forces, the military said in a statement.

Late Tuesday, U.S. jets dropped several bombs and tank and artillery units fired rounds into the city in retaliation for militant attacks on Marine positions outside the city, said Marine spokesman Lt. Col T.V. Johnson.

Johnson said in a statement that “significant numbers of enemy fighters (up to 100) are estimated to have been killed” by Tuesday’s shelling. The claim could not be verified, and Johnson acknowledged that U.S. forces have not entered the city of Fallujah itself.

The military said it had no information about casualties from Wednesday’s strikes.

U.S. forces pulled out of Fallujah after ending a three-week siege in April following the slaughter of four American security contractors in the city. But stiff resistance and political backlash forced the Americans to abandon the siege, and the militants emerged stronger than ever.

Fighting with Sunni and Shiite insurgents killed eight Americans in the Baghdad area on Tuesday and Wednesday, pushing the American death count to 1,003. That number includes 1,000 U.S. troops and three civilians, two working for the Army and one for the Air Force. The tally was compiled by The Associated Press based on Pentagon records and AP reporting from Iraq.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld cited progress on several fronts in the Bush administration’s global war on terrorism and said U.S. enemies should not underestimate the willingness of the American people and its coalition allies to suffer casualties in Iraq and elsewhere.

“The progress has prompted a backlash, in effect, from those who hope that at some point we might conclude that the pain and the cost of this fight isn’t worth it,” Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference. “Well, our enemies have underestimated our country, our coalition. They have failed to understand the character of our people. And they certainly misread our commander in chief.”

The Bush administration has long linked the Iraq conflict to the war on terrorism. The Sept. 11 Commission, however, concluded that Iraq and al-Qaida did not have a “collaborative relationship” before the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, and some have questioned to what extent foreign terror groups are involved in the anti-U.S. insurgency in Iraq.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry issued a statement saying the United States joined the friends and families of those who died in mourning their loss.

“Today marks a tragic milestone in the war in Iraq. More than one thousand of Americas sons and daughters have made the ultimate sacrifice. Our nation honors their service and joins with their families and loved ones in mourning their loss,” Kerry said.

“We must never forget the price they have paid. And we must meet our sacred obligation to all our troops to do all we can to make the right decisions in Iraq so that we can bring them home as soon as possible.”

The 1,003 figure includes deaths from hostile and non-hostile causes since the United States launched the Iraq campaign in March 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime. All but 138 of the U.S. deaths came after Bush’s May 1, 2003 declaration of an end to major combat operations after Saddam fell.

The grim 1,000 mark was surpassed after a surge in fighting, which has killed a total 17 U.S. service members in the past four days in a spate of attacks in Baghdad and a suicide bombing near Fallujah.

The guns fell silent Wednesday in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City, however, a day after two soldiers were killed in fierce clashes with fighters loyal to rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles patrolled the streets Wednesday.

The return of calm came after al-Sadr’s militia announced a unilateral cease-fire but warned it would fight back in self defense.

In Rome, meanwhile, Pope John Paul II led prayers Wednesday for the release of two female Italian aid workers who were seized from their Baghdad offices by camouflage-clad gunmen a day earlier.

Jean-Dominique Bunel, a spokesman for the NGO Coordination Committee, said Wednesday there was no indication on who was behind the abduction of Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, both 29.

“We have no information at all,” he said. The pair worked for an Italian NGO working on water and sewage projects.

It was only the second known kidnapping of foreign women since a wave of hostage-takings began this year. A female Japanese aid worker was captured in Fallujah in April but was released a week later.

In other violence Wednesday, gunmen kidnapped the Anbar province’s deputy governor Wednesday in the latest assault on officials connected to Iraq’s interim government, the Interior Ministry said.

Gunmen opened fire on Bassil Ahmed’s car and seized him after the vehicle stopped, Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdel Rahman said. Ahmed’s son was injured during the shooting.

In Baghdad, gunmen killed the assistant director of the Interior Ministry’s criminal investigation department early Wednesday after opening fire on his car as he headed to work, Rahman said.

Col. Ismail al-Ayal was ambushed near his home in the city’s western Ghazaliya district, Rahman said.

Insurgents have targeted police and civic officials because they are seen as collaborators with American forces.

West of Baghdad, American troops sealed off a road to investigate an attack on U.S. forces that set a Humvee on fire, Associated Press Television News footage showed. The U.S. military had no immediate comment. There was no word of casualties.




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Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-342228.php


Ellie

[thedrifter]

September 07, 2004

Marines’ August death toll exceeds Army’s

By Robert Burns
Associated Press


The Marines suffered more deaths in Iraq last month than the Army, even though the Army had at least three times as many troops there, Pentagon casualty records show. The trend has continued this month. Eleven of the first 17 U.S. military deaths have been Marines, including seven who perished Monday in a suicide car bombing near the city of Fallujah.
August was the only month, aside from March 2003 when the U.S. invasion was launched, in which Marine deaths in Iraq exceeded those of the Army. It is difficult to pinpoint the reasons for the unusually high death toll for the Marines because they limit details on the circumstances of battle deaths to either “enemy action” or “non-combat related.” The Army specifies the type of weapon that caused the death as well as the city where it happened.

The vast majority of Marine deaths in August — 24 of the 33 total — were in the western province of Anbar, which includes the restive cities of Fallujah and Ramadi as well as dangerous areas on the Syrian border where Marines patrol to keep out foreign infiltrators and smugglers.

Fallujah was the scene of devastating clashes last spring until the Marines pulled out. Since then resistance fighters have deposed the city’s U.S.-backed leaders and the United States has launched airstrikes at safehouses thought to be used by followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the militant believed responsible for bombings, kidnappings and other violence in Iraq.

The Marines are no longer in Fallujah but have been attacked many times outside the city.

Last month, Marines took the lead in ferocious fighting around Najaf, the holy city in south-central Iraq where radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia battled U.S. and American-backed Iraqi forces for three weeks before a peace deal was arranged.

But that did not account for the increase in Marine casualties. Seven of the 33 Marines who died in Iraq in August were in the Najaf fighting; the Army had five of its 30 losses there.

The total U.S. military death toll for the entire Iraq conflict is nearing 1,000, and the rate of increase has not slackened since Iraqi sovereignty was restored June 28.

Forty-two U.S. troops died in Iraq in June, 54 in July and at least 64 in August. And the number of troops wounded in Iraq is approaching 7,000.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged to reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday that there has been a recent increase in U.S. and Iraqi casualties. “The enemy is becoming more sophisticated in its efforts to destabilize the country,” Myers said.

Six times as many U.S. troops have died in Iraq since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1, 2003 as died during the initial phase of the war. When Bush made his declaration, the insurgency had not yet taken hold and most Americans thought the war was essentially over.

Marines and soldiers are still getting killed by insurgents using rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and roadside bombs in Baghdad, Mosul, Samarra and other cities and villages. The bombs — improvised devices often armed with 155mm artillery shells — are placed along roadways and disguised, often detonating as U.S. or Iraqi government troops approach.

The lone Air Force death in Iraq in August was caused by a roadside bomb near Mosul in northern Iraq. It killed Airman 1st Class Carl L. Anderson, Jr., 21, of Georgetown, S.C., on Aug. 29. A day later, Army Staff Sgt. Aaron N. Holleyman, 26, of Glasgow, Mont., was killed when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb. He was a member of the elite 5th Special Forces Group.

As an example of the roadside bomb problem, the Army’s 1st Infantry Division said Friday that soldiers near the city of Tikrit found one that was rolled up in tire rubber and another wrapped in a burlap bag. Both were made from 155mm shells; they were disarmed by explosives experts.

Away from the spotlight on the insurgency in Najaf and areas in and around Baghdad in August, a number of Marines were killed in far western Iraq, near the Syrian border.

They included Lance Cpl. Joseph L. Nice, 19, of Nicoma Park, Okla., and Gunnery Sgt. Elia P. Fontecchio, 30, of Milford, Mass., who were killed within a half-hour of each other Aug. 4 at Qaim, near the Syrian border. Fontecchio was felled by a roadside bomb and Nice by a sniper’s bullet, according to the Washington Post, which recently reported from the Qaim area.

Nice and Fontecchio were among three from the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment of the 1st Marine Division who were killed in August. The unit, which is returning home after seven months in Iraq, lost two more Sept. 3. They have had 18 killed since they arrived in Iraq, compared with just one lost during the battalion’s first deployment to Iraq in 2003.

Another Marine unit operating near the Syrian border, the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, lost two men in August. That unit has been overseeing construction of forts along the border to be used as headquarters by Iraqi border patrol units.




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Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-341241.php


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Local reservist puts duty before college
Profiling Fort Collins' own
By KEVIN DUGGAN
KevinDuggan@coloradoan.com
A call to duty has put Adam Newsome's education on hold -- again.
Newsome, a Fort Collins resident and student at Colorado State University, last week shipped out with a U.S. Marine Corps Reserve unit bound for Iraq. This will be his second tour of duty with the reserves in the Middle East in the past two years.

"After the first time, I didn't think I'd get called up so soon," Newsome said in a telephone interview from Camp Pendleton, the sprawling Marine base north of San Diego. "I just want to get over there, do the job and get on with school."

Newsome, 23, is a 1999 graduate of Fort Collins High School, where he played varsity basketball. He joined the Marines in 2000 because of the educational benefits offered by the service. Following boot camp, he was assigned to the Reserve.

After attending Eastern Wyoming College in Torrington and receiving an associate's degree in general studies, he enrolled at CSU in the College of Business as a marketing major in 2002.

He was first called up to duty in January 2003. His Reserve unit, which is based out of Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, specializes in reading computer imagery taken from aircraft and satellites.

Newsome, a corporal, spent six months in Kuwait. Following his tour, he returned to Fort Collins to continue his studies.

But he was called up again in July. Newsome said he had to pull out of a summer school class to answer the call.

Just 15 credit hours short of his degree, Newsome said he planned to graduate in December. Now graduation will be put off. But the delay does not bother him.

"I want to do my duty," he said. "School is going to be there when I come back. I have my college education, but I've learned a lot in the Marines, too."

Newsome's father, Steve Newsome, of Exeter, Calif., said it will be hard having his son overseas again.

"I'm concerned about his safety," Steve Newsome said. "But he's doing what he wants to do, and he's serving his country. I'm very proud of him."

Balancing his education and duties as a Marine reservist has been a challenge, Newsome said. Some of his friends did not realize he was in the Reserve, so his latest call-up came as a surprise to them.

Newsome could not disclose where he was headed this time around, other than to say central Iraq. He also couldn't say what he would be doing -- other than it would be related to intelligence -- or how long he would be there.

The ongoing violence in Iraq is a concern, Newsome said, but it comes with the job.

"I feel more comfortable since I've been to the Middle East before. I know what to expect," he said. "It's always good to be a little nervous. You don't want to be complacent."


Originally published Monday, September 6, 2004


http://www.coloradoan.com/news/stories/20040906/news/1186496-551069.jpg

http://www.coloradoan.com/news/stories/20040906/news/1186496.html


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Warrior’s death puts unit at risk
Pfc. Lucian Friel
Combat Correspondent

It’s Labor Day weekend and a Marine is at home visiting friends before he and his unit deploy.
He has a few drinks at the local bars, unwisely driving from place to place. By the end of the night, he and his friends have visited more than seven bars having at least two beers in each establishment.

Refusing to call a cab, the intoxicated platoon sergeant stumbles to his vehicle and slides behind the wheel as his friends climb into the passenger seats. For a moment he questions his ability to drive, but quickly says to himself, “I’ve driven drunker than this before.”

Starting the car, he quickly pulls out of the parking lot. The squealing tires echo throughout the entire neighborhood as he races home. He reaches speeds of more than 70 miles per hour when suddenly he loses control of the vehicle, driving head-on into a telephone pole only three blocks from the bar.

The platoon sergeant’s head smacks the steering wheel before the air bag goes off, killing him on impact.
This scenario sets up the question, how would the death of a Marine prior to deployment affect the morale of his unit?

“It would obviously have a detrimental effect on the Marines in the platoon,” said 1st Lt. Joshua D. Winfrey, executive officer of L Company, 3rd Battalion, 2d Marine Regiment. “They would have a tough time dealing with it before going into combat, physiologically and emotionally.
“If the other Marines in the unit had worked with the platoon sergeant and developed a bond and a trust with him, it would be difficult to get over,” Winfrey explained.

The platoon sergeant is the connection between the enlisted Marines and the platoon commander. If that link in the chain of command were taken away, it would severely affect the platoon commander’s ability to get things done, according to Winfrey.

“A loss of a platoon sergeant would severely damage the effectiveness of a platoon because we wouldn’t have the same guidance we trusted him to give us,” said Cpl. Eric A. Ohene-Eekoe, a machine gunner with Weapons Co., 2d Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment.

Marines that train and work together develop a special bond of trust between one another. If a Marine were to be killed before a platoon deploys, that platoon would have to find someone from somewhere else, bringing in a Marine who has not established that connection.
“Marines wouldn’t be used to this new platoon sergeant so close to deployment, they wouldn’t have time to make the bond and connection with him that is so important in combat,” said the 20-year-old corporal from Bronx, N.Y. “They might not respond to the new platoon sergeant as well because they wouldn’t know him and would have to get used to the way he leads.”

Squad leaders would have to use the tragic accident as an example for the Marines in their squads and explain to them that if they make a costly decision it could destroy the morale of every Marine that depends on them, according to Ohene-Eekoe.

The effects of losing a Marine impacts more than just morale in a unit; it also effects the decisions made to accomplish the mission during deployment.
“From a decision making standpoint, decisions in combat would be more difficult to make if you had to replace him,” Winfrey said. “He is a platoon commander’s right- hand man and he knows the Marines better than someone who would replace him.”

On our own streets and highways, the 2d Marine Expeditionary Force has lost more than 15 Marines due to reckless and careless driving since the beginning of the fiscal year.

Every Marine regardless of rank and billet is an asset to the overall effort in rebuilding Iraq.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re the platoon commander, platoon sergeant, fire team leader or an ammunition man; if we were to lose you before we deploy, it would greatly affect the overall abilities of the unit to be effective,” explained Ohene-Eekoe.

Marines are too valuable to be taken from this world for something that can easily be prevented by using common sense. Every time a Marine thinks about doing something that could ruin their life, he should think about how his decision could affect his unit as a whole and the Marines who depend on him, explained Winfrey.

http://militarynews.com/globe/mainside.html


Ellie

[thedrifter]

MANY FACES, ONE HEARTACHE
From coast to coast and beyond, families are torn over love and patriotism as the list of Iraq war dead grows.

By John Balzar, Times Staff Writer


He was older than we expected. But not really older, because that's the way of war. Given the era in which he served, "he" was a "she" sometimes. Lacquered in grimy coats of sand and sweat and dust and sometimes tears of pain, he wore a rainbow of skin colors. Not that it mattered a whit. Through the din of shellfire, the clatter of war's machinery and the scream of battle, he spoke with many accents. This didn't matter either, except to tell of the culture of his homeland. He was a full-timer, and he was a part-timer too. Driven by hope, driven by duty, driven by both, he volunteered for this, yes.

But he didn't volunteer for this. And now he is gone.

A thousand times over, one by agonizing one, or sometimes together as parts of a group, his life was cut short in the cause of his country.

On Tuesday, Sept. 7, homeland time, American fatalities in Iraq reached a milestone of 1,000 — 997 uniformed troops and three civilian employees of the Department of Defense, the White House said. Associated Press, using informal as well as official sources, reported early today that the toll had risen to 1,003.

In mythical America, that's equivalent to an entire heartland farming town. Or the student body of a big-city high school.

In the real-life of the country, the toll has meant loss from coast to coast and beyond to distant territories at the rate of 13 dead each week for nearly 18 months now.

California's loss has been greatest, 118 and counting.

Because the names and circumstances of the most recent casualties have not been released, the portrait of American war deaths accounts for 983 of the 1,003.

Of these, 24 were women. An Associated Press analysis and its "War Casualty Database" list 711 combat deaths. The rest resulted from accidents, friendly fire, illness or suicide.

The oldest was 59 and the youngest 18, too young to legally consume a beer in many states. More than half were felled before they reached the age of 30.

All but 138 deaths occurred after May 1, 2003, when President Bush stood under a banner that declared "mission accomplished." He announced an end to major combat operations in Iraq.

Tuesday's casualty count included one soldier killed in a rocket-propelled-grenade attack in Baghdad's Sadr City, a military police officer shot to death in western Baghdad, a soldier who died in an attack in eastern Baghdad and yet another who died of wounds sustained during a bombing the night before.

On Monday, seven Marines were killed in a car bomb attack near Fallouja and three soldiers died in other scattered attacks.

In the half-century-plus since World War II, America's armed conflicts have been, like this one, controversial. But not, for the most part, the nation's reverence for its battlefield deaths. The fallen continue to be honored by the long-lasting echo of Winston Churchill: " 'Not in vain' may be the pride of those who have survived and the epitaph of those who fell."

"My heart is broken every time I hear another family is going to have to face what we've faced," said De'on Miller of Lovington, N.M. Her son, Marine Lance Cpl. Aaron Austin, was killed in April. "I just hope that they're as proud of their son's service as we were for Aaron."

Asked what advice she could offer families who will next endure the dreaded knock on the front door from the military's casualty notification teams, Miller replied, "Find comfort in each other and your faith and the fact that the world is with you. These times really hurt, but you're not alone."

Families aren't the only ones shaken by the rising casualty numbers.

"We're losing so many boys. It isn't only one Marine that's killed — it affects a whole family. Even my neighbors were affected," said Liz Ceniceros, a resident of East Los Angeles and the widow of Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Manuel Ceniceros, who was killed in hostile action June 26.

"I understand why we went over there. I'm torn between the love of my husband and the honor of being an American," she said. "By all means, whatever it takes to protect our country and our freedom. But if we're going to lose so many men and women, maybe we ought to step back and take a harder look at this."

Eric Blickenstaff, of Portland, Ore., said the time for looking had passed. His younger brother, Army Spc. Joseph M. Blickenstaff, drowned in December when his Stryker armored vehicle tumbled into an irrigation canal. Eric has since joined the antiwar group Military Families Speak Out.

"I think up until now people have tried to ignore the death toll," Blickenstaff said. "I don't think people really want to know. They don't want to know what the true cost of this war is…. They will tell you that your relative died for a good cause, but I think they say that to make themselves feel good. They don't want to feel like they were deceived."

America's modern military beckons volunteers for a host of reasons, from patriotism to job training. For a few, there is another motive.

So far in this war, at least 10 immigrants died fighting under the flag of the United States in the quest for citizenship, according to AP's database analysis.

From here in the Western part of the nation, 21 of the dead came from Oregon, three from Nevada, four from Wyoming, eight from Idaho, five from Utah, 20 from Washington state, four from New Mexico, 14 from Colorado, four from Montana. Texas has lost 84 men and women, second only to California. The Marianas Protectorate reported the loss of one resident. Though not complete, the tally shows that every state in the union has been touched by deaths except Alaska.

Roughly 7,000 others have been wounded, some left forever disabled.

U.S. coalition partners have lost 125 people, just more than half of them British.

About 18% of the Americans killed were part-timers in the military, 110 from the National Guard and 74 reservists. By branch of service, the Army has lost 715 troops; the Marines, 234; the Navy, 21; the Air Force, 12; and the Coast Guard, one.

Beyond the borders of Iraq, the U.S. military has reported 135 deaths in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines and elsewhere as a result of post-Sept. 11 operations.

Of the U.S. casualties in Iraq, information on racial demographics is current only through mid-August, but shows this: 655 of those who died were white, 122 were black, 113 were Hispanic or Latino, 22 were Asian, 10 were American Indian and eight were Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. Among the dead were the first Native American woman killed in combat in the uniform of the U.S. military and a Sioux who traced his ancestry to chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull.

The names to be enshrined in some war memorial of the future begin with Genaro Acosta, of Fair Oaks, Calif., and continue through the alphabet to Andrew Zabierek, of Chelmsford, Mass. In between, one can read the roll call of contemporary America: Rasheed Sahib, of New York City; Juan Lopez, of Whitfield, Ga.; Christopher J. Holland, of Brunswick, Ga.; Nichole M. Frye, of Lena, Wis.

For those who have been on hand in the deserts and cities and mountains of Iraq in the days since the March 20, 2003, invasion, these deaths were both predictable — the military makes estimates of potential casualties in its operations — and startling, because they did not let themselves believe it would be them.

In the aftermath, buddies recall what turn out to be last conversations. They look at an empty seat in a Humvee where their friends always rode. For a while anyway, the empty spaces are almost palpable enough to see. At headquarters, a wax pencil adds a number to an acetate chart. Chances are that by the time a wife or a husband, children, brothers and sisters and father and mother can react, the remains are already en route out of the war zone.

Back home, families are left to cope with both the agony of their loss and the cutting cross-currents of an uncertain nation's politics.

Jeff Reed, a deputy sheriff in Tracy, Calif., lost his nephew Army Pfc. Jesse Jack Martinez in a vehicle rollover July 14. "My nephew was over there for what he believed were the right reasons…. He believed that he would make a difference if we would deal with the insurgencies now rather than later."

With equal resolve, Celeste Lawrence of Tucson argued, "My husband died so our country could be safe. Every one of the 1,000 died for that reason." Lawrence gave birth to a daughter, Cadence Freedom, just days after the July death of her spouse, Marine Cpl. Jeffrey Lawrence.

Not everyone endures their suffering with such certainty of mind.

"I just don't know what to think. Part of me wants to support the war, but part of me doesn't," said Elena Zurheide of Camp Pendleton. She too gave birth to a child, a son, Robert Paul, days after losing her husband, Lance Cpl. Robert Zurheide, in April. "My whole view changed when my husband died."

And for some, there's anger. "Most Americans are in a stupor and they're not following this [body count]. They'll feel different though when it's their own child," said Jane Bright of West Hills. Her son, Army Sgt. Evan Ashcraft, died in July in an ambush in northern Iraq.

"Unless you've lost a child there's no way to understand what it's like," she continued. " … Not only is there this terrible void and emptiness, and this pain I see in my other son's eyes — there's also this misrepresentation and obfuscation of the war happening at the same time. It's incredibly painful. I don't have words in my vocabulary to describe it."

For many Americans, the growing casualty count is a matter of foreboding.

Angela Talley, 21, was in tears Tuesday. Her husband, Marine Lance Cpl. William Talley, leaves Camp Pendleton next week for duty in Iraq.

"It's not good," she sobbed. "Our son is only 11 days old. It's all very frightening."

*


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Times staff writers Tony Perry, Wendy Thermos and Monte Morin contributed to this report.

http://www.latimes.com/news/yahoo/la-fg-dead8sep08,1,2194799.story


Ellie

[thedrifter]

EDITORIAL
A Thousand Troops

Six U.S. soldiers were killed, two Italian aid workers were kidnapped and warplanes bombed a Sunni enclave in Fallouja, a city mostly off-limits to coalition troops. It was just another day in the war Tuesday, except for the numbers. By this morning, Iraq time, the Associated Press count of casualties stated that 1,000 U.S. troops had been killed in Iraq, aside from more than 100 other coalition soldiers and thousands of Iraqi noncombatants. And many thousands more have been wounded.



It is an obvious point at which to ask: To what end are U.S. personnel continuing to die? What is it that commanders should tell their troops as they head into lethal streets?

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday that violence was increasing because insurgents viewed peaceful balloting, set for January, and a democratic constitution as enemies. That conclusion is debatable, perhaps even a smoke screen. What's not in doubt is insurgents' view of U.S. troops as the enemy. It's a belief that unites adherents of the Sunni brand of Islam, who have forced coalition troops out of much or all of the cities of Fallouja, Ramadi and Samarra, and the Shiite Muslims who fought the Americans in the sacred city of Najaf.

U.S. withdrawals have been not the result of military defeat but of political calculation, with interim Iraqi governments fearing the anger that all-out assaults would generate. That's a valid calculation, but it raises the question of mission. Rumsfeld says soldiers and Marines conduct thousands of patrols a day. They arrest insurgents, he says, and also help repair water and sewer lines and build schools. But as other writers have noted, imagine the Republican reaction to the withdrawals and pullbacks if a Democrat in the White House had ordered them.

The U.S. will not win a war of attrition. Such wars do not favor occupying armies. Enclaves off-limits to soldiers give insurgents staging areas; it was just outside Fallouja that seven Marines in a military convoy died along with three Iraqi national guard members Monday, the deadliest attack on U.S. forces since late April. An attempt to put Iraqi soldiers into the city to battle the Taliban-like Sunnis who run Fallouja failed.

Congress approved $18.4 billion last November to rebuild Iraq, but because of the danger in working for the U.S., little of it has been spent. Now the White House may spend some to bolster security. Another proposal is to create more jobs for Iraqis. If more had been spent on jobs in the beginning, Iraq might be a different place now.

Invading nations have an obligation to try to repair the damage they cause, but armies also need a clearly defined mission. How much are U.S. troops supposed to rebuild? Are they still meant to install democracy? Or will the U.S. settle for any kind of political stability, even if repressive clerics rule the country? Such an outcome was unthinkable as the first troops rolled into Baghdad, yet it's now seriously discussed.

More Americans will die. Soldiers and Marines deserve to know, as they head out to face snipers and roadside bombs, what they're meant to accomplish for that price.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-iraq8sep08,1,6368819.story


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Americans and Iraqis Are Paying a Horrific Price

Re "Suicide Blast Kills 7 Marines," Sept. 7: All of these fine young men were from Camp Pendleton, the base that sits next door to our calm and peaceful seaside community, San Clemente. One of the soldiers was the future son-in-law of my dear friend. While she and I never discussed the war, we did not need to. Now the reality of this war was brought to her home with the loss of this fine young man. Her daughter will wake today to see the belongings he left behind, his scent everywhere, his presence embedded in her heart, her engagement ring on her finger. The families and friends of these two young people, as well as this community, are racked with pain and despair at this tremendous loss.

We cannot turn the tide with this administration. We can only tell our dear friend how truly and deeply sorry we are.

Denise Gee

San Clemente

*

Four weeks ago, my brother was killed in Iraq. He was a patriot. He was talented, and he was a good person. He died defending a Halliburton convoy near Basra in southern Iraq. I have to ask myself: What did he die for? George Bush lied to the American public about WMD. Iraq didn't have them. Bush lied to the American public about a connection between 9/11 and Iraq. There isn't any. And Bush broke international law by invading a foreign country.

My brother wrote many letters home before he was killed. One thing that was very disturbing about those letters is that he always mentioned the toll that this war is taking on the Iraqi people.

I don't think Americans realize how many people have died over there. Americans are killing thousands of people. Why?

Please think of all the innocent people when you vote this November. Then ask yourself if you, or someone you love, should die for this war.

(My brothers and I grew up in L.A.)

Bradley Parker

Salt Lake City

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-le-iraq8sep08,1,5119042.story


Ellie

[thedrifter]

House Panel Hears Commanders Laud Troops' Performance <br />
By John D. Banusiewicz <br />
American Forces Press Service <br />
<br />
WASHINGTON, Sept. 8, 2004 – Army and Marine Corps field commanders gave high marks to...