Fighting Words: Decoding Iraq War Lingo [Archive] - Marine Corps

thedrifter

01-04-05, 10:17 PM

Fighting Words: Decoding Iraq War Lingo
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Oddly Enough - Reuters
By Lin Noueihed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - "Hi Sergeant, we hear there are clashes in Baquba. Do you have any information on that?" screams the journalist down a bad mobile phone line from Baghdad.

"Well Ma'am, MNF and ISF engaged with AIF, who were planting IEDs, after coming under small arms fire," came the reply.

Confused? So was she.

The history of warfare is written in acronyms that cleanse the blood from gory wounds and strip the horror from bombs.

The Iraq war has spawned its very own alphabet soup of abbreviations and battlefield buzzwords intelligible only to the military and war correspondents trying to make sense of it all.

Many, like MNF, just make the longwinded multinational forces less of a mouthful.

Some, like IED, take the bang out of an improvised explosive device -- a makeshift bomb.

Others, like AIF, or anti-Iraqi forces, are part of the information war -- the U.S. military uses the phrase to describe insurgents.

Ready for a translation? "U.S. and Iraqi forces fought with insurgents who planted roadside bombs and fired guns."

Long the exclusive lingo of soldiers on battlefields and generals in command centers, the era of satellite television and instant Internet has brought the bewildering jumble of military jargon into living rooms the world over.

From the hunt for WMDs to the search for HVTs, high value targets such as Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), reporters "embedded" with U.S. military units since the 2003 invasion of Iraq have brought the language of war and occupation into the public consciousness.

The IED long predated the Iraq war, but as rebels get more creative, so tongue-twisting variations on classics are born.

VBIEDs, or vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, often spell death for Iraq's fledgling forces, who have borne the brunt of such rebel attacks. They are better known as car bombs.

If the bomber is still in the vehicle when it explodes, it is an SVBIED -- S for suicide. When the bomber straps the explosives to his person, he becomes a PBIED.

Since roadside bombs have emerged as the weapon of choice for insurgents attacking U.S. patrols, the military has begun to "up-armor" its "soft" vehicles. Sometimes soldiers harden their vehicles using odds and ends. This is "hillbilly armor."

When American soldiers are hit, they are often "medivaced" to the CASH, or combat support hospital. If they recover, they will end up RTDed, or returned to duty.

If not they become Angels, a euphemism U.S. military doctors use for troops killed in battle, and contender for Word of the Year 2004, the American Dialect Society's annual competition for the best new word.

Despite persistent bloodshed in Iraq, not all are fighting words. The new U.S.-backed bureaucracy has its own lingo.

When journalists in Iraq want information about the U.S.-led military, we call CPIC, the Combined Press Information Center.

They sometimes refer us to the IIG, or Iraqi Interim Government, which took over from the defunct occupation authority, the Coalition Provisional Authority, or CPA, in June.

In a month, Iraqis will elect a TNA, or Transitional National Assembly, which will appoint a new government and make a permanent constitution out of the TAL, or Transitional Administrative Law. Iraqis call the TAL the interim constitution.

The Iraqi government, as well as the U.S. and British embassies, are based in the Green Zone, a fortified compound considered safer than the rest of Baghdad, which is a Red Zone.

Six months ago, the Green Zone was officially renamed the International Zone. That name never stuck.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-04-05, 10:17 PM

1st FSSG commanding general adds a star 
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Submitted by: 1st Force Service Support Group 
Story by Lance Cpl. T. J....

thedrifter

01-04-05, 10:17 PM

Troops stationed in Iraq turn to gaming
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By Nick Wadhams, Associated Press

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq - Soon after the battle for Fallujah ended in November, U.S. Marines brought their Xbox consoles, Gameboys and laptops forward and started fighting the Covenant hordes in Halo, Mario and Luigi's worst enemies and those irksome roommates from The Sims.

At the Marine base several miles southeast, high-speed wires snake down hallways, through doors and out windows. The Navy engineers play Half-Life 2. At the gym, where seven Playstations get heavy use, Marines wage Madden NFL 2005 tournaments. Neverwinter Nights reigns in the public affairs office.

The video game generation has grown up and gone to war, taking along its preferred form of entertainment.

Never has that been clearer than during the current Iraq conflict and at Camp Fallujah, where Marines and soldiers play because they've been playing all their lives. Games relieve both the stress of warfare and the crush of boredom.

"You keep focus on what we're here for, but you've got to go somewhere else sometimes," said Staff. Sgt. Robert Sloan, 26, a communications maintenance chief from McDonald, Ohio. "Sometimes you read too many books."

Games are as ubiquitous at Camp Fallujah and around it as tattoos, buzz cuts and shouts of "Hoorah" from one Marine to another. When the power goes out, a Humvee battery and a pair of alligator clips are all the resourceful gamer needs to resume the digitized fight.

The military has long brought the newest technology with it to war zones - and then provided for those who forgot to bring what they wanted. At the post-exchange in Camp Fallujah, a stack of Playstations and Xboxes share an aisle with DVD players, televisions and microwave ovens.

The "Game Zone" sits in the corner, stocked with some 20 game titles across the aisle from racks full of box sets from the band Nirvana and DVDs of the 70s TV comedy Three's Company.

"Everything we get in sells right out. Entertainment is entertainment," said Staff Sgt. Franklin Williams, an exchange specialist at the P/X. "They like the latest games - military games, car games, everything with speed."

Psychologists who treat combat stress recommend video games for Marines to unwind and boost morale.

"I always talk to people about all kinds of positive, pleasant events that they can use," said Lt. Erin Simmons, a psychologist with Bravo Surgical Company. "I've heard some people say they like to play the video games with the aggressive military content. I've also heard people say they don't want to play those types of games, they don't need to be reminded of it. But as far as a pleasant event, it can take their mind of things, help them relax. We encourage it."

The activity is highly social as service personnel place bets on the outcome of sports games and jeer at one another during multiplayer rounds of Halo.

It also helps alleviate homesickness. A "Morale, Welfare and Recreation" center just off the gym is filled with Playstation 2 consoles. Marines back from the fight stop in for a few hours to unwind.

The military awoke to the power of video games years ago.

It developed America's Army as a recruitment tool, giving civilians a taste of the soldier life with scenarios that let players cooperate online in raids on guerrilla camps and bridges, among several other scenarios.

Some branches of the service have incorporated games into their training and then sold off commercial versions - "Operation Flashpoint" was one, and the Marines for the first time are helping produce their own game, called Close Combat: First to Fight.

On the base, Marines who have seen combat say they were aided by games they had played beforehand. Those games, they say, taught them how quickly something can go wrong.

For instance, in the hyper-realistic SOCOM 2: U.S. Navy Seals for the Playstation 2, players issue commands to their teams in a highly coordinated ballet of violence.

"When we cover houses, you got your guys coming in behind you covering your flank," said Lance Cpl. Patrick Hopper, 23. "When you take over a house and you're playing SOCOM, you kind of get used to it when you get there."

Certainly some games are more popular than others. Few people had purchased the puzzle game Tetris Worlds or The Hobbit, which is aimed at kids. Rows of Nintendo's Metroid Prime: Echoes for the GameCube console went untouched, probably because the Xbox and Playstation are far more popular here.

Thirty copies of Halo 2 disappeared in hours. Some soldiers bought the game even though they didn't even have an Xbox, while others bought an Xbox just so they could play.

But Marines scoff at the idea that games could somehow prepare them for combat in any significant way. In video games, they say, players are generally willing to risk their lives; that wasn't always the case in Fallujah.

"When bullets are zooming by you, there's nothing like it," said Sgt. Jeffery Mickel, 27. "Some guys get scared and take cover, other guys go right ahead and take care of the threat."

Games have also not caught up with reality: civilians blending in with insurgents, and soldiers not being able to distinguish between them.

Nor do games cover the types of scenarios faced in the combat.

"In a game, you can die and press start and go all over again. This is a little bit different," said Sgt. James Atakoglu, 28, who drove a bulldozer during the battle for Fallujah, often smashing down buildings where insurgents were believed to be hiding. "I don't think games are going to have a dozer crashing into a building."

Ellie

thedrifter

01-04-05, 10:19 PM

Marine from Michigan jailed for refusing to pick up weapon
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WOOD TV
Jan. 4, 2005

RALEIGH, N.C. A Marine corporal from Michigan who refused to get a weapon from an armory is serving a seven-month sentence in the brig at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

Corporal Joel Klimkewicz, of Birch Run in Saginaw County, says he's become a conscientious objector since joining the Seventh-Day Adventist Church.He says that's why he couldn't obey an April-2003 order to draw a weapon from his unit's armory for training in preparation for an Iraq deployment. Klimkewicz was sentenced last month after a court-martial. A Camp Lejeune spokesman says the Marines didn't grant conscientious objector status to Klimkewicz -- so his refusal to carry a weapon only amounted to disobeying an order.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-04-05, 10:19 PM

Tamil Tiger rebels accuse U.S. Marines of spying
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Wednesday January 5, 1:48 AM

Two ships full of Marines and heavy equipment steaming toward Sri Lanka were diverted due to reduced need for aid, officials said Tuesday, and instead bolstered the U.S. task force off western Sumatra, the area hardest-hit by last week's tsunami.

But the highly sensitive nature of the U.S. relief mission in southern Asia was highlighted when a spokesman for Sri Lanka's rebels, the Tamil Tigers _ considered a terrorist organization by Washington _ said that the troops were being sent as spies to help put down their insurgency.

U.S. officials insisted that the diversion of two ships had nothing to do with the Tamil Tigers' allegations, and that rerouting the USS Bonhomme Richard and the USS Duluth followed the Sri Lankan government scaling down its request for help.

The ships will join the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its battlegroup off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, where Navy helicopters have flown dozens of relief and evacuation missions.

The USS Mount Rushmore, carrying a smaller contingent of Marines, will travel on to Sri Lanka alone. It was expected to cross the Indian Ocean by the weekend.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Richard Frayne said the change of plans was "purely a function of allocating the right resources in the right place."

"The military presence is strictly for humanitarian purposes," Frayne said. "The military will be operating in the south of the country to clear rubble and rebuild infrastructure and help Sri Lankans to recover from the tragedy."

But a Tamil rebel leader claimed that American troops, and those from neighboring India, being sent to help in the relief effort might use the operation as a cover to spy on the rebels, handing over intelligence to the government to help it fight the insurgents.

"The attempt by the American and Indian troops to land in Sri Lanka ... is totally based on their political and military interests," Nallathamby Srikantha told Voice of Tigers radio, the official rebel mouthpiece.

"They may try to collect details to help the government crush the Tamil national struggle in a future conflict," Srikantha said. "We have to think how America ... will use its troops here."

The United States and India both officially consider the Tamil Tigers, which control a large portion of Sri Lanka's north and east, to be a terrorist group.

Frayne said that the U.S. troops had no intention of going to Tiger-controlled zones.

The area of operations in Sumatra's Aceh province is also highly sensitive because of a long-standing insurgency there and severed military ties between Indonesia and the United States following East Timor's violence separation from the Southeast Asian country in 1999.

Previously restricted to outsiders, the Indonesian government was quick to open Aceh after the tsunami because it needed the help, but the image of large numbers of Marines pouring ashore would be politically sensitive to the predominantly Muslim nation.

Col. Thomas Greenwood, commanding officer of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard, said the Marines were aware of the concerns.

"We don't want to offend anybody's sensitivities," he said. "The alleviation of suffering and the loss of human lives should trump politics. We want to be helpful without being bothersome."

In southern Sri Lanka, a Marine survey team arrived Tuesday in the town of Galle.

Capt. Peter Wilson said he expected at least several hundred Marines to deploy in Galle to provide "limited engineering capability" by repairing roads and other damaged infrastructure, as well as help in the distribution of food.

The first helicopter flights off the Bonhomme Richard began relief operations on Tuesday, flying to the city of Medan on Sumatra, where more than 100,000 people are feared dead and a million or more are homeless after the catastrophic Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami. About a dozen countries were hit by the waves, and the death toll is expected to top 150,000.

The ship is carrying more than 1,300 Marines, tractors, trucks, water purifying equipment, plastic tarps and wood beams for building temporary shelters.

Also aboard are three hovercraft-type landing craft capable of putting the troops ashore by the hundred on almost any kind of beach.

"We the Marines are biting our nails," said Col. Thomas Greenwood, commanding officer of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit. "We want to get in and start doing our job."

Associated Press writers Krishan Francis in Colombo and Christopher Torchia in Galle, Sri Lanka, contributed to this story.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-04-05, 10:20 PM

Hurdles impede Marines on relief mission
By ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press Writer
(Updated Tuesday, January 4, 2005, 1:05 PM)

ABOARD THE USS BONHOMME RICHARD (AP) - Down in the hull, everything is ready: There are tractors, trucks and three huge landing craft. There's water purifying equipment and plastic tarps and wood beams for building temporary shelters.

And there are more than 1,300 Marines ready to take it all ashore and get to work helping tsunami survivors.

But in the political minefield of southern Asia, getting American boots on the ground is a delicate concept - even for a strictly humanitarian mission.

While U.S. military helicopters have been flying supplies to stricken villages in Indonesia for a few days, plans to land a Marine expeditionary unit on Sri Lanka were put on hold after that nation's government scaled back its request for help, possibly to avoid further strains on a shaky cease-fire with insurgents.

The island's Tamil Tiger rebels objected to the presence of troops from the United States or neighboring India, saying they could be used as spies for the government. The rebels, which control a large portion of northern and eastern Sri Lanka, detest the U.S. and Indian governments because both officially list the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist group.

American officials said the Marines never intended to go into rebel-controlled areas.

U.S. commanders had earmarked the amphibious assault ships Bonhomme Richard and Duluth to spearhead relief efforts off Sri Lanka's coast, but the ships have now joined the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its battle group off the hard-hit Indonesian island of Sumatra.

It's not clear the Marines will go ashore there, either. The image of large numbers of Marines on shore would be politically sensitive in the world's most populous Muslim nation, where many people oppose the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Col. Thomas Greenwood, commanding officer of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard the Bonhomme Richard, said the Marines are aware of concerns in the region.

"We don't want to offend anybody's sensitivities," he said. "The alleviation of suffering and the loss of human lives should trump politics. We want to be helpful without being bothersome."

Helicopters from the Bonhomme Richard began relief flights Tuesday over Sumatra, where more than 100,000 people are feared dead and a million or more are homeless after the catastrophic Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami.

U.S. military helicopters have been key to easing aid bottlenecks and getting supplies out.

But the Marines had hoped to put troops on the ground to provide badly needed manpower for clearing roads and airfields and for building shelters for refugees.

The Bonhomme Richard, carrying more than 1,300 Marines, has three big hovercraft that are capable of landing troops by the hundred on almost any kind of beach. All are fully loaded and ready to go.

For now, though, that capability will not be used. Instead, the ship's helicopters will continue to pick up supplies from regional airports where they have been piling up and ferry them to isolated villages.

Meanwhile, the USS Mount Rushmore, an amphibious ship carrying a smaller contingent of Marines, is going on to Sri Lanka alone and is expected to reach there by the weekend. An advance party of seven Marines - in civilian clothes - arrived in the southern town of Galle on Tuesday.

Capt. Peter Wilson said he expected at least several hundred Marines to deploy in Galle to provide "limited engineering capability" by repairing roads and other damaged infrastructure as well as help in distributing food.

"This is what Marines do. We like to help people," he said, citing assistance that U.S. troops gave after a deadly typhoon hit Bangladesh in 1991.

All told, about 20 U.S. military ships and more than 10,000 Marines and sailors have been mobilized for the Asian relief operation, which is the largest the U.S. military has conducted in Asia since the Vietnam War ended in 1975.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-04-05, 10:22 PM

If GySgt R. Lee Ermey was Presidential Press Secretary...
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Here is Retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant R. Lee Ermey at his first press conference as U.S. Press Secretary.

The main topic of discussion is the Marine in Iraq who shot the Iraq insurgent to death. We pick up as the reporter asks about how this potential war crime will effect our image in the world:

Ermey: "What kind of a pansy-azzed question is that?"

Reporter: "Well I think...."

Ermey: "THINK, Nancy boy? Get this through that septic tank on top of your shoulders moron, I DON'T GIVE A F***** WHAT YOU THINK, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME??? That Marine shot an ENEMY COMBATANT SH*THEAD, SO GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR AZZ AND DEAL WITH IT BEFORE I MAKE YOU MY OWN PERSONAL PIN CUSION!!!

Next question. You in the blue suit."

Reporter 2: Don't you think that the world's opinion of our operations is important?

Ermey: "Oh sure! You don't know the times I have cried myself to sleep worrying about what some g*ddamned French pansy thinks! Oh the days I have had to weep because some sh*t eating terrorist f*cker might be mad at us because we went into whatever god-forsaken hole in the sh*t that he lives in and killed him. WHAT THE HELL KIND OF DUMBAZZ QUESTION IS THAT YOU PETER PUFFING JACKAZZ?? WE ARE THE MOTHER F*CKING USA, AND WHEN YOU ATTACK US WE ARE GOING TO COME TO YOUR HOUSE AND BLOW YOUR STINKING CAMEL-LICKING CARCASS INTO PIECES SO SMALL WE WILL BE ABLE TO BURY YOUR SORRY AZZ IN A THIMBLE!!

I know what you are thinking. You are probably afraid, thinking that I have such an "extreme" attitude and that I need to be more "sensitive" to other people's feelings.

WELL LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING YOU POLE SMOKING PANSY! I DON'T GIVE 2 SH*TS WHAT YOU OR ANYBODY ELSE THINKS! THIS IS A DAMN WAR, AND IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE THAT YOU SHOULD GO HOME AND SUCK ON MAMMA'S TIT!! DO YOU HEAR ME YOU RUNT?? NOW GET THE F***** OUT OF MY PRESS ROOM BEFORE I GO CRAZY AND BEAT THE LIVING SH*T OUT OF YOU!!!

Next question, you with the ugly assed tie. Look at that thing. It is hideous."

Reporter 3: "Aren't you going against the freedom of the press by..."

Ermey: "FREEDOM?? WHAT IN BLUE HELL DO YOU KNOW ABOUT FREEDOM? I HAVE SWEATED MY *** OFF IN JUNGLES BEING SHOT AT FOR THIS NATION!! WHAT IN THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE YOU LITTLE SH*T SUCKING WEASEL? WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU PUT YOUR AZZ ON THE LINE FOR ANYTHING? AND YET YOU HAVE THE UNMITIGATED TEMERITY TO SHOW UP HERE AND MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK THE ACTIONS OF A MARINE WHO WAS DEFENDING HIMSELF AND HIS UNIT FROM ATTACK BY SOME MURDEROUS AL-QUEDA SYMPATHIZER!!! YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT I AM CONCERNED ABOUT NUMNUTS? I AM CONCERNED ABOUT A BUNCH OF GRABASSTIC, DISORGANIZED MORONS WITH CAMERAS AND MICROPHONES DOING THEIR BEST TO PORTRAY OUR BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN AS WAR CRIMINALS! I AM CONCERNED ABOUT CHICKEN SH*T PANSIES THAT WANT US TO NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS AND THEN WHINE ABOUT THEIR **** ANT "FREEDOMS"!!"

Reporter 3: "I..."

Ermey: "Did you have a big bowl of stupid for breakfast this morning numbnuts? I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANOTHER WORD OUT OF THAT COMMIE CRYHOLE IN THAT SH*TPILE YOU CALL A HEAD! AND THAT GOES TRIPLE FOR THE REST OF YOU PANSY-AZZED MORONS! NOW GET THE F***** OUT OF MY PRESS ROOM BEFORE I SHOVE MY BOOT SO FAR UP YOUR AZZ THAT YOU CHOKE TO DEATH ON MY SHOELACES!!!!"

Ellie

thedrifter

01-04-05, 10:22 PM

Send In The Clowns
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January 2, 2005
by Bob Newman

Two of the most frequent questions I am asked regarding my work as a military science and terrorism analyst are: "Why are your analyses and predictions so accurate?" and "How are you able to break so many stories before anyone else?"

Granted, some of the stories I've broken, which are oftentimes picked up by the mainstream media weeks or months later and reported as if they just broke the story, manage to stun certain people and organizations.

One such story was when I reported U.S. submarines were clandestinely posted off the coast of North Korea with orders to stand by to sink any ship exiting a North Korean port that intelligence said was carrying illicit nuclear weapons technology or components to another rogue state, such as Iran. This blew a lot of people's minds because it meant I knew where some of our subs were, what their mission was, and that the president had authorized the Pentagon to instruct their crews on the fact that they could be ordered to commit an act of war at any moment upon a country with which we are not at war. Three months after I reported this situation, a Japanese newspaper verified it upon interviewing one of the U.S. envoys involved in the multilateral talks between the North and South Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians and Americans.

I was immediately asked how I knew the president of the United States had secretly decided to make it U.S. policy to sink commercial vessels believed to be ferrying nuclear arms material between North Korea and an illegal buyer.

I've bugged the Oval Office, of course.

Not really. I have methods and sources just like any other investigative journalist. It's just that mine are better than most.

OK, so I have publicly broken stories and made 46 accurate analyses and predictions in the war on terror in 38 months. Why are so many people so amazed at this? There are many people who are very good at their jobs, which are jobs I have absolutely no idea how to do and, frankly, might very well never be able to learn.

I mean, a friend of mine is a retired scientist who helped make a probe fly through a comet's tail to collect data. Now how the hell did he do that?

My point-and I do have one-is that if you have decades of experience doing a certain thing, and many others in the same line of work simply can't match your record of success, their weaknesses tend to make you look even brighter.

Maybe you have detected them and maybe you haven't, but the media is packed with pretenders who have conned their way in front of cameras and microphones by padding their CVs and developing a slick delivery to those who don't know any better.

So it's not that I am some sort of war-on-terror Nostradamus; far from it. It's just that I am very fortunate to have been given opportunities many others never received, and I've learned how to parlay that experience into information people want. Typical Marine Corps self-confidence and initiative haven't hurt, either. And if the media keeps sending in the aforementioned clowns, who speak in broad generalities and know how to dazzle the easily impressed with glittery but meaningless military jargon, I will no doubt continue to look all the more clever, for which I must thank the rubes with whom I share the airwaves, ink and cyberspace.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-04-05, 10:23 PM

Univ. of Md. Campus to Show Iraq Photos
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By STEPHEN MANNING
The Porterville Reporter
Jan. 3, 2005

ADELPHI, Md. - When Maj. Benjamin Busch prepared for patrols in a region near the Iraq-Iran border, he strapped body armor 'across his chest, donned a Kevlar helmet and slung a gun over his shoulder. The Marine reservist also usually carried another key piece of gear _ his camera.

About 40 of his photos form the core of an art exhibit starting Friday at the University of Maryland University College. Titled "Art in War," the show runs through April 10 at the university's conference center and hotel.

Busch, a 36-year-old College Park resident, is scheduled to go back to Iraq soon after the exhibit opens.

"What I really wanted was evidence of the place and the people that wasn't obvious," he said. "I wanted to capture life and the environment as it really was in the infancy of our presence there."

Using a 35 mm Canon he carried whenever he could, Busch took about 1,000 photos of daily life in Iraq and the people he met during his tour of duty as commander of a Marine company in 2003.

He photographed children on the streets, the remains on an abandoned Iraqi military base and the manager of an ice plant who slept on a creaky cot in the building to defend it from looters. In one, bones and a skull dug up from a mass grave are cradled in a holy shroud, ready for reburial.

The university contacted Busch after it learned of his photos, which were displayed earlier this year at Vassar College in New York. UMUC has strong military ties _ the university enrolls about 58,000 troops at 120 overseas bases through its online service and other types of classes through a contract with the Pentagon, according to spokeswoman Andrea Martino.

"It was just a natural fit for us," she said of the exhibit.

Busch served four years in the Marines during the early 1990s, then pursued a career in acting and directing after he left active duty. He has taken photos as a hobby for the past six years, experimenting with different artistic methods.

In 2003, his reserve unit took part in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. He returned home in October of that year.

Busch has plenty of the tourist photos many soldiers take, pictures of himself standing with a gun with other Marines. But he also tried to portray lives of ordinary people _ rarely seen in daily news photos of car bombings and fighting. It's an Iraq he knows will be changed as American influence grows in the country, one he wanted to record before it is lost.

His unit of 150 men was posted to the border with Iran after the main fighting, and as the commanding officer, Busch found himself responsible for about nine small towns in the region. Acting as de facto mayor, he had to appoint a local government, rebuild a damaged infrastructure and gain the trust of a wary people. It was not an easy task.

"I was suddenly in the position to tell them what was going to happen next," he said. "I was inventing it as I went along. There was no layout as to how it would come together."

But his new position also brought him into close contact with Iraqis. He formed local councils, picking doctors for the leadership posts because many spoke English and had a general neutrality that came with helping people.

Once while inspecting a local police station, a group of men urged him to follow them to an area behind an earthen berm. There Busch found men digging up bones, all that was left of their relatives who were shot and buried in a mass grave in 1991. The families knew of the grave, but didn't dare retrieve the remains while Saddam Hussein was in power.

Many clutched photographs of relatives, sifting through dirt and lime for shreds of clothes that could distinguish the bones of a brother or son from the heap. All the families hoped for was a proper burial.

"I think they wanted us to bear witness to what happened," Busch said.

Busch will return to Iraq with a new civil affairs unit working in Anbar province, which includes the city of Fallujah. This time, he leaves behind his wife and a 13-week-old daughter.

Busch plans to bring his 35 mm camera, but will also take a digital camera because Iraq's soaring temperatures make it hard to preserve rolls of film. His main goal is to simply create a record, without editorializing, of what happened.

"My photos are not pro-war, they're not anti-war," he said. "They don't say the war is a mistake or it is the best thing we have done. What they do say is, 'It was war, it was Iraq, and we were there.'"

Ellie

thedrifter

01-04-05, 10:23 PM

thedrifter

01-04-05, 10:25 PM

Heroes helping heroes
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Oliver North
December 31, 2004

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A few weeks before Christmas, I had the opportunity to once again visit some of America's finest young men and women who were wounded in Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom. These young warriors were recuperating in two of the finest medical institutions in the country -- the National Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center. It is not the infrastructure, the architectural design or the budget that places these among the best. Like any first-rate institution, it is the people who make them great.

They are staffed by soldiers, sailors and Marines. Doctors, nurses and administrators -- both military and civilian -- ensure that the patients get the best medical care and are treated with respect. Understanding the healing power of love, they also care for the visiting family members.

These institutions also attract some of the finest volunteers on the planet.

They need to be, because their patients are the best and bravest of a new generation of Americans putting their lives on the line for the right to remain free. At this time of year, when we count our blessings, it is appropriate to pay tribute to the men and women -- from the corpsman on the battlefield to the doctor in the operating room -- who keep our troops alive and nurse them back to health.

Marine Capt. Brad Adams was riding in a Humvee near Fallujah in October when a boy riding a bike approached the vehicle. Hidden in the bike's basket was a bomb. It detonated and littered Adams' body with shrapnel. Adams has now undergone nine surgeries and has been recuperating for a month at the National Naval Medical Center. "The level of treatment we're getting here is outstanding," he said.

That sentiment is echoed by Cpl. Nicolas Roberts, who was badly injured from a gunshot wound in Ramadi. So far, he has undergone seven surgeries. Of his stay at Bethesda, he says, "I'm getting great care here -- this is the best hospital in the world."

The site for the National Naval Medical Center was chosen on July 5, 1938, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who said the spring-fed pond on the land reminded him of the healing pool of Bethesda in John's Gospel. Today, the facility is commanded by Rear Adm. Adam Robinson Jr. and is known as "The President's Hospital," because sitting presidents receive their medical care there. In the past year, 1,200 wounded troops from both Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom have passed through Bethesda's wards for quality care.

Thanks to the advancements in battlefield medicine and body armor, fully 90 percent of the troops who are wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan survive hits from gunfire or explosives that would have killed soldiers in previous conflicts. The nature of the enemy's explosives, however, is causing some troops to undergo amputations of an arm or a leg. Most of them are sent to Walter Reed to be fitted with prostheses and to rehabilitate.

Walter Reed has been caring for America's wounded heroes since World War I. It is named in honor of Maj. Walter Reed, who conducted groundbreaking research on yellow fever. His discoveries enabled workers to survive in the tropical climate and complete work on the Panama Canal.

Not only do the wounded go to Walter Reed, but the hospital has sent more than 200 of its personnel into the field in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, the medical staff at Walter Reed is perfecting the ability of amputees to return to active duty service.

That standard of commitment was set by Navy diver Carl Brashear, who while serving on the USS Hoist (ARS-40) in 1966, was injured so severely that his left leg had to be amputated. Brashear refused to give in to demands for his retirement, was fitted with a prosthesis and went on to make history, continue diving and eventually retire with the prestigious titles of master diver and master chief.

Thanks in large measure to the medical professionals at Walter Reed, such stories are becoming the norm, not the exception.

Col. Jonathan Jaffin, commander of the Walter Reed Health Care System, said of the soldiers, "We view these patients as world-class athletes, (and) our goal is to restore them to world-class status."

Major advancements in the field of prosthetics are being made at Walter Reed. "We are receiving some of the first systems available in the world," says Joseph Miller, Walter Reed's chief prosthetist. One of those is the C-Leg system, which houses a computer system in the knee that responds to movement and can make adjustments up to 50 times a second.

Millions of dollars are being invested to update and expand Walter Reed's Amputee Center to continue to improve the way these soldiers are taught to walk, climb stairs or ride a bike with their new leg.

We Americans owe a great debt of gratitude to our troops who are fighting to protect us. We also owe a great deal of thanks to the military personnel, medical professionals, doctors, nurses, administrators and volunteers who are caring for our wounded heroes in these two facilities, and all the medical and rehab facilities our wounded heroes visit along their way.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-04-05, 10:26 PM

Marine, newly wed, may face war duty
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By Kim Minugh -- Sacramento Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Thursday, December 30, 2004

Times were easier when Amanda Jensen and Trent Parsons first fell in love.

They met through mutual friends one night while eating at Denny's. He was 21, a Marine; she was 16, still in high school. She thought he was cute.

They began hanging out in groups, going to high school football games and to the movies.

When he left for boot camp, he wrote her letters, and she swooned.

"It was really cute," said Jensen, now 19 and a student at California State University, Sacramento. "In the middle of the night, when no one else would know, he was writing these letters by flashlight."

In the last three years, times have gotten more difficult. Most of their relationship has been spent apart: Jensen in Auburn; Parsons, originally of nearby Meadow Vista, stationed in North Carolina. Their love has been tailored to 96-hour visits, phone calls and more letters.

Now, a faraway war that has touched so many lives at home is about to touch theirs as well. When Parsons returns to Camp Le jeune on Sunday, he will be on 24-hour notice, ready to be deployed at any moment.

There is a 75 percent chance he'll be sent to Iraq, he said. He is ready and willing to fight but knows, as Jensen does, that war could mean a long separation, injury and even death.

"It really scares me - really, really scares me," she said.

"It's not that I doubt his ability to stay alive. It's that I can't control the factors going on, and neither can he.

So, six days before their lives progress into further uncertainty, they made one certain move: They vowed to love each other for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, until death do they part.

Jensen and Parsons were married Tuesday at the Bell Baptist Church in Auburn in front of about 200 friends and family.

The couple said some people - particularly their parents - had questioned their decision because of their ages and circumstance. They, however, say they are confident in their choice.

"Every time I'm around you," said Jensen, gazing up at her fiancé on the eve of the wedding, "I know this is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with."

Assured and poised, Jensen discussed that evening how the two had overcome the odds - age, distance, the threat of war - to stay together.

Only her girlish giggle at the arrival of her future husband indicated her youth.

He tugged playfully at the jewel-encrusted "BRIDE" baseball cap and veil her mom had pinned to her head earlier that afternoon.

"Are you going to wear this tomorrow?" he asked.

"Yes," she lied.

"Works for me," he teased. "There's going to be a bunch of rednecks there."

"Would you stop it?" she said.

Parsons is a lance corporal with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, N.C.

Joining the Marines had been a lifetime dream; he comes from a long line of them.

"I love being a Marine. I love wearing my uniform," he said. "My first words were probably Semper Fi."

If he leaves for Iraq early next year, he hopes to return to North Carolina in the fall.

Jensen hopes to be there waiting for him, enrolled in a nearby university or community college on her way to becoming a teacher.

Though it will be difficult to leave behind his new bride, Parsons said he has no reservations about his impending deployment.

He gently teased Jensen to put on her "earmuffs," because he knew she didn't want to hear what he was going to say.

"No earmuffs," she said sadly.

"This is what we've been trained for. This is my job," Parsons said. "I go where I'm told. I have no ifs, ands or buts about going."

He trusts his fellow Marines, who he said bring expertise to the war effort and dedication to each other.

"You're pretty stupid if you're not scared," he said, "but it's how you show it."

Jensen isn't hesitant to show her fear. She looks down at her sparkling engagement ring.

"I don't like the helpless feeling," she said.

But Jensen said she knew the dangers. She has always known Parsons as a Marine, has always known his sense of duty.

"It is difficult: his two loves, the Marine Corps and me," she said. "I've come to accept that.

"I'd still rather (compete with) something I could beat up," she added.

Those close to Jensen and Parsons are confident the two have found a special bond. Even Jensen's parents, Jeff and Amiee, have been convinced of Parsons' commitment to their "little girl."

"Trent and Amanda sat down with us," said Amiee Jensen. "I cried. His exact words were, 'Mr. and Mrs. Jensen ... I've found something I love more than the Marines.'

"I said (to my husband), 'Jeff, he really loves her.' "

Ellie

thedrifter

01-04-05, 10:26 PM

Task Force 2/24 Weekly Update
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From: Smith LtCol Mark A
Sent: Friday, 31 December, 2004 00:05

Subject: Weekly Update 31 Dec 04

I apologize for being one day late (Iraqi time) on my weekly update, but yesterday I was forward commanding the latest in strikes from the Mad Ghosts as we continue to deliver to the Muj, and their American hating buddies, blow after devastating blow! The operation landed me back at the FOB very late and needing to address some administrative matters; and as I looked at the calendar to actually see what day it was, it seemed more appropriate to me to send this week's update to close out the last day of 2004 and to "ring in" 2005.

I would like to start in reverse order, however, and ring in 2005 by introducing you to Colonel Michael Formica, Commanding Officer of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, United States Army, and our new boss. As of 29 Dec, we "chopped" Operational Control from the 24th MEU to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team. Now, most of you are probably saying, what does it all mean? Well, I could turn this week's updated into a Command and Staff essay on command relationships and joint operations, but that would be as exciting as watching paint dry, or struggling through a concert of Celine Deon singing the greatest hits of AC/DC! So, instead I will try to summarize best I can. What does it mean? Quite frankly, it means the Muj are in for one serious ass-kicking! It means that because the 2 BCT brings enough soldiers, equipment and firepower to make an self-inflicted haircut wearing LtCol feel like a kid on Christmas morning with the most boxes under the tree he has ever seen. It means that because the Mayhem AO, that was once occupied and operated solely by the Mad Ghosts now has 3 times the amount of personnel, and realistically speaking about 10 times the equipment. It means there is more armor, artillery, gunships and jets than the MUJ of our "triangle of death" have ever seen in their worst nightmares. And, it means that because the 2 BCT is the A-TEAM. The 2 BCT has been here for a year, and has been extended for two months to make sure that our successes are leveraged and that stability IS brought to the S Baghdad district. The 2 BCT has been sent by the Army to fight in An Najaf, Mosul, Fallujah and anywhere harsh language and hot lead are being exchanged. They have lived in more FOBs than they can count, and would rate frequent flyer miles, if such a thing existed in Iraq. They have endured incredible hardship and have been separated from their loved ones for 4 times the amount of days we have...and, despite it all, they show up with a sheer professionalism, a dedication to duty, a love of country and a desire to kill the enemy and free the oppressed. Ohhhhh yeah, Santa has indeed been good to the Mad Ghosts this year!

The second item in ringing in the new year of 2005, is to update you on our progress. All signs point to an enemy who is reeling before us and crying uncle. Problem is, uncle to the Muj means negotiation, barter, talk, work around, buy time and attack later. Well, no such luck with the Mad Ghosts. We have our boots on their throats, will keep them there and apply more and more pressure until we have achieved unconditional surrender, or their death. The choice is theirs, and we care not on their decision, but do prefer the latter. Schools are open, kids are going and waving and smiling at our Marines. Shops are in business, decent people go about their lives, and the enemy hides, slides and tries to avoid incarceration or direct violence with us. It is still very dangerous as the more of them we lock-up
(and the Mad Ghosts have to be approaching a world record) the more they revert to cowardly tactics of IEDs and SVBIEDs. We work hard to counter them. Used to be, prior to the arrival of the Mad Ghosts, that when arrested the enemy employed a technique once made popular by some famous Americans: deny everything, admit to nothing and make counter-accusations. However, due to the outstanding work of our Marines, and their application of US law enforcement techniques of report writing, link analysis and "bottom-up" collection, coupled with our "community policing" technique of the "zip code offense," living among the enemy by forward basing our Warriors, they found themselves not being released three days after arrest, but in Abu Gharaib with very long prison sentences, and some facing the hangman's gallows. The outstanding work in the application of our techniques by the Marines of the Companies, and the phenomenal linkage, analysis, intelligence picture and prosecution executed by Maj Whisnant (Intelligence Officer), CWO5 Roussell (Assistant Intelligence Officer, and just general treasure of a human being), 2ndLt Grayson and the Marines of the Human Exploitation Team, and LtCol Shinkle (2/24 Lawyer) has resulted "in bad guys go away, bad guys don't come home!" To get there has been nothing but 20 hour days, never a day off, and work, work, work! But that is what we came to do as defenders of America, and that is what will do until they put us on a plane to go home.

Yes, I ring in 2005 reporting to you that our zone is improving, and improving at a rate that was thought impossible. I ring in 2005 looking ever forward, eager and filled with pride to be commanding the best DAMN battalion in the world: the 2nd Bn, 24th Marines: MAYHEM FROM THE HEARTLAND! Victory is ours, and we will WIN. No enemy force on the planet can withstand the onslaught of effort, pride, dignity, compassion and necessary violence that accompanies the Marines of this heartland Battalion. I thank you again for allowing me to share this time with your loved one.

Now, let me ring out 2004. 2004 will always be for me the year I learned first hand of combat as a commander. It will be the year I learned a soul searing pain that knows no equal. It will be the year I learned that it is possible to cry an uncountable number of tears and still not shrivel up and blow away in the wind. It will be the year that I said goodbye and I love you to 10 warriors who fell in battle. It will be the year that 10 of my sons went home to the gentle heart and healing hands of their Savior. It will be the year that 10 families had their remaining years forever altered by the violence of an insane, incomprehensible enemy! But, because I was honored to have shared time and space with these10 HEROES, it will forever be my favorite year. It will be my favorite because in these 10, in their sacrifice and in their family's strength, I have been witness to moments of the human existence that cannot be experienced anywhere else. It will be my favorite year because, for love of them and witness of their noble deeds, my soul has been transformed, my burden made light, my heart happy. It will be remembered as the year life took on it's true and only meaning for a Warrior: Defend your nation, love your family, honor your warrior brothers! We have done all of this, and done it in spades in 2004. So, although full of pain and many tears, I will not be sad for 2004. 2004 for me was an honor I could have never imagined, and so richly DID NOT deserve. But, I will thank God Almighty every day for the blessing that was 2004, and I will pray for whatever years I have left for the souls of my fallen and the peace of their families.

MAY GOD CONTINUE TO BLESS THE WARRIORS AND FAMILIES OF 2/24

LtCol Mark A. Smith, Mayhem 6 CO, Task Force 2/24
"Mayhem from the Heartland" or as the terrorists call us "The Mad Ghosts" Mahmudiyah, IZ
2nd Bn, 24th Marines, H&S Co, Bn Cmdr
Unit 4395 FPO-AP 96426-3495
SmithMA@1div1mardm.1mardivdm.usmc.mil

Ellie

thedrifter

01-05-05, 07:04 AM

Punk Rockers 'Vandals' Perform for Troops in Iraq
By Spc. Jan Critchfield
122nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 1, 2005 -- Punk rock and military discipline -- not exactly like shampoo and conditioner. More like fire and ice. But for some soldiers able to see the Vandals kick out the jams here Dec. 28, it almost seemed like they were back on the block, stomping like there's no tomorrow.

"I think it was an outstanding show -- I mean, a major relief on the tension out here," said Spc. Robert Skidmore of Company C, 115th Forward Support Battalion, while waiting in line to score an autograph. "I've been (following) these guys for some time. I had a bunch of blank tapes with Vandals written on it. You know, I didn't really know the names of the songs but just listened to them a lot when I was driving around in my car."

Skidmore said the performance provided a welcome respite for the soldiers. "We forgot we were in Iraq for a while," he said, indicating two buddies of his standing in the autograph line.

"We're having actually a great time in Iraq," bass player Joe Escalante said after the autograph session. "Everyone's nice. Everyone has a better attitude than we thought they'd have when we first got here. Everyone's a lot smarter than most people think the military is."

The Vandals' regular drummer was busy with other projects and didn't make the trip. Byron McMackin from the group Pennywise sat in for him.

The energy of the crowd at Al-Amal, the band said, far surpassed anywhere they had played during their tour of Iraq and Kuwait. "The show went very well," front man David Quackenbush said. "I know there's lot of people here that haven't heard of us, but it seemed like they were having a good time, and there were a lot of smiles. I think it was an awesome opportunity to come here and do this."

(Army Spc. Jan Critchfield is assigned to the 122nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment.)

Ellie

thedrifter

01-05-05, 07:05 AM

From: LT310@aol.com
Subject: A Letter From A Marine To His Dad - Nov 19th

This is long but well worth the read. The subscriber who sent this said, "I wish we had some Ernie Pyle types on the job who would report more of this perspective." Well, Dave the Marine who wrote this may very well be another Ernie Pyle! (Note the Marine's perspective of the Army soldiers with whom they worked.)

Email from Dave - Nov 19, 04

Dear Dad -

Just came out of the city and I honestly do not know where to start. I am afraid that whatever I send you will not do sufficient honor to the men who fought and took Fallujah.
Shortly before the attack, Task Force Fallujah was built. It consisted of Regimental Combat Team 1 built around 1st Marine Regiment and Regimental Combat Team 7 built around 7th Marine Regiment. Each Regiment consisted of two Marine Rifle Battalions reinforced and one Army mechanized infantry battalion.
Regimental Combat Team 1 (RCT-1) consisted of 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (3rd LAR), 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines (3/5); 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines (3/1)and 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry (2/7). RCT-7 was slightly less weighted but still a formidable force. Cutting a swath around the city was an Army Brigade known as Blackjack. The Marine RCT's were to assault the city while Blackjack kept the enemy off of the backs of the assault force.

The night prior to the actual invasion, we all moved out into the desert just north of the city. It was something to see. You could just feel the intensity in the Marines and Soldiers. It was all business. As the day cleared, the Task Force began striking targets and moving into final attack positions. As the invasion force commenced its movement into attack positions, 3rd LAR led off RCT-1's offensive with an attack up a peninsula formed by the Euphrates River on the west side of the city. Their mission was to secure the Fallujah Hospital and the two bridges leading out of the city. They executed their tasks like clockwork and smashed the enemy resistance holding the bridges. Simultaneous to all of this, Blackjack sealed the escape routes to the south of the city. As invasion day dawned, the net was around the city and the Marines and Soldiers knew that the enemy that failed to escape was now sealed.
3/5 began the actual attack on the city by taking an apartment complex on the northwest corner of the city. It was key terrain as the elevated positions allowed the command to look down into the attack lanes. The Marines took the apartments quickly and moved to the rooftops and began engaging enemy that were trying to move into their fighting positions. The scene on the rooftop was surreal. Machine gun teams were running boxes of ammo up 8 flights of stairs in full body armor and carrying up machine guns while snipers engaged enemy shooters. The whole time the enemy was firing mortars and rockets at the apartments. Honest to God, I don't think I saw a single Marine even distracted by the enemy fire. Their squad leaders, and platoon commanders had them prepared and they were executing their assigned tasks.
As mentioned, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry joined the Regiment just prior to the fight. In fact, they started showing up for planning a couple of weeks in advance. There is always a professional rivalry between the Army and the Marine Corps but it was obvious from the outset that these guys were the real deal. They had fought in Najaf and were eager to fight with the Regiment in Fallujah. They are exceptionally well led and supremely confident.

2/7 became our wedge. In short, they worked with 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines. We were limited in the amount of prep fires that we were allowed to fire on the city prior to the invasion. This was a point of some consternation to the forces actually taking the city. Our compensation was to turn to 2/7 and ask them to slash into the city and create as much turbulence as possible for 3/1 to follow. Because of the political reality, the Marine Corps was also under pressure to "get it done quickly." For this reason, 2/7 and 3/1 became the penetration force into the city.
Immediately following 3/5's attack on the apartment buildings, 3/1 took the train station on the north end of the city. While the engineers blew a breach through the train trestle, the Cavalry soldiers poured through with their tanks and Bradley's and chewed an opening in the enemy defense. 3/1 followed them through until they reached a phase[line deep into the northern half of the city. The Marine infantry along with a few tanks then turned to the right and attacked the heart of the enemy defense. The fighting was tough as the enemy had the area dialed in with mortars. 3/5 then attacked into the northwest corner of the city. This fight continued as both Marine rifle battalions clawed their way into the city on different axis.

There is an image burned into my brain that I hope I never forget. We came up behind 3/5 one day as the lead squads were working down the Byzantine streets of the Jolan area. An assault team of two Marines ran out from behind cover and put a rocket into a wall of an enemy strongpoint. Before the smoke cleared the squad behind them was up and moving through the hole and clearing the house. Just down the block another squad was doing the same thing. The house was cleared quickly and the Marines were running down the street to the next contact. Even in the midst of that mayhem, it was an awesome site.
The fighting has been incredibly close inside the city. The enemy is willing to die and is literally waiting until they see the whites of the eyes of the Marines before they open up. Just two days ago, as a firefight raged in close quarters, one of the interpreters yelled for the enemy in the house to surrender. The enemy yelled back that it was better to die and go to heaven than to surrender to infidels. This exchange is a graphic window into the world that the Marines and Soldiers have been fighting in these last 10 days.

I could go on and on about how the city was taken but one of the most amazing aspects to the fighting was that we saw virtually no civilians during the battle. Only after the fighting had passed did a few come out of their homes. They were provided food and water and most were evacuated out of the city. At least 90-95% of the people were gone from the city when we attacked.

I will end with a couple of stories of individual heroism that you may not have heard yet. I was told about both of these incidents shortly after they occurred. No doubt some of the facts will change slightly but I am confident that the meat is correct.

The first is a Marine from 3/5. His name is Corporal Yeager. As the Marines cleared and apartment building, they got to the top floor and the point man kicked in the door. As he did so, an enemy grenade and a burst of gunfire came out. The explosion and enemy fire took off the point man's leg. He was then immediately shot in the arm as he lay in the doorway. Corporal Yeager tossed a grenade in the room and ran into the doorway and into the enemy fire in order to pull his buddy back to cover. As he was dragging the wounded Marine to cover, his own grenade came back through the doorway. Without pausing, he reached down and threw the grenade back through the door while he heaved his buddy to safety. The grenade went off inside the room and Cpl Yeager threw another in. He immediately entered the room following the second explosion. He gunned down three enemy all within three feet of where he stood and then let fly a third grenade as he backed out of the room to complete the evacuation of the wounded Marine. You have to understand that a grenade goes off within 5 seconds of having the pin pulled. Marines usually let them "cook off" for a second or two before tossing them in. Therefore, this entire episode took place in less than 30 seconds.

The second example comes from 3/1. Cpl Mitchell is a squad leader. He was wounded as his squad was clearing a house when some enemy threw pineapple grenades down on top of them. As he was getting triaged, the doctor told him that he had been shot through the arm. Cpl Mitchell told the doctor that he had actually been shot "a couple of days ago" and had given himself self aide on the wound. When the doctor got on him about not coming off the line, he firmly told the doctor that he was a squad leader and did not have time to get treated as his men were still fighting. There are a number of Marines who have been wounded multiple times but refuse to leave their fellow Marines.

continued.............

thedrifter

01-05-05, 07:06 AM

It is incredibly humbling to walk among such men. They fought as hard as any Marines in history and deserve to be remembered as such. The enemy they fought burrowed into houses and fired through mouse holes cut in walls, lured them into houses rigged with explosives and detonated the houses on pursuing Marines, and actually hid behind surrender flags only to engage the Marines with small arms fire once they perceived that the Marines had let their guard down. I know of several instances where near dead enemy rolled grenades out on Marines who were preparing to render them aid. It was a fight to the finish in every sense and the Marines delivered.

I have called the enemy cowards many times in the past because they have never really held their ground and fought but these guys in the city did. We can call them many things but they were not cowards.
My whole life I have read about the greatest generation and sat in wonder at their accomplishments. For the first time, as I watch these Marines and Soldiers, I am eager for the future as this is just the beginning for them. Perhaps the most amazing characteristic of all is that the morale of the men is sky high. They hurt for the wounded and the dead but they are eager to continue to attack. Further, not one of them would be comfortable with being called a hero even though they clearly are.

By now the Marines and Soldiers have killed well over a thousand enemy. These were not peasants or rabble. They were reasonably well trained and entirely fanatical. Most of the enemy we have seen have chest rigs full of ammunition and are well armed are willing to fight to the death. The Marines and Soldiers are eager to close with them and the fighting at the end is inevitably close.

I will write you more the next time I come in about what we have found inside the city. All I can say is that even with everything that I knew and expected from the last nine months, the brutality and fanaticism of the enemy surprised me. The beheadings were even more common place than we thought but so were torture and summary executions. Even though it is an exaggeration, it seems as though every block in the northern part of the city has a torture chamber or execution site. There are hundreds of tons of munitions and tens of thousands of weapons that our Regiment alone has recovered. The Marines and Soldiers of the Regiment have also found over 400 IEDs already wired and ready to detonate. No doubt these numbers will grow in the days ahead.
In closing, I want to share with you a vignette about when the Marines secured the Old Bridge (the one where the Americans were mutilated and hung on March 31) this week. After the Marines had done all the work and secured the bridge, we walked across to meet up with 3rd LAR on the other side. On the Fallujah side of the bridge where the Americans were hung there is some Arabic writing on the bridge. An interpreter translated it for me as we walked through. It read: "Long Live the Mujahadeen. Fallujah is the Graveyard for Americans and the end of the Marine Corps."

As I came back across the bridge there was a squad sitting in their Amtrac smoking and watching the show. The Marines had written their own message below the enemy's. It is not something that Mom would appreciate but it fit the moment to a T. Not far from the vehicle were two dead enemy laying where they died. The Marines were sick of watching the "Dog and Pony show" and wanted to get back to work.
Dave

Take Care and God Bless!
Juli Rae Swierenga (Florida)
PMM of LCpl. Jesse Wood-Fallujah

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings as eagles;
they shall run, and not be weary;
and they shall walk, and not faint.
Isaiah 40:31

Ellie

thedrifter

01-05-05, 08:27 AM

5 Troops Killed In Iraq
Australian Associated Press
January 5, 2005

A roadside bomb attack has killed three U.S. soldiers in Baghdad, and a soldier and a Marine were killed in other attacks outside the capital, the U.S. military said.

Tuesday was the deadliest day for the U.S. military in Iraq since the suicide bombing at a mess tent in Mosul on December 21, which killed 22 people including 14 U.S. soldiers and three American contractors.

The three soldiers killed in the capital were with Task Force Baghdad. Two soldiers were wounded in the attack, which occurred at about 11am (local time), the military said in a statement.

Elsewhere, a roadside bomb attack killed one 1st Infantry Division soldier and wounded another near Balad, 80 km north of Baghdad.

And a U.S. Marine assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force was killed in action in western Iraq's restive Anbar province, which includes the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.

The Marines do not disclose details of casualties or say exactly where they happened for fear of compromising security.

The identities of all the dead were being withheld until their families can be notified.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-05-05, 08:36 AM

Giving GIs in Iraq their glory
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By John Podhoretz
The New York Post
January 4, 2005

THERE'S one current idea that drives anti-war liberals into a near-frenzied state - the notion that you can't really call yourself a supporter of our armed forces in Iraq if you stand in opposition to their efforts there.

I received dozens of enraged e-mails over the past week after making a glancing reference to this - while citing a poll that indicated deep support for the mission in Iraq from those Americans currently in uniform.

I'm going to have to paraphrase what those angry e-mails said, because most of them featured profanities, SCREAMING CAPITAL LETTERS and totally! unnecessary! exclamation! points!

You're the one who doesn't support the troops, they all essentially said, because you think they should be sent into harm's way for an unjust, ill-conceived, ill-considered and pointless mission. We, who want the war ended, are the true supporters of the troops.

That line of argument sounds wonderfully humanitarian. Doubtless, most who use it believe they're expressing positive sentiments toward the U.S. military - and that they believe those who feel or think otherwise are indifferent to the difficulties facing armed Americans involved in a tough struggle in Iraq.

But there is something exquisitely condescending about the attitude that members of the military need Americans here at home to save them. Every person now serving in Iraq entered the service voluntarily and as an adult.

What we learned from the recent poll is that those who have served in Iraq are the most enthusiastic about our efforts there. They aren't seeking rescue by well-meaning stateside Americans.

No, it appears they are seeking to win this thing - and they are willing to risk a great deal to win.

For, difficult though it is for many people to understand, some - perhaps many - people enter military service because they see something noble, something elevating, something empowering, in putting it all on the line.

Achieving glory through martial means is an idea as old as civilization itself, from Achilles battling the Trojans to Shakespeare's Henry V telling his soldiers that all those in their beds back in England will think themselves accursed because they were not among the "band of brothers" attacking the French on St. Crispin's Day.

Americans in Iraq are in harm's way to make possible the transformation of that country from a totalitarian instability generator into a functioning free society. The nobility of that effort and the glory that will attach to all those who were involved in it seem self-evident to many of those who support the effort.

But those who have opposed the war from the outset seem to feel that the goal isn't noble, and that it would be best to figure out some kind of quick and cheap face-saving exit strategy at best or an appropriately humiliating defeat at worst.

They deny the nobility of the goal in Iraq, and therefore they also deny the attendant nobility and glory due those who are seeking to achieve the goal. If what our soldiers, sailors, Marines and Guardsmen are doing is pointless, or even injurious to American interests, how can glory redound from it?

That's why I say that those who say the war isn't worth fighting cannot justly say they also support the troops - because they are also saying their risk and sacrifice are pointless rather than glorious.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-05-05, 10:09 AM

Army Agent Testifies At Drowning Trial 
Associated Press 
January 5, 2005 
 
FORT HOOD, Texas - A soldier went on trial Tuesday in the alleged drowning of an Iraqi civilian who prosecutors said...

thedrifter

01-05-05, 10:56 AM

January 03, 2005

Low hopes for Iraqi elections
Marines say insurgency leaves province ill-prepared for vote

By Gordon Trowbridge
Times staff writer

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq — It took more than 12 hours in a stuffy, overflowing conference room for a Marine officer to question the most fundamental premise of U.S. policy in Iraq.
“We cannot enfranchise the people here,” the Marine lieutenant colonel said flatly. “Here” meant Anbar province, the heart of Iraq’s insurgency. “We’ll go out and use every lever we have. But anybody who thinks that, in Al Anbar province, people are going to believe they had a chance to vote is not looking at the security situation.”

That blunt assessment came near the end of a long day of planning and debate over the U.S. military’s role in Iraq’s planned Jan. 30 election. Officials with I Marine Expeditionary Force granted a Military Times reporter access to the first of four days of planning for Marine support to the election process.

The election — or its failure — is likely to have a greater impact here than any event since troops invaded Iraq in March 2003. From President Bush down, U.S. officials have promised that free, fair elections will happen across Iraq on Jan. 30; anything short of that would do enormous damage to U.S. plans here.

The voting is also of vital interest to American troops because the U.S. exit strategy depends on successful balloting.

“This is probably our best ticket home,” Col. Michael Regner, chief of operations for I MEF, told the team as it began its work.

The voting will seat a transitional legislature, whose primary job is to write a new Iraqi constitution by November 2005. Military and diplomatic officials hope the voting will set Iraq on a course toward freedom and democracy, and deal the insurgency a critical blow by giving Iraqis a sense they have a stake in their nation’s future.

About 30 officers made up the Operational Planning Team and followed the same process the Corps uses for any major operation. A similar team planned the assault on Fallujah in November.

The sessions were designed to produce the broad outlines of a plan that staff officers will transform into detailed orders to the 30,000-plus Marines assigned to Anbar province, an area that includes the rebellion-plagued cities of Fallujah and Ramadi.

MEF officials allowed Military Times to witness the discussions on two conditions: that coverage not reveal classified information, especially security preparations or detailed intelligence data; and, in order to allow an open airing of views, that officers at the meeting not be identified by name. Because of Marine security concerns, Military Times was not allowed to view the final three days of meetings that covered plans for future operations.

Getting organized

The first day made clear that in the Marine area of operations — especially Anbar — the election process faces huge challenges.

As the planning team met Dec. 20, seven weeks before election day, the Anbar provincial director for the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq had yet to set foot in the province. The commission, responsible for organizing voting across Iraq, had opened none of the 28 offices planned for the province, nor had it selected locations for the roughly 330 polling centers the province will require.

“The IECI is just not here,” one officer said. Similar problems exist in Nineveh province, including Mosul, which has seen intense rebel activity since November, according to a briefing presented to the planning team.

By contrast, the areas around Najaf and Karbala were considered ready to go for elections — provincial elections officials are in place, polling sites have been selected and security planning is well underway.

While more than 430,000 people registered or confirmed their registration in Najaf province during a registration period that ended Dec. 15, registration never began in Anbar. Marine officers said election officials hope to allow Anbar residents to register and vote on the same day.

The team’s intelligence officer told members that analysts believe Iraq’s rebels have a coordinated plan to disrupt election preparations and, if voting is held as scheduled, to assault polling centers. Analysts have seen a marked increase in attacks against government workers and politicians associated with the voting — including the murder of three IECI officials in Baghdad the day before planning meetings began.

The pattern of attacks in recent weeks indicates a possible strategy on the part of the insurgents: If they can isolate from the rest of the nation the Sunni populations of Anbar and Nineveh provinces, as well as Baghdad, they might be able to undermine the constitutional process now underway. If three of Iraq’s provinces reject the draft constitution in a referendum scheduled for next October, the document is void and the entire process must start over.

Maintaining legitimacy

Much of the 12 hours of discussion Military Times witnessed focused on a chilling dilemma for the military: Get too involved in the process, and face accusations that the U.S. interfered with elections; do too little, and watch the process fall apart.

The team discussed a sort of “digital cammies test” — the closer Marines in their pixelated camouflage uniforms come to polling sites, the worse it would look to the Iraqi public. But many officers argued that if Marines must transport ballots or guard election rallies in order for the election to take place, so be it.

“If we come to the point where there will be catastrophic failure or massive loss of life without our direct involvement,” troops must step in, one officer said.

The team filled the room with question marks: How many Iraqi security troops will be available to guard polling places? Will the electoral officials hire enough polling workers? Where will they get the thousands of blast barriers needed to protect polling sites and election offices, and how will they transport them?

In short, the U.S. military has no idea how much it will have to do to aid election officials.

“This is the most fact-free OPT I’ve ever stepped into,” said Lt. Col. Wayne Sinclair, the team’s leader.

Regner, the operations chief, told the team, “I want you to think about this: What would you do if, a week out, [the Iraqi government] called and said, ‘We can’t make it?’”

Officers even argued on the most basic of questions: What should be considered a success?

“If we meet success on our terms — do everything we can do — and the IECI says we [messed] it up, have we been successful?” a colonel asked. “It doesn’t matter how we perceive it. It matters how the IECI perceives it. They’re the ones to say whether the election was valid.”

That approach, said another officer, would force the Marines to place success or failure in someone else’s hands. “This is one of those situations, gentlemen, where we might have to look at ourselves in the mirror and say we did all we can do,” he said. “We might fall on our face, but we can only take it so far.”

Ellie

thedrifter

01-05-05, 11:07 AM

Oliver North: Heroes Helping Heroes

January 4, 2005

Washington, D.C. - A few weeks before Christmas, I had the opportunity to once again visit some of America's finest young men and women who were wounded in Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom. These young warriors were recuperating in two of the finest medical institutions in the country - the National Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center. It is not the infrastructure, the architectural design or the budget that places these among the best. Like any first-rate institution, it is the people who make them great.

They are staffed by soldiers, sailors, and Marines. Doctors, nurses and administrators - both military and civilian - ensure that the patients get the best medical care and are treated with respect. Understanding the healing power of love, they also care for the visiting family members. These institutions also attract some of the finest volunteers on the planet.

They need to be, because their patients are the best and bravest of a new generation of Americans putting their lives on the line for the right to remain free. At this time of year when we count our blessings, it is appropriate to pay tribute to the men and women - from the corpsman on the battlefield to the doctor in the operating room - who keep our troops alive and nurse them back to health.

Marine Captain Brad Adams was riding in a Humvee near Fallujah in October when a boy riding a bike approached the vehicle. Hidden in the bike's basket was a bomb. It detonated and littered Adams' body with shrapnel. Adams has now undergone nine surgeries and has been recuperating for a month at the National Naval Medical Center. "The level of treatment we're getting here is outstanding," he said.

That sentiment is echoed by Cpl Nicolas Roberts who was badly injured from a gunshot wound in Ramadi. So far, he has undergone seven surgeries. Of his stay at Bethesda, he says, "I'm getting great care here - this is the best hospital in the world."

The site for the National Naval Medical Center was chosen on July 5, 1938 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt who said the spring fed pond on the land reminded him of the healing pool of Bethesda in John's Gospel. Today, the facility is commanded by Rear Admiral Adam Robinson, Jr., and is known as "The President's Hospital," because sitting presidents receive their medical care there. In the past year, 1,200 wounded troops from both Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom have passed through Bethesda's wards for quality care.

Thanks to the advancements in battlefield medicine and body armor, fully 90 percent of the troops who are wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan survive hits from gunfire or explosives that would have killed soldiers in previous conflicts. The nature of the enemy's explosives however, is causing some troops to undergo amputations of an arm or a leg. Most of them are sent to Walter Reed to be fitted with prostheses and to rehabilitate.

Walter Reed has been caring for America's wounded heroes since World War I. It is named in honor of Major Walter Reed who conducted ground breaking research on yellow fever. His discoveries enabled workers to survive in the tropical climate and complete work on the Panama Canal.

Not only do the wounded go to Walter Reed, but the hospital has sent more than 200 of its personnel into the field in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, the medical staff at Walter Reed is perfecting the ability of amputees to return to active duty service. That standard of commitment was set by Navy diver Carl Brashear, who, while serving on the USS Hoist (ARS-40) in 1966, was injured so severely that his left leg had to be amputated. Brashear refused to give in to demands for his retirement, was fitted with a prosthesis, and went on to make history, continue diving, and eventually retire with the prestigious titles of Master Diver and Master Chief.

Thanks in large measure to the medical professionals at Walter Reed, such stories are becoming the norm, not the exception.

Colonel Jonathan Jaffin, commander of the Walter Reed Health Care System, said of the soldiers, "We view these patients as world-class athletes [and] our goal is to restore them to world-class status."

Major advancements in the field of prosthetics is being made at Walter Reed. "We are receiving some of the first systems available in the world," says Joseph Miller, Walter Reed's chief prosthetist. One of those is the C-Leg system which houses a computer system in the knee that responds to movement and can make adjustments up to 50 times a second.

Millions of dollars are being invested to update and expand Walter Reed's Amputee Center to continue to improve the way these soldiers are taught to walk, climb stairs or ride a bike with their new leg.

We Americans owe a great debt of gratitude to our troops who are fighting to protect us. We also owe a great deal of thanks to the military personnel, medical professionals, doctors, nurses, administrators and volunteers who are caring for our wounded heroes in these two facilities and all the medical and rehab facilities our wounded heroes visit along their way.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-05-05, 11:48 AM

January 03, 2005 
 
Knowledge is power 
Brainstorming team says sharing lessons may save lives 
 
By Gordon Trowbridge 
Times staff writer 
 
 
CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq — The nuggets of wisdom can be as...

thedrifter

01-05-05, 12:23 PM

H. Thomas Hayden: Female Combat in Iraq Is No Social Agenda

For one who has written many articles against women in combat, I have to acknowledge that woman have made a significant contribution in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. What is all this nonsense about the so-called potential long-term consequences of putting woman soldiers and Marines in support of ground combat units?

Critics of placing women in combat units say the Army particularly is manipulating rules governing such assignments to achieve a "social agenda that would substantially and significantly change the way the United States fights wars and possibly put all soldiers -- men and women -- at greater risk," according to a syndicated columnist who shall remain unnamed in order to protect the guilty.

A 29 November 2004 briefing by the senior Army personnel officer, Lt. Gen. James Campbell, included a phrase, "The way ahead: rewrite/eliminate the Army collocation policy." Collocation is deploying mixed-sex non-combat units alongside all-male fighting units.

It is evident to most seasoned Middle East observers that women soldiers and Marines are needed to handle the Arab women where it is sacrilegious for an infidel to even look at an uncovered Muslim woman. It has been reported by many news media sources that women Marines accompanied the 1st Marine Division into Falluja to deal with the Arab women found in the combat zone.

Bravo Zulu (well done) to the women Marines who undertook this hazardous assignment.

Current official Army and Marine Corps policy prohibits women in units specifically designated as combat units. A policy memorandum written on 13 January 1994, by then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin, a great Clinton women rights appeaser, restricted women from direct ground combat units. The big debate today is that Mr. Aspin did not say the Army had the power to act unilaterally, as some politically correct writers currently claim when they say Army policy is "silent on dropping restrictions on women in combat."

Some go so far as to contend that because National Guard enlistments are down, orders to extend currently-serving National Guardsmen and other service personnel beyond one year of duty in Iraq, are being used as an excuse to "ram through their social objective of placing women in combat."

All the arguments in the past against women in ground combat units have centered around concerns regarding unit cohesion, increases in sexual harassment, rape and pregnancy, and the so-called social revulsion most feel about seeing women wounded or killed in combat. I've lost count of how many women have died in combat in Iraq.

The really surprising argument being offered against women in combat roles is that the Army personnel director is issuing policies that should be set at the top of the Pentagon, and not by so-called lower ranking military and civilian authorities. Critics argue that overturning restrictions on women in combat will weaken our military's effectiveness in fighting and winning wars.

I am hesitant to even quote a columnist who writes, "There are enough challenges to our military at the moment. Changing such a significant policy banning women from direct combat, especially during a time of war and with no input from those who have the power to set policy, is a bad idea that is not in the ultimate interest of women, men or the strength of our armed forces." This is nonsense.

I am still personally opposed to women being assigned as riflemen (sorry riflewomen) in ground combat units, but women surely have a supporting role to assist ground combat units in searching Muslim women and generally dealing with Muslim females.

In Vietnam, I do not remember any question of assigning women to ground combat units. As a matter of fact, I do not recall seeing many women in supporting roles at MACV Headquarters in Saigon, or doctors and nurses at field hospitals.

In the Gulf War, my battalion, Headquarters and Service Bn, 1st Force Service Support Group, had 50 some women Marines at one time or another. My Supply Officer, a Marine captain who had graduated from the Naval Academy was one of the best "men" in my battalion. She could score 1st class on the PFT and was an outstanding officer. I had her decorated for her superb performance of duty.

The battalion had a regular mission of combat support and combat service support, and we had the additional duty of Rear Area Security (RAS) for the I Marine Expeditionary Force. For the RAS mission we had two companies of Military Police, an infantry rifle company, a Naval Port Security and Harbor Defense Force, which include a Coast Guard Port Security Unit, and all battalions of the Group provide Marines for a Guard Force.

We conducted daily combat patrols inside the massive port complex of Al Jubail, and we additionally sent mounted and dismounted combat patrols out into the vast Saudi Arabian desert surrounding the port.

No women stood guard duty but all worked day and night alongside their fellow Marines without complaint or special consideration. Many woman Marines did ask if they could accompany us on one of our combat patrols. Unfortunately, that would have been a ground combat role and was not permitted. Truth be known, I would not have had any concerns about some woman Marines fighting with me in combat.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-05-05, 01:37 PM

A Marine's tale of the battle for Fallujah 
 
by Dawn Pillsbury 
Sonoma West Staff Writer 
Jan. 5, 2005 
 
SEBASTOPOL - A wounded Marine is enjoying his return, however brief, to his home town. 
...

thedrifter

01-05-05, 01:43 PM

War now a family affair

From the Nation/Politics section
The Washington Times

SILVER LAKE, Kan. (AP) -- During his 2003 tour in Iraq, Maj. Christopher Phelps sent home a picture from Baghdad of him standing in front of a bombed-out building and holding a handmade sign that said, "Dad, wish you were here."

The Marine Corps is about to oblige.

Both Maj. Phelps, 34, and his 57-year-old father, Kendall Phelps, a retired master gunnery sergeant, have orders to report to Camp Lejeune, N.C., for training and then deploy to Iraq for a seven-month tour.

They will serve in the same unit and help Iraqi officials rebuild their nation, but it's still not clear what jobs each will have.

Both men will leave families behind, Kendall Phelps in Silver Lake, a small town northwest of Topeka, and Christopher Phelps, in Shawnee, a Kansas City suburb. Asked about each other's safety, both said they trust their fellow Marines.

"In the Marine Corps, every Marine watches every Marine, whether it's your father, a son, whether it's a brother, whether it's just a friend," Kendall Phelps said.

Still, Kendall Phelps' wife, Sherma, remembered her husband's concerns early in 2003, during their son's first tour. She said he wanted to replace his son there or at least be with him to provide protection.

"Now they're both going to be there, so I can just worry about both of them," she said.

The Marines don't keep records on how many fathers and sons serve in the same unit, but it's rare, said Capt. Jeff Landis, a spokesman for the Corps in Quantico, Va.

As part of the 200-member 5th Civil Affairs Group, the Phelpses will help Iraqi officials restart school systems, re-establish local governments, train police and repair infrastructure, said the unit's commanding officer, Col. Steve McKinley. That job can't be done until an area is reasonably secure, he said.

"I've got the Phelps family counting on me to bring everybody back alive," Col. McKinley said.

Christopher Phelps has four sons, ages 18 months to 6 years. The youngest, Taigan, was born shortly after his father's return from his first tour in Iraq.

Wife Lisa said she is proud of her husband and thinks he is giving his oldest sons an appreciation of the sacrifices necessary to maintain the American dream, but "it makes me just scared to death for his children and myself."

"I'm a Marine Corps wife," she said. "I get up and get my kids out of bed, and I'll be strong for him."

Kendall Phelps has two daughters and three sons, ages 19 to 34. Josh Phelps, 21, who is living at home while he attends Washburn University in Topeka, said he has mixed feelings about his father's departure.

"It's good for my dad, I think, because he loved the Marine Corps so much," Josh Phelps said. "But it's also kind of scary."

Ellie

thedrifter

01-05-05, 01:50 PM

31st MEU works to disrupt insurgents' support system

By Joseph Giordono, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Wednesday, January 5, 2005

AL ASAD, Iraq - Since arriving in Iraq last fall, the Okinawa-based 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit has undertaken one of the broadest missions - both in terms of responsibilities and geography - of any U.S. military unit in the country.

The unit's area of operations covers 33,000 square miles, stretching west from Ramadi to the borders of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Its missions include tracking down insurgent fighters, securing borders, stabilizing the region ahead of national elections, providing air support, securing supply routes and patrolling the Euphrates River with a small-craft company, among others.

"The key is to disrupt the insurgents' flow. I view it as keeping them from crossing the Euphrates into the center of gravity: Baghdad, Ramadi and Fallujah," said Col. W. Lee Miller, 31st MEU commander.

One of the MEU's toughest assignments, Miller said, is patrolling and securing the vast, desert borders. The Marines work with and train Iraqi border patrols, including military and police units. In addition to insurgents, the region is rife with trade and smuggling routes that have existed for thousands of years.

But the mission is not to stop, for example, nomadic shepherds from moving their flocks across the border.

"The things we do look for are weapons, money and military-age males who have no business being in this country," Miller said. "My job is to stop as much of that as possible."

This week, Marines from the 31st MEU targeted a series of what they call "transient camps" for foreign fighters sneaking into Iraq. The Marines arrested several suspects, seized weapons and large amounts of cash, and shut down suspected insurgent safe houses.

"The word is out that they're going to be cold and miserable. Those guys who want to get their jihad on like it's spring break won't want to do that now," Miller said. "We are better trained and more motivated. The [insurgents] will eventually be eliminated as a group that can disrupt the Iraqi government and Iraqi people."

The 31st MEU, which includes 900 Okinawa-based Marines and some 2,000 others from California and Hawaii, has learned just how volatile their region can be.

"The atmospherics can change in 12 to 24 hours," Miller said. "For 38 years, the people here lived under a dictatorial leader. The population knows that and lived under his ruthlessness for most of their lives. It's going to take a lot of time to change."

But Miller says he sees encouraging signs that lasting progress has been made. At vehicle checkpoints just after New Year's, Marine civil affairs units spoke with local residents to gauge their feelings on the situation.

While some said the insurgency and continued fighting were beginning to take a psychological toll, others reported that local religious leaders were starting to preach support for U.S.-led forces, Miller said.

"That is the change in atmospherics that I wanted. These people realize the best way is to support the multinational forces until they can get their own security forces on their feet. And every day, I see positive changes in the [Iraqi National Guard]," he said.

"I attribute that to rooting out the bad guys in the area. Rarely a day goes by that we don't have a success out here, whether big or small."

Indeed, the 31st MEU has captured more than two dozen fighters in recent weeks and seized several large caches of weapons.

But those successes have not come without a heavy price. Since arriving in Iraq last fall, the 31st MEU has suffered 21 combat deaths and nearly 150 Marines have been wounded in action.

Gunnery Sgt. Troy Bruss, 31st MEU chief of operations, said Marines here face a full range of attacks: direct small- arms fire, indirect fire such as mortars and rockets, roadside bombs, car bombs, suicide attacks and land mines.

In some areas, the form of attacks depends "on what part of the month it is," said Bruss, a 39-year-old from Bondeul, Wis.

One route has earned the nickname "Mine Alley" because of the insurgents' tactic of digging up and reburying land mines at different locations, sometimes even triggering them from under paved roads. Another intersection is called "IED Corner," using the now-ubiquitous military acronym for improvised explosive device.

The Marines, living at relatively Spartan camps in a largely barren area, have become used to 18-hour duty days, which often stretch into two days without sleep.

"They are doing a great job. We can't ask anything more of them," Bruss said.

The unit has had its Iraq deployment extended once, now putting it on schedule to return to Okinawa around March.

"It has been an honor and is an honor to serve with these men and women. They are extremely selfless and believe in what they are doing. Not one has ever dropped his or her pack," Miller said, emphasizing the importance of building on the work done so far.

"If we let our guard down, it can change in a matter of 24 hours. We are obsessed with not losing the positive ground that we have gained since getting here."

Ellie

gwladgarwr

01-05-05, 02:26 PM

Originally posted by thedrifter
Univ. of Md. Campus to Show Iraq Photos
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By STEPHEN MANNING
The Porterville Reporter
Jan. 3, 2005

ADELPHI, Md. - When Maj. Benjamin Busch prepared for patrols in a region near the Iraq-Iran border, he strapped body armor 'across his chest, donned a Kevlar helmet and slung a gun over his shoulder. The Marine reservist also usually carried another key piece of gear _ his camera.

About 40 of his photos form the core of an art exhibit starting Friday at the University of Maryland University College. Titled "Art in War," the show runs through April 10 at the university's conference center and hotel.

Busch, a 36-year-old College Park resident, is scheduled to go back to Iraq soon after the exhibit opens.

"What I really wanted was evidence of the place and the people that wasn't obvious," he said. "I wanted to capture life and the environment as it really was in the infancy of our presence there."
Ellie

Major Busch is my old company commander of D Co 4thLARBn 4thMARDIV at Camp Upshur aboard MCB Quantico.

thedrifter

01-05-05, 02:43 PM

10,000 U.S. Troops Hurt In Iraq
Associated Press
January 5, 2005

WASHINGTON - The number of U.S. troops wounded in Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003 has surpassed 10,000, the Pentagon said Tuesday in a delayed update of its casualty data.

Of the 10,252 total wounded, the Pentagon said 5,396 were unable to return to duty and 4,856 sustained injuries that were light enough to allow them to resume their duties. The total is normally reported each week, but the Pentagon had not updated the figures since Dec. 22, when the number of wounded stood at 9,981.

The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq stood at 1,335 on Tuesday, according to the Pentagon.

In a related development, the Pentagon announced that a brigade-size unit of the 28th Infantry Division of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, said to number about 2,400 part-time soldiers, will deploy to Iraq as part of a rotation of troops scheduled to begin in mid-2005.

The 48th Infantry Brigade of the Georgia Army National Guard is the other major National Guard unit in the 2005 rotation, which was outlined by the Pentagon in a Dec. 14 announcement that did not mention the Pennsylvania Guard unit.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-05-05, 03:20 PM

Baghdad governor assassinated
By Steve Negus and Dhiya Rasan in Baghdad
Published: January 5 2005 02:00 | Last updated: January 5 2005 02:00

Insurgents shot and killed Baghdad's provincial governor and struck at the headquarters of an elite police unit yesterday in a series of attacks against Iraqi government targets aimed at disrupting the January 30 elections.

With only four weeks to go, the increase in violence, particularly in the capital, led to renewed calls for the poll to be delayed. Ghazi al-Yawer, interim president, suggested that the United Nations should decide whether elections would be held on time. However, a senior US state department official said that "absolutely" the elections would go ahead as planned. The security situation was not deteriorating and was actually "a little better" than six weeks ago.

Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, said after a two-hour meeting in Washington with Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, that the US was "determined" to proceed with the polls.

Iraq's electoral commission has also insisted that the Transitional Administrative Law governing the elections states they must be held before January 31, with no mechanism for delay.

The growing insecurity has already diminished participation in the elections. There are virtually no activists out canvassing in the capital and some parties have not even announced a candidate list for fear their members will be targeted.

The shooting of Ali al-Haidari, provincial governor, was the latest in a string of assassinations of local officials that appears to be deterring influential Iraqis, particularly in the Sunni Arab areas, from seeking high-profile political roles. Witnesses said three cars loaded with gunmen pulled alongside Mr Haidari's four-car motorcade as he drove through the north-east part of the city and then opened fire.

Insurgents associated with the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the killing, warning that "every traitor and supporter of the Jews and Christians" would suffer the same fate.

Guerrillas have taken a heavy toll of government officials, killing both the governor of the northern city of Mosul in July and Hatem Kamel, Mr Haidari's deputy, on November 1. However, Mr Haidari is the most prominent official to be killed since the holder of the country's then-rotating presidency, Islamist politician Izzedin Salim, was assassinated in May.

Without commenting directly on Mr Haidari's murder, US and Iraqi officials said insurgent infiltration of the government and lax security had contributed to Iraqi officials' vulnerability.

In a second major attack yesterday, a suicide bomber drove a tanker truck loaded with explosives into a checkpoint outside the headquarters of the interior ministry commando force, killing eight policemen and two civilians.

Five US troops were also killed in three separate attacks across the country. On Monday 45 people were killed in a series of attacks in the north of Iraq.

Several Sunni politicians have revived calls to delay the vote.

Ellie

thedrifter

01-05-05, 03:51 PM

January 05, 2005 
 
Adventist wants sentence for refusing to bear weapon reduced 
 
By Estes Thompson 
Associated Press 
 
 
RALEIGH, N.C. — A Marine who re-enlisted after becoming a Seventh-Day...

thedrifter

01-05-05, 04:41 PM

U.S. Marine in Mysterious Case Declared Deserter 
 
By Will Dunham 
 
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, charged a month ago with desertion in a mysterious case in which he...

thedrifter

01-05-05, 06:06 PM

January 03, 2005

Recon sweeps are curbing bomb violence, Marines say

By Gordon Trowbridge
Times staff writer

NEAR AMARIAH, Iraq — Lance Cpl. Afton Carlson couldn’t help but notice as he steered the Humvee down a narrow dirt road, straight into the deep red Iraqi sunrise.
“The sun sure does come up nice here,” said the young Marine reservist from Idaho.

A moment later, a colleague somewhere in the back of the vehicle broke the spell.

“Right up here at the footbridge, that’s where we got hit.”

Since September, that has been the 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion’s world: a seemingly random mix of the pastoral and the violent, farm fields and goatherds mixed with roadside bombs and mortar attacks.

During Christmas week, the battalion wrapped up a series of sweeps in the territory just east of the Euphrates River that the Marines say put a major dent in insurgents’ ability to wage war in this part of Anbar province.

“Once we started to squeeze them south from Fallujah, we saw a lot of activity out here,” said Sgt. Paul Hughes, a Marine reservist from Seattle.

But after several days of nighttime raids and weapons seizures, he said, “it’s starting to die down a little.”

The focus of the latest operation was an area just across the Euphrates from the town of Amariah.

In a bit of land nearly surrounded by the Euphrates, the Marines said, insurgents were building improvised explosive devices and launching attacks into the area between Amariah and Fallujah.

Two recon companies swooped down on the area, setting up command posts from which they launched sweeps of the surrounding terrain.

The results were worth the effort, said Bravo Company 1st Sgt. Randy Lee.

“We cleared out two IED factories, killed one IED builder and captured another, and got into a pretty serious firefight with as many as 20 insurgents,” Lee said. “We’ve been pretty active down here for the last three months. So we knew there was an IED maker here.”

And though impressions can be fleeting, Lee said Marines have begun to get more good vibrations from residents who had greeted them with cold shoulders and turned backs.

“Our [intelligence] Marine thinks we’re making good progress with the locals,” Lee said.

Shutting down roadside-bomb makers would be especially welcome news for the battalion, whose members have put thousands of miles on Humvees as they dart across the Iraqi landscape, from Karmah north of Fallujah to Amariah farther south.

The job means rolling along muddy, rutted, needle-narrow country roads, better suited to the area’s many sheep and goatherds than wheeled vehicles.

But bumps and potholes are less of a concern than the roadside bombs insurgents have planted in the area’s better-built roads. Especially troublesome: wider dirt-road running along a broad irrigation canal.

On Dec. 21, as a convoy from the battalion’s quick reaction force waited for engineers to sweep the road for bombs, Hughes said the delay was nothing new.

“This road and the one leading up to it are notorious for lots of IEDs,” he said.

The threat can change in a heartbeat, said Cpl. Jason Crowder, 23, of Clinton, Mich.

Crowder remembered telling Marines in a convoy earlier in the week that vehicle-borne bombs were less of a problem than those planted in roadside berms.

Moments after delivering the advice, a car along the convoy’s route exploded.

“So much for that wisdom,” Crowder said.

Ellie