PDA

View Full Version : Military reassesses hot-dogging pilots



thedrifter
05-09-05, 07:01 AM
Military reassesses hot-dogging pilots <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
ASSOCIATED PRESS <br />
Skimming low over hills in eastern Afghanistan, the 11 Marines packed into an Army Black Hawk helicopter asked for an exciting...

thedrifter
05-09-05, 07:01 AM
What Do the Insurgents Want?
Different Visions, Same Bloody Tactics

By Hiwa Osman
Post
Sunday, May 8, 2005; B01



IRBIL, Iraq

The 60-wheel trailer was carrying a giant power generator on the highway to Musayyib, 30-odd miles south of Baghdad, last week. Guarded by six cars carrying police and the Iraqi National Guard, the convoy was passing along the notorious Baghdad road near Lutifiyah, a hotbed of insurgent activity where many kidnappings and attacks on military and civilian cars take place.

A banner hung from the generator, like an amulet to ward off evil. Sprayed across it in big bold letters were the words: "To the Musayyib power plant. God is great. Long live the Mujaheddin."

The sign was an appeal to Iraq's insurgents, urging them not to attack the convoy and deprive the people of Musayyib of electricity. Whether it was thanks to the banner, to luck, or to the absence of insurgents on the road that day, the generator and the 28 security personnel made it safely to their destination.

Like the people in that convoy, Iraqis are wondering why the diverse people known by the shorthand phrase "insurgents" continue to attack and what they hope to achieve. In the week since a new cabinet was formed, about 250 Iraqis have been slaughtered in car bombings and other bloody attacks, a pace as relentless and heartless as any since the fall of Saddam Hussein more than two years ago. And while on the ground the attacks seem indiscriminate, there is a strategy behind them.

In fact, there's more than one. That's because the insurgents are actually several groups of people who might share tactics, but possess different motivations and long-term objectives. Thus the appeal on the side of the generator in transit might have had an effect with one group of the insurgency: those who were fired from their jobs in the military and other government institutions for being members of the Baath party but who don't really believe in Saddam Hussein's doddering old brand of Arab socialism. But two other important factions of the insurgency -- the die-hard Baathists and the pro-al Qaeda Islamist militants -- would not hesitate to attack what they would see as a perfect target: a giant generator, 12 policemen and 16 Iraqi national guardsmen. Promoting instability by disrupting public services and crippling the security apparatus of the new Iraq is the heart of their strategy.

Understanding the different strains of the insurgency is essential to fighting them. Two years after the war and three months after national elections that appeared to be a referendum in favor of peaceful politics, the violent insurgents remain an unyielding stumbling block in the path to a new Iraq. The country can never move ahead until this revolt is dealt with decisively.

The backbone of the insurgency appears to be an alliance between the die-hard Baathists and the network of terrorists mostly under the command of Abu Musab Zarqawi. It is a partnership of convenience; both groups are fighting the same battle, but for different reasons and with different goals.

The foot soldiers who make up the Baathist part of the alliance have a military background. They are former members of Saddam's army, where they served as low-ranking soldiers, or in the security and intelligence fields. They lost their jobs shortly after the war, when the coalition forces dissolved the army, security and intelligence apparatuses. They were also brainwashed by ideas of Arab nationalism and anti-Americanism during the Saddam years. Being sacked from their jobs only reinforced the conspiracy theories they had been led to believe and it strengthened their anti-Americanism.

Many of them would gladly go back to their jobs in order to have a better standard of living and avoid risking their lives to lob a mortar or fire a missile at a military or civilian target in return for $200, the going rate for such deeds. A former Iraqi army officer, who now works as a translator and is hiding from insurgents, told me that when Saddam was in power, the army trained security, intelligence and Baath party members in conventional urban warfare methods. So with the high unemployment rate, there is no shortage of men able to use hand-held missiles and automatic weapons to mount simple raids.

Directing these lower-level combatants are the former high-ranking army, security and intelligence officers of the Baathist regime, who lost all the privileges and power they enjoyed under Saddam. They have managed to reassemble some of their old spy networks, recruiting former employees to gather intelligence and paying those willing to carry out assassinations and attacks on military and civilian targets.

Their ability to instill fear is evident. A Baghdad resident who visited Ghazi Yawar, then interim president, in the Green Zone told me that when Yawar's bodyguards picked him up they told him to put his head down as they were entering the U.S. and Iraqi government compound. "They said that I better not be noticed by the terrorists," he said. The bodyguards said the insurgents "would kill me on my way out if they recognized me."

They have also infiltrated government institutions, facilitating assassination attempts in Baghdad and other cities of the Sunni triangle. Many government ministers and public officials have been stuck in their houses for weeks, even months. Some do not even visit their ministries.

Their goal is simple: The return of Baathist rule through a military coup. E-mailing from his hideout last month, a former high-ranking member of the military put it simply: "Once we kick the occupation out, we will have enough power and a strong will to resume the leadership of Iraq." He added, "We were able to do it in 1963 and in 1968. We can do it again," referring to the dates of the party's two seizures of power.

To do that, they are willing to make common cause with people who do not share their secular outlook. Asked how Baathists view the Islamist militants of al Qaeda, senior Baath party official Salah al-Mukhtar told a local Iraqi newspaper earlier this year that the Baathists will "support anyone who carries arms against the Americans."

The Islamist militants have their own foot soldiers in this unholy alliance: supporters who have poured across the mostly open borders from neighboring countries. I believe it is these people who are particularly useful to the Baathists, because they provide a supply of willing suicide bombers.

Suicide attacks are not, in all likelihood, Iraqi operations. "Thirty-five years of Saddam's brutal repression did not produce a single suicide bomber," says a former military officer who is now working as a driver.

Syria has been an important base and way station for these foreign fighters. Interviews with arrested "jihadis" and transcripts of interrogations obtained from Iraqi security and intelligence show that a typical jihadi's journey from his city in Syria, Jordan, Sudan, Yemen or any other Arab country until the moment he blows himself up goes something like this: After deciding that he wants to fight the Americans in Iraq, he contacts mosques in Damascus known for recruiting mujaheddin for the holy war in Iraq. Often these recruitment campaigns are funded by senior Syrian officials.

After deciding that a person is fit to conduct a "martyrdom operation," Syrian intelligence trains him on how to disguise his identity and how to handle explosives and ammunitions. Radical mullahs supplement this with heavy doses of hard-line religious teaching. The volunteer is then taken across the desert in eastern Syria, through the porous borders, into the Sunni triangle in Iraq, where he is housed by members of the former Baathist intelligence and security network. The second leg of the journey is to a safe house in Baghdad, where he is assigned a target to blow up or sent to certain areas to fight the Americans or the new Iraqi army and police forces.

Last year, the Iraqi government published a list of foreign fighters caught in Iraq. The father of one of the fighters contacted one of the ministers and said that when his son left home he told his parents he was going to Syria for a holiday. A month later he called his parents and said that he was in Fallujah for jihad against the Americans.

Before the American offensive in Fallujah, foreign militants used to go there to join the local insurgency in conducting conventional attacks on Iraqi police, national guards and the U.S. military. Iraqi journalists working for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) reported that Syrian militias were openly operating in various areas of the Sunni triangle. One Syrian combatant told a reporter, who was posing as a local resident, that he was in Iraq fighting the United States because "if we don't fight them here, we will have to fight them in Syria."

Money also flows in from Syria. I spoke with an Iraqi journalist who recently visited Syria. He said being there felt like being back in Saddam's Iraq. "The place was heaving with sons of Baathists and former regime officials," he observed.

Iran is also harboring and training members of other militant groups. IWPR revealed a few months ago that Iran is assisting the radical Islamist group Ansar al-Islam, a large, mostly Iraqi Kurdish affiliate group of al Qaeda, and the Ansar Al-Sunnah, which claimed responsibility for the suicide attack in Irbil that killed more than 50 people and injured 70 police recruits last week.

Although the disparate insurgent allies are fighting different wars for different reasons, for now they are fighting the same battle -- destroying the current Iraqi government and driving out the Americans. One wants a return to rule by Saddam or some other Baathist; another wants a Taliban-style Iraq. But they're all waiting for the United States to leave.

The relative hiatus in violence that took place after the January elections is over. It would be naive to think that these groups can be neutralized by inviting them to join the political process. Bringing a few Sunni faces into the cabinet with the hope that they would end the insurgency is like expecting plastic surgery to cure stomach cancer. The war against this insurgency may be unappetizing, but it's one that cannot be avoided. And its first aim must be to break the Baathist-al Qaeda alliance.

To do that, the war has to be fought on two fronts. The international community must issue an ultimatum to Iraq's neighbors, Syria and Iran, to cut the insurgents' supply lines. Although Iraq has an elected government and president, the country is still on its knees and does not have the clout that others have over these states. The reluctant withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon provides a model of how the United States and the international community can exert their influence on Damascus. Iraqis are hoping for a similar show of strength on its behalf.

In Iraq, the war can be fought by recognizing that the country is composed of three competing zones. Ultimately the people of the Sunni triangle will rise up against the insurgency so that they can catch up with the northern and southern regions of Iraq, which are safer than the center. Meanwhile, though, there is no alternative to a carrot-and-stick policy aimed at capturing or killing the most recalcitrant Baathists and offering lower-level, non-criminal Baathist party members jobs and bringing them into the political process.

Only then will Iraqis be able to put away their submissive banners and drive into the government compound sitting upright, instead of cowering in the back seat of a heavily guarded car.

Hiwa Osman, an Iraqi Kurd, is the training director for the London-based Institute for War & Peace Reporting in Iraq (http://www.iwpr.net/)

Author's e-mail: hiwaosman@hotmail.com

Ellie

thedrifter
05-09-05, 07:03 AM
Message about PFTs from Battalion S-3


by Sgt. Melvin Lopez Jr.
Henderson Hall News


Per Marine Corps Order P6100.12, every Marine must be physically fit, regardless of age, grade or duty assignment. Fitness is essential to the day-to-day effectiveness and combat readiness of the Marine Corps. It is important for every Marine to heed this order and take it seriously.

Not only must every Marine be accountable for their physical fitness, they should also be accountable for making sure a Physical Fitness Test is taken in a timely fashion. All Marines attached to Headquarters Marine Corps are required to take a PFT once every semi-annual reporting period. It can be centralized (completed with Battalion S-3) or decentralized (completed with the Marine's section). PFT scores can be the deciding factor on whether a Marine gets promoted or not, or if the Marine receives a good or adverse Fitness Report.

If the Marine chooses to take a PFT with their section, the section's proctor is responsible for taking the scores and submitting them to Battalion S-3 with their full name, age, height, weight, and other information that is on the official PFT Scoresheet, provided by Battalion S-3. PFT Proctors should ensure that they are initialed by each individual Marine taking the PFT, to verify that everything on the scoresheet is correct. The scoresheet can be hand-delivered to Battalion S-3, Bldg. 29 or faxed to 703-614-6411. No emails please.

If the Marine chooses to take a centralized PFT, all information will be gathered at the time of the PFT. The Battalion S-3 will then submit all scores in a timely fashion. To verify scores, whether centralized or decentralized, Marines are urged to check their personal Marine Online account or to check with their section proctors. The proctors are the direct contact to the S-3, not the individual Marine.

Marines use a point system to categorize PFT scores, depending on their performance and the age group he or she falls under. If a Marine does not attain the minimum required score, he or she will be assigned to a remedial physical training program. Sergeants and above who score a 285 or higher rate a directed comment on their Fitness Report.

A Marine's height and weight is also taken per MCO P6100.12, and the Marine must be within the minimum and maximum requirements. If it is determined that the Marine is above the maximum weight requirement for his or her height, the Marine will have to report to Battalion S-3, for a Body Composition Evaluation. The BCE consists of a body fat evaluation. It will be conducted by measuring the neck and waist for male Marines, and neck, waist and hips for female Marines. These measurements will be used in a formula to determine the body fat percentage. If the Marine is not within body fat standards listed in the MCO, he or she will be assigned to the Body Compositioning Program. A first-class PFTer will have a 4% greater fat tolerance.

If the Marine fails either the PFT or the BCE, or does not take a PFT (determined to be an RDNT ? Run, Did Not Take), his or her reporting senior is obligated to report this in the Marine's Fitness Report or Pros/Cons.

Marines having questions or wanting information on the Physical Fitness Test are urged to read Marine Corps Order P6100.12. Only after the Marine has attempted to read the order should he or she call the Battalion S-3 for more information.

Sergeants and above are also encouraged to attend a PFT Proctor Brief conducted every Wednesday at 9 a.m. in Bldg. 29, Rm. 100. This is open to those Marines interested in becoming an official PFT proctor, or as a refresher course. The brief takes less than an hour, and can be a very valuable tool.

For any other information, please call Staff Sgt. John Martinez or Master Sgt. Gregory Johnson, Battalion S-3, at 703-614-1471.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-09-05, 07:05 AM
Marines mount offensive against Iraq insurgents

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. Marines said on Monday they had killed 75 guerrillas in the first 24 hours of an offensive against foreign fighters and insurgents in western Anbar province.

A U.S. military statement said coalition and Marine aircraft were taking part in the offensive.

"Initial reports indicate that approximately 75 insurgents have been killed in the first 24 hours of the operation. Some foreign fighters are believed to be among the dead," the statement said.

The offensive is taking place in an area north of the Euphrates River in the al Jazira desert, a region the military said is a known smuggling route and sanctuary for foreign fighters.

Most of Iraq's insurgents are from the rebellious Anbar province


Ellie

thedrifter
05-09-05, 07:06 AM
Troops gain intel access

By Bruce Rolfsen
Times staff writer


Troops on the ground can now directly download images from an unmanned RQ-4 Global Hawk reconnaissance jet.
Just two years ago, photographs and ground-scanning radar images from the Global Hawk were available only to headquarters units. It could take about an hour to relay Global Hawk pictures to units in the field.

Now, troops on the ground need just a laptop computer or personal digital assistant that is plugged into a tactical radio and equipped with a software upgrade.

In April, the Air Force’s top general for Iraq and Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Walter Buchanan, praised the service’s effort to find new ways to support troops on the ground.

Buchanan described the upgraded Global Hawk as an “Internet server in the sky.”

The Air Force and Marine Corps, along with Global Hawk contractor Northrop Grumman, tested the prototype system earlier this winter in Iraq.

Buchanan cautioned that a decision hadn’t been made on whether the capability will become standard equipment on the Global Hawk.

Ed Walby, a former U-2 squadron commander working for Northrop Grumman on the Global Hawk, said the quick availability of reconnaissance pictures will change how field units get intelligence.

For instance, instead of sending helicopters to scout a town 20 miles away, commanders could download Global Hawk pictures, Walby said.

Northrop Grumman developed the new system, called Advanced Information Architecture, in response to the Air Force’s drive to cut the time it takes to drop bombs and to get more information to aircrews and ground forces.

The heart of the system is a computer server that has 1,500 gigabytes of storage capacity, the rough equivalent of 50 desktop computers. As a Global Hawk flies over Iraq, all the photos and radar images are stored on the server. The onboard computer also remembers the ground coordinates of the locations it shot and when the images were taken.

When troops on the ground need to find out what is over the next hill or behind a row of buildings, they can contact the Global Hawk by using a portable computer or PDA plugged into a tactical radio.

Once troops have sent the coordinates they are interested in, the Global Hawk transmits a picture of that area in a burst of data that takes about 16 seconds to receive.

Troops can then zoom in on any part of the image by moving a pen over the area that interests them and telling the Global Hawk to send a more detailed image.

The clarity of the Global Hawk images is high enough that ground troops can pick out individuals if the display screen has enough resolution, Walby said.

Because the Global Hawk flies at 65,000 feet, its line-of-sight radio link allows troops as far as 300 miles away to request images.

Bruce Rolfsen covers the Air Force.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-09-05, 07:07 AM
Troops comb village
in search of insurgents

By Jacob Silberberg
Associated Press


UDAIM, Iraq — Hundreds of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers swept through this village Sunday, searching homes, detaining insurgent suspects and taking their weapons.
At a time of stepped-up attacks by insurgents in Iraq, the operation in Udaim was one of several raids by coalition forces in Iraq this week aimed at cracking down on militants.

In the Fallujah-Ramadi area, west of Baghdad, Marines and Iraqi troops discovered multiple caches this week, including thousands of mortar rounds, over 600 grenades and 200 pounds of explosives, the military said.

No arrests were made in those seizures, which the military said were the largest in the embattled Anbar province in over a year.

A raid by more than 550 coalition soldiers in western Baghdad netted 16 suspected insurgents armed with five AK-47 assault rifles and another machine gun with a long-distance scope. Their alleged crimes include “assassinations, beheadings and kidnappings” of Iraqis, the military said.

Army Maj. Will Johnson, 35, of Hixson, Tenn., said Sunday’s raid in Udaim, a village of about 150 homes 70 miles north of Baghdad, had been long planned, using tips the military had received from Iraqi civilian informants.

Insurgents have used a highway running through the village to bomb Iraqi and U.S. military convoys, he said.

Bandits also stop drivers to steal their cars, sometimes wearing black masks, Johnson said. One such mask was found during the Sunday’s operation in Udaim, he said.

Some 300 Iraqi soldiers led Sunday’s raid, supported by 260 American soldiers. Training Iraqi soldiers and police to take over security responsibilities is key to the United States’ exit strategy in Iraq.

The operation began shortly after midnight and lasted until dawn, with Iraqi soldiers knocking on doors, entering homes and searching them. U.S. soldiers often followed the Iraqi forces into the buildings, overseeing their search of the dwellings.

No Iraqis were seen resisting the searches, and no clashes were seen or reported.

Sixteen Iraqis were detained and some light weaponry was confiscated, including materials for two roadside bombs, said Johnson, who took part in the operation.

Army Capt. Matthew Rawlins, 28, of Lansing, Mich., who also took part in the operation, called it a partial success.

He said few Iraqi men were in the village when the coalition forces arrived, meaning the soldiers ended up detaining fewer suspected insurgents than expected.

“Somehow they got tipped off” about the operation, Rawlins said.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-09-05, 07:07 AM
May 09, 2005

Tech gains don’t negate separation pains

By Paul J. Roarke Jr.


There is nothing that boosts the spirits of deployed Marines like being able to communicate with loved ones back home. It’s our lifeline from this sometimes-surreal world of Iraq to the normal world of family and friends in the States.
An upbeat phone call, letter or e-mail from the home front can make your day — and helps keep your head screwed on correctly.

In today’s world of instant communication, we have contact with our loved ones back home so readily that it’s sometimes hard to believe how things once were.

During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, it was a big deal when a Marine had the chance to call home. There were long lines at limited phone centers and sometimes no phone calls at all for weeks or months. E-mail wasn’t even a thought back then, as far as I know. Regular postal service was the only thing that kept us connected.

Great communication hookups here aren’t limited to the big bases and headquarters areas. Sure, the setups at those places are bigger and better, but access points can be found almost everywhere. Recently, I was in an area literally in the middle of nowhere and saw Marines sitting on Meals, Ready to Eat boxes in abandoned buildings in Iraq e-mailing people in the United States. It’s amazing when you think about it, though the young Marines shrugged it off as everyday business.

It’s a tribute to the outstanding job our communications people do. The old days of communicating only by infrequent letters are long gone.

But with almost 24/7 access to the home front, it’s a little surprising that problems holding a family or relationship together from thousands of miles away have stayed the same. In some ways, they’ve gotten worse. As anybody who has been in the Corps for at least one extended deployment will tell you, a Marine who is having these problems is easy to spot.

They all have the same look: head down, grim facial expression, unusually quiet or sometimes just mumbling to themselves, seemingly oblivious to the world. They look that way after a bad phone call, e-mail or letter from home.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen plenty of it in Iraq. And we’re not just talking about “Dear John” letters but any bad news from the home base. Your spouse is having problems with finances, the kids are in trouble at school or your girlfriend or boyfriend seems to have an attitude. Whatever the problem, it’s worse because you’re away and can’t fix it from where you are.

These things can get you down and, worse, distract you from your duties. This not only lowers your performance on the job, but also could get you hurt. A depressed, distracted Marine in a combat zone is a tragedy waiting to happen.

In these situations, Marines need to take care of their own. Buddies who know each other’s moods and backgrounds need to help the troubled person get through it. Most of the time, it just takes someone to listen, offer encouragement and loosen things up with a joke or two. More serious situations require a Marine’s chain of command to assist. Because of this, Marines, especially our enlisted leadership, need to pay close attention during deployments and be ready to do what’s needed to keep Marines on track.

I also hope that friends and family members remember what Marines are going through while deployed here. Support from home has been, and continues to be, awesome. But as always, after the initial period of flag waving, things will settle down as the realities of life set in.

I think spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends and family members sometimes confuse perception with reality.

The perception is that if a Marine has the ability to keep in touch on a regular basis, things here must be pretty normal.

The reality is that even during relatively slow times, “normal” will never describe life for Marines here, regardless of their location or job. They need to stay focused and should not have to worry about things they can’t do anything about.

I think everyone should take advantage of high-tech gadgets to connect with home whenever possible.

However, I caution everyone on both sides of the line to remember that technology works better when used as a morale builder, not a problem solver.


The writer, a master gunnery sergeant, is the ordnance chief for 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing (Forward) at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq.



Ellie

thedrifter
05-09-05, 07:10 AM
Observing Passover in Iraq
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing
Story Identification #: 200551932
Story by Capt. Rob James



AL ASAD, Iraq (April 28, 2005) -- “Passover has a message for the conscience and the heart of all mankind. For what does it commemorate? It commemorates the deliverance of a people from degrading slavery, from most foul and cruel tyranny. It is God’s protest against unrighteousness,” says Morris Joseph in “Judaism As Creed and Life”.

Passover began April 24 and what better place than Iraq, a land long oppressed by the evil of a tyrannical dictator, to celebrate at the Seder table the liberating power of the Passover God has promised his people.

Gathering in a dusty room, at tables set with plastic plates and bowls and paper cups, Marines, sailors, soldiers and a civilian seized the opportunity to reconnect with the Jewish heritage of their faith at a Christian Seder meal here.

It was standing room only as Rabbi Seth Phillips, a lieutenant commander from the Naval Submarine Base in New London, Conn., led more than 30 service members in the Seder meal.

While the service was a bit more abbreviated and much less formal than the traditional Seder, Rabbi Phillips, one of only seven Jewish chaplains in the Navy, walked the group through the meal.

As the meal and ceremony that imbues it progressed, Rabbi Phillips took the time to explain the symbolism that pervades not just the steps (the specific actions that compose the ceremonial meal) but that of the various foods themselves.

The meal, steeped in symbolism serves many purposes, a central theme of which is to remind us of our past, Egypt’s oppression of the Israelites and their eventual freedom. Additionally, it reminds us of the constant struggle between good and evil taking place in the heart of every man.

While we are no longer enslaved by a physical power, as the Jews were by the Egyptian Pharaoh, the meal reminds us that, despite the freedom we enjoy and often take for granted, we remain slaves to our evil desires.

While the deep lessons of the Seder meal have are serious the ceremony was lighthearted.

The service provides a fun and tangible lesson in the history of the Jewish people invoking the many years of slavery they endured under the Egyptians while at the same time demonstrating how a saving knowledge of God provided them true freedom from the most heinous of all bondage, that of sin.

Rabbi Phillips explained that while the lessons of the Seder meal are grave the ceremony is executed with humor. The ceremony, which would very likely take hours, is designed to keep the interest of any children involved and includes a matzo hide and seek, and a bit of drama with the singing of prayers and story telling.

While an ideal Seder would be very formal, executed following long practiced tradition, Rabbi Phillips explained that it could be held in a fighting hole. He explained that there are only three absolute requirements that go to the very core of the symbolism of the ceremony.

No matter how simple or formal the Seder meal there are three distinct elements and each must be recognized. They are the matzo, the paschal lamb and the bitter herbs. These elements are symbolic of the plight of the Israelites enslaved in Egypt and when finally freed, their forty-year exodus to the land they had been promised.

The first is the bitter herbs that symbolize the bitterness of a life enslaved. The second is the lamb, a reminder of the tenth plague that befell all of Egypt, the death of the first-born son of every family who did not spread the blood of the lamb on their doorpost as a symbol for the angel of Death to Passover. Finally, the matzo or unleavened bread recalls the haste with which the Jews fled Egypt. When the opportunity came to depart Egypt they had to quickly grab the bread they were preparing not allowing it leaven or rise.

Following the ceremonial meal much of the group who had gathered for the meal adjourned to the dining facility for fellowship. There they had the opportunity to talk with the rabbi and have him answer their questions.

Thursday night Rabbi Phillips presided over a Seder meal for the Jewish service members here.

Rabbi Phillips was quick to thank Cmdr. Ron Brown, chaplain, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing (Forward), for all of the preparation that went into ensuring the ceremony went off well. This was his eighth Seder and according to Phillips, “Chaplain Brown did the best job of preparing for the Seder.”

Chaplain Brown, in turn gave all the credit for the great experience to Lt. David L. Batchelor, chaplain for Marine Attack Squadron 311 and Petty Officer 2nd Class David G. Oihus, a religious program specialist here.

Rabbi Phillips has been trying for the better part of a year to get to Iraq so that he can minister to the Jewish faithful.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-09-05, 07:11 AM
NBC looking for Marines in search of treasure
Submitted by: MCB Quantico
Story Identification #: 2005557131
Story by Cpl. Shawn Vincent



MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va (May 5, 2005) -- Today, it seems people will do almost anything to get their 15 minutes of fame on a reality television show – sing in front of millions of people, live on an island for weeks on end, or even express a desire to marry off their fathers.

The National Broadcasting Company is currently seeking unique groups of three people to compete for thrills and riches in television’s first global treasure hunt. The treasure hunters will face exciting challenges requiring brains, stamina, passion and teamwork.

"Treasure Hunters" is the new, quest-oriented series that features multiplayer teams to be sent on a global search to solve a puzzle, and the first team to uncover all the clues will be given the location of a hidden treasure.

“We’re really looking for a variety of contestants, anyone from a group of Marines to firemen and the CIA – everyone,” said Kamala Fritzler, casting director for NBC’s “Treasure Hunters.” “We don’t know what the prize will be for the winners, but we know it will be something of great interest and monetary value. It’s going to be a lot of fun for the contestants and we’re all really looking forward to the show.”

Fritzler said taping for the show would start in August and would last approximately five weeks.

For anyone who wishes to apply to be on the new reality TV show, the deadline for applications is Friday. Potential contestants must make a videotape of their three-person team to submit to the show.

According to the NBC Web site, the maximum length of the videotape is 10 minutes. It is recommended that someone else record you and your team members, don’t just walk around behind the camera. Start with your name, hometown and occupation, the Web site advises. “There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ thing to say on a tape, we just want to get to know everybody,” according to the Web site. “Take us on a tour of your lives; show us what’s important to everyone. Briefly take us through your jobs, but most importantly we want to see everyone in action. We want to see everyone’s hobbies.”

After the video is submitted to the show, it will become property of the NBC producers and will not be returned to the makers, whether or not they are selected as contestants.

Applications will be considered only if complete, and a complete application includes:

-A completed and signed application form.

-A completed and signed Certificate of Veracity.

-Copy or proof of a valid passport or proof of having applied for issuance or renewal of passport.

-One separate passport-sized photo of yourself.

-Your 10-minute VHS videotape clearly labeled with the team’s proposed name, address and phone number.

For more information about the show or for an application and Certificate of Veracity, visit http://www.nbc.com/nbc/Treasure_Hunters/.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-09-05, 07:16 AM
Mother, daughter pay tribute to Marines
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Amee Bohrer, The Journal-Standard

FREEPORT - Shaunna White, 22, of Polo was just another college student on the verge of graduation, unsure about her career path and wondering if she had chosen the right major.

For the six months between September 2004 and April 2005, all White knew was that she painfully missed her younger brother, Lance Cpl. Chauncy White, 20, a Marine Reservist deployed in Iraq with the 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines. She also missed his best friend since kindergarten, Lance Cpl. Dane Van Oosen, 20, of Polo who she has always referred to as her brother.

She and mother, Charlene White, 48, lived for the weekly e-mail updates sent by the boys' commanding officer, Lt. Col. Mark Smith, who kept the families informed.

"It's something you think about everyday," White said.

"To not have a call, to not have closure ... is very difficult. At the same time, you're very proud and you don't want to hinder them. You can't be selfish and expect a call every day. They're doing their job."

They prayed for Chauncy and Dane, but felt helpless.

Van Oosen mailed a digital camera memory card home to his parents, Suzi and Marvin of Polo, which contained a snapshot of a pencil graffiti sketching on a wall in Iraq, illustrating a "mad ghost" - the English translation of a slang term Iraqis use for Marines, because the Marines often did night raids and interrogated suspected insurgents, Charlene said.

The drawing was done by artist Lance Cpl. Shane Abitz, of Fond du Lac, Wis., and featured wavery outlines of an open-mouth ghost.

It was an image that stayed with them.

Charlene White came up with the idea of making the shirts and asked her daughter, who is a graphic design major at Highland Community College, if she could do something with the picture and design a graphic.

It took a few weeks to get word to Van Oosten and to secure a hand-made permission slip signed by Abitz to avoid copyright infringement issues. Once it arrived in the mail, mother and daughter spent a day working out a design.

"It was a really crucial project - (we) had to think about how to portray this in a respectful and proud way," White said. "The more you got into it, the more involved it got."

"I think it surprised her," Charlene said, speaking of how long it actually took to finish the design.

The final design was a white outline of Abitz's ghost design on a black background with "Mad Ghosts," above it and "Mayhem from the Heartland," underneath the image. The latter phrase had been Smith's sign-off in his e-mails because the major stations for that unit were in the Midwestern cities of Chicago, Milwaukee and Madison. The logo is on the back of the shirts, and "2/24" is on the breast pocket.

Shaunna and her mother began taking orders a month before the battalion's scheduled homecoming April 8. They didn't advertise except by word-of-mouth - telling friends, co-workers and classmates.

Already, they've sold $2,000 worth, and the orders are still coming in.

Charlene said that random Marines have come up to her and complemented the shirt.

She said people who don't even necessarily like the design itself are buying them just to support the Marines.

"Anything that we can do to help those that were wounded," Charlene said. The money raised with the profits is being used as donations for soldier memorials, to help families of deceased soldiers, and to send extras like calling cards to those in combat. She is still looking for more ways to use the money to support as many Marines as possible.

Chauncy said he likes the design and is proud of his mom and sister for their efforts.

"...my sister supported me a lot when I was away, and she's doing a great job supporting everyone who's been overseas," Chauncy said.

And as for White, this project has given her confidence that graphic design is a career that will lead her to both meaningful and profitable work.

She credits the philosophy of Sam Tucibat, her photography and graphic design instructor at HCC, as an inspiration. He said that graphic designers should have a conscience about what they are creating, and it was this White's conscience that lead to success in fund raising for injured soldiers.

"It was so awesome, I told my instructor it was the greatest achievement I could hope to have."

But even more, White is grateful to Chauncy for his bravery and sacrifice.

"I'm 22," she said, "and my baby brother is my hero."

To learn more: For more information about the shirts or to place an order, contact Charlene White at: chare56@yahoo.com


Ellie

thedrifter
05-09-05, 07:18 AM
Semper Fidelis: Two Milford High seniors join Marines
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Jennifer Pollack / Daily News Staff
Monday, May 9, 2005

MILFORD -- Since middle school French class, the two have been the best of friends.

Now, as they are about to graduate, Jason Morin and Jacob Shane, both 18 and from Milford, are embarking on a different type of journey together.

Morin, a senior at Milford High School, and Shane, a senior at Nipmuc Regional High School, are both ending their senior years early and leaving today to join the Marines.

The pair signed up through the Buddy Enlistment System last summer, meaning they will go through 13 weeks of basic training together and be in the same reserve unit when they are finished.

After school is out today, they fly from Boston to Columbia, S.C., where they will take a bus to the Marines' training facility on Parris Island. There, they will be stripped of their possessions and given the tools they need to become members of the elite fighting corps.

They have to leave before school is out so Morin will finish in time to begin college at Norwich University in Northfield, Vt., in the fall.

While they both said they would miss the senior year festivities at school such as the prom, senior week, graduation, and spending the last summer with friends before everyone goes their separate ways, they feel the commitment they have made to the Marines is more important.

"I'm a big believer in you should serve your country," Shane said.

Morin said he has wanted to join the military since eighth grade.

"I just started thinking about what I was going to be doing after high school and it just seemed like the right fit," he said.

Morin's grandfather, Eugene Cyr of Milford, was a Marine and part of Morin's inspiration.

"He loved it -- that's all he talks about still to this day," Morin said.

Shane said his decision to join the military was easier as many members of his family, including uncles and his grandfathers, have served in various branches including the Army, Navy and Air Force. Shane, who has been in ROTC for five years, will be the first Marine.

"I had to be the oddball and join the Marines," he said.

"I wanted to show them up -- be better than them," he said, partly joking.

While Shane, an only child, said his family has no problem with him enlisting since they've seen other relatives go in that direction, Morin said his parents have mixed emotions.

"My dad likes the idea of it and my mother hates every part about it -- she's scared I'll get activated and sent to Iraq," he said.

Morin has two brothers, Ryan, 21, and Shawn, 17. Morin said Shawn has also expressed interest in enlisting next year.

Both Morin and Shane said they have gotten mixed reactions from other students at school.

"Some are sad to see me leave, some think I'm crazy and stupid for doing this, but sometimes a lot of people say, 'good for you -- it's a good cause,'" Morin said.

"A lot of kids come up and tell me they respect me for doing it -- they're pretty supportive," Shane said.

However, neither Morin nor Shane have any qualms about joining the military during wartime.

"It's a war to protect us from getting attacked in the future," Morin said. "I believe in it, I believe in the president's cause. If he asks, I'll go."

"I'm behind President Bush all the way," Shane said. "If I was activated and asked to go I wouldn't think twice about it. I would go right now. It's only going to help us (America) in the long run."

While they will be with the same unit, their status will be somewhat different in the fall after basic training because Morin is going to college and Shane will stay behind to continue working as a call firefighter in Mendon.

Morin said that means as long as he is in school he can only be activated if the president declares a crisis situation.

Both said they would be interested in going on active duty someday. For now, they will drill one weekend a month and two weeks a year at the Westover Air Force Base.

At this point, they're just looking forward to getting through basic training.

"They basically set a whole new lifestyle for you," Shane said.

"They start with the basics of hygiene and work their way up. They cover everything," Morin said.

For the next 13 weeks, life begins anew each day at 4:30 a.m. sharp, but that's just part of the journey.

"Only a select few can say they're in the Marines," Shane said.

"If you're going to do something and want to be the best, go Marines," Morin said.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-09-05, 07:20 AM
Marines pull vests cited in probe
Gannett News Service

The Marine Corps issued to nearly 10,000 troops body armor that Army ballistics experts urged the Marines to reject after tests revealed life-threatening flaws in the vests, an eight-month investigation by Marine Corps Times has found.

In all, the Marines bought about 19,000 Interceptor outer tactical vests from Point Blank Body Armor that failed government tests due to "multiple complete penetrations" of 9 mm pistol rounds and other ballistic or quality-assurance tests.

After being questioned about the safety flaws for this story, the Marines ordered the recall of 5,277 Interceptor vests Wednesday.

The Corps has not said what it intends to do with more than 4,000 vests still in use.

Army ballistics expert James MacKiewicz, in a memorandum rejecting two lots of vests on July 19, 2004, said his office "has little confidence in the performance" of the body armor.

MacKiewicz, who works at the Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass., is responsible for verifying that the vests meet protective requirements and other quality standards.

Instead of heeding MacKiewicz's warning, the Marine program manager for the vests, Lt. Col. Gabriel Patricio, and Point Blank's chief operating officer, Sandra Hatfield, signed waivers that allowed the Marines to buy and distribute the vests that failed to meet standards.

The Marines questioned the accuracy of the initial tests. They pulled samples from some of the challenged lots and had them tested at a private lab.

Patricio said the second tests show that the vests meet safety standards and do not put Marines at increased risk of injury.

"I did not ignore warnings or advice from my staff. I simply looked at all the factors involved as the program manager and made the decision that I needed to make based on all the information that I had," Patricio said in an interview the day before the recall of the vests was announced.

Patricio recently retired from the Marines.

Hatfield challenged the Army tests. "We see no reason to be concerned that the quality has deteriorated or that the performance has deteriorated in any fashion," she said in an April 20 interview.

It is not clear whether any of the questionable vests have failed to protect Marines.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-09-05, 07:22 AM
General Conway: Car Bombs May Be Remote
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By ROBERT BURNS
AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a shift by the insurgents in Iraq, an increasing number of suicide car bombs are being detonated by people outside the vehicles, a senior military officer said Thursday.

Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James T. Conway told reporters that the meaning of this trend is not yet clear but it might suggest that Iraqis, who typically do not use the tactic of suicide attacks, are being forced or duped by foreign fighters into operating vehicles used in bombing missions.

Conway, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and previously the commander of all Marines in Iraq, said in the last week to 10 days the number of insurgent attacks involving car bombs has increased, including suicide car bombs.

In Baghdad on Thursday, such a car bomb exploded near an Iraqi police patrol, killing one officer and wounding six. Another suicide car bomber hit a U.S. military convoy in Baghdad's southern Doura neighborhood, destroying a large truck but causing no American casualties. It was not immediately apparent whether either of the car bombs was remotely detonated.

"We're seeing more remote detonation of some of the suicide bombers than we've had in the past," Conway said. At another point he described these as cases "where an individual has obviously been detonated from afar. He has not pulled a cord or done the self-detonation thing."

Conway said intelligence analysts are studying forensic evidence at the scenes of the car bombings to determine if the vehicle operators were non-Iraqis, as was previously the case.

"Is there some possibility that Iraqis are being forced into that (role) by virtue of the fact that someone has got their family 20 miles away?" he said. "So we're asking ourselves: What's all that mean? And we don't have the answers yet."

Conway said U.S. officials also are uncertain whether increasing numbers of foreign fighters are infiltrating from Syria and other neighboring countries. He acknowledged the border with Syria remains porous.

"We do know that some of the insurgent Web sites have called this the jihad Super Bowl, if you will, and now's the time to come fight and try to kick the Americans out of the region," Conway said. "How much people are responding to that, we're just not certain at this point, but we continue to seek that answer."


Ellie

thedrifter
05-09-05, 12:51 PM
East Bridgewater, Mass., native steps up, leads team
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Division
Story Identification #: 20055355327
Story by Lance Cpl. Zachary W. Lester



CAMP KOREAN VILLAGE, Iraq (May 3, 2005) -- Marines are trained to be leaders, but some Marines find themselves in leadership positions sooner than planned when faced with the unexpected conditions in Iraq.

Pfc. Taylor J. Shiner became an acting team leader in 1st Platoon, Company C, 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, after the original team leader was injured.

“Our vehicle was in an accident. My team leader was tossed from the vehicle,” the East Bridgewater, Mass., native explained. “He had a couple of serious injuries, but he will be coming back to us.”

Until this temporary assignment as team leader, Shiner served as an automatic rifleman in his team.

"I was just another Marine doing my job the best I could. My section leader got me interested in being a team leader, so I was already learning how to do the job,” Shiner stated. “After the accident occurred, I was forced to step it up leadership-wise.”

Leadership is a comfortable companion to the young Marine who was the captain of his football and indoor track teams in high school.

“Learning about leadership in high school helped me transition into the Marine Corps, especially now after becoming team leader,” he explained. “Team leader is a noncommissioned officer billet (corporal or sergeant) and I am only a private first class, so it has been a huge jump for me.

“Being a team leader involves having control of your team and vehicle. I also make sure the Marines around me know what is going on,” he said. “I try to keep them well briefed.”

Shiner’s junior rank isn’t the only challenging factor for him. He was deployed here after being assigned to the battalion only two months earlier. He had just graduated from recruit training and his military occupational school prior to his assignment.

“Being out here is new to me, but I am learning things everyday,” he said.

Shiner joined the Marine Corps as an infantryman because he wanted to be at the forefront of the action.

“I like to get down and dirty and work with my hands a lot. I like being with the frontline forces,” Shiner said.

The frontline is where he is at with his Marines as they conduct one or two patrols a day.

“We have been on a couple of raids and while on a patrol, I found an improvised explosive device. It was actually the first one found by the battalion,” Shiner explained. “We also search houses and vehicles.”

Like the leaders before him, Shiner adapted to his new leadership role while serving on the forefront of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

“It is definitely interesting out here, but I have a lot of good leaders teaching me what to do. It is hard work being a team leader, but I don’t mind working harder to help my fellow Marines,” he said.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-09-05, 01:22 PM
Explosive ordnance disposal field seeks qualified Marines <br />
Submitted by: MCB Quantico <br />
Story Identification #: 2005556504 <br />
Story by Cpl. Susan Smith <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. (May 5,...

thedrifter
05-09-05, 04:06 PM
Finding the Corps through Prayer
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Division
Story Identification #: 200542803117
Story by Lance Cpl. Paul Robbins Jr.



FALLUJAH, Iraq (April 28, 2005) -- Many Marines enlist in the Corps for the challenge, the title or to get their life on track, but few say their decision was based on divine intervention.

Lance Cpl. Bradley W. Havenar, a 21-year-old squad automatic weapon gunner with Company K, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines Regiment, is one of those few.

Growing up in Midwest City, Okla., where his grandfather was a minister and his family devout Christians, Havenar found himself in church every Sunday of his adolescent life.

As Havenar matured however, beginning with his years at Carl Albert High School, he found other ways to spend his time on Sundays.

“When I started making my own decisions, I spent less time at church,” he explained. “I didn’t lose my religion though.”

After graduating from high school, he attended Rose State College, also in his hometown.

During his college days as a full time student, Havenar split his free time between his job at a local furniture store and partying with hometown friends.

It was during this semester and a half of school, work and parties, that he realized something wasn’t right.

“I partied way too much. One night I decided I’d had enough,” he said, “I felt something needed to change.”

That night, Havenar knelt down in prayer, hoping for guidance and direction for his future. He thought of changing majors and looking at new jobs, but couldn’t decide what he was meant to do.

“While I was praying, I just threw in, ‘God, even if it’s joining the Marine Corps,’” Havenar said.

Much to his astonishment, his prayer was answered the next morning, when he awoke to the ringing of his phone. On the line was a Marine Corps recruiter, offering him the opportunity he’d been looking for.

“I had not received a call from a recruiter since high school,” Havenar explained. “When I hung up the phone, I was like….Wow!”

He wasted no time following up on the response to his prayer. Just 15 days after receiving the call, he was on his way to Marine Boot Camp.

During his recruit training, Havenar served as the platoon’s Christian lay reader and had little trouble coping with the hardships of recruit life.

“Never did I question my decision to become a Marine,” Havenar said.

He has now served for two years in the Marine Corps and deployed twice to Operation Iraqi Freedom since graduating from boot camp. Havenar looks at all of his experiences with the Corps as a positive influence on his life.

“Being a Marine and being here has definitely set me up for success in the future,” he said.

Looking back to his time in college and the experiences gathered from his service to Corps and country, Havenar sees his enlistment as the right decision.

“It’s definitely been the answer to my prayer,” Havenar said.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-09-05, 05:50 PM
Marine Corps Times' Probe Prompts Recall of Faulty Vests
Graham Webster
Editor & Publisher Dot Com
May 9, 2005

NEW YORK Proving that you don't have to be a major big city newspaper known for investigative scoops to get dramatic results, a probe by the Marine Corps Times apparently triggered the recall of more than 5,000 ballistic vests issued to Marines despite tests indicating they might be flawed.

Many of the vests were issued to Marines in Iraq. The reporter on the story told E&P today that officials tried to "steer" him away from the story.

"Faced with the imminent publication of this story, the result of an eight-month investigation by Marine Corps Times, the Marine Corps on May 4 issued a Corpswide message recalling 5,277 Interceptor vests from 11 lots that failed government ballistic performance tests - slightly more than half the total vests issued to Marines from questionable lots," Christian Lowe, a Times staff writer, wrote in the weekly.

He told E&P Monday, "We received information from a source that something was going on, and they suggested that we FOIA the information." After some tough decisions about what command to query and how to word the Freedom of Information Act requests, Lowe sent them in last fall. In early April, Lowe received about 800 pages of documents, including copies of memos recommending against the approval of some 19,000 vests which were ultimately accepted by the Corps.

The documents also included copies of waivers signed by the Marine manager responsible for distributing the vests, Lt. Col. Gabriel Patricio, which allowed the Corps to buy the body armor despite recommendations.

Though some Marine officials refused to be interviewed, Lowe said on the whole the Corps was cooperative. "I gotta give it to the folks up at headquarters, public affairs for the Marine Corps," Lowe said. "They helped us get the interviews we needed."

Before the story ran in the edition of the paper that Lowe said is distributed to subscribers today and tomorrow, the Times went through many rounds of editing to vet wording and other issues. "I wanted to make sure just about as many ears could hear what I was turning up," Lowe said. "I wanted it, as the military calls it, 'red-teamed.'"

Some officials tried to influence Lowe's interpretation of the documents at the last minute, he said. "On late Friday they called me trying to steer me away from the story," Lowe told E&P. "I was just like, 'Look guys, I give you six weeks to go over this stuff with me, and what I've got is what I've got.'"

About 10,000 of the 19,000 vests from questionable lots have been issued to Marines in the field. Officials told the Times it is uncertain whether the recalled vests will be easily trackable, since serial numbers are hand-written and may have worn off since the body armor was issued between February and August of 2004.

The paper has not yet been able to identify specific Marines who might be wearing the vests, but it will stay on the story, Lowe said. "We do have one of our employees probably in Iraq nowand they should be there through the week, and we're going to try and get reactions through them," he said.

Meantime, Lowe is already receiving calls from some people involved in the body armor industry saying they may have more information.

--Graham Webster (letters@editorandpublisher.com) is a reporter for E&P.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-09-05, 07:30 PM
U.S. forces launch Iraq offensive
May 10 10:16
AP

Hundreds of American troops backed by helicopter gunships and warplanes swept into remote desert villages near the Syrian border on Monday, hunting for followers of Iraq's most wanted terrorist and killing as many as 100 militants.

The US military said some foreign fighters were believed among the insurgents killed in the first 48 hours of the assault, which began late on Saturday in the border town of Qaim, about 320 kilometres west of Baghdad. At least three Marines were killed, it said.

US officials said the area was a known smuggling route and a haven for foreign fighters involved in Iraq's insurgency.

Meanwhile, the family of another hostage, Australian Douglas Wood, offered on Monday to make a generous "charitable donation" to the people of Iraq to secure his freedom.

Australia's top Muslim cleric was travelling to Baghdad to try to negotiate his release.

Also on Monday, militants claimed in an internet posting to have captured a Japanese man after ambushing an international security company's convoy in western Iraq. A spokesman for the company confirmed the employee was missing. It wasn't clear whether Sunday's attack was related to the US operation, which was about 130 kilometres away.

The offensive was being conducted by a joint force of about 1000 Marines, sailors and soldiers commanded by the 2nd Marine Division. It was expected to last several days in an area along the Euphrates River in the al-Jazirah Desert, Marine spokesman Captain Jeffrey Pool said.

A senior military official in Washington said the offensive was aimed at followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, which is believed to be operating in the remote region.

"This is an area which we believe has been pretty heavy with foreign insurgents from many different areas - Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Palestine," Lieutenant Colonel Steven Boylan, a spokesman for US forces in Iraq, said. "That's a fairly porous area of the border because of the terrain. It is very difficult."

Acting on information from a captured al-Zarqawi associate, US forces moved into Qaim overnight on Saturday, killing six insurgents and detaining 54 suspects, the military said in a statement.

On Sunday, troops moved into villages in and around Obeidi, a town 300 kilometres west of Baghdad, and started to push north across the Euphrates, according to The Chicago Tribune.

The newspaper quoted some Marines as saying residents of one riverside town turned off all their lights at night, apparently to warn neighbouring villages of the approaching US forces.

Frightened residents cowered in their homes on Monday as bombs exploded and warplanes roared overhead. "It's truly horrific, there are snipers everywhere, rockets, no food, no electricity," said Abu Omar al-Ani, a father of three in Qaim.

The push comes amid a surge of militant attacks that have killed more than 310 people since April 28, when the new Iraqi government was announced.

At least four car bombs - including two suicide attacks - exploded in Baghdad on Monday, killing at least five Iraqis and wounding 15, Iraqi police said.

The militant group Ansar al-Sunnah Army said it had taken Japanese citizen Akihito Saito, 44, as a hostage, posting a photocopy of his passport, including his picture, on the group's website.

The group claimed its fighters ambushed a convoy of five foreign contract workers protected by a dozen Iraqi security men near Hit, 140 kilometres west of Baghdad. It claimed all were killed in the fight except for Saito, who it said was "severely injured".

Meanwhile, the militants who kidnapped 63-year-old Australian-born California resident Douglas Wood released a video on Friday demanding Australia start pulling its troops out of Iraq within 72 hours. The deadline passed today with no word on his fate.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-10-05, 06:07 AM
Harrier mechanic reunites with parents on national television
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing
Story Identification #: 2005552047
Story by Cpl. C. Alex Herron



RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany (May, 5, 2005) -- An AV-8B Harrier mechanic with Marine Attack Squadron 311 was reunited with his parents at a United Service Organizations concert special in Ramstein Air Base, Germany, recently.

Sgt. Doug Acero, an avionics technician with VMA-311 has been deployed to Al Asad, Iraq, since November 2004. He served with the ‘Tomcats’ of VMA-311 and augmented Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, in Fallujah from November 25 to Jan. 25, 2005.

“I don’t feel like I deserve this to happen to me. I just consider myself really lucky. This was an awesome surprise,” said Acero.

Acero traveled to Ramstein thinking he was only picked to represent his unit at a USO concert, not to see his parents for the first time in seven months.

“I had no idea what was going on, but I realized something had been planned for me when I arrived at the concert,” said the Sugar Land, Texas, native.

Upon arrival to the show, Acero was met by a team of production assistants who wanted to make sure he wouldn’t see his parents until show time.

“I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere,” he said. “I always had someone watching me and not allowing me to do anything without an escort. They stuck me in the front row and told me to not move for the entire concert.”

Acero wasn’t the only one in his family chomping at the bit waiting for something to happen. His parents, Gloria and Jamie, were hidden away in the “green” room until the moment they would be allowed to finally hug their son for the first time in months.

“I just wanted to see him so badly,” said Jamie Acero. “I saw him on the screen in the green room during the show because he was up front and I could barely hold in my excitement.”

Ninety minutes into the taping Doug began questioning if anything was going to happen. Not knowing that in a few minutes he would be hugging his mother on stage in front of the thousands on-hand and millions of viewers when it airs on TV.

“I was thinking that getting to sit up front was all that they would be doing,” Acero said. “Earlier they had said that I was going to get called on stage, but they never told me why so I just figured they ran out of time to do whatever they had planned for me.”

Soon after thinking nothing was going to happen, Acero was called on stage with the show’s hosts, Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson. While on stage the three made small talk about what he missed most about home and what he wished he could do if he was home now.

“Of course I miss my family and friends the most,” said Acero.

Before he knew it a video of his parents and younger sister wishing him safety and a quick return home played on stage. All of a sudden his parents walked on stage to meet him with open arms.

“When I hugged my mom I just didn’t want to let go,” he said. “I have been without them for so long. I just didn’t want to let go. It was a cool moment that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”

After the reunion, the Aceros spent the next couple of days sight seeing and catching up on news from home.

Acero has another three weeks in Iraq until he is scheduled to return home and can continue the short reunion he experienced with his family in Germany.

The Acero’s family reunion can be seen on May 23 when the concert airs on ABC with performances by Jessica Simpson, Nick Lachey, Brian McKnight, Willie Nelson, Jimmy Kimmel and country duo Big and Rich.


-For more information on this story please e-mail Cpl. Herron at herronca@acemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil-


Ellie

thedrifter
05-10-05, 06:07 AM
IPAC Marines learn lessons in field <br />
Submitted by: MCAS New River <br />
Story Identification #: 20055594448 <br />
Story by Lance Cpl. Brandon M. Gale <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. (May 5,...

thedrifter
05-10-05, 06:09 AM
Iraqi children find friendship with Marines
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Division
Story Identification #: 20055443522
Story by Sgt. Stephen D'Alessio



CAMP BLUE DIAMOND, AR RAMADI, Iraq (April 3, 2005) -- Marines that make up the camp’s quick reaction force conducted another patrol down the dangerous streets here April 3.

This was no ordinary patrol, though. The Marines saddled up in their Humvees for a chance to do something for the children, instead of rooting out insurgent hideouts.

The gates of the camp were opened and the Marines of the friendship patrol trailed out into the sandy reaches of Ramadi to hand out soccer balls and stuffed animals to the children.

The toys were donations by patriotic students at Camp Lejeune High School in N.C., where the 2nd Marine Division is headquartered. The gifts were donated in the hopes that they would help the children of the war-torn city have a sense of normalcy.

Jazmine Hall, a student at the high school, spearheaded the toy drive as a testament of support for the well being of the citizens of Iraq from the families and friends of the Marines serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Immediately out of the gate, the Marines found themselves in a precarious position as they weaved through a Sunday street market. Usually on patrol, the force doesn’t get too close to the locals, for fear of suicide bombings, ambushes or improvised explosive attacks.

“We went through some danger areas, but I think doing things like this really makes a difference in our mission here,” said Sgt. Paul Suarez, a 22-year-old Santa Clara, Calif. native and squad leader for 2nd squad. “We really kept a close eye out for anything out of the ordinary and we were able to do something for the children at the same time.”

On their way into the narrow streets of central Ar Ramadi, Al Anbar’s provincial capital, the children popped their heads out of stony corridors and ran across fields to see why the Marines were in their neighborhood.

The convoy stopped in one neighborhood and dismounted. At first, there was an apprehension among the children who hid behind fences and rubble to observe the Marines with their heavy weaponry. But soon they knew there was nothing to be afraid of as the Marines lowered from their machinegun turrets and reappeared with a few soccer balls.

Soon women gathered to talk and young shepherds redirected their flocks to see the commotion and take part in the frenzy of dozens of children jumping for a chance to have their own ball or stuffed animal.

“We really saw first hand what a difference it could make to give one of the kids something as simple as a soccer ball,” said Suarez, a 2000 Fremont High School graduate.

The Marines boarded their Humvees and snaked through the alleyways to another neighborhood. All along the way, the children came out of hiding and followed the Marines.

The once quiet neighborhoods of Ar Ramadi quickly turned into a torrent of children laughing and skipping down the dirt roads in trail of the convoy. All of this was possible thanks to the Camp Lejeune High School students.

As the sun lowered on the horizon the houses were washed in a hazy, orange light. Locals waved goodbye to the Marines from their porches as their children kicked up dust and continued to play with their newfound toys.

“It was a change from what we’re used to doing out there and hopefully we can have a chance to do other missions like this in the near future,” said Suarez.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-10-05, 06:09 AM
Lautenberg Amendment has serious ramifications for Marines
Submitted by: MCAGCC
Story Identification #: 2005429173944
Story by 1st Lt. John R. Seeds



MARINE CORPS AIR GROUND COMBAT CENTER TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. (April 29, 2005) -- If you call yourself a Marine and are a gun owner, the Gun Control Act of 1968 (Title 18, United States Code, Sec 922), as amended on September 30, 1996, could have serious consequences on not only your right to possess a firearm, but on your eligibility to remain in the Marine Corps.

Lautenberg’s main effort makes it a felony for any individual convicted of the misdemeanor crime of domestic violence—regardless of when the conviction occurred— to ship, transport, possess or receive firearms or ammunition. Currently there is no exception for military personnel or for military-issued weapons. A Lautenberg-triggering conviction also includes crimes of domestic violence tried by a general or special court-martial.

In application, this law strips the individual Marine of his government-issued M-16 in addition to his personal firearm. More likely than not, a Marine who cannot lawfully possess an M-16 will be administratively separated. Before separation occurs, commanders must afford the Marine, among other things, an opportunity to complete a DD 2760 and a chance to meet with a military attorney.

However, the amendment is applied differently to the deployed Marine. Commanders of deployed units who learn that one of his Marines has a domestic violence conviction cannot restrict that Marine’s access to weapons or ammunition. Restricting a Marine’s access to weapons and ammunition under these circumstances could inhibit unit safety and readiness, but when the unit returns from deployment, a commander can take steps to limit the Marine’s access to weapons and ammunition and can order the Marine to lawfully dispose of privately owned firearms and ammunition.

Recruiters now implement a strict screening process to verify new recruits have a clean record so old convictions cannot surface later to haunt Marines and cause unit strife.

We are approaching the 10-year anniversary for the Lautenberg legislation, but with the drastic consequences it could have on Marines, it is never to late to review Lautenberg’s dire underpinnings.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-10-05, 06:11 AM
Sesak finally home to share stories

Local sheriff's sergeant will be back on the job in May

By NOEL STACK

Staff writer

After 13 months in Iraq, El Dorado County Sheriff's Sgt. and United States Marines 1st Sgt. Jeff Sesak said simply, "I'm glad to have gone, but I'm glad to be back."

A big sigh escaped the Marine reservist who wore proudly an "Operation Iraqi Freedom," T-shirt. Sesak served in Iraq for two tours of duty. During that time, the Pollock Pines resident shared his experiences by writing dispatches from the war-torn country that were published in the Mountain Democrat.

One lesson he learned while there - Sesak said he realizes now how good Americans have it in the United States.

"We are pretty much spoiled," he said. "Things we complain about here ... are not issues in other places."

And just the opposite is also true.

Sesak trained Iraqi police forces during his tours, and he said the training there varies somewhat from how law enforcement trains here because the Iraqis face different threats. In the United States, the police don't worry about attacks on the police station but in Iraq, Sesak said he and other trainers spent lots of time preparing for direct attacks.

"Some things we had to tailor," Sesak said. "Here, we don't have people shooting at us with RPGs (rocket propelled grenades)."

Because of his civilian job as a sheriff's sergeant and his experience in the military, Sesak said he was selected to go to Iraq for the specific job of training new police. During his time there, Sesak said he saw the coalition forces make great strides with the Iraqi people.

More tips came through the Marines' anonymous hotline as time went by, he said, and the Iraqis began to trust the soldiers.

"I'm not seeing the 70 percent that didn't want us there," Sesak said, referring to a "poll" he saw in a newspaper. "I saw the 70 percent that did want us there."

In his last dispatch to the states before coming home Sesak wrote, "In the year that I have been here and seen what I have seen, there is no doubt in my mind that the average Iraqi wants us here and is glad that we came and liberated them. The biggest propaganda tool the extremists here use is that we are non-Muslims and 'infidels.' Religion aside, righteousness, goodness and doing the proper thing is the same regardless of what religion you choose.

"Just having a choice in their decisions here was for the most part non-existent until the fall of Saddam. Being here during the free Iraqi elections was a sense of pride for us. I could sense that this was an historical moment not only for Iraq but for the world."

On Election Day in Iraq, Jan. 30, Sesak and others were patrolling and he said several people gave him hushed "thank yous" and many thumbs-up. He said he also saw Iraqis dancing in the street after they had voted.

The work done by the forces is starting to pay dividends now, Sesak said, but only time will tell whether Iraq can become a truly free country and govern itself well. Sesak said he looks at the progress as two steps forward and one step back but he chooses to count the steps forward.

"We're making great strides and we're going in the right direction but it's taking longer than probably most Americans want or we anticipated," he said. "We're not going to get instant successes. It's going to take time.

"I saw improvements. They weren't overly dramatic but they were improvements," he added.

But now Sesak gets to watch the situation in Iraq from a different view - from home with his wife, Janet, and sons Ethan, 9, and Nelson, 14.

"They had the hard job," Sesak said of his deployment. "I had the easy job."

Sesak said he's taking his time getting used to being home and spending time doing the little things like fixing things around the house. The sheriff's sergeant will go back to work in May, something Sesak said he's really looking forward to.

In addition to all of his regular civilian duties, Sesak is also giving presentations about his time in Iraq, telling the real story of what it's like to be in a war zone. Sesak plans to make a presentation on Wednesday, May 25, in the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors meeting room (330 Fair Lane, Placerville) beginning at 6:30 p.m. Anyone interested is invited to attend.

E-mail Noel Stack at nstack@mtdemocrat.net or call 344-5063.



Ellie

thedrifter
05-10-05, 06:30 AM
Rebels in Western Iraq Under Siege
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Solomon Moore
LA Times Staff Writer
May 10, 2005

RIBAT, Iraq - The casualties mounted Monday in remote Iraqi desert villages near the Syrian border after U.S. troops launched their largest offensive since last year's invasion of Fallouja.

Insurgents have killed at least three Marines and wounded 20 American troops trying to cross the Euphrates River in western Iraq since the offensive began Sunday. Marine commanders estimate they have slain more than 100 guerrillas.

From a hilltop overlooking Ribat, a Times reporter traveling with members of the 2nd Marine Division could see insurgents driving to houses on the northern edge of the town, filling trucks with AK-47s and rocket-propelled-grenade launchers and ferrying them to the south side of the village where the battle was taking place.

Children stood near one of the houses. A woman casually hung clothes on a line. Marines held their fire.

On Monday, more than 1,000 Marines, sailors and soldiers from Regimental Combat Team 2 crossed to the north side of the Euphrates River. The U.S. troops were preparing for a large-scale assault today in the region's scattered villages.

Marines hope the assault will flush out insurgent fighters who the Marines believe have made the Ramana region - a conglomeration of well-irrigated riverside towns - a haven and training ground for foreign guerrillas. The 2nd Marine Division is responsible for security in Al Anbar province, a desert region the size of South Carolina that runs from Jordan in the south to Syria in the north.

"The insurgents we're fighting today are not the guys getting $50 to put [a roadside bomb] on the side of the road," regiment commander Col. Stephen Davis said. "These are the professional fighters who have come from all over the Middle East. These are people who have received training and are very well-armed."

The Marines say that capturing or killing insurgents in these villages is key to pacifying Iraq. Recruits from western Iraq and much of the nation's Sunni Muslim heartland fuel the insurgency.

Foreign fighters pour across the border here to volunteer as suicide bombers, the guerrillas' most potent weapons, which in the last month have claimed scores of Iraqi lives. Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born militant who leads an Al Qaeda group in Iraq, is said to travel this region with impunity, granted the protection of powerful Sunni clans resisting U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies.

The U.S. operation had been delayed a day because of insurgent attacks from at least two nearby cities.

Guerrillas appeared well-prepared, with sandbag bunkers piled in front of some homes, and fighters strategically positioned on rooftops and balconies. In the predawn hours Sunday, occupants of houses along the road to Ubaydi flashed their lights one after the other, apparently to signal that the U.S. military was on the way.

In nearby New Ubaydi and Karabilah, insurgents fired mortar rounds at Marine convoys along the river's southern edge. Marines who pursued attackers in those towns took part in house-to-house combat against dozens of well-armed insurgents.

One Marine was walking into a house when an insurgent hiding in the basement fired through a floor grate, killing him. Another Marine, who was retrieving a wounded comrade inside a house, suffered shrapnel wounds when an insurgent threw a grenade through a window.

Machine-gun fire lighted dozens of windows and doorways like strobes. Three Cobra helicopters pummeled insurgent positions for several hours, raining machine-gun fire and Hellfire missiles on houses believed to hold weapons caches.

A U.S. helicopter sent up a row of water columns as it fired on boats used by insurgents to transport weapons from one side of the river to the other. An F/A-18 Hornet screeched overhead and dropped a laser-guided bomb on a truck used by insurgents, gutting the vehicle and a nearby house.

As U.S. troops inflicted casualties on the guerrillas, they had to care for their own wounded. One Marine suffered a broken back and at least two others were wounded Sunday when a land mine damaged their tank.

"Sunday was tough for us," said a Marine officer, who asked that his name not be used.

Marines said some insurgents in Sunday's battle wore body armor. There was a furious volley of gunfire after insurgents cut the lights in Ribat for a few moments, suggesting that some of them had night-vision equipment.

Mortar attacks on the Marines' positions were unusually accurate, Davis said. Insurgents had also prepared for the U.S. assault by planting car bombs along the route.

Marines had planned to push the insurgents from the eastern and southern parts of Ramana into mountains along the Syrian border. A platoon of Marines was deployed to those jagged slopes to block escape routes, but no guerrillas fled there on the first day of sustained fighting.

"They were clearly holding their ground," Davis said. "This continues to be a problem area. They've got seasoned fighters out here - this is a dedicated enemy that needs to be rooted out. That could take days, or weeks or months. We'll stay here until it's done."

Some Marines complained there were too few U.S. troops to cover an area with so many trouble spots. To stage the assault, Marine bases across the region had to contribute assets and personnel.

Many of the Marines participating in the attack are from a battalion based at the Haditha Dam, where insurgents' mortar attacks are a daily occurrence. Three Marines and a sailor were killed Sunday in attacks in Haditha, a rebel stronghold about 80 miles east of the fighting. Guerrillas in Haditha occupied a hospital and set up positions inside the facility as a car bomb plowed into Marine positions, the military said.

Although Iraqi security forces have taken on stronger roles in eastern and northern Iraq - in cities like Mosul, Irbil and Baghdad - they have virtually no presence in western Iraq. The lack of Iraqi forces fighting alongside U.S. troops has long hindered the battle against insurgents in Al Anbar province.

Recruitment in Sunni areas has been a major problem because many Sunnis view the Iraqi security forces as U.S. collaborators. The price for collaboration here is death. Many local forces have deserted or joined the guerrillas.

"We require more manpower to cover this area the way we need to," said one military official, who requested anonymity.

The Marines have three battalions in Al Anbar, one fewer than six months ago - and each of those battalions is missing a company, say military commanders. A battalion consists of about 1,000 Marines and a company generally has about 150 troops.

"But for another battalion or two, we would have crossed that river Sunday," the military official said.

Although politicians in Baghdad aim to coax Sunnis into the political fold, here in Iraq's "wild, wild West," as the region is known, the military option is still paramount. The assault on Ramana is clearly a case in which U.S. forces are going it alone.

Iraqi forces, though growing in capability, are still not ready to mount offensives like the complex operation being launched here. U.S. forces often must transfer troops from one trouble spot to another, movements that insurgents monitor closely. Insurgents often leave areas as U.S. forces move in and filter back once troops withdraw.

The vastness of the region here means U.S. forces cannot maintain a presence in every village, town and city where the insurgents operate.

Residents who might sympathize with the new Iraqi government often choose not to turn in insurgents because they know the U.S. presence in these villages is temporary.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-10-05, 06:31 AM
From death's sorrow, a new beginning
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By SCOTT WILLIAMS
Posted: May 9, 2005

Waukesha - Before he was killed fighting in Iraq, Bobby Warns left his family and friends a special gift.

Her name is Payton, and she arrived Thursday as a black-haired bundle who bears a strong resemblance to a father she will never know.

As devastating as the Waukesha man's death was for those who loved him, the birth of his daughter has been a joyful turn of events, with a strong sense of rebirth.

For Bobby Warns' mother, Bridget Warns, it helps make some sense out of the horrific loss of her 23-year-old son.

"We are just delighted that she is in our lives," Bridget Warns said of the family's first grandchild. "It's like Bobby took care of everything before he left."

Known as Bobby, Robert P. Warns II, a corporal in the U.S. Marines, was killed Nov. 8 when his vehicle struck a landmine south of Baghdad less than two months after he arrived in Iraq.

He and his longtime girlfriend, Erin Nielsen, knew they were expecting their first child before he headed overseas with a Madison-based unit of the 24th Marine Regiment, 2nd Battalion.

The same day Warns was killed, Nielsen received a letter from him saying that he liked her choice of Payton as a name, if the baby turned out to be a girl.

After 13 hours of labor, Payton was born about 7 a.m. Thursday at Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital in Wauwatosa. She weighed nearly 7 pounds, and family members immediately noticed a resemblance to her father.

"It's a little gift from him," Nielsen said. "He would love her."

Calling the occasion bittersweet, the 24-year-old mother is embarking on her life as a single parent with lingering tears of sorrow for a lost love, mixed with tears of joy for a healthy, happy baby.

"It's a new beginning," she said, gently kissing Payton on the forehead. "It's a happy new beginning."

The seventh-floor room at Froedtert was decorated with poster-sized photographs of Bobby Warns.

Warns and Nielsen met four years ago when both were freshmen at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee - he a business student from Waukesha, she an architecture student from suburban Minneapolis.

Romance soon blossomed, and the young couple began discussing marriage. When his Marine reserve unit was activated for the war in Iraq, they decided to start a family right away and set a wedding date after his military service was done.

After the deadly land-mine explosion, family and friends rallied around Nielsen throughout the pregnancy.

During funeral services at St. Mary's Catholic Church, Nielsen told mourners she was expecting Bobby's baby, adding that he had anticipated fatherhood as "something to look forward to when he came home."

Several of Warns' closest buddies visited the hospital after Payton's arrival and offered the new mother help in the months and years ahead.

"That's what Bob would've wanted - for us to watch over her," said Jim Lohmiller, 24, of Milwaukee. "It's the least we can do."

After graduating from UWM last summer, Nielsen moved into the Waukesha home of Bobby's parents, Robert and Bridget Warns. His older sister, Katie Riesch, became a birthing coach for the expectant mother.

Riesch said she was proud to be involved in bringing her brother's child into the world.

"As far as getting the next generation started, it opens so many doors," she said. "It gives us a piece of Bobby back."

The baby's full name will be Payton Warns - possibly with a middle name to come later - in keeping with her parents' plans to get married.

Nielsen intends to move back to the Twin Cities area and live with her parents temporarily, while she pursues a teaching certificate. She figures that teaching architecture rather than working as an architect will mean less time away from Payton.

Nielsen's mother, Cindy Nielsen, voiced confidence that her daughter is up to the challenge of parenthood.

"She's very strong, independent, a hard worker," the new grandmother said. "She will be a great mom."

No matter what the future holds, Erin Nielsen and the Warns family have agreed to stay in touch and visit regularly, so that Payton gets to know her extended family.

Nielsen also plans to tell Payton about her father's tragic death as soon as the child is old enough.

"She's going to have questions," Nielsen said. "She's going to have to understand why she doesn't have a dad."


Ellie

thedrifter
05-10-05, 06:31 AM
Marines honored for service to country
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Ron Maloney
The Herald-Zeitung
Published May 10, 2005

That there are no ex-Marines is as big a truism of military life as the fact that there are no atheists in foxholes.

The U.S. Marine Corps motto, "Semper Fidelis!" - always faithful - underpins that truism.

Saturday, a couple hundred Marines and their families who belong to a group called "Heart of Texas Marines" came to Landa Park to prove it to half a dozen enlisted men injured in the war in Iraq. The soldiers are recuperating after treatment in the burn and amputation units at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.

Those gathering to honor the injured soldiers included veterans of every war and many of the operations mounted by the USMC since World War II, including some heavy hitters - Gene Overstreet of Guadalupe County and Dave Sommers of New Braunfels, former USMC sergeants major of the Marine Corps - the rank denotes the top enlisted man in the elite organization.

Also among the participants were Comal County Sheriff Bob Holder, retired 1stSgt. Ron Sommer, and District 73 state Rep. Carter Casteel.

They were there for good reason - to make sure that today's service members know their sacrifice has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated.

"We know the jobs these men did for us overseas and we know what happened to them," Sommer said. "We want to make sure these young Marines know that we support them."

Like Sommer, Overstreet can remember what it was like for servicemen coming home from an unpopular war more than three decades ago.

"Guys like us are here to make sure that doesn't happen again," Overstreet said. "We want to make sure the welcome mat is out and these guys get their due."

Saturday's picnic barbecue was thrown for soldiers like Lance Corporal Matt Sevald of Detroit and other Marines whose injuries included burns, amputations and other scars that can't be seen with the eye or even with a X-ray machine.

Sevald, 22, has been a Marine for two years. He expects to return to Detroit to teach school after his hitch in the service is up.

His life took a detour Jan. 9 in a little northern Iraq town called "Hit," where Sevald, a member of a tank unit, was setting a pyrotechnic device to try to force Iraqi traffic away from a Marine infantry unit that was under attack.

It went off in his left hand, shattering it.

"I'm redeployed for rehabilitation at least until July waiting for the nerves to grow back," he said, holding up the heavily-scarred arm and the hand with its index finger that looked as though it had been severed and reattached. He moved the finger up and down, although he couldn't quite straighten it.

"It's starting to work pretty well," he said. "Hopefully, I'll be back with my unit - the Second Tank Battalion - pretty soon."

Sevald knows that could mean combat again, and he said he didn't care.

"I'll go where they want me and do what needs to be done," he said.

While he recovers, Sevald is being helped by members of Sgt. Maj. Hector Cerda's Fourth Marine Recon Battalion in San Antonio.

The Fourth Recon has made helping injured Marines and their families in San Antonio its job.

"We're getting a lot of Marines here," Cerda said. "Our job is to facilitate their stay and support their families."

Overstreet, standing nearby, smiled approval.

"During Vietnam, you came back, got your seabag and that was it," Overstreet said. "That's not what we do today. They start getting classes while they're still in the desert and we help them when we get them home. We're trying to make sure their bubble's level enough to assimilate back into the community."

Some do well, Cerda said. Others don't do so well. He has a couple of noncommissioned officers just back from the war - one who found out at the picnic he had been nominated for a Bronze Star for valor - who work with the young soldiers who are having more difficulty.

"They've been in theater and can relate to those other Marines," Cerda said.

Something else has changed in the way wounded soldiers return from war, he added. The USMC finds them jobs and doesn't drum them out for medical reasons.

"They're still Marines," Overstreet said. "We keep them on active duty until we fix them. Then you ask what that Marine wants to do. If he wants to stay, he may not be able to be a machine gunner, but he can teach about machine guns."


Ellie

thedrifter
05-10-05, 06:33 AM
Marines press 'house-to-house' fight
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BY HANNAH ALLAM
Knight Ridder News Service

BAGHDAD - U.S. Marines are fighting house-to-house through a town near Iraq's border with Syria in an effort to rid the area of foreign terrorists, the U.S. military announced Monday.

Officials offered few details of the fighting, which was taking place near the border town of Qaim. Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said the offensive began over the weekend after the receipt of information that fighters loyal to Jordanian militant Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq and the most-wanted man in the nation, were operating in the Qaim area.

Up to 75 suspected insurgents were killed in the first 24 hours of battle, with no U.S. casualties reported.

''This area has been a haven for foreign fighters, and we're putting the pressure on them,'' Boylan said. ``This is ground combat. It's house-to-house operations.''

Rebels remained on the offensive in Baghdad, setting off two car bombs and staging an attack on the Ministry of Transportation. At least five people died in the capital and more than a dozen were wounded, mostly Iraqi policemen.

Meanwhile, several members of a Sunni Arab political bloc that had participated in negotiations over a new Iraqi government were carted off during the ransacking of its headquarters early Monday morning.

Neither Iraqi nor U.S. forces claimed responsibility for the raid, which enraged Sunni Arab politicians and threatened to further derail the Iraqi government's efforts to reach out to the disaffected minority.

Iraq's new defense minister, Saadoun al Duleimi, a Sunni Arab, told journalists that Iraq's new government must come up with a strategy that recognizes the difference between homegrown, nationalist fighters and foreign Islamic extremists. But he said the government must work to defeat both.

''All those trying to stop our progress in Iraq are our enemies, and we should be fighting and defeating them,'' al Duleimi said.

Sunni Muslim groups in Iraq condemned the Marine operation near Qaim, which is in Anbar province, home to the perennially troubled towns of Fallujah and Ramadi.

The Muslim Scholars Association, an influential group of militant Sunni clerics, called the operation ''American state-sponsored terrorism of our towns and people.'' The group claimed several civilians were among the casualties and that a hospital in Qaim had been bombed.

Members of another Sunni group, the Iraqi National Dialogue Council, spent Monday investigating raids of a member's home and the group's headquarters at a religious school in Baghdad. More than 20 members were missing after the raid, and the group's office was in shambles.

The Dialogue group was involved in intense negotiations with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al Jaafari to garner Cabinet posts for Sunni Arabs. However, the council withdrew from talks after Jaafari's advisors rejected several of its candidates because of their alleged ties to Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.

Among the men missing after the raids is Hassan Zeidan, who was at one time considered for a deputy prime minister post. Two guards taken with him were released, naked and bloody, on Baghdad's notoriously deadly airport road, said Saadoun al Zubaidi, a spokesman for the council.

The group has had no word on the other men.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-10-05, 08:50 AM
Mail is a mission for one Marine
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Division
Story Identification #: 20055385213
Story by Sgt. Stephen D'Alessio



CAMP BLUE DIAMOND, AR RAMADI, Iraq (May 3, 2005) -- For Marines and Sailors here, there may be nothing sweeter than the sound of mail call. One Marine with Headquarters Battalion makes it her mission to deliver those delightful words.

Lance Cpl. Holly Charette, a 21-year-old from Cranston, R.I. recently deployed here from Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C. She is one of the thousands of 2d Marine Division Marines serving in the Al Anbar Province as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Charette's job allows her to meet many of the people in Headquarters Battalion, where she works. Her part in the Global War on Terrorism is something different than most Marines. And that's not all that sets her apart from her fellow service members.

"I never really thought too hard about being a mail person, but it's really an important job and people depend on me," said Charette. "There are a lot of stresses involved, but it's really worth it at the end of the day."

As Marines and Sailors stop by her building to ask if they have any mail, she usually stops them before they even open their mouths. That's because she knows everyone's name. They know her too. She can be seen carrying the yellow, military mailbag slung over her shoulder as she walks down the gritty streets of the camp. Most everything in the area is covered in a sandy dust that kicks up as the trucks lull by at five miles-per-hour.

Last week, Charette and her colleagues sorted through 60 bags of mail, each weighing 70 pounds. That's hundreds of parcels and letters with names she mostly knows personally.

On a good day, the 2001 Cranston High School East graduate may even stop one of the Marines in the mess hall and let them know there's mail waiting for them. Otherwise, she can usually be seen driving around the camp in her High Mobility Multi-Wheeled Vehicle, dropping off mail in her full battle dress -- flak jacket, Kevlar helmet and M-16 A4 service rifle.

Where she grew up she always admired people in uniform. She had hoped to be a postal worker but never a Marine, until a few years ago.

"I was attending college and a recruiter was canvassing. He showed me a video from boot camp and I though, 'Hey, I can do that.'"

Charette has about one year left on her contract and plans to make the most of her time. She feels that some of the valuable life lessons she's learned have given her an advantage over her peers, even the ones who chose to attend universities.

"When I get out, I plan to applying to the U.S. Post Office," said Charette. "It won't be the same as being a Marine, but at least I'm still in uniform."


Ellie

thedrifter
05-10-05, 10:43 AM
Air power on display
Cherry Point show offers public peek at military


By J. ANDREW CURLISS, Staff Writer

HAVELOCK -- The gray fighter jets roared across a crystal blue sky Sunday, spewing flames and vibrating the intestines of thousands who cheered for air power at the Marine Corps' annual air show.
Nearly every type of Navy and Marine fighter took to the air in a continuous display of military hardware and might.

"It's pure speed and noise!" said Danny Tilghman, 44, of LaGrange, who trained a huge set of binoculars on a speeding, screaming F-15 jet. "Nothing can touch it!"

Organizers said more than 150,000 people attended the air show over the weekend, one of the few times the Marines Corps Air Station at Cherry Point, about 150 miles east of Raleigh, throws its gates open to the public.

What the visitors saw was a mix of springtime festival (lemonade! sausage!) and homage to the military (on one T-shirt: got freedom?).

At one point Sunday, a major demonstration of an attack from the ground and air brought helicopters and jets over the runway and led to a finale of flames and smoke across a quarter-mile swath of land. The heat from the flames caused some to turn away.

At other times, jets flew in tight formations, spinning, rolling, looping and diving across the runway just feet from the ground.

The crowd-pleasing demonstrations are the main point of the show, said Brenda Varnadore, an air station spokeswoman.

"This is all about opening the gates and showing the public what the military provides," she said. "It's a brief glimpse of the air power we have."

Mixed in were acts from smaller, nonmilitary planes, which painted the sky with white smoke or waggled along in slow motion above the crowd. One guy landed an old Piper Cub on a pickup truck.

On the ground, all sorts of planes were open to visitors -- from the tiniest trainer to a monstrous Globemaster that drops supplies across the planet.

And there were other attractions: A 1957 Chevy pickup truck with two jet engines that pushed it beyond 300 mph in a brief flash across the runway, several flight simulators and a mock-up of the new F-35 JointStrike Fighter, now in production.

In one corner of the field, World War II veterans mingled around a couple of old warbirds, swapping stories and catching up.

Sunday was the 60th anniversary of VE Day -- the day in 1945 that Allied forces defeated Nazi Germany. The WWII veterans said little about it, noting only that fewer and fewer of the men who fought those battles are alive to mark such occasions.

"You don't forget that kind of stuff," said Richard Dodson, 81, of New Bern, who was a tail gunner in a bomber. "But you try to put it behind you and not dwell on it all the time. It can bring back some memories that hurt too much."

Larry Kelley, who owns and pilots an old B-25 bomber that was parked off the runway, said winning those long-ago battles provided the freedom for events like Sunday's air show.

"We're flying today," he said, "but nobody is shooting at us. Thank goodness for that. Nobody is shooting here. We're just flying."

Staff writer J. Andrew Curliss can be reached at 829-4840 or acurliss@newsobserver.com.


http://www.newsobserver.com/images/xtq_photos/2005-1/xtq_20050509-images/main-891365-542906.jpg

more pix's on link below
http://newsobserver.com/news/story/2387475p-8765694c.html


Ellie

thedrifter
05-10-05, 11:19 AM
Recruiter cleared in court of enlistment fraud charges <br />
Gunny given reprimand during trial at Parris Island <br />
<br />
By Gordon Lubold <br />
Times staff writer <br />
<br />
A career recruiter who faced up to 65 years in...

thedrifter
05-10-05, 12:41 PM
May 16, 2005

Bold action with M249 nets grunt a Silver Star

By Gidget Fuentes
Times staff writer


CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — As television cameras and microphones crowded his way, Lance Cpl. Thomas R. Adametz stepped along the parade deck at Camp Horno here and scanned the crowd of Marines and relatives for familiar faces.
The shiny points of a Silver Star medal, hanging from the left breast pocket of his camouflage blouse, stood out against the digital green camouflage fabric. Just minutes earlier, the three-star general who commands I Marine Expeditionary Force hailed Adametz as “a hero” and “a great example of our core values.”

The 21-year-old Adametz, who was born in Subic Bay, Philippines, was honored with the combat award for his actions of April 26, 2004, when his infantry platoon clashed with insurgents in Iraq.

In an alley in northwest Fallujah that day, the rifleman grabbed a wounded Marine’s M249 Squad Automatic Weapon and opened fire on enemy troops just 25 meters away to protect other leathernecks in two adjacent buildings and to allow the evacuation of the wounded.

When the barrel of that weapon nearly melted, Adametz picked up a second SAW and continued to fire.

“With disregard for his own safety, Lance Corporal Adametz exposed himself to grenade and small-arms fire in order to provide suppressive fire facilitating the evacuation of the wounded Marines,” his award citation reads. “Lance Corporal Adametz’s aggressive actions and devastating fire were critical in repelling the enemy’s attack.”

His unit — Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines — took heavy fire from rocket-propelled grenades, and insurgents just 30 to 45 feet away tossed grenades at the Marines.

As a crowd of hundreds looked on during a midday formation May 4, Lt. Gen. John Sattler, the I MEF commander, gave Adametz his medal.

“When your time comes,” Sattler asked the Marines in the crowd, “will you be able to suppress that adrenaline rush and use it against the enemy?”

For Adametz, the test came amid some of the heaviest fighting and casualties Marines had faced in Iraq.

It was just before noon when about 50 insurgents attacked Echo Company’s 2nd Platoon, which had secured the two buildings, according to a summary of Adametz’s actions. Seven wounded Marines were evacuated from the buildings.

“The only point from which Adametz could effectively engage the enemy was from a completely exposed position in the fire-swept courtyard, only 20 meters from the closest enemy,” the summary stated.

“Time and time again, Adametz moved out into the courtyard and provided devastating fire with extreme risk to his own life in order to keep the enemy at bay,” the summary said.

“Adametz remained in his exposed position the entire time, moving only when it was necessary to reload his weapon or change the barrel,” it added.

Cpl. Carlos Gomez, an Echo Company rifleman, said Adametz’s actions saved Marines and were critical to evacuating the wounded.

“We could have gotten overrun,” said Gomez, 22, nursing a shoulder injury stemming from enemy rounds he took that day.

Gomez, a fire team leader on a rooftop that day, said he wasn’t surprised by what his fellow leatherneck did.

He described the friend he’s known for three years as “a crazy Marine” when he saw him firing the SAW.

“If he didn’t do it, who would have done it?” Gomez asked. “That’s what it comes down to. Someone has to do it. Someone has to step up to the plate and do it. … It wouldn’t be the Marine Corps if no one steps up to the plate.”

Ellie

thedrifter
05-10-05, 01:58 PM
May 16, 2005

NCO cleared in shooting of insurgent
Corporal fired in self-defense in Iraqi mosque, Corps finds

By Gidget Fuentes
Times staff writer


OCEANSIDE, Calif. — After a five-month investigation, the Marine Corps cleared an infantry corporal in the shooting of an apparently wounded insurgent in a mosque last November in Fallujah, Iraq.
In a decision announced May 4, Maj. Gen. Richard F. Natonski, who commands 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, Calif., ruled that the Marine, an infantryman with 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, who officials did not identify, would not face court-martial.

Natonski “has determined that the actions of the Marine in question were consistent with the established rules of engagement, the law of armed conflict and the Marine’s inherent right of self-defense,” Marine Corps officials said in a written statement.

The two-star general had reviewed the primary investigation that was completed by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service at his request after the incident at the mosque came to light in mid-November.

The NBC network first aired footage of the shooting, filmed by Kevin Sites, a freelance cameraman. Sites, who was embedded with the battalion at the time, was providing video that was shared with other news organizations.

At the time, the incident spurred outcry from human-rights organizations about rash actions by the Marines and vocal criticisms of Sites for recording the incident.

The Marine remains in the Corps. “He’s not going to face any type of punishment of any sort,” 1st Lt. Nathan Braden, a 1st Marine Division spokesman, said May 5. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”

Braden denied a request for an interview with the corporal, saying, “We’re not going to make him available … not right now.”

Natonski had no further comment on the case, he said.

A video moment

The shooting occurred several days into the November battle for Fallujah.

In the video — a grainy image peppered with clear and garbled voices — Marines are seen in a part of the mosque where several wounded or dying men lay on the floor. The corporal is seen pointing his M16 rifle at one of the men and firing. Sites can be heard saying the wounded men were the same ones who were shot the previous day.

According to Sites and NBC, four of the wounded men the Marines encountered in that part of the mosque had been left behind the previous day, a Friday, and were shot by a squad from 3/1 that had entered the mosque shortly before Sites and the Marines stepped in.

Sites has said that one of the Marines told the others that one of the wounded men was still breathing and told them, “He’s … faking he’s dead” before he shot the man. At that point, according to Sites and the video, a nearby Marine said, “Well, he’s dead now.”

The mosque, according to officials, had been secured the previous day during an assault by the battalion but was then reoccupied by the insurgents when the corporal’s platoon entered it during the Nov. 13 patrol. During the patrol, the corporal shot three insurgents “in self-defense, believing they posed a threat to him and his fellow Marines,” according to the Corps’ statement.

Self-defense cited

Investigators questioned more than 22 Marines, including the corporal and the Marines who were involved in the assault on the mosque a day earlier, and waded through photographs, ballistics tests and autopsy reports on the four insurgents killed in the incident, three by the corporal.

“It was a very thorough investigation, of course, exploring everything,” Braden said. “It is quite substantial.”

The video, which Sites turned over to military authorities investigating the incident, became evidence that may have helped clear the Marine.

“The enhanced videotape of the shooting supports the corporal’s claim that the wounded [insurgent] was concealing his left arm behind his head,” Marine Corps officials said in the statement. “While it is not clear whether the [insurgent] in the videotape made any overtly threatening gesture, it is clear that the Marines of 3/1, to include the corporal, were aware that feigning death was a common” enemy tactic.

With that, officials ruled that the Marine “could have reasonably believed that the [insurgent] shown in the videotape posed a hostile threat justifying his use of deadly force.”

Monday-morning quarterbacking

David M. Brahms, a retired Marine brigadier general and former assistant judge advocate of the Navy, said self-defense claims often hinge on two factors.

“What are the rules of engagement in force at the time? Do the rules of engagement authorize the kind of response which was made?” asked Brahms, a defense attorney in Carlsbad, Calif. “What is the context, not only to determine whether the rules of engagement apply, but also whether the response was reasonable.”

“The litmus test,” he said, “is what are the ROEs [and] what are the circumstances that are presented to you.”

Brahms likened the scrutiny over the shooting to cases in which a police officer is questioned for shooting a suspect. Such Monday-morning quarterbacking occurs, Brahms said, “but it is unfair.”

Often in combat, “there has to be an immediate response,” he said. “We are talking about life and death.”

Moreover, in cases such as the mosque shooting, he said, “we’re talking about where it’s you or him, and there isn’t a lot of opportunity to think about it” before acting.

One question that remains unanswered is why the wounded insurgents, who reportedly were in the mosque Nov. 12, were still there when the Marines’ patrol entered the building the following day.

Marine Corps officials have said that the combat situation did not allow them to remove the wounded fighters. It’s not clear whether members of that unit believed the fighters were dead, or would have died overnight, so they did not collect, treat and process them.

But Brahms said that under the laws of armed conflict, military forces are expected to take care of the enemy wounded.

Gidget Fuentes is the San Diego bureau chief for Marine Corps Times. She can be reached at (760) 677-6145 or gfuentes@marinecorpstimes.com


Ellie

thedrifter
05-10-05, 03:05 PM
Marines assess security along Jordanian, Syrian borders
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Division
Story Identification #: 2005535215
Story by Lance Cpl. Zachary W. Lester



MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP KOREAN VILLAGE, Iraq (April 1, 2005) -- Marines from 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion went on a two day patrol to assess force protection at Waleed along the Syrian border and Trebil along the Jordanian border here, March 31 and April 1.

“Our mission was to visit the points of entry at Trebil and Waleed,” said Major John R. Polidoro, 2nd LAR’s executive officer. “While we were there we were able to accomplish a lot of different things.”

The first component of the mission was to inspect the status of the border forts around Western Iraq, speak with the Iraqi Border Police to determine what concerns they had regarding border security and to see how far their training had progressed.

“Overall we got a lot done over a short period of time,” Polidoro said. “We were able to stop at two border forts and meet with the general of the Iraqi Border Police. We had a good meeting with him. He was able to give us a list of his concerns.”

The second portion of the mission assessed the need for force protection measures at Waleed and Trebil.

"By going out there we got a good look at what the force protection concerns were,” Polidoro stated.

The third purpose was to provide the Marines serving in the area with some administrative services from the battalion.

“We brought the chaplain out to do services for the Marines and we were also able to provide basic administrative needs,” Polidoro explained. Most importantly, according to Polidoro, the individual Marines saw their battalion come out to show that they are being supported.

“We needed to show these Marines that we didn’t just send them out a hundred miles away to fend for themselves,” he explained.

An add-on mission brought the Civil Affairs Group onto the scene as they developed projects such as constructing roads, providing water and coming up with ways to help clean up the area.

“We were able to safely and securely accomplish everything and more than we had set out to do,” he stated. “It is always fun to get out and ride in a Light Armored Vehicle and get a little dirty.”

Ellie

thedrifter
05-10-05, 04:10 PM
U.S. Punches Through Deserts in Iraq

By ANTONIO CASTANEDA, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. forces punched through remote desert outposts Tuesday in pursuit of followers of Iraq's most wanted terrorist after meeting stiff resistance from militants hidden in basements, on rooftops and inside sandbag bunkers in a lawless region near the Syrian border.

At least three Marines have been killed and fewer than 20 wounded in Operation Matador, one of the biggest U.S. offensives in Iraq since militants were driven from Fallujah six months ago, the U.S. military said.

U.S. forces said as many as 100 insurgents were killed in the first 48 hours of the operation — many of them trapped under rubble as fighter jets and helicopter gunships pounded the remote desert region. But Marine commanders told The Chicago Tribune that resistance had been unexpectedly intense.

Meanwhile, Italy's foreign minister suggested Tuesday that Italian troops would remain in Iraq until at least early next year despite renewed domestic pressures for withdrawal after the killing of an Italian intelligence agent by U.S. soldiers in Baghdad.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi had previously said Italy would remove an initial 300 soldiers from its 3,000-strong contingent beginning in September, but he stressed a full pullout would depend on security conditions and consultation with the U.S.-led coalition and Iraqi officials.

Gunmen kidnapped the provincial governor Tuesday and told his family he would be released when U.S. forces withdraw from Qaim, the town 200 miles west of Baghdad where the offensive began late Saturday.

U.S. forces believe the main body of insurgents in Iraq have moved from their former strongholds in Fallujah and Ramadi to points north and west, Marine Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday. They appear to be well-equipped and trained.

"There are reports that these people are in uniforms, in some cases are wearing protective vests, and there's some suspicion that their training exceeds what we have seen with other engagements further east," he said.

U.S. soldiers built a pontoon bridge across the Euphrates River to push into the northern Jazirah Desert, believed to be a haven for followers of militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Intelligence reports indicated insurgents were using the vast region, a known smuggling route, as a staging area where foreign fighters crossing into Iraq from Syria received weapons and equipment for attacks in the key cities of Baghdad, Ramadi, Fallujah and Mosul, U.S. Marine spokesman Capt. Jeffrey Pool said.

But as Marines prepared to cross the river Sunday, they started taking mortar fire from the nearby town of Obeidi, 185 miles west of Baghdad, according to a Chicago Tribune reporter embedded with the assault.

When U.S. forces moved into the town, they found insurgents were prepared for a fight. Sandbag bunkers were piled in front of some homes, and fighters were positioned on rooftops and balconies, according to a Los Angeles Times reporter also embedded with the troops. The insurgents used boats to ferry weapons across the river.

At one point, the paper said, a Marine walked into a house and a fighter hiding in the basement fired through a floor grate, killing him. Another Marine suffered shrapnel wounds when an insurgent threw a grenade through the window of a house where he was retrieving a wounded comrade, the Los Angeles Times said.

On Monday night, insurgents attacked a Marine convoy near a U.S. base in Qaim with small arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades, roadside bombs and two suicide car bombers, Pool said. One explosion damaged a Humvee, and a suicide car bomber was destroyed by a U.S. Marine tank, but no Marines were killed and 10 insurgents surrendered in the incident, Pool said in a statement Tuesday.

Navy and Marine F/A-18 Hornet strike jets strafed the tree line, as Marine Cobra attack helicopters fired rockets into insurgent hideouts, the Chicago Tribune reporter said.

By Monday afternoon, Marines had pushed across the bridge onto the northern banks of the Euphrates, Pool said. On Tuesday, they moved through sparsely populated settlements along a 12-mile stretch to the border, meeting only light resistance, according to the Tribune reporter.

Residents reached by telephone in the area reported some fighting Tuesday in Obeidi and the two nearby towns of Rommana and Karabilah. But they said frightened residents were taking advantage of the relative lull to flee the Qaim area.

Adel Izzedine left the town on foot with his wife and three children, walking 6 miles through agricultural fields to reach a nearby village where the family caught a taxi for the remaining 43 miles to Rawa.

"There are gunmen in the city, but there are also a lot of innocent civilians," said Izzedine, who was looking for a mosque or a school in which to spend the night. "We are living the same misery that Fallujah lived some time ago."

Syria has said it is arresting would-be infiltrators and doing what it can to control the porous border with Iraq.

Gov. Raja Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi was seized as he drove from Qaim to the provincial capital of Ramadi on Tuesday morning, his brother, Hammad, told The Associated Press.

The kidnappers later telephoned the family and said he would only be released when U.S. forces pull out of the Syrian border town, Hammad Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi said.

Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, said: "We don't respond to insurgent or terrorist demands."

A Japanese man working for an international security firm disappeared in the same region after his convoy was ambushed near Hit, 85 miles west of Baghdad.

A Sunni militant group claimed on its Web site Monday that it had kidnapped Akihiko Saito, 44. But Japan's defense chief, Yoshinori Ono, said the attack would not affect the country's deployment of 550 troops on a humanitarian mission in southern Iraq. The victim's family supported that pledge Tuesday.

The U.S. offensive comes amid a surge of militant attacks across Iraq, targeting the U.S, military, Iraqi security forces and civilians, since the country's first democratically elected government was announced April 28.

Three U.S. Marines were killed in central Iraq on Monday, one by a homemade bomb in Nasser Wa Salaam, 25 miles west of Baghdad, and two others by indirect fire in Karmah, 50 miles west of the capital, the military said. At least 1,606 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

On Tuesday, at least two car bombs exploded in downtown Baghdad, targeting U.S. and Iraqi troops. At least nine Iraqis were killed and 19 wounded in the two attacks, the Interior Ministry said. One attack also wounded three American soldiers, said U.S. military spokeswoman Capt. Kelly Lewis.

Also Tuesday, Iraq's parliament appointed a 55-member committee of legislators from the country's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish groups to draw up the country's new constitution. Political leaders spent the first three months after landmark Jan. 30 elections trying to form a government and now have until Aug. 15 to complete their main task, drafting a constitution which must then be approved in a national referendum.

___

Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue and Qassim Abdul-Zahara contributed to this report in Baghdad.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-10-05, 08:33 PM
Panel Advises Against Extensive Withdrawal of US Marines from Okinawa
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
May 10, 2005

Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) -- A panel chartered by Congress to advise on redeployments of U.S. forces abroad is questioning the wisdom of reducing the number of troops on Japan's Okinawa island at a time of strategic uncertainties in the region.

In a report released Monday, the Overseas Basing Commission recommended that U.S. Marines at one Okinawan base, the Futenma Marine Corps Air Station, should be moved -- either to another U.S. base on the island, or to one located on Honshu, Japan's main island.

Apart from Futenma, however, all other Marine Corps assets on Okinawa should remain there.

"Okinawa is the strategic linchpin to operational capabilities in East Asia," the commission said. "Diminishing our combat capability on the island would pose great risk to our national interests in the region."

U.S.-Japanese security relations are being enhanced and strengthened as Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi edges his country away from its strictly pacifist constitution and takes on a larger role in the region, where strategic concerns include the China-Taiwan dispute and North Korea's nuclear programs.

At the same time, however, Okinawa remains a sensitive issue in U.S.-Japan relations. More than half of the 47,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan are stationed on the strategically-located island of 1.3 million people, and U.S. bases cover about 20 percent of its area.

Local opposition to the U.S. presence has been fueled over the years by crimes committed by military personnel, accidents -- including the crash of a Marine helicopter last August -- and noise pollution.

To ease the pressure on the community, Tokyo is keen for some troops on Okinawa to be moved to bases outside Japan, such as on Guam, and some to bases elsewhere in Japan.

The U.S. agreed in 1996 to move the Futenma base within five to seven years, but alternatives have proven tricky. One proposal was to build an artificial offshore base nearby but the plan also drew protests, and has stalled.

In its recommendations on Okinawa the Overseas Basing Commission effectively ruled out both the offshore airbase idea and the proposal to relocate troops to bases like Guam, which is home to the Anderson Air Force Base as well as U.S. Navy facilities.

Okinawa is some 500 nautical miles from Taiwan, while Guam is about three times further away from the self-governing island, which China considers a province in rebellion and has threatened to use force if necessary to prevent a formal breakaway.

At a briefing responding to the release of the report, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy Ryan Henry said the Pentagon was having discussions with the Japanese on the best disposition of U.S. forces.

"Our final opinion will be based upon what we and our ally feel is best for the alliance and for regional stability in that area,"' he said.

The head of Japan's Defense Agency, Yoshinori Ono, responded cautiously to the commission report.

He said in Tokyo Tuesday the government's goal was to maintain American deterrent power while at the same time reducing the burden on communities living near the Okinawan bases.

Sixty years ago, Okinawa saw some of the deadliest fighting in the Pacific theater during the Second World War. More than 12,000 American and 100,000 Japanese soldiers were killed there in April-June 1945.

U.S. forces administered the island until it reverted to Japanese rule in 1972.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-11-05, 05:54 AM
Marines capitalize on lessons learned
Submitted by: MCB Quantico
Story Identification #: 20055564438
Story by Cpl. J. Agg



MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. (May 5, 2005) -- The Marine Corps Combat Development Command Doctrine Division is taking some of the pain out of the fleet Marine’s learning process with a series of cargo pocket-sized handbooks that promise to guide today’s war fighter through the most dangerous and complex combat scenarios to confront the Marine Corps in 30 years.

When Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis first assumed the helm of MCCDC in 2004, one of his principal interests was to capture lessons learned from operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom and implement them in a way that would allow the whole Marine Corps to benefit from them.

Actualizing this vision is Col. Len A. Blasiol, director of the MCCDC Concepts and Doctrine divisions.

By capitalizing primarily on lessons learned from the front with input from the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory and other sources of experimentation and development, Marines in the fight could begin receiving lifesaving battle guides, termed Marine Corps Warfighting Publication Interims, as early as June.

Blasiol said the MCWPIs are an immediate response to current threats, and unlike most doctrinal publications that may take 12 to 18 months to produce, are intended to reach the operating forces within 30 days of discovery of a better combat practice.

“We put a lot of resources into collecting the information but we didn’t have a very good process for mining it and extracting the ideas and doing something with them to implement change,” said Blasiol. “After you identify a potential lesson, you have to vet those ideas, staff them around and filter them to be sure we have the best answer. Whereas it may take 12 to 18 months to prepare a lengthy doctrinal publication, we want to put these (MCWPIs) out as fast as 30 days from the time we discover the lesson.”

Blasiol said timeliness is essential in the face of the dynamic insurgent force confronting Marines in Iraq.

“Our enemy is very adaptive. He may be an irregular and he may be an insurgent, but he isn’t dumb. These are very, very clever people,” said Blasiol. “The three things you will hear about doctrine are that it needs to be timely, relevant and compelling, and that’s our goal.”

Blasiol said the Marine Corps Warfighting Publication Interims will have shorter shelf lives than other doctrinal publications.

“In most cases, (an MCWPI) will have a shelf life of two years,” said Blasiol. “That ensures that at the end of two years it will force us to take some further action with regards to that information. We will either decide it is no longer relevant and toss it out, or the portions of it that are relevant and useful we then embed into our doctrine. This is going to help us achieve our objective to produce doctrine that is timely, relevant and compelling.”

Each Marine Corps Warfighting Publication Interim will be directly associated with an existing Marine Corps doctrinal publication and will serve as a basket to collect lessons learned. The most relevant lessons will be rolled into a full update of a regular doctrinal publication.

While some MCWPIs will likely be classified, Marine Corps Combat Development Command Doctrine Division is giving Marines a sneak peek at what’s to come in the near future.

The first MCWPI planned for release is a military operation urban terrain manual with the proposed title, “House Take-Down.” Drawn largely from the experiences of Marines in places like Fallujah and Ramadi, this MOUT guide is intended to help leathernecks clear insurgent-held buildings in Iraq.

Another upcoming MCWPI will be an adaptation of a Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory experimentation report, known internally as an “X-File.”

X-File 3-1.1x, entitled “M16A4 Rifleman’s Suite,” will become more readily available to the fleet Marine forces as an MCWPI integration guide for the rifle, bayonet, advanced combat optical gunsight, night vision devices, pointers, illuminators, personal role radio and M-203 grenade launcher.

“This is an example of how we are going to take knowledge that has been obtained -- in this case through experimentation -- and we’re going to make it more accessible to the people who need it,” said Blasiol.

While proven experimentation and existing doctrinal publications will find their way into the Marine Corps Warfighting Publication Interim program, the majority of the guides will be comprised of time sensitive data and information gleaned from current operations by the Marine Corps Center for Lessons Learned, which is headquartered here at Quantico.

“They’re out there in theater, absorbing things with their own eyes, talking to people and collecting a lot of good data. Input from other sources like the (Marine Corps Warfighting Lab) is very important, but principally, we’re looking to capture the actual lessons learned in theater,” said Blasiol. “What we have now are tactics, techniques and procedures that have been tested in training, tested through experimentation, but no test is the equivalent to testing in combat. When you do that you’re going to find things you didn’t know before.”

Blasiol referenced the term, “observation, orientation, decision, action loop,” or OODA loop, which was first coined by retired Air Force Col. John Boyd to describe cycle time in the decision making process and getting inside the adversary’s decision cycle, to describe the purpose of the Marine Corps Warfighting Publication Interims.

“We are an institution and with an institution there is the danger of becoming more cumbersome than say a less organized enemy, but we are going to demonstrate that we have the ability to turn our OODA loop faster than him.”

Beginning in June, unit commanders will be able to order MCWPIs electronically through the Marine Corps Publications Distribution System, and individual Marines will be able to view them on the Doctrine Division Web site at www.doctrine.usmc.mil.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-11-05, 05:55 AM
Mechanics keep helos in shape
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing
Story Identification #: 200542915924
Story by Sgt. Juan Vara



AL ASAD, Iraq (April 29, 2005) -- Pilots and crewchiefs are often in the spotlight because of their actions on the front lines, but they probably wouldn’t have reached that point without the hard work of helicopter mechanics. Again and again, these Marines ensure the birds stay in the air.

They don’t wear flight suits; they’re generally in grease-stained coveralls, turning wrenches and pumping hydraulic fluid day and night to keep the birds fit to fight.

The mechanics from the avionics, flightline and airframes work centers of Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 264 have been busy maintaining the helicopters here. They haven’t even been here three months and they’re already working on their 14th ‘phase’ helicopter.

A ‘phase’ helicopter is one that has reached approximately 150 flight-hours and has to undergo a phase of thorough inspections to check the condition of some components.

There are five maintenance phases a helicopter rotates through every 150 flight-hours and each focuses on a specific group of components.

The helicopters the squadron is using have been here for almost 17 months and require extra attention to detail when it comes to inspections and maintenance. The “Black Knights” are the third squadron to use them, following Marine Medium Helicopter Squadrons 261 and 365, also from Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C.

According to Staff Sgt. Joseph L. Hoke, phase crew coordinator and Louisville, Ky., native, it usually takes two years for a squadron to fly enough hours to phase 14 helicopters.

The number of helicopters phased reflects how active the squadron has been. It also highlights the effort and dedication of the mechanics who keep the aircraft, sometimes twice as old as them, flying in support of the security and stability operations here.

“We’ve been maintaining the helicopters as they need it,” said Lance Cpl. Robert J. Hadley, a flightline mechanic and Virginia Beach, Va., native. “We’re riding the workload well and we’re caught up with everything.”

Riding along are civilian mechanics from L-3 Vertex Aerospace who assist with the maintenance and provide technical expertise when needed. According to Hoke, some are Marine veterans who have been working on CH-46E Sea Knights for 20 to 30 years. “Two of them were my [staff noncommissioned officers] when they were in.”

Hadley, who as a flightline mechanic is trained to work on components such as engines, transmissions, flight controls and rotor heads, said each bird goes through phase for approximately one week.

But fixing discrepancies found during phase inspections isn’t the only maintenance the squadron birds receive. There is also maintenance conducted after special inspections.

Special inspections are conducted on certain components every set amount of hours depending on when they were installed. “Sometimes the amount of maintenance comes and floods us,” said Hadley.

Lance Cpl. Mike Helburg, an airframes and hydraulics mechanic, said working on the helicopters can get tedious, but the mechanics keep it fun and interesting by teaching others and learning from others as much as they can.

“That’s one good thing, working with the civilians,” said Helburg, a Fort Collins, Colo., native, serving as airframes work center supervisor. “We learn a lot from them.”

And the more knowledge they gain, the better for the squadron’s maintenance rates. According to Gunnery Sgt. Alex M. Brinker, maintenance controller from Detroit, the “Black Knights” have not turned down any of the missions assigned to them and have maintained an 83 percent mission-capable rate and an 82 percent full mission-capable rate for all aircraft since their arrival.

The dedication and professionalism of helicopter mechanics like the ones of HMM-264 have kept the Sea Knight an invaluable asset to the Marine Corps for more than 40 years and the “Black Knights” have witnessed it since 1968, when they received the “new” aircraft that’s still in the fight today.


- For more information about the Marines reported on in this story, please contact Sgt. Juan Vara by e-mail at varaj@acemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil -


Ellie

thedrifter
05-11-05, 05:55 AM
Small World for four Greenwood, Miss., natives
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Division
Story Identification #: 20055545954
Story by Lance Cpl. Lucian Friel



CAMP AL QA'IM, Iraq (April 4, 2005) -- According to the 2000 U.S. Census, the city of Greenwood, Miss., has a population of approximately 18,425.

So what are the odds of four Marines from this Mississippi town ending up in the same unit deployed to the rural deserts of western Iraq?

The chances are greater than you think.

Staff Sgt. Rodriguez Moore and Lance Cpl.s Ralph Smith, Gresham Gregg and Arthur L. Ware are all Marines with 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, currently deployed with the 2d Marine Division to the Al Anbar province in Iraq, and all four Marines are natives of Greenwood.

These Marines had no clue that they were all from Greenwood, until Gregg, a driver and rifleman with the battalion's security platoon, was introduced to Smith, a rifleman with Company K, back at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C. in the summer of 2004.

"I met Smith through a mutual friend of ours from Greenwood. I got together with my hometown friend, and he told me about a Marine coming out of the School of Infantry who also was from our hometown. It turned out to be Smith," explained the 1996 Greenwood High School graduate.

Gregg and Smith became good friends and continued their friendship as they deployed to Iraq earlier this year. It was on this deployment that they would discover two more Greenwood natives from a Reserve unit out of Jackson, Miss.

In January 2005, a truck detachment of Marines with Company E, 3rd Battalion, 14th Marines was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Moore, a 2001 Greenwood High School graduate, and Ware, a 1993 S.V. Marshall High School graduate, were among those Marines.

"I knew that the guys attached to us were from Mississippi, and I talked to some of them. They told me that they had a few people from Greenwood," Gregg continued. "I saw Ware's name and hometown on the Marine Corps website, www.usmc.mil. Then in Kuwait, they staged both our platoons in the same area to catch our flight. So I went up and talked to Ware, and he introduced me to Staff Sgt. Moore. That's how we met."

Gregg introduced Smith to their newly found hometown brothers in arms when they arrived at Al Qa'im.

"I was completely shocked when I found out there were more Marines from Greenwood with (the battalion). It's crazy how four men from a small town like Greenwood would end up in a combat zone together in the same unit," explained Smith, who attended W.P. Daniel High School.

When Ware and Smith met each other, they found out something unique about their connection to Greenwood.

"My mom taught Ware Spanish in high school and we found that out after only talking for about two minutes," Smith explained.

All four of these Marines grew up no more than ten minutes away from each other. They have a lot of the same friends, went to the same schools and share the same Mississippi culture.

Yet they didn't meet each other until after they joined the Corps and ended up in the same unit together supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom here.

All four agree that it's very ironic and unusual that they are all here in this fight together, as Marine brothers in arms.

"We all wanted to do something different than everybody else and it's kind of funny how we all got put in the same place in Iraq," they all agreed, as Ware summed it up. "You never know who you will run into in life, it's a small world and the four of us are proof of it."

Ellie

thedrifter
05-11-05, 05:56 AM
Stargazers, cloud watchers key to mission success
Submitted by: II Marine Expeditionary Force (FWD)
Story Identification #: 20055321633
Story by Cpl. Christi Prickett



CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (May 3, 2005) -- In a combat zone, accurate and timely weather predictions are vital for service members to complete their mission.

Tucked away in a small tent here, Cpl. Victor Rodriguez, meteorology and oceanography observer, G-2, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Headquarters Group, II MEF (Forward), has one of the few jobs where star gazing and cloud watching are allowed throughout the day.

Rodriguez makes hourly observations of visibility, sky conditions, winds and dew point using high technology equipment daily to gather information.

“I go outside every hour to take measurements,” said the Chicago native. “I observe the clouds and feel the wind speed.”

Rodriguez, who recently re-enlisted, feels his job is important for everyone on camp.

“People need to know what the weather will be for day-to-day accomplishments,” he said. “Pilots especially need the information.”

The pilots get information from the weather van or the air traffic control tower.

“The meteorology and oceanography Marines work closely with ATC to provide pilots with the information they need,” said Rodriguez.

There are two weather sensors on camp, known as the Weatherpak 2000.

“There are differences in wind speed and temperature in the two different locations, even though they aren’t very far apart,” said the 2000 graduate of Thornton Fraction North High School, Calumet City, Ill.

Rodriguez has been going through old observations to make an archive of the weather patterns here. He said it has never been done before.

“I am going over all the old hourly observations,” he explained. “I’m not sure why it has never been done, but I think it’s because no one knew how long we’d be here, so they didn’t think it was necessary. But I am putting the information together so it can be used in the future.”

The weather center is operated 24-hours a day.

Cpl. Michelle L. Gottschalk, METOC technician, G-2, II MHG, II MEF (FWD), works with Rodriguez during the day shift. She fixes the equipment when it breaks and also orders supplies and does other duties.

Gottschalk, an Island Lake, Ill., native, knows the weather equipment well.

“We are a team,” Gottschalk said. “We are teaching each other our jobs. For instance, I tell him about the cables or some of the equipment, and he lets me help out with the balloons.”

Once a day, Rodriguez releases a weather balloon which has a Global Positioning System and other small equipment attached to it. It is capable of taking temperature, dew point, surface, wind and humidity readings. Another balloon is released during the night shift.

“If you blow up the balloon too full, it pops,” said the 22-year-old. “It just took me lots of practice to get it right. The balloons I release average around 80,000 feet. If it’s filled improperly, it will only go about 40,000 feet which is okay, but not the best.”

The balloon has to be between 200 and 300 grams of pressure, and Rodriguez said the balloon can be read within five minutes of its release.

“After I release the balloon, I go to the computer inside our van and start reading the information,” said Rodriguez. “We then use the information to put on our Web site to be seen by military personnel.”

This is his first deployment to Iraq.

“The difference in my job here is that I hardly ever work with ground operations in the rear,” he said. “I have to pay attention to detail all the time, but more so now.”

Rodriguez says his favorite part of the job is knowing what’s happening before other people know about it.

“When the last sand storm came in, we could see it on our readings, and we were able to let everyone know about it,” he said. “We get to pass the information along that no one else knows about.”

EDITOR’S NOTE
For more information about this article send e-mail to cepaowo@cemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil

Ellie

thedrifter
05-11-05, 06:02 AM
Marine facing court-martial in woman's shooting death <br />
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <br />
By Rick Rogers <br />
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER <br />
May 11, 2005 <br />
...

thedrifter
05-11-05, 06:04 AM
Commander of Najaf battle retires
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By: DARRIN MORTENSON
The North County Times
May 10, 2005

CAMP PENDLETON ---- You could say he went out big. For the finale of his 27-year career in the Marine Corps, Col. Anthony Haslam led his troops to smash an insurgent army in the Iraqi city of Najaf in August, and then conquered the city with kindness before the celebrated general elections in January.

Now Haslam, the 49-year-old commander of Camp Pendleton's 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, is retiring from his life as a commander of troops to embark on a career in the private sector.

A crowd of about 100 Marine Corps and Navy officers, friends and family gathered for a traditional Marine parade and change-of-command ceremony Tuesday at Camp Pendleton to honor Haslam, and to welcome the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit's new commander, Col. John Bullard.

Under a powder-blue sky and backed by the breakers along the shore of Camp Del Mar, Marines in pressed green camouflage marched in lockstep to a military band as the Marines carried out the time-honored formalities of changing commanders.

Pendleton's top Marine commander reviewed the troops on the parade field and led the tribute to Haslam.

Calling him a "creative, imaginative and flexible commander," Lt. Gen. John Sattler, commander of Pendleton's I Marine Expeditionary Force, credited Haslam with leading U.S. forces to the first major victory against insurgents in Iraq in August.

"The battle for Najaf was a tremendous turning point for all of Iraq," he said.

On many occasions, Sattler has said the decisive battle against the militia of Shiite rebel Muqtada al-Sadr has become a model for U.S. forces in Iraq and will be remembered along with historic Marine campaigns in Iwo Jima, Chosin, Hue City and others.

He said it was not only the fighting but also the humanitarian and reconstruction work that followed that made Haslam and the Marines of his unit stand out.

In letters read during the ceremony, the Corps' top brass also heaped praise and awarded Haslam the Legion of Merit award.

In one statement, Marine Pacific Forces Commander Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson said Haslam's "decisive leadership ... inspired the people of central Iraq to work toward a better Iraq."

Sattler thanked Haslam's wife, Lynn Haslam, for supporting her husband, making sacrifices and "keeping the home fires burning" with her work supporting the wives and families of deployed Marines.

When it was his turn, Haslam thanked his military mentors, superiors and fellow officers, and saved an emotional thanks to his Marines and his wife for the end.

"They made the impossible happen," he said of his troops. "They were excellent ambassadors for this country."

Remembering the 12 Marines who were killed during the recent deployment, Haslam said, "These young devil dogs gave it their all."

Haslam thanked Lynn Haslam, a school teacher, for juggling her career for the Marine Corps.

"I couldn't have done it without you," he said.

During his 27-year career in the Marines, which began as a CH-46 helicopter pilot, Haslam was a flight instructor, commanded aviation units, served in staff positions, and was deployed throughout Asia and the Pacific before he took command of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit in March, 2002.

The unit was deployed to the Horn of Africa to support other Marine Corps operations in Afghanistan, and then Haslam and his Marines were sent to Iraq in early 2003 to support the invasion.

After being home at the Camp Pendleton training for the better part of a year, the Marines again were deployed to Iraq in June, 2004, where they took on al-Sadr's militia in Najaf.

Haslam beamed as he recounted the furious last few years that capped his career.

"I'm going to miss it," Haslam said, adding that he would miss his Marines as well as the institution that took him so far. "It's been a tremendous time."

Haslam, a resident of Temecula, had been selected to become brigadier general but chose to retire instead. He will be working for construction giant The Shaw Group, which will take him on more overseas assignments, possibly to the Middle East.

His replacement, Bullard, said he was honored to take the helm of the expeditionary unit.

"There could be no better feeling in the world," he said.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-11-05, 06:04 AM
Marine backstabbed outside bar <br />
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <br />
By DEAN PRITCHARD <br />
The Winnipeg Sun <br />
May 10, 2005 <br />
<br />
When U.S. Marine Cpl. Leonard...

thedrifter
05-11-05, 06:05 AM
3 Idaho Marines injured when tank strikes mine
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Idaho Statesman
May 10, 2005

Three Marine reservists from Idaho were seriously injured Sunday in Iraq when their tank rolled over a mine.

Staff Sgt. Chad Brumpton, Lance Cpl. Joseph Lowe and Lance Cpl. Mitchell Ehlke are in stable condition, said 1st Lt. Nathan Braden, a Marine spokesman at Twenty-Nine Palms, Calif., who identified the Marines and confirmed that they had been injured.

According to Marine officials at Twenty-Nine Palms, Lowe was evacuated to a medical facility in Germany. Brumpton and Ehlke also were expected to be evacuated to Germany.
The reservists are with Charlie Company, 4th Tank Battalion based in Boise, attached to the 2nd Marine Division while serving in Iraq.

Military officials declined to describe the men's injuries or the exact circumstances of the incident. Braden did say the Marines were in the Anbar Province of far western Iraq, which borders Syria.
According to press accounts, in recent days hundreds of Marines have been working to clear out militants in western Iraq near Syria as part of "Operation Matador."

Brumpton, a tank commander, sustained multiple fractures in both legs and may have a broken hand, said Ginny Brumpton, his mother, who lives in Eagle. She spoke with her son Tuesday morning on the telephone.

"It's hard to take. He sounded pretty busted up, very broken," Ginny Brumpton said.
Bob Brumpton, Chad's father, said he has talked with the families of the other injured Marines. All live in the Treasure Valley, he said. Lowe suffered a broken back and Ehlke's ankle was shattered by the exploding mine, Bob Brumpton said. Chad, 31, has his "pulverized" legs in metal frames called halos, Bob said.

"It went off and threw them around pretty good. They were like BBs in a boxcar," Bob Brumpton said. "My son almost died. He is in terrible shape and terrible pain, and I can't be with him right now. I don't know what's going on in the future."
Another Marine from Chad's platoon pulled the injured men out of their destroyed M1-A1 Abrams tank, Bob Brumpton said. Military officials would not confirm those or other details Tuesday.

Bob Brumpton said he and Ginny are planning to visit their son at a military hospital in Bethesda, Md., when he comes back to the United States. "The Marines have been just first-rate about keeping us informed and it's difficult when it's halfway around the world," Bob Brumpton said.

The Brumptons said they are eager for their son to return to Idaho and resume his life. In civilian life, Chad works as a state prison guard. He spends many hours working on a "fixer-upper" house he purchased, and loves hunting and riding motorcycles. He's been in the Marines for 10 years, his father said.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-11-05, 06:42 AM
Marines Push Into Rebel Areas on Day 3 of Offensive
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Solomon Moore
LA Times Staff Writer
May 11, 2005

OUGHAYMAH, Iraq - U.S. Marines advanced farther into insurgent strongholds near the border with Syria in western Iraq on Tuesday, the third day of a major assault in which the military says it has killed more than 100 fighters and discovered large weapons caches.

Eight suspects were reported slain in sporadic attacks Tuesday throughout the Ramana area, a ribbon of agricultural villages in Al Anbar province, a largely Sunni Muslim region.

Three Americans have been killed, 25 have been wounded and 110 insurgents have died in the fighting that began Sunday, the Marine Corps said. More than 1,000 troops are taking part in the offensive, which is aimed at capturing or killing rebel recruits from western Iraq and foreign fighters who cross the border here.

In New Ubaydi, one of the towns where Marines struggled for hours Monday to cross to the north side of the Euphrates River, a Cobra attack helicopter fired machine-gun blasts at several suspects speeding away in a car, killing the occupants. Pilots used a Hellfire missile against another suspect vehicle that had ducked under a gas station awning. It burned for hours after the strike.

Just before midnight Monday, two suicide car bombers ambushed a U.S. convoy attempting to salvage a tank that had been disabled by a mine in the village of Karabilah, also on the river's south side, military officials said. A tank gunner demolished one of the vehicles, but the other car exploded near a Humvee, injuring four Marines, one seriously.

The assault on this strip of well-irrigated towns is the first in months by the Marines, who have faced manpower constraints and other priorities in western Iraq, a hotbed of the Sunni-led insurgency.

The push to the north side of the Euphrates was delayed a day because Army bridge builders encountered difficulties spanning the river. Until the bridge's completion Monday, there had been no easy way for the U.S. troops to move heavy armored vehicles across the Euphrates into the Ramana area.

Military officials think that foreign fighters have been using the region as a sanctuary on their way from the porous Syrian border to cities such as Mosul, Ramadi and Baghdad, where they have carried out kidnappings, assassinations and suicide bombings aimed at destabilizing Iraq's nascent government.

Some U.S. commanders believe the area contains insurgent training camps and high-ranking members of the Iraq arm of the Al Qaeda terrorist network, including its leader, Abu Musab Zarqawi. As of early today, no camps or Al Qaeda leaders had been found.

The Marines spent most of Tuesday conducting house-to-house searches in several villages and said they had found two vehicle bombs, dozens of mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades, AK-47 rifles and at least one bomb vest.

Troops arrested 10 suspected insurgents Tuesday. A Los Angeles Times reporter traveling with members of the 2nd Marine Division saw six suspects sitting in the dust wearing plastic handcuffs and blindfolds. All had been found with weapons or bomb-making equipment, the Marines said.

Troops also said they fired on a taxicab Tuesday morning after it failed to stop at a checkpoint. However, the occupants apparently were civilians fleeing New Ubaydi. The driver was killed and a female passenger and her child were injured.

"We were just sick to death when that lady got out of the car with her baby," said a Marine, who declined to identify himself.

Marines said another passenger, who was unhurt, told them that insurgents had taken hold of the town and were threatening to kill any men who did not fight the Americans. The woman urged the Marines to reenter New Ubaydi to fight the guerrillas, the troops said.

The insurgent attacks in New Ubaydi have surprised the Marines, who thought that most of the rebels were on the north side of the river. Troops who pursued fighters in the town Sunday found well-fortified positions and heavily armed men. Mortar plates had been screwed onto rooftops and sandbag barriers surrounded some homes. Marines also found a number of large weapons caches.

Col. Stephen Davis, commander of Regimental Combat Team 2, which is staging the operation, said his forces would continue to pursue their original goal: clearing insurgents from towns on the north side.

"The enemy hasn't gone away," Davis said. "The key here is not to get hasty. We're going to go from house to house, sifting the chaff from the wheat. The enemy is adaptive. He's not stupid, and he's shown a willingness to engage."

Another officer in the area, however, said he thought many insurgents might have fled.

"They've had enough time, they've had enough warning to flee," said Capt. Tom Sibley, a Marine intelligence officer. "They usually know better than to step in front of the fist."

Marines said U.S. aircraft and remote-controlled spy drones had seen relatively little movement away from the area, an indication that many insurgents might still be in hiding.

But Sibley said he suspected that delays Sunday had allowed some insurgents to escape into Syria by boat or by climbing into the high desert above the river valley.

"However many escaped, we're teaching them that this is not a safe place for them," Sibley said. "Every place where they feel confident, we need to take that away. Every place they feel safe, that's where we need to kill them."

Commanders planned more attacks today, sweeping the area with Humvees, tracked personnel carriers and tanks.

Despite scattered fighting Tuesday, the outskirts of the Ramana region appeared placid. Young boys could be seen tending sheep in fields of grass and wheat. Families sat in front of stone houses sipping small cups of tea and smoking cigarettes.

Men wearing traditional robes and headdresses stood in yards and watched U.S. convoys clatter past with food, water and ammunition.

The Marines used much of the day to fortify their positions and identify targets. A few mortar rounds thundered in the distance, but few troops seemed to notice.

As night fell, the Marines ate their packaged meals and spread out sleeping bags amid armored vehicles and the ruins of pulverized homes. They slept with their M-16s within arm's reach.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-11-05, 07:59 AM
`Floor it!' GI shouts amid hail of gunfire
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By James Janega
Chicago Tribune staff reporter
May 11, 2005

For more than a day and much of the night, the M-1 Abrams tank sat disabled in the desert, hobbled by an anti-tank mine. The main battle had pushed to the north, across the Euphrates River and west toward the Syrian border.

A handful of Marines and another Abrams had stayed behind with the damaged tank to wait for help, and now help was on the way.

But as the column of armored vehicles raced toward the scene early Tuesday, it took a wrong turn in the darkness and unfamiliar terrain and wound up in the cross hairs of an insurgent ambush. The Marines sent to the rescue needed help themselves.

The tanks were rolling through the town of Karabilah on the Euphrates' south bank about 1 a.m. when Lance Cpl. James Sutton, a 20-year-old tank driver from Wyoming, Ill., spotted men lurking atop several buildings. He said he could not pick out the details--his infrared scope, used to give him night vision, showed the men only as silhouettes against the sky.

But then his screen bloomed with black blotches signaling the heat of muzzle flashes. Tiny black dots--bullets--streamed toward his tank and the armored Humvees ahead of him.

"It was a big mess," recalled Sutton as he and other Marines from Alpha Company, 1st Marine Tank Battalion recounted what had happened on the mission upon their return to the main Marine base at Al Qaim.

Elsewhere in the column, Sgt. Jeremy Archila, 27, of Fremont, Calif., watched from the machine-gun turret of his M88-A2 tank-recovery vehicle as the rifles erupted. The buildings along the roadside looked as if sparklers were hanging from almost every window, he said.

"Pretty much everything went to hell," he said.

As the American vehicles screeched to a halt and hurriedly began U-turning in the road, the insurgents began firing rocket-propelled grenades--"big red streams that just shoot down and scream," Archila said.

And then out of nowhere, a suicide bomber in a white pickup truck sped into the column, exploding his vehicle next to a Humvee in front of Archila.

The gunfire intensified and then almost miraculously slowed as Archila's crew ran to the burning Humvee and pulled out the four wounded Marines inside, he said.

Three of them wound up inside Archila's vehicle, along with the five regular crew members. Eight men dressed in full combat gear now were packed into a space the size of a regular mini-van, but with far less head room.

Archila said he gave his seat to one of the wounded men. With no where else to go, he opened his hatch and crouched behind the big .50-caliber machine gun, hoping it would give him some protection as the rifle fire from the rooftops started up again.

The column sped up, threading its way through narrow streets with only feet to spare on either side, the Marines recalled.

But as they turned down a side street, Archila's recovery vehicle ran over another anti-tank mine.

The explosion knocked Archila into the armored cabin, and his mechanic tumbled into him. The man's helmet and goggles had been blown from his head, but he staggered to his feet, stuck his torso out of his hatch and began to fire back with his M-16 rifle.

The inside of the armored vehicle reeked of leaking diesel fuel. Someone asked if they should fire anti-tank rockets at the buildings. Archila said no; any spark could ignite the diesel fumes. Though the vehicle's right track was severely damaged, Archila shouted over the gunfire: "Floor it!"

Even though Lance Cpl. Adolfo Castro's infrared scope was blinded by smoke, he responded, pushing the damaged vehicle as fast as he could.

"When the smoke cleared, I found myself zigzagging in and out of telephone poles," recalled Castro, 20, from Kansas City, Kan.

Somehow, the men recalled, the crippled tank-recovery vehicle cleared the buildings. And then it ground to a halt.

Sutton's tank towed the damaged recovery vehicle to a safe zone--coincidentally near the damaged tank they had gone to recover long hours before.

Within minutes, Black Hawk helicopters evacuated the wounded Marines. Soon after, undamaged tanks towed the broken M88 and Abrams back to the Marine base at Al Qaim, about 5 miles away.

While fellow Marines fought on the north side of the river, part of an ongoing offensive aimed at insurgents based in this rugged corner of Iraq's Jazirah Desert, the rescuers congratulated themselves on what Archila described as a successful mission.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-11-05, 10:57 AM
Virginia-based unit provides armored asset to infantry in Iraq
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Division
Story Identification #: 20055352748
Story by Cpl. Ken Melton



CAMP RIPPER, AL ASAD, Iraq (May 3, 2005) -- Lance Cpl. Chimbuoyim Okoli Jr. and his fellow Marines with 4th Assault Amphibian Battalion recently conducted operations in a unique environment.

The Virginia Beach, Va., based unit, attached to 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, is launching their armored vehicles from fortified bases, instead of ships in the ocean, to conduct operations on urban terrain here.

“We take the troops into the city so they can do their job,” said the AAV crewman and Virginia Beach native.

The vehicles that Okoli operates were adapted from the designs of an amphibious tractor used to help people during severe weather such as hurricanes and floods. The modern AAV, designed to be a ship to shore troop transport, weighs 26 tons and can hold 20 personnel.

Although a departure from their designed transport role, these armored machines are proving to be valuable asset for operations on land.

“The vehicle is much better than our seven-ton trucks because it offers better protection,” said the 2000 graduate of Salem High School. “We can travel over rougher terrain and if there isn’t any bridge we can cross, we just tighten up and go across the river.”

During missions, the Nigerian born Okoli and his fellow ‘AmTrackers’ provide security on the city streets. They are able to provide heavy covering fire as needed and an armored position from which to operate.

“We have a MK-19 (a 40 mm. automatic grenade launcher) and a M-2 .50 caliber machinegun on each vehicle. If the infantrymen need it, we can provide awesome covering fire that will send most insurgents running,” said Okoli with a smile.

While the vehicle can travel up to speeds of 50 mph on land and 12 knots in the water, there are a few drawbacks to using AAVs according to Okoli.

“The maintenance on these vehicles is high,” he said. “Every time we drive these vehicles something wears down. We have to fix it so we can stay in the fight and continue the mission.”

Even though AAV’s are high maintenance, Okoli and his fellow ‘AmTrackers’ provide a substantial asset to the units they support in Operation Iraqi Freedom. They provide a means of transportation that is safe and fast.

“It’s much safer because our vehicles are better equipped to handle major blasts from rockets or mines. We save a lot of lives by doing this.”

Ellie

thedrifter
05-11-05, 11:44 AM
Artists lend a hand, or a realistic foot, to Iraq amputees
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
By Greg Jaffe, The Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON -- Two years ago, Chuck O'Brien was in Hollywood making cadavers for "CSI: Miami." His masterpieces included a partially digested torso that spilled from a shark and a finger that oozed sweat.

But he says he got "sick of making dead bodies" for demanding directors. He also worried that computer animation, cheaper and faster than building fake body parts, was rendering his skill obsolete in the movie business.

So on a rainy spring morning last month, he found himself hunched over a Marine's foot at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here. Cpl. Corey Webb had lost his left leg in Fallujah last June when his Humvee, rushing to a firefight, collided with a U.S. tank. Now, Mr. O'Brien was painting a silicone replica of the missing appendage as the 23-year-old corporal posed, showing off his remaining foot under bright hot lights.

"This guy is my foot artist," Cpl. Webb announced to a group of Marines on a goodwill tour who were passing out T-shirts to the wounded. Eyeing the eerily real-looking work in progress, he announced: "It's going to look great in a flip-flop."

Since November 2003, when he left Hollywood, Mr. O'Brien has been working for Alternative Prosthetic Services, a nine-person company in Southport, Conn., that makes arms, legs and the occasional finger or ear for accident victims and the war wounded. Every Thursday and Friday, Mr. O'Brien, Michael Curtain, who founded the business, and a third artist, Robert Rubino, go to Walter Reed to work on prostheses. On this morning, they were making the foot for Cpl. Webb and a hand for an Army soldier whose arm had been blown off when a suicidal insurgent slammed a truck bomb into his armored vehicle in northern Iraq.

For years there was limited demand for high-end prostheses, which cost thousands of dollars and are too expensive for most patients. But the Iraq war has generated a large number of amputees for the first time since the Vietnam War. New body armor, which covers only vital organs, has meant that more soldiers are surviving attacks but losing limbs than in previous conflicts. The Pentagon has promised to spare no expense for war amputees.

The net result for Mr. Curtain is a boom in business. Before the war, the 49-year-old former sculptor says he could look at a hand that he had made five or even 10 years ago and know immediately for whom he had made it. Now that isn't possible. "We've had so many patients in the last three years that I haven't been able to be involved in every aspect of every job," he says.

He has had to hire three additional artists, including Mr. O'Brien. To keep up with demand, he says, he should probably hire two more. "Everyone is maxed out right now," he says. But he doesn't plan any hiring, because if the war improves in the next few months and the military work slows, he would then have to lay off people.

Making just one hand or foot typically takes one of Mr. Curtain's artists about three weeks. They start by fabricating a mold of the patient's good limb. Using the mold as a guide, they sculpt mirror-image palm and fingers so that a left hand, say, is transformed into a right one.

They then make a mold of the sculpted limb and coat the inside of the mold with a thin layer of silicone. The artists peel the silicone coating from the mold, creating what looks like a translucent silicone glove. The artists match the patient's skin tone, adding freckles, moles and veins and then sprinkling in actual hair. During the four-to-eight-hour painting process, the soldiers pose for the artists, flexing their hands or feet periodically so that blood doesn't collect in the real appendage and change the skin tone. Finally, the artists fill the painted silicone coating with rubber.

At around 10 a.m., the three artists began work with Cpl. Webb and Cpl. Michael Oreskovic, the Army soldier who lost his arm to the truck bomb. Mr. Curtain pulled out a photo album of some of his patients posing with and without their prostheses.

"What happened to that chick?" Cpl. Webb asked, pointing to a woman missing part of her foot.

"Frostbite," Mr. Curtain replied.

Cpl. Webb flipped the page over and glanced at a bearded man who had lost his arm in an industrial accident. "Nice job," he said, admiring the work.

After they were finished with the catalog, the three artists and two servicemen all huddled in a tiny room under five hot, white lamps. A small fan whirred in the background. A few patients wandered into the makeshift studio to take a look at a finished arm with a heart tattoo that Mr. Curtain had brought down as a demonstration model. Mr. O'Brien, the company's "tattoo guy," painted the heart -- the company's first effort at a tattoo -- when some soldiers began asking whether their missing body art could be reproduced on their prosthetic limbs. He is currently working on his first two real tattoos -- a Celtic cross for an Army sergeant and the name "Emmanuelle" for another soldier.

The finished limbs look so real that when they are sitting in the open, unattached, passersby are startled. Last summer, Mr. Curtain says he was passing through the Houston airport with a bag full of finished prostheses when one of the security personnel pulled him aside to search his bag. Before he could tell her what was inside, she had begun to rummage through the duffel.

The woman let out a gasp and her colleagues all came running over to see what was wrong. "She was really pale. She kept saying, 'You can't do that,' " Mr. Curtain recalls.

As his two artists painted, Mr. Curtain worked on the fingernails and toenails, chatted with the doctors and former patients and checked up on his colleague's work. "You need some more reds and oranges around his toe," Mr. Curtain told Mr. O'Brien.

Cpl. Webb, the Marine, dozed off. A few feet away, Cpl. Oreskovic, who was having his hand made, talked with his father about his plans. The 23-year-old soldier said he intended to go to college.

"Why not stay in the Army?" his father suggested. "You could go into military intelligence."

Cpl. Oreskovic shook his head. "If they won't let me go back to my scout platoon, I want to get out," he said.

Mr. Rubino, the artist, was busy painting Cpl. Oreskovic's pale, white skin and freckles. Freckles are a bear, Mr. Rubino said. But the toughest skin tone to match is Hispanic skin, which has a deep reddish brown tint that is distorted by the silicone's slight grayish hue, he said as he worked.

As he painted, another group of Marines popped their heads into the studio to see what was happening. "Do you do real artists' work, like painting pictures and stuff?" one of the visiting Marines asked.

Mr. Rubino, who is also a soldier in the Connecticut National Guard, said he did abstract oil paintings in his spare time. Mr. Curtain said that back when he was a sculptor, "My goal was to get into a gallery in Manhattan and become a fine artist."

Shortly after he arrived in New York, he got into the prosthetics business to help pay the bills while he tried to find galleries that would showcase his work. Eventually, though, he gave up on his art and started his own prosthesis business. It has been eight years since he did any sculpting outside of work, he says.

The prosthetic artists' work incorporates all the principles of fine art, such as balance and harmony. "But it's really more of a technical art," says Mr. Rubino, the painter. "Lots of the creativity has been taken out because you are searching for that realism."

Mr. Rubino paused from putting the finishing touches on his hand. "The patients are the best part," he said. "The resiliency of these guys is incredible."


Ellie

thedrifter
05-11-05, 04:56 PM
A Battery reaches out, touches insurgents
Submitted by: II Marine Expeditionary Force (FWD)
Story Identification #: 20055925834
Story by Lance Cpl. Evan M. Eagan



CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (May 9, 2005) -- They are not often seen, but they’re definitely heard. In the late hours of the night or in the early morning, the thundering blasts shake the ground, which can be felt across the camp here and causes many service members to ask, “Was that incoming or outgoing?”

In most cases it’s outgoing, and the artillery Marines of A Battery, 1st Battalion, 10th Marines, 2nd Marine Division, are the ones making all the noise.

“We provide support for any and everybody that calls for us,” said Gunnery Sgt. Michael Jones, Alpha Battery gunnery sergeant, 1/10. “Any unit that calls for fire, if it’s cleared and confirmed we fire on the targets they call on and we take them out.”

A Battery, which is 140 Marines strong, is made up of six sections, two of which rotate into the city to provide security at the Civil Military Operations Center and the Fallujah Liaison Team site.

Armed with M198 medium-towed Howitzers, the Marines of A Battery are busy around the clock providing counter battery fire for Camp Fallujah.

“Most of the missions have been counter fire,” said Sgt. Steve Pullins, operations chief, fire direction control center. “After the enemy fires on us, we can get rounds back on them in about four or five minutes.”

And when it comes to long range, these Marines go the distance.

“We can reach anyone within 30 clicks [18.2 miles],” said Jones, a Gulfport, Miss., native. “We have 6400 mils capability which is a full circle. We can reach out and touch them from any direction.”

The FDCC processes anywhere from 30 to 35 missions a day, however, they may end up shooting only once, said 2nd Lt. Ryan King, fire direction officer, FDCC.

“We wish we could get more action,” King said with a smile. “We’re more than ready for it.”

No one knows this better than the Marines assigned to Gun three.

As soon as they get word of a possible target, the Marines rush to get their gear on and prepare the Howitzer for the shot, however, more times than not, the mission is ended before they fire.

“We do this all day,” said Sgt. Ryan Hurtado, section chief, gun three, a Prescott, Ariz., native. “The guys get pumped up when we get something, and then the mission is usually ended.”

The first time A Battery deployed to Iraq, during Operation Iraqi Freedom I, they came with the rest of 1/10 as a battalion. According to Jones, 75 percent of the Marines are new and were not with the battery at the time.

“The Marines have been motivated out here to do their part for whatever mission,” Jones said. “The morale is high. These Marines are good at what they are doing. They are very proficient.”

EDITOR’S NOTE
For more information about this article, please send an e-mail to cepaowo@cemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil


Ellie

thedrifter
05-11-05, 06:31 PM
After close call, family awaits Marine's return home
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
an ABC Action News report 05/11/05

SEMINOLE - A bullet from an AK-47 nearly claimed a local Marine's life in the battle for Fallujah. Luck and courage earned him a Purple Heart; now, he's getting the ultimate reward: he's coming home.

Back on November of 2004, Kip Cashman was in thick of it with his squad, fighting for control of Fallujah.

"He took a single bullet through the helmet that went through his goggles and took off part of his eyebrow. But at the end of the day, he finished what he was supposed to be doing," Kip's father Mike said, showing off his son's damaged hardware. "The goggles themselves show why we're so thankful. This is pretty darn close."

Dozens of Marines from Kip's unit have died in suicide bombings. A deadly helicopter crash took the lives of over two dozen Marines in February. Mike said that when his son talks about Iraq, he worries about only one thing.

"He said, 'Dad, the only thing I want to do is make sure my squad gets out OK.' It's the only thing he ever worried about," Mike continued.

His family back home worries a lot. Mike, also a Marine who did a tour of duty in Vietnam, keeps it together a bit better than his wife. But that's just how moms are.

"He's always on our mind. There isn't a day that we didn't think about him. We are very, very proud of him. Very proud," Lynn said, struggling to maintain her composure.

This month marks a series of special times for Kip and his family. Mother's Day was his third anniversary in the Marines. On Monday, he became sergeant. And this Saturday, he comes home.

The family said, even when he's home, their son still thinks about his military family. During Memorial Day weekend, Sgt. Cashman will drive to Arlington National Cemetery to visit the family of his best friend, also a Marine, killed in combat.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-11-05, 06:33 PM
Three Treasure Valley Marines Seriously Wounded In Iraq
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Scott Logan

BOISE - The call on Sunday left Bob Brumpton of Eagle in a state of shock.

"I always knew it could happen," he said, "that my son could be wounded or killed. But to actually hear that he had been wounded, it left my wife and I just hanging on."

The call came from the United States Marines Corps, and informed the Brumptons that their 31-year-old son, Staff Sgt. Chad Brumpton, had been seriously wounded near the Syria-Iraq border.

"He has multiple fractures in both legs and his left hand is broken," Brumpton said. "He's in pretty bad shape and in a lot of pain. They have him heavily sedated."

Two other local Marines, Lance Cpls. Joseph Lowe and Mitch Ehlke, were also seriously injured when their M1-A1 Abrams tank, commanded by Staff Sgt. Brumpton, hit a huge land mine Sunday, according to Marine Corps spokesmen.

They are listed in stable condition and have been evacuated to Germany.

Brumpton said another Marine risked his life to pull his three wounded comrades from the tank.

"My son and I are very close," said Brumpton, who spoke quietly and calmly, but conceded he was torn up inside. "It's a terrible feeling when your son is hurt bad and you can't be there, can't help, can't reach out for him."

Brumpton said his son is now at a military hospital in Germany where he spoke to him on the phone last night. "But he was pretty drugged up. They don't want him to move because he's in so much pain."

The three Marines are reservists with Charlie Company, 4th Tank Battalion, based at Gowen Field in Boise. They have been attached to the 2nd Marine Division while serving in Iraq.

Brumpton said he and his wife Ginny plan to fly to Bethesda, Maryland to see their son when he arrives from Germany, sometime in the next several days.

"Chad's been in the Marines for ten years," said Brumpton. "He loves the Marines."

U.S. troops have been battling insurgents in Iraq near the Syrian border since Saturday night in one of the largest counter-insurgency operations in six months. The Pentagon said on Tuesday that 3 Marines have been killed and less than 20 have been wounded in the battle, known as Operation Matador.

The major offensive in the western part of the Al Anbar province is aimed at rooting out foreign fighters and insurgents in an area a Pentagon official called the "Ramadi hit corridor."

"At this point, the fight continues. There are reports that these people are in uniforms, in some cases are wearing protected vests, and there's some suspicion that their training exceeds that of what we have seen with other engagements further east," said Lt. General James T. Conway, the Director of Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Despite the presence of uniforms, Conway says the fighters are not a unified force. Some 100 militants have been killed in the fight so far, military officials said.

The most wanted man in Iraq, Jordanian militant Abu Musab al Zarqawi is not the target of the operation, but Conway says there have been recent sightings of Zarqawi in the area. "It would be a welcome event to come across him or his body and find him in that region. But that's not the purpose of the operation," Conway said.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-12-05, 04:36 AM
Two U.S. Marines Killed, 14 Wounded in Iraq Military Offensive

May 12 (Bloomberg) -- Two Marines were killed and 14 wounded in the U.S. military's offensive against insurgents in the Iraqi desert in northwestern al-Anbar province late yesterday, the army said in an e-mailed statement.

The attack happened when an Assault Amphibian Vehicle was struck by a bomb seven kilometers (4 miles) east of the town of Husaybah, near the Syrian border, Marine Captain Jeffrey Pool said in an e-mailed message from Ramadi, the capital of al-Anbar.

The latest deaths bring the U.S. casualty toll in the offensive to five. Three Marines were killed earlier in the operation, the U.S. military's biggest in Iraq since November, during the assault on Fallujah, also located in the province.

The Marines, sailors and soldiers from the Regimental Combat Team 2 of the 2nd Marine Division are trying to root out foreign fighters and insurgents from the desert area where they obtain arms and other equipment to carry out car bombings and kidnappings in cities such as Baghdad, Ramadi, Fallujah and Mosul, the military has said.

About 100 insurgents and foreign fighters have been killed in the offensive that began March 7, according to the military. Agence France-Presse said that the operation was targeting Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's most wanted terrorist. Zarqawi's network has denied the losses in a statement posted on the Internet, AFP said.



To contact the reporter on this story:
Friederike Peters in Berlin at fpeters1@bloomberg.net

Ellie

thedrifter
05-12-05, 04:46 AM
IRAQ: The War in the Desert



May 11, 2005; Terrorists continue to use suicide bombers to kill large numbers of civilians. Three went off in Central Iraq today, killing seventy and wounding over a two hundred. Security officials believe that the terrorists are working off an inventory of car and personal bombs, prepared just for this "offensive." But it's also been noted that the quality of the suicide bombers has declined. Some have turned out to be people who were mentally ill (and easy to convince to kill themselves). In other cases, the suicide bombers are just carrying or driving the explosives, which are set off by remote control by someone else. It's suspected that some of the drivers in these cases had signed up to move explosives, not be there when they went off. This sort of thing has been done during other suicide bomber campaigns, and is simply a sign of difficulty in recruiting suicide bombers competent, or dedicated enough, to do the deed completely by themselves.

Terrorist attacks have killed over 400 people in the last three weeks, some 90 percent of them Iraqis. To put that in perspective, for a country the size of the United States, that would be some 4,000 dead Americans. Not surprisingly, the terrorists are hated by most Iraqis, including many Sunni Arabs, which means more tips from Iraqis about where the terrorists are. Car bomb factories are being found, where people are arrested and documents and computers seized. But al Qaeda has never been a traditional, top-down organization. So the documents and prisoners only tell of cells of an organization that is united only by common hatreds and religious prejudices.

It is known that one major source of people, weapons and money for the terrorism is Syria, and for the last three days, a reinforced battalion of American marines have been operating along the border, in Anbar province. Over a hundred terrorists have died, as they tried to defend their bases in local villages. Over a hundred people have been arrested, although only twenty or so have been kept in custody. The marines have had five killed (three in gun battles, two from a landmine). The terrorists apparently feel they cannot afford to lose free use of this border area. In addition to trying to defend villages, some of the terrorists even made a truly suicidal attack on a marine convoy. This included at least two suicide car bombs and many people with guns. At least a dozen terrorists were killed, while a few marines were wounded.

Having no success with the marines, the terrorists kidnapped the newly appointed governor of Anbar province, and said they would hold him until the marines left the area. The governor was a local tribal worthy who had been governor, for a while, when Saddam ran the country. In western Iraq, along the Syrian and Jordanian borders, it's mostly desert, Sunni Arab and tribal. Folks take their Islam seriously out there, and Osama bin Laden is a popular guy. And when force fails, you try influence. The marines told the government, and the terrorists, that they were not leaving and that the governor should make himself comfortable until he can be rescued.


The marines and soldiers are out in the desert because the Iraqi police and army have more of central Iraq under control. This means that coalition troops can go take care of other business. Coalition troops have not been in some areas of western Iraq since Saddam was toppled two years ago. More intelligence has been collected on the western desert in the past few months. UAVs, spies and a few informers made it clear that parts of the Syrian border, and villages on the Iraqi side, were hot spots for terrorist activity. Once the hot spots are cooled off, the Iraqi border guards will be moved in. Most of the border is already covered by the border guards, who are building several hundred fortified bases along all the borders. But in places like western Iraq, you have to run the heavily armed gangs out first.

May 8, 2005; The Sunni Arab media in the Middle East has gotten tired of blaming the United States for everything that doesn't work in Iraq. More and more reporting and editorials blame Iraq's Sunni Arabs for the terrorism, corruption and tyranny in Iraq, and other parts of the Middle East. This is part of a trend, the growing popularity of Arabs taking responsibility for their actions. This is a radical concept in Middle Eastern politics. For several generations, all problems were blamed on other forces. The list of the blameworthy was long; the United States, the West, Colonialism, Infidels (non Moslems, especially Jews), Capitalism, the CIA, Israel, Democracy and many others too absurd to mention. Giving up this crutch is not popular in the Middle East. Oil wealth has made it possible to sustain, for decades, the belief of all these conspiracies to keep the Arab people down and powerless. But the invasion of Iraq, and the overthrow of Saddam, forced Arabs to confront their long support for a tyrannical butcher like Saddam. Here was a dictator who knew how to play the blame game, and position himself as an Arab "hero." Saddam's supporters turned to terrorism to restore themselves to power. Two years of killing Iraqis has shamed an increasing number of Arabs into admitting that this is an Arab problem, not the fault of the United States (who, in the most popular delusion, should have waved a magic wand and made all problems in Iraq disappear.) Even the Sunni Arab media are in awe of the Iraqi Shia and Kurds, for not slaughtering large numbers of Sunni Arabs in response to the terrorism, or simply as revenge for centuries of torment at the hands of Sunni Arabs.

May 7, 2005; In an ominous development, 14 bodies found buried in a garbage dump turned out to be Sunni Arabs from the pro-terrorist town of Madain. Nearly half the people in this town are Shia, and the Shia have suffered much abuse from local Sunni Arab terrorists, and their supporters. Months ago, the Madain Shia appealed to larger Shia groups for support. Shia leaders tried to negotiate with the Sunni Arab tribal leaders in the Madain area. This didn't stop the bullying and abuse. The Madain Shia appealed to the government, which promptly sent several thousand soldiers and police, who reported that there were no problems. Shortly thereafter, dozens of bodies of Madain Shia were hauled out of the nearby river.

May 6, 2005; The January 30 Parliament finally selected government ministers this week. Apparently in response, terrorist attacks have killed over 250 people, mostly civilians, in the week since then. The terrorist campaign is remarkable for its persistence, and ineffectiveness. Actually, the terror campaign is beyond ineffective. It is the major reason why popular opinion in Iraq, and the Arab world, has turned against

Ellie

thedrifter
05-12-05, 04:48 AM
94 suspected insurgents detained in Iraq


By Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, May 12, 2005



FOB QAYYARAH-WEST, Iraq — Ninety-four suspected insurgents were detained and at least three killed Wednesday in a firefight that ensued after U.S. and Iraqi soldiers descended on the town of Aitha in the pre-dawn hours.

Of the 94 detainees, at least five are considered to be mid- to high-level targets sought by coalition forces as possible terrorists, said Maj. Kevin Murphy, operations officer of 2nd Battalion, 8th Field Artillery, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.

One Iraqi soldier from the 102nd Iraqi Army Battalion, which led the offensive, was killed, and two U.S. soldiers were severely wounded, Murphy said. One of the U.S. soldiers had been shot in the head; the other was wounded in the abdomen.

Apache helicopters “leveled” the two buildings from which insurgents shot at the Iraqi and U.S. forces, he said.

Aitha, about an hour south of the northern city of Mosul, “is known as a town that harbors terrorists,” said Capt. Mike Yea, the fire support officer. “It has a decent number of people [a population about 2,000], so terrorists can hide and blend in. And it’s close to a major highway” which insurgents use to traffic weapons and people between Mosul and Baghdad, he said.

About 5 a.m., 2/8’s Battery B cordoned off the town to prevent anyone from entering and leaving, as the 102nd IA Battalion, accompanied by U.S. Special Forces, took the lead in rounding up suspects and searching homes, Murphy said.

By 2 p.m., the forces had searched and cleared all of the town’s estimated 55 homes, Yea said. No weapons caches were found in what was dubbed Operation Fruit Brute, a reference to a short-lived General Mills cereal.

Brig. Gen. Ali Atala Malowh, commander of the 102nd battalion, announced via a loudspeaker that all military-aged men were to gather at a collection site in town. Sources working with the Iraqi troops then identified suspected insurgents. All of the men who gathered were fingerprinted and checked against a list of wanted men, officials said.

It was the first time that the Iraqi battalion planned and executed such a mission, “and they performed absolutely superbly,” Murphy said.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-12-05, 06:13 AM
Thu, May. 12, 2005





Iraq near civil war or already in it, experts say

TIMOTHY PHELPS | NEWSDAY


WASHINGTON - An unchastened insurgency sowed devastation across Iraq on Wednesday as experts said the country is either on the verge of civil war or already in the middle of it.

In the course of the day, four car bombs detonated in Baghdad, a man wearing explosives at an army recruitment center in Hawija north of Baghdad blew up himself and many others, a car bomb exploded in a marketplace in Tikrit, north of Baghdad, and the country's largest fertilizer plant was heavily damaged by a bomb in the usually quiet southern city of Basra.

Meanwhile, U.S. Marines were winding up a battle against surprisingly well-equipped and determined insurgents on Iraq's western border.

At least 69 Iraqis were reported killed and about 160 wounded in one day of violence Wednesday, pushing the death toll from insurgent violence to more than 400 in less than two weeks.

With security experts reporting that no major road in the country was safe to travel, some Iraq specialists speculated that the Sunni insurgency was effectively encircling the capital and attempting to cut it off from the north, south and west, where there are entrenched Sunni communities. East of Baghdad is a mostly unpopulated desert bordering on Iran.

"It's just political rhetoric to say we are not in a civil war. We've been in a civil war for a long time," said Pat Lang, the former top Middle East intelligence official at the Pentagon.

Other experts said Iraq is on the verge of a full-scale civil war with civilians on both sides being slaughtered. Incidents in the past two weeks south of Baghdad, with apparently retaliatory killings of Sunni and Shiite civilians, point in that direction, they say.

"I think we are really on the edge," of all-out civil war, said Noah Feldman, a New York University law professor who worked for the U.S. coalition in Iraq.

Feldman said that while there is a chance that the current flareup is the insurgency's last gasp, he said, "I have not seen any coherent evidence that we are winning against the insurgency."

Military and civilian experts said the insurgency seemed designed to outlast the patience of the Americans and Iraqis.

"I just think this Sunni thing is going to be pretty hard," said Phebe Marr, a U.S. Iraq expert reached in the Green Zone in Baghdad. "The American public has to get its expectations down to something reasonable."

Lang said there is new evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime carefully prepared in advance for the insurgency, with former Iraqi officers at the core of each group. They are well coordinated and have consistently adjusted their strategy, he said.

"They understand what the deal is here," Lang said, "to start applying maximum pressure to the economy and the government and make sure it will not work." Their roadside bombs are intended to keep U.S. forces inside their bases, he said.

All the while the insurgents are gaining strength, he said. "The longer they keep going on the better they will get," said Lang. "The best school of war is war."

The Sunni insurgents, a 20 percent minority who had long ruled Iraq, could win the battle if they persevere long enough to sour U.S. voters, Feldman said.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-12-05, 06:33 AM
Insurgents shock Marines in river town
By JAMES JANEGA
Chicago Tribune
05/10/2005

Enemy's preparation,
tactics are surprising

QAIM, Iraq - The Marines who swept into the Euphrates River town of Ubaydi confronted an enemy they had not expected to find - and one that attacked in surprising ways.

As they pushed from house to house in early fighting, trying to flush out the insurgents who had attacked their column with mortar fire, they ran into sandbagged emplacements behind garden walls. They found a house where insurgents were crouching in the basement, firing upward through slits hacked at ankle height in the ground-floor walls, aiming at spots that the Marines' body armor did not cover.

The shock was that the enemy was not supposed to be in this town at all. Instead, American intelligence indicated that the insurgency had massed on the other side of the river. Marine commanders expressed surprise Monday not only at the insurgents' presence but also the extent of their preparations, as if they expected the Marines to come.

"That is the great question," said Col. Stephen Davis, commander of Marine Regimental Combat Team 2, responsible for this rugged corner of Anbar province near the Syrian border. American officials describe the region, known as the Jazirah Desert, as a haven for foreign fighters who shuttle across the porous Syrian border, using the broken terrain for cover.

Three Marine companies and supporting armored vehicles crossed to the north side of the Euphrates early Monday, using rafts and a hastily built pontoon bridge. From there they were expected to roll west toward the border, raiding isolated villages where insurgents are believed to hide weapons and fighters. The offensive, planned for weeks, is expected to stretch on for several days.

"We're north of the river (and) we're moving everywhere we want to go," Davis said late Monday. "Resistance is predictably low, but I do not expect it to stay that way."

In recent weeks, intelligence suggested that insurgents were using the area to build car bombs that later would be used in attacks in Baghdad and other cities.

A senior military official in Washington told The Associated Press that the Marines were targeting followers of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The offensive that began Sunday involves more than 1,000 Marines and Army personnel, backed by helicopters and jet fighters.

With the Marines pressing the assault, new details emerged about the pitched battles that took place Sunday in Ubaydi, a town perched on the tip of a bend in the Euphrates, 9 miles east of the Syrian border. As Army engineers worked to shore up soggy banks and build the bridge, waiting Marines came under mortar fire from a town they had assumed was free of the enemy.

After calling in airstrikes from prowling fighter jets and helicopter gunships, the Marines entered the town in armored personnel carriers and light armored vehicles. At times the fighting was door to door as Marines sifted through areas where resistance was stiffest.

Commanders said Marines entered walled-off front yards in a row of white townhouses in the town's southwest corner to find a scene reminiscent of the fighting in Fallujah last fall: sandbagged firing positions next to the front doors. They suspected the area had been used for mortar attacks.

Maj. Steve Lawson of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, said his troops had found a house on the north side of town that apparently had been rigged to ambush invading soldiers. Slits cut low in the walls allowed insurgents to fire up at the Marines as they entered.

After retreating, Marines in Lawson's company called in artillery and heavy machine guns to rake the house. As sporadic fighting continued Monday morning, they brought in tanks and leveled it, Davis said.

Though military commanders in Baghdad announced that 100 insurgents were killed in the early fighting, along with three Marines, Davis' figures were lower. He said "a couple of dozen" insurgents had been killed in Ubaydi, about 10 at another river crossing near Qaim and several who were killed by airstrikes north of the river.

Other commanders said they had recovered few bodies but had seen blood trails that suggested insurgents were dragging away wounded or dead fighters.

The number of insurgents in the region is "in the hundreds," Davis said. "How many hundreds is tough to tell."

But more surprising, he said, was the insurgents' preparation and tactical prowess, a development he said reinforced intelligence that many insurgents have been trained outside Iraq.

Davis described sophisticated attacks in which the detonation of a roadside bomb would be quickly followed by accurate mortar or rocket fire, then machine-gun fire as Marines raced to the area.

"They clearly have trained people," he said. "It looks rehearsed."

Ellie

thedrifter
05-12-05, 07:32 AM
Wounded Iowa Marine Tells Story Of Bravery
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Iowa Channel
May 12, 2005

Brad Kasal left his Iowa home in Union County for a Marine uniform. Now this Marine has been mentioned as a possible candidate for the nation's very highest wartime honor.

First Sgt. Brad Kasal is recovering at his home near Camp Pendleton, Calif. One day in Fallujah changed his life forever and the life of another Marine.

First Sgt. Brad Kasal got what he wanted -- to be the best -- but it nearly cost him his life.

"If I was going to do something, I wanted to be the best at it. And so that's why I joined the Marine Corps," Kasal said.

Kasal grew up on a farm near Afton. In 1984, he graduated from East Union High School and went straight into the Marine Corps. His Marine career led him to tours in Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait, Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and then Operation Iraqi Freedom.

During the U.S.-led invasion into Iraq, Kasal earned a Purple Heart for wounds he suffered in a rocket-propelled grenade attack. He could have retired from the Marine Corps quietly.

"I wanted to do my part and so I volunteered to go back for a second tour," Kasal said.

It was a tour that took him straight to the urban firefights in Fallujah last November.

"As we were moving down the street clearing building to building, I saw a Marine coming out of the building that was wounded and that was pretty much the start of the whole sequence of events," Kasal said.

Kasal came upon a building with three wounded Marines trapped inside by insurgents. He grabbed some Marines and went in.

"There was an enemy insurgent standing right there, about two feet in front me, with an AK-47 pointed right at me. However, I backed up really quickly upon seeing him, and he yelled something in Arabic and let out a shot of bursts, and the bursts went right in front of my flak jacket and impacted the wall to the right of me. And so I came around him and stuck my M-16 up over his weapon and put it right into his chest and then I pulled the trigger of my M-16," Kasal said.

He and another Marine with him were hit by the insurgent's gunfire. "He looked back at me and said, 'That was a close one, Nicoll,' and that's when we got opened up on from upstairs. And we both got hit in the legs, obviously," said Lance Cpl. Alexander Nicoll, a wounded Marine.

Kasal had just been shot seven times in his right leg, lower back and foot. "I felt multiple rounds hit me in the back of the leg. And my leg just crumpled from underneath me," Kasal said.

Nicoll's flak jacket saved him, but he was still badly hurt from more than a half dozen shots to his leg.

Though Kasal's leg was shattered and bleeding badly, his fading mind was focused on saving Nicoll.

Kasal said he went back to treating Nicoll's wounds. He said he then saw a hand grenade roughly four feet in front of him. He said it was too far to reach to move it to another room. That's when Kasal moved to protect Nicoll.

"He rolled down on top of me and took pretty much all the shrapnel from that," Nicoll said.

Nicoll survived the blast. Kasal also survived, but he suffered more than 40 shrapnel wounds. Though he had lost more than half his own blood, Kasal stayed conscious and focused on Nicoll.

The two wounded and badly bleeding Marines were trapped for more than 30 minutes, while a third trapped Marine covered their backs.

"I was pretty determined to not only make it out of there, but to get everybody else out of there, too ... which helped keep me going," Kasal said. He's still going, but at a much slower pace while he recovers at home.

Kasal has ongoing medical treatment and surgeries at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego.

His leg being held with rod and pins, and he must turn screws on the device to help stretch his shattered leg. One doctor told him that he thinks Kasal will still lose his leg, another said it won't heal right and yet another said it just might heal.

"The prognosis by the doctors is they think it doesn't, they don't think I'll run again. The prognosis by me is I'll be running again before Christmas," Kasal said.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-12-05, 07:37 AM
NASCAR to the Corps
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 12, 2005
DIANE MOUSKOURIE
DAILY NEWS STAFF

Cpl. William Townsend considers himself a "big-time" NASCAR fan.

So being able to witness firsthand the Nextel All-Star NASCAR Challenge Trophy Tour was "outstanding," he said.

Marine Corps Community Services on Camp Lejeune pulled the event together Wednesday with promoters from Nextel and Lowe's Race Car team. The trophy made a four-hour appearance in the Marine Corps Exchange parking lot.

Jacksonville was one of 10 North Carolina cities selected for the tour, said Barbara Burwell, coordinator of sponsorship with MCCS. Two of those towns, Jacksonville and Fayetteville, were specifically selected for their large military populations.

"I've been working on this for two months," she said. "I know more about NASCAR events than I ever wanted to know."

NASCAR fans young and old alike traipsed around the scene. There were plenty of activities for children and parents to enjoy together. Team Lowe's Fan Experience had several things to offer including the Lowe's-sponsored car No. 48 and the Nextel Challenge Trophy.

There was a place to have digital photos taken with an image of Jimmie Johnson, a Lowe's driver. Johnson was not at the event, but Chris Boggs took photos of guests and then digitally imposed the images next to one of Johnson standing in the Lowe's garage or standing in the winner's circle. Once the guests' photos were taken, the two images were combined to make it appear as the guest actually had been standing next to Johnson.

"We go to all the NASCAR races and set up and offer the photos for free," he said. "The digital photos are e-mailed later."

Tom Fronmuller, another Lowe's employee, was handing out hammers, kid-size work aprons and model-airplane kits.

"We travel to half the races and then bounce around the country so kids and their families can have a good time," Fronmuller said.

Several parents and their children partook in the exercise.

The Newman family - Mindy, Michael, Michael Steven III and Christopher - finished a couple of airplane projects, had their photos taken and signed the Lowe's car.

"We're big NASCAR fans, but Bobby Labonte is our most favorite," Mindy Newman said.

While she explained, Christopher, 3, hopped up and down because he saw Spider Man and Shrek walking in the crowd. Pulling on his mother's shirt he said, "Let's go mommy, let's go. I want to see Shrek."

Later in the evening, there were remote-control car races and a free concert by country singer Lila McCann.

There were also several drawings for free race tickets to the Coca Cola 600 later this month at the Lowe's Motor Speedway.

For Marines like Cpl. Townsend, this gesture meant a lot.

"A lot of our Marines are deployed to Iraq right now," he said.

"It's a great way for NASCAR to show us it supports our troops. It makes me feel good that there are a lot of people out there, no matter what they do, who support us."


Ellie

thedrifter
05-12-05, 07:38 AM
Details of slaying emerge at hearing for accused Marine <br />
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <br />
By Rick Rogers <br />
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER <br />
May 12, 2005 <br />
...

thedrifter
05-12-05, 07:38 AM
Colorado treasurer sets example for doing what's right
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thje Greely Tribune Opinion
May 12, 2005

Coloradans witnessed a truly noble act a week ago when state Treasurer Mike Coffman announced he had re-enlisted for active duty with the Marines and will be leaving this summer to serve in the Middle East.

Coffman expects to help Iraqi leaders build their government. "I believe I can make a positive difference and help bring democracy and stability to the people of Iraq," he said.

This is not the first time he has shown his mettle, and under similar circumstances.

Coffman served in the Marines during the first Gulf War in 1990-91 as a combat infantryman, taking a leave of absence from the General Assembly where he was serving as a senator from Aurora.

The treasurer's courage underscores the incredible commitment he has made to mankind. It must be a small percentage of Americans who find themselves torn between serving in public office or going into a combat zone with U.S. troops. But both obligations bespeak the democracy Coffman so ferociously embraces.

This unswerving devotion to serve is inborn. Coffman's father was a soldier in both World War II and the Korean War. Reflecting on his childhood during last week's news conference, Coffman said, "Growing up (with my dad) really taught me those values of honor, integrity and courage and duty to the country."

We know skeptics are saying this is a political move on Coffman's part. He was considered a viable Republican candidate to run for Colorado's gubernatorial seat, which will be vacated when Bill Owens leaves in 2006 because of term limits. But Coffman does not hide the fact that, if possible, he would like his treasurer's post back when he returns next March and that he will run for the secretary of state's office. (He recently dropped out of the governor's race when Rep. Bob Beauprez announced he was interested.)

Such honesty is refreshing. And who, we ask, would send themselves into a war zone just to further a political career?

In a time when we're all searching for heroes to admire, here comes Mike Coffman. When we want someone to point out to our kids and say, "Here's what it means to uphold your convictions," out steps Mike Coffman. When we want to embrace that old-fashioned, downright-feel-good patriotism our ancestors enthusiastically embraced, we catch a glimpse of Maj. Mike Coffman in a Marine uniform.

It all just takes our breath away.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-12-05, 08:22 AM
Service in Iraq answering a call to duty
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BY LAYLI WHYTE
The Hub
May 12, 2005

RUMSON - Marine Lance Cpl. Kristian Kjesbu was just doing his job.

When he was sent out on mission after mission to transport both Americans and Iraqis to "strengthen the Iraqi security forces," he was just doing his job.

When Kjesbu was sitting atop a convoy vehicle at the turret gun, and an explosion sent shrapnel into his hand and caused hearing loss, he was just doing his job.

When a resolution was passed by the Rumson Borough Council in his honor last month, Kjesbu's response was, "I was just doing my job."

"It was crazy," Kjesbu said, humbly. "I don't think I deserve it."

Kjesbu, 21, graduated from Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School in 2001 and attended Brookdale Community College for a year and a half.

"I wasn't doing as well in school as I had hoped," said Kjesbu. "I needed guidance, responsibility. My mom had always given me everything."

Kjesbu also said that the loss his community suffered after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, encouraged him to join the military.

On a personal level, he lost his former basketball coach in the attacks.

He joined the Marines in January 2003 and was deployed to Camp Pendleton, Calif., for cold-weather mountain training.

That's where he was when he got the call that his unit was going to be deployed to Iraq in September 2004.

"We didn't have time to get scared," he said. "We didn't have time to get tired."

His father did have time to get scared, and Chris Kjesbu said he was worried for his son.

"We were certainly frightened for him," he said. "We were also very proud."

The younger Kjesbu said his experience in Iraq was just a matter of getting the task at hand completed without any casualties.

"There were times where there were miserable conditions," he said, "but once we were out on the road, we just had to focus on getting from point A to point B."

Kjesbu and his unit provided convoy security, helping to move people from one point to another. Many of the people they moved were part of the border patrol, police or Iraqi army personnel.

During one of these missions, an improvised explosion device detonated just as Kjesbu's Humvee passed by.

Kjesbu sustained burns on the side of his face from the heat of the explosion, was wounded on the hand by shrapnel and sustained hearing loss. Most of his hearing has since returned, but he still has a ringing in his ear.

He was awarded the Purple Heart for "heroism throughout the attack upon the convoy," according to the resolution read at the Rumson Council meeting.

Chris Kjesbu said that he received a call in the middle of the night from his son, telling him that everything was okay, but that he had been injured. Twelve hours later, Chris was able to communicate with his son via instant messaging online.

"He was very humble and very stoic," said Chris about his son.

Chris Kjesbu said that joining the Marines was the best decision his son could have made, and although he has seen his son mature over the past few years, he is still the same in all the ways that matter.

"We weren't sure what he would be like when he came back," said his father. "But he certainly is the same person inside. That doesn't change. He's still the good-hearted, lovable, family-oriented guy."

Kjesbu was home with his family for 25 days, but was scheduled to leave on Sunday to return to California for more training.

"Always training," the Marine said.

He may be sent back to Iraq, but is not sure what the future, or the Marines, have in store for him for the next two years, which is the time he has left in the service.

"Just knowing that there are soldiers and marines still over there," said Kjesbu, "I'd be more than happy to go."

Although he is willing to return to Iraq, he is also very aware that what he saw and experienced there is not for everyone.

"What we saw over there," he said, "I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

His unit was constantly moving all over Iraq, and Kjesbu spent some time in Fallujah, a city that has been fought over since the war began. Kjesbu said he will always remember his time there.

"Just seeing the evolution of the city of Fallujah from before the coalition forces went in to the take over, to allowing civilians back in," he said. "I will always remember being down in the streets of Fallujah with [Marine Lance Cpl.] John Timmons and seeing the elderly Iraqis, the older women and children with their thumbs in the air, with the ink from voting still on them, cheering, chanting 'USA.' That made me smile. I'll always remember that."

That day was also the day that made Kjesbu's father the proudest.

"Kristian called me up and he just said, 'Dad, we did it,' " said Chris Kjesbu.

Kjesbu also said that he will always remember and keep in touch with the friends that he has made in the Marines.

"After living with my team for six months and then splitting apart, that's tough," he said. "You go through something like that with somebody. … It's hard to explain.

"You find out the best and the worst in people," he said, "but it doesn't matter because you're all depending on each other to get done what you need to get done."

Chris Kjesbu said that if his son is sent back to Iraq, he will stand behind him and support him, as he has since his decision to join the Marine Corps.

"He's his own man, and he's committed to something," he said. "My advice to parents whose children are overseas is to keep in touch and don't watch the news. It's not accurate."

Kjesbu said he found comfort in some of the differences in Iraq, although he missed home, especially his mother's cooking.

"When we'd hear the call to prayer in the morning, it was calming," he said. "You'd hear it and at least know you were home."

Ellie

thedrifter
05-12-05, 10:18 AM
Band Marines are locked, loaded for Combat Center security
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing
Story Identification #: 2005511105332
Story by Cpl. Alicia Garcia



AL ASAD, Iraq (May 11, 2005) -- About 6,000 Marines and sailors from the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing deployed early this year to conduct security and stability operations in western Iraq.

From administration to supply, to intelligence and aircraft support, these service members find themselves in just about every role for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Some not so glamorous roles are the routine security details these war fighters support from time to time. However, a select group of Marines, who once marched the parade fields back home with musical instruments, deployed with security the focus of their effort.

The 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing Band and other bands around the Corps double as their commander’s security team in times of conflict or war. These Marines keep a vigil eye on their surroundings and protect the tactical command center of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. Whether on roving patrol, manning a M240G medium machine gun, inspecting vehicles, or guarding visitors, the Marines who once carried a musical instrument now carry rifles and automatic weapons.

This security element is committed to the security of their headquarters and understands that the support they provide means that the helicopters and jet aircraft here can continuously support the war fighters on the battlefield.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-12-05, 10:21 AM
Bengals continue fight in Iraqi skies
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing
Story Identification #: 200559135621
Story by Cpl. Rocco DeFilippis



AL ASAD, Iraq (May 9, 2005) -- The Fighting Bengals of Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 224 have achieved a milestone by logging more than 3,000 combat flight hours and 1,400 combat sorties in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Well on their way to 4,000 hours, the hard work and dedication of the Marines
and sailors of VMFA(AW)-224 have enabled the squadron to continue to provide air
support to ground units with their F/A-18D Hornets.

“We are flying almost double the amount of hours we normally fly back in the
States,” said 1st Lt. Michael R. Greene, weapons and sensors officer and native of
Washingtonville, N.Y. “We are able to do this because the entire squadron is working as
a team. Every department, every section, works extremely hard each day to ensure our
birds can fly.”

Although attached to the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing (Forward) in most ways, the
squadron has been receiving mission tasking from the Combined Air Component
Command since its arrival in January.

In a few days, the Bengals will begin receiving mission tasking from the 2nd
MAW, as their tour with the CAFCC comes to an end.

Because of the versatility and capabilities of their two-seat Hornets, the squadron
has worked non-stop to ensure the readiness of their aircraft.

“There is always a real sense of urgency in everything we do,” said Cpl. Adam L.
Blank, airframes night-shift supervisor and native of Geneseo, Ill. “We know that
Marines on the ground are depending on us to do our jobs, and do them right.”

The Bengals’ commanding officer attributes the achievements of the squadron to
the hard work and dedication of the maintenance department. Working around the clock,
seven days a week, the maintainers have kept the Hornets in the fight.

“We have 210 Marines in this squadron, and it takes every one of them to perform
at the level we have been,” said Lt. Col. Will E. Thomas, commanding officer and native
of Kingston, Pa. “One word describes their work ethic, tireless. They believe in our
mission and work each day to provide the best air ground support possible.”

“Our squadron is blessed with great leaders, staff noncommissioned officers and
noncommissioned officers,” said Gunnery Sgt. Richard P. Bright, quality assurance chief
and native of Lone Grove, Okla. “We have a wealth of experience, and by their
motivation to learn and excel in their jobs, the younger Marines are echoing the same
enthusiasm.”

With the maintenance department broken down into various shops and sections,
teamwork within the department is critical to mission accomplishment.

Bright said the Marines have always been able to depend on each other, regardless
of section, to tackle any task that comes their way.

“No one shop thinks they are better than another,” Bright said. “That allows us to
work together for the good of the whole mission. Everyone is on the same page, striving
for the same goal.”

“Everyone helps out each other,” Blank said. “There is always someone willing to
give you a hand when you are swamped, the same as you help them when you have less
to do.”

As the squadron prepares to fly under the direction of the 2nd MAW, the Marines
are prepared to tackle the new assignment with the same enthusiasm and dedication.

“We are here supporting a just cause and the Marines are committed to this
mission,” Thomas said. “I couldn’t be any prouder to be their commander. Regardless of
whom we receive our tasking from; these Marines are going to accomplish the mission.”

*For more information about the Marines or news reported on in this
story, please contact Cpl. Rocco DeFilippis by e-mail at defilippisrc@acemnf-
wiraq.usmc.mil*

Ellie

thedrifter
05-12-05, 03:52 PM
Team Marines buckles up
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Submitted by: Marine Corps Recruiting Command
Story by Sgt. Jimmie Perkins

MOORSEVILLE, N.C. (May 12, 2005) -- What does driving at speeds in excess of 180 miles per hour have to do with safety in the Marine Corps? It means a whole lot when Team Marines Racing is involved.

Recently, the Safety Division, Headquarters Marine Corps (HQMC), joined with Team Marines Racing and driver Ashton Lewis Jr., to produce a public service announcement (PSA) on driver safety. The PSA is scheduled to be released later this month and will be played at bases and stations throughout the Marine Corps.

"Using NASCAR drivers is a great way to reach our Marines, young and old," said Dawn Jakutowicz, Safety Communications, HQMC Safety Division. "Marines identify with and try to emulate their sports heroes."

More than willing to set the example for Marines and race fans who cheer him on each weekend, Lewis Jr., driver of the #25 Team Marines Ford, stressed the importance of safety in his profession and away from the track.

"The car I drive at work [on the racetrack] has many safety features not found in the cars and trucks you find on the road," said Lewis. "When I think of what a wreck can do to a car even at 35 mph, without those safety features, it definitely makes me more cautious and careful on the road."

During the PSA, Lewis encourages Marines to use seatbelts and think about safety before getting behind the wheel. He stresses the importance of being there for his team on the track and wants Marines to remember their commitment to their team.

According to statistics from the Naval Safety Center, there were 378 fatalities related to private motor vehicle (PMV) accidents from FY02-FY04. From these statistics, 51 percent of the fatalities can be attributed to Marines and Sailors not wearing seatbelts. Alcohol was a factor in 30 percent of the fatalities and speeding in 41 percent. Reinforcing the need for safety during liberty and leave periods, more than 60 percent of Navy and Marine Corps PMV fatalities occur at night and during weekends.

"Unfortunately, we lose more Marines during the summertime between May 1 and Labor Day to PMV accidents than we do any other time during the year," said Jakutowicz. "This is the time when people take their vacations, where Marines do more activities after work because of the longer daylight hours, and where there are more social gatherings where alcohol may be consumed."

Meanwhile, the PSA will be released to coincide with the Memorial Day weekend liberty period. It is the intent of the Safety Division that the PSA be played during pre-liberty safety briefs to reinforce the message going out to Marines and Sailors.

"Our campaign is focused on three main areas; getting Marines to wear their seat belts, keeping Marines from driving drunk, and stressing that Marines must look out for each other," said Jakutowicz. "Before they take risks behind the wheel, they must remember that they are an important part of a team."

Ashton Lewis is ranked fifth in the standings for the NASCAR Busch Series Points Championship going into the weekend race at Richmond, Va. At the time this article was written the Marine Corps has lost 25 Marines to PMV accidents this fiscal year.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-12-05, 09:49 PM
U.S. troops donate 800 pairs of shoes to kids in rural Iraq


By Kevin Dougherty, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, May 12, 2005


GAWRA BAREY, Iraq — It is rare for kids to run back to school after their teacher has dismissed them for the day. Kids being kids, they usually want to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the classroom.

Leave it to a squad of soldiers to draw them back in. And for shoes, no less.

But this is Iraq, rural Iraq, where a pair of brand-new shoes is not easy to come by. Gawra Barey is well off the beaten path, given that it’s a mile from the Iraq-Iran border and days away on foot from the nearest shoe shop.

“I went through villages when I first got here and noticed that some of the kids didn’t have shoes,” said Sgt. William Bailey, 29, of Logan Utah.

“Some of them had holes in their shoes and others cut out the backs so their feet could hang over and still have something solid to stand on.”

So Bailey made a formal request to tap into a special fund set aside by his battalion commander for low-cost (less than $1,000) humanitarian projects. The idea got approved, and now his team and three others are in the process of distributing 800 pairs of shoes to kids in remote pockets of northeastern Iraq.

Bailey’s unit — Battery B, 1st Battalion, 148th Field Artillery — has the job of aiding the Iraqi border police. That often takes the National Guard troops into some extremely remote places, such as Gawra Barey, a mountain hamlet of 100 or so people.

Many of the residents had never even seen an American until Bailey and 14 other soldiers rolled up in front of their school Monday and announced they had shoes for the taking.

By the time the soldiers carried boxes of shoes into a classroom, there were more than a dozen kids swarming about. School principal Galawezh Ja’far Qader watched the excitement.

Shoes are “a very useful thing,” Qader said through an interpreter. “They get torn easily because of the mountains.”

A case in point is 11-year-old Bahroz Raheem Qader, who sported a pair of battered white sneakers that spent “not even a month” under his feet. He opted for a black pair that stayed in the box it came in, at least for the day.

The children and a few parents sorted through scores of boxes. There were shoes of the pink and blue variety, and even ones that blinked red and green with each step.

Dashnei Ali Mohammed, 13, also selected a black pair, but then switched to orange. It was hard to tell if she was happier about her new footwear or having the chance to mingle with Americans for the first time.

“I never thought they would be this kind,” she said through an interpreter.

Bailey and his cadre of shoe elves gave out 16 pairs. They then packed up and moved on to their next stop. By week’s end, Bailey expects all 200 pairs of shoes in his team’s possession to be distributed.

“This is what I like doing, getting out and helping people,” said Spc. Douglas White, who dropped in for the initial visit. “This is what makes the [deployment to Iraq] all worth it.”


Ellie

thedrifter
05-13-05, 06:42 AM
The Marine Corps Family Foundation
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the MarineCorpsMoms Web site

The Marine Corps Family Foundation was established last year as a means for Americans to support Marines deployed at war. After Operation Santa USMC was completed in December and over 6,000 Marines received Christmas-in-a-box we were overwhelmed with the many responses from the many Marines who were so happy that they were rememebered and supported by our efforts. At that time I was humbled by their gracious thanks. Today was no different. Read on for the whole story.

In March a very energetic Girl Scout called me to ask if I knew how she could deliver Girl Scout cookies to our troops. The girls in her troop had sold cookies and as they did they encouraged their customers to make donations of cookies to our troops, resulting in over 12 cases of cookies donated.

It was easy to help these young American Girl Scouts to complete their mission. Deb and I had names of Marines who had just been deployed to Iraq, and we were more than happy to send those yummy boxes to the most deserving, our Marines.

But, that is just the beginning of this story. Here we are safe and sound living our lives in a country of freedom and wealth, sending cookies to Marines halfway around the world in a country that is just learning trust and freedom. It is a place of known danger everyday. We are all thankful for our military, its strength, its the courage and unselfish dedication. And, in some way small way Girl Scout cookies seem like a way to say thank you and we support you.

Several Marines sent to us their thanks. The following is a letter I recieved from a Marine that enjoyed this small token of appreciation. I do not know him. I will probably never have the opportunity to meet him. But, once again his words were just too much for this mother of a Marine.

"Dear Friends, Your unwavering support gives us all renewed strength. Words cannot express the joy I have to serve you and to bring freedom to others. With wonderful people like yourselves, it is an honor and a privilege being a Marine. I must say your cookies are a fantastical banquet in which we partake daily I hope we make you proud. Thanks again for your support, may God bless you in all that you do. Semper Fi. Your Friend, Cpl. Nighswonger/USMC"

So, the next time you wonder what you could do to help, or if it would really make a difference. Know that anything and everything is appreciated. A simple letter or card, cookies, or a magazine, you decide. Our Marines deserve your love, support and gratitude, and showing it through a donation to a supportive foundation like The Marine Corps Family Foundation or simply sending your own box of goodies will be a blessing.

You too will be humbled by the gratitude of these great Marines, who make us proud everyday.

Donations can be made to the Marine Corps Family Foundation, 4500 Ruby Ct NE, Salem, OR 97305 or email Deb@marinecorpsmoms.com or cjr@marinecorpsmoms.com .

Ellie

thedrifter
05-13-05, 06:43 AM
Iraq images of greatness
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By STEVE DUNLEAVY
The New York Post
May 13, 2005

ANYONE looking for a real-life John Wayne need go no further than 23-year-old Alex Nicoll.

Alex, of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Division, lost the lower part of his left leg in bitter combat in Fallujah.

"Oh yeah, I'd do it all again," said Alex as he prepared to attend a huge photo exhibition at the Guerrilla Galleries in Manhattan tonight.

Alex, together with three other Marines, will relive some of the war's most powerful scenes as captured by combat photographer Lucian Read.

"On November 13, 2004, we were clearing out enemy houses in Fallujah. I was with a buddy, Sgt. Brad Kasal," Alex recalled.

"A sniper was shooting through a hole in the ceiling from the floor above. I took six bullets in the left leg [and] one in the chest, but it hit my breastplate.

"Then one of the enemy threw a grenade at us. I got some shrapnel, but my partner - who had earlier taken six bullets in his leg - took most of the shrapnel, but they saved his leg and life.

"We crawled into a room, and our guys got us out of there. I was conscious, but I figured my left leg was gone. Then our outfit blew up the house with 24 pounds of C4."

Ten minutes later, photographer Lucian Read was going through the rubble of the house with other Marines.

"I was taking photos inside when I caught something out of the corner of my eye," Lucian said. "It was one of the enemy, and I am looking him eye-to-eye about seven feet away," Read recalled.

The insurgent lobbed a grenade at Lucian. The grenade had a three-second time delay.

"You can cover a lot of distance in three seconds," added Lucian, who escaped unscathed as the grenade exploded.

Added Alex Nicoll: "Some of us were unlucky, some of us were lucky. We were the lucky ones. The day before I caught a bullet in the same left leg, but it was really just a nick.

"I was crouched behind some building pipes, peered over the top to come face-to-face, about 30 feet away, this guy aiming a rocket-propelled grenade launcher right at us.

"The shot went right over our heads. Just as well they were bad shots."

Alex has no complaints whatsoever: "Heck, I had a great time six weeks ago snowboarding in New Hampshire. Did pretty well. Fell a few times."

Tonight's exhibition, titled "Devil Dogs: No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy," is jointly sponsored by World Picture News, Kodak and RFR Realty.

"It will be sad, because we lost some good friends there, but it will be good to look back at the good times - and there were some good times."

These guys personify true grit.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-13-05, 06:44 AM
Two Camp Foster Marines charged in counterfeiting scheme <br />
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <br />
By Chiyomi Sumida, Stars and Stripes <br />
Pacific edition,...

thedrifter
05-13-05, 06:54 AM
Injured Marine's college loans are forgiven
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Bevin Milavsky
The Daily Item

MIFFLINBURG - A Union County Marine who was injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq last year and had to have part of his left leg amputated has received loan forgiveness on the balance of student loans he accrued before going overseas.

State Sen. Jake Corman, R-34 of Bellefonte, along with officials from the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency and Citibank, presented a check to Lance Cpl. Jeffrey A. Sanders during a ceremony at Mifflinburg Area High School on Thursday morning.

Mr. Sanders, a Millmont resident and 2001 graduate of Mifflinburg Area High School, attended Penn State's Altoona campus before joining the Marines.

Mr. Corman, who also serves on the PHEAA board, said PHEAA started the loan forgiveness program a couple of years ago to assist men and women who put their lives on hold to serve in the military.

"When they get back here, it's not as easy financially as some may think," he said.

Vince Racculia, PHEAA's executive vice president for state and federal programs, said there have been more than 4,700 recipients of loan forgiveness through the program.

"We are very pleased and very thankful that we're able to help our young people," he said.

This was the first time Mr. Racculia had the chance to meet someone being helped through the program

"I was most impressed with his enthusiasm and his desire to go back to college," he said.

Mr. Corman said when the Sanders family contacted his office for help, he did not initially think Mr. Sanders would qualify for loan forgiveness because he had already consolidated his loans through Citibank. But PHEAA and Citibank worked together to lend a helping hand. PHEAA will repay the $1,500 that Mr. Sanders already paid back, and Citibank will forgive the remaining $4,300.

"We're going to clear the decks for you with past student loans," Mr. Corman told Mr. Sanders. "And if you're going to continue your education, we stand ready to help you because you helped us."

Mr. Sanders intends to enroll at Penn State next spring to pursue a career in broadcasting or sports journalism.

"He served his country admirably and bravely, and we wanted to make sure we could do right by him," Mr. Corman said.

Mr. Sanders said his parents, Jim and Sandy, are the reason he received the loan forgiveness since they never gave up on the process. He thanked them for sticking by him through his rehabilitation.

"I know they've been through a lot with all I've gone through, but not a day goes by without them looking out for me," he said. "I may be 22 years old, but I'm still their baby."

Mr. Sanders has come a long way since leaving Walter Reed Army Medical Center a couple of months ago. He has ditched the cane he once used to walk and now does only about an hour of rehabilitation three times a week.

"It's rough, it's not an easy thing," he said. "When you lose that knee, you just completely forget what it's like to run."

But he said even with all he has endured, he would not have done anything but serve his country.

"I'm a firm believer that we're doing good over there," he said. "Just think of yourself as a defenseless person ruled by tyrants. You'd certainly want the help."

He said Americans have an obligation to help other countries by nature of the country's powerful position.

He said, "By being lucky enough to be born into this country, we forfeit our opportunity to not get involved."


Ellie

thedrifter
05-13-05, 06:54 AM
Marines brave fire to save their own
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By ERIN KNICKMEYER
THE WASHINGTON POST

HABAN, Iraq - The explosion enveloped the armored vehicle in flames, sending orange balls of fire bubbling above the trees along the Euphrates River near the Syrian border.

Marines in surrounding vehicles threw open their hatches and took off running across the plowed fields toward the already-blackening metal of the destroyed vehicle. Shouting, they pulled to safety those they could, as the flames ignited the bullets, mortar rounds, flares and grenades inside, rocketing them into the sky and across pastures.

Gunnery Sgt. Chuck Hurley emerged from the smoke and turmoil around the vehicle, circling toward the spot where helicopters would later land to pick up casualties. As he passed one group of Marines, he uttered just one sentence: "That was the same squad."

Among those killed or wounded when an explosive device erupted under their Amtrac on Wednesday were the last battle-ready members of a squad that four days earlier had battled foreign fighters holed up in a house in the town of Ubaydi. In that fight, two squad members were killed and five wounded.

An American military spokesman said two Marines were killed and 14 wounded in Wednesday's blast.

In 96 hours of fighting and ambushes in far western Iraq, the squad had just ceased to be.

Every member of the squad - one of three that make up the 1st Platoon of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment - had been killed or wounded, Marines here said. All told, the 1st Platoon - which Hurley commands - had sustained 60 percent casualties, demolishing it as a fighting force.

"They used to call it Lucky Lima," said Maj. Steve Lawson, commander of the company. "That turned around and bit us."

Sgt. Dennis Woullard of D'Iberville, who survived the explosion, sat glassy-eyed and bare-chested under a nearby building on the edge of the field. He lamented that he couldn't save all the men inside. Thursday's Sun Herald had a Page One story about Woullard's dash through a fusillade of machine-gun fire on Sunday to retrieve a fallen Marine.

"I was at the back door," Woullard said of the Amtrac explosion. "I couldn't get 'em all. There had to be six still in there. I don't know how they could've gotten out."

Another Marine, speaking with a senior officer, held back tears.

"I couldn't get to them all, sir, it was just too hot," he said, shaking his head.

As Marines treated their wounded comrades, former Lt. Col. Oliver North, the Iran-Contra figure, filmed the operation with a mini-DV recorder issued by his employer, Fox News. North, who was dressed in Marine camouflage, is traveling with Kilo company.

About a half-hour after the explosion, two Blackhawk helicopters swooped down to take the wounded to the Marine base at Al Qaim near the Syrian border.

Wednesday was the fourth day of fighting in far western Iraq, as the U.S. military continued an assault that has sent more than 1,000 Marines down the ungoverned north bank of the Euphrates River in search of foreign fighters crossing the border from Syria. Of seven Marines killed so far in the operation, six came come from Lima Company, 1st Platoon.

Lima Company drew Marine reservists from across Ohio into the conflict in Iraq. Some were still too young to be bothered much by shaving, or even stubble.

They rode to war on a Marine Amtrac, an armored vehicle that travels on tank-like treads. The Marine Reserve unit in Gulfport is an Amtrac unit.

Marines in Iraq typically crowd hip to hip in the Amtrac, with one or two men perched on cardboard boxes of rations. Only the gunners manning the top hatches of Amtracs have any view of the passing scenery. Those inside find out what their field of combat is when the rear ramp comes down and they run out with weapons ready.

Marines typically pass travel time in the Amtrac by extracting favorite bits from ration packets, mercilessly ribbing a usual victim for eating or sleeping too much, or sleeping themselves.

On Monday, when the Marine assault on foreign fighters formally began, the young Marines of the squad from 1st Platoon were already exhausted. Their encounter at the house in Ubaydi that morning and the previous night had been the unintended first clash of the operation, pitting them against insurgents who fired armor-piercing bullets up through the floor. It took 12 hours and five assaults by the squad - plus grenades, bombing by an F/A-18 attack plane, tank rounds and rockets at 20 yards - to kill the insurgents and permit recovery of the dead Marines' bodies.

Afterward, they slept in the moving Amtrac, heads back and mouths open. One stood up to stretch his legs. He fell asleep again standing up, leaning against the metal walls.

Squad members spoke only to compare their knowledge on the condition of their wounded. Getting the latest news, they fell silent again. After one such half-hour of silence, a Marine offered a terse commendation for one of the squad members shot at Ubaydi: "Bunker's a good man."

With the operation under way, Marine commanders kept the 1st Platoon largely to the back, letting its men rest.

Commanders had hoped the operation would swiftly capture or kill large numbers of foreign fighters. But the foreigners, and everyone else here, had plenty of warning the Marines were coming - including the unplanned battle at Ubaydi.

By the time the squad from Lima Company crossed north of the Euphrates, whole villages consisted of little more than abandoned houses with fresh tire tracks leading off into pastures or homes occupied only by prepubescent boys or old men. Men of fighting age had made themselves scarce. The AK-47 assault rifles ubiquitous in Iraqi households had disappeared.

Many Marines complained bitterly that commanders had pulled them out of the fight at Ubaydi while the insurgents were still battling, to start the planned offensive. "They take us from killing the people they want us to kill and bring us to these ghost villages," one said Wednesday on the porch of a house commandeered as a temporary base.

Uneventful house searches stretched into late afternoon, the tedium broken only by small-arms fire and mortar rounds lobbed by insurgents hiding on the far side of the river.

This correspondent had just gotten off the Amtrac and the reconstructed squad from 1st Platoon was rolling toward the Euphrates in a row of armored vehicles, headed for more house searches, when the vehicle rolled over the explosive.

Marines initially said they believed the blast was caused by two mines stacked on top of each other. But reports from Marines that they had seen an artillery round and two hand-held radios near the blast site raised suspicions that a remotely activated bomb had been used, Lawson said.

Hurley and others pulled passengers out of the Amtrac as flames detonated - or "cooked off," in military jargon - its ammunition. As Marines carrying stretchers ran to the Amtrac, bullets snapped out of the burning hulk and traveled for hundreds of feet. The Marines ran back through the fusillade, carrying out the wounded. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon," some shouted, desperate to get the wounded out.

The four dead were trapped inside the vehicle, Lawson said.

"We passed right over it. We passed right over it," one of many Marines in the convoy ahead of the burning Amtrac said of the explosive, puzzling over why he was still alive.

"That's the last of the squad," said another, Cpl. Craig Miller, whose reassignment last month had taken him out of the unit. "Three weeks ago, that would have been me."

Late Wednesday, helicopters flew out Hurley and the remaining members of 1st Platoon for time off. They are to return after the platoon is remade with new members, Marines said.

Another Lima Company platoon commander ordered his men to bed early, in preparation for the next day's operations. Grieving could wait, the commander said.

"We don't have time," he said.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-13-05, 07:01 AM
LCpl Marcus Mahdee
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Iraq explosion claims Marine from Panhandle
ASSOCIATED PRESS

FORT WALTON BEACH - A quiet, former football player from Fort Walton Beach who graduated from high school just two years ago is among the latest victims of the Iraqi war.

Lance Cpl. Marcus Mahdee, 20, died Monday as a result of injuries suffered in an explosion near Al Karmah.

The grandparents who raised the young Marine, Essie and Linton Harris, were notified Tuesday by Department of Defense officials.

"He was a good kid," Essie Harris said, adding that Marcus was active in the Church of Christ.

"It goes to show that nobody is exempt from the pains of war," said Mahdee's high school football coach, Mike Owens.

"Very quiet and unassuming," Owens said about his former wide receiver and defensive back. "Everybody liked him."

Two other young Marines from Mahdee's company - Pfc. Stephen P. Baldwyn, 19, of Saltillo, Miss., and Lance Cpl. Taylor B. Prazynski, 20, of Fairfield, Ohio - also died in explosions Monday.

All three were assigned to 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division of the II Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune.

Essie Harris said she wanted her grandson to go into the Air Force like two of her sons, that the Marines would be difficult, too hard.

But Marcus wanted to be a Marine.

"He went through basic training with flying colors," said Linton Harris, who attended his grandson's basic training graduation along with his wife.

"They tell you to go somewhere, that's what you do," Linton Harris said. "If he didn't want to do that, he wouldn't have joined."

Ellie

thedrifter
05-13-05, 07:36 AM
Local Marine returns from Iraq
BARABOO - Life has been a bit of a blur for Marine Lance Cpl. Nick Brinker since he graduated from Baraboo High School in 2003. Following in the steps of his grandfather and great-uncle - both Marines - Brinker has been busy catching up with family and friends at home for a few weeks after wrapping up a seven-month tour of duty in Iraq.
"It's all I've done since I've been home," Brinker said with a big smile. "The biggest thing for me is seeing all the 'Support the Troops' stickers. It's nice to know they are behind us."
Thanks to a month-long leave, Brinker will be able to celebrate his 20th birthday today with loved ones before heading out again. He will leave Saturday for Camp Pendleton in California, where he will begin training for his next mission.
Later this year, Brinker will head to Okinawa, Japan with his unit to join the 32st Marine Expeditionary Unit, the Marine reaction force in the Pacific. Once there, he will begin amphibious assault and jungle warfare training.
This life of adventure is just what Brinker had in mind when he decided to join the corps. He enlisted several months before graduation, and by November he was knee-deep in three months of Marine boot camp.
After surviving boot camp and two months of infantry training, he was off for Ramadi, Iraq in September, where he helped keep the peace during the national elections held in January.

The few, the proud
The Marines' reputation has been forged in blood in faraway places like Iwo Jima and Tripoli ? Marines are often the first into a battle and the last out. Brinker said both his lineage and the history of the corps were main reasons he decided to enlist.
He decided to enter the infantry, one of the most dangerous assignments in the corps, and said he wouldn't have it any other way.
"Nothing else really seemed to catch my interest besides infantry," Brinker said. "That's where I'd be more hands-on. I can't sit at a desk, I have to out there moving."
The training for Marine infantry is among the toughest in the U.S. military, but Brinker made it through, unlike many of his fellow enlistees.
"They try to make training as realistic as possible to prepare you for combat," Brinker said. "It's a lot of hard work, a lot of mental preparation. A good portion don't make it through."
The training came in handy numerous times in war-torn Iraq, as Brinker often found himself under enemy small arms, mortar and rocket fire.
"The first five months were pretty heavy (with enemy fire), but the last two things quieted down," Brinker said. "We were involved with a lot of combat."
The biggest threat to soldiers were roadside bombs, Brinker said. They could be most anywhere, and were effective at killing or wounding many of his fellow Marines.
"I took some shrapnel in my finger and little in the side of my face and leg, but we lost a couple Marines over there due to those," Brinker said. "A lot of times it was a remote-detonated artillery round they'd have buried along the side of the road or hidden under something ? sometimes they'll just put them under a cardboard box by the side of the road. We took extreme precautions with those."
Identifying the enemy was difficult, Brinker said, because most times insurgents would fire and flee before Marines could respond.
"I'd say 90 percent of the time we didn't see the guy who was shooting at us," Brinker said. "He's there one minute and gone the next."
Brinker's unit carried out "security and stability" operations, including raids, searches and securing polling stations. He said only 19 people voted at the station he was guarding ? one of the most dangerous in Iraq, he said ? initially causing some concern.
"At first we thought the elections were a flop, but then we went back later and saw the news and realized how big a success it was," Brinker said. "We really made a big difference."

Meet the locals
Brinker had many opportunities to meet with a variety of Iraqis, and said most of his experiences were positive.
"We'd move through houses and talk to people and get to know them a little bit," Brinker said. "We'd carry pocketfuls of candy for the kids. There were times we had missions where we were just handing out shoes, soccer balls, coloring books and hygiene stuff."
When U.S. soldiers first arrived, Brinker said the locals were a bit skittish, but they soon warmed to the company of the Americans,
"They loved us," Brinker said. "They'd tell us, 'Saddam bad, America good.' You get over there and see the people and difference you're making and you feel good about it."
During a seven-day stay at an Iraqi house during elections, Brinker and his fellow Marines got to know a man who spoke English, and were able to get a better understanding about how some Iraqis felt about the Americans' presence.
"He said they love what we are doing but they are ready for us to leave," Brinker said. "They want us to move on because it's hard on their lifestyle, how we're kind of interfering with them, but it's a worthwhile cause."
Brinker is hoping the Iraqis are able to take care of themselves sooner than later. He said he could be sent back to Iraq, though he would rather go to a different area.
"I liked it a lot," Brinker said. "It was a definitely a learning experience ? it was something I wanted to do, get out there and put my training to use."


Ellie

thedrifter
05-13-05, 07:36 AM
Marine turned faith into action

By ROBIN FITZGERALD

THE SUN HERALD


GULFPORT - Imani Woullard of D'Iberville said she believes her husband prayed Monday before he ran inside a house riddled by machine-gun bullets to retrieve the body of a fallen Marine in Iraq.

Marine Corps Sgt. Dennis R. Woullard, interviewed by Ellen Knickmeyer of The Washington Post's foreign service, described sensing "just pure evil inside the house."

Woullard, a local law enforcement officer and associate minister at a D'Iberville church, is among Marines who survived an assault that began Sunday in Ubaydi near the Syrian border. The Marines battled their way into a town, searching each home they passed, finding caches of weapons, bombs, explosives and rocket launchers.

Woullard, 33, is one of two Marines interviewed for the newspaper article, but he was incorrectly identified as a Biloxi police officer. Woullard is a marine patrol officer for the state Department of Marine Resources in Biloxi and a former sergeant at the Harrison County Adult Detention Center in Gulfport.

According to The Washington Post, the Marines were in the last block of a compound when a Marine kicked open a locked door; the soldier and another were sprayed by gunfire that killed one of them. Other Marines entered the house, believing the gunfire came from two insurgents who were shot running from the back of the house.

"Screaming 'Allahu Akbar' (God is great) to the end, the foreign fighters lay on their backs in a narrow crawlspace under a house and blasted their machine guns up through the concrete floor with bullets designed to penetrate tanks. They fired at U.S. Marines, driving back wave after wave as the Americans tried to retrieve a fallen comrade," wrote The Washington Post.

"I know he prayed before he walked through that door," said Imani Woullard. "When he referred to evil in the house, I believe he meant it in a spiritual sense. He's a praying man.

"He's always been a soldier, a warrior," she said, pointing to his law enforcement background.

Woullard is a former corrections officer for the Illinois Department of Corrections. At the Harrison County jail, he was on the "cell extraction team," trained to remove a combative inmate without injury to the inmate or the officer.

"We hated to lose him to the Department of Marine Resources," said Maj. Dianne Riley, jail warden.

Woullard believes his work as a Marine reservist is "a calling," his wife said.

This is Woullard's second deployment to Iraq. His brother, Jimmy, is deployed to South Korea with the Army.

"We just have to pray about it, believe they're in God's hands, and go on," said their father, Dennis Woullard Sr. of Gulfport.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-13-05, 08:33 AM
Demise of a hard-fighting squad
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Washington Post
May 12, 2005

HABAN, Iraq, May 11 -- The explosion enveloped the armored vehicle in flames, sending orange balls of fire bubbling above the trees along the Euphrates River near the Syrian border.

Marines in surrounding vehicles threw open their hatches and took off running across the plowed fields, toward the already blackening metal of the destroyed vehicle. Shouting, they pulled to safety those they could, as the flames ignited the bullets, mortar rounds, flares and grenades inside, rocketing them into the sky and across pastures.

Gunnery Sgt. Chuck Hurley emerged from the smoke and turmoil around the vehicle, circling toward the spot where helicopters would later land to pick up casualties. As he passed one group of Marines, he uttered one sentence: "That was the same squad."

Among the four Marines killed and 10 wounded when an explosive device erupted under their Amtrac on Wednesday were the last battle-ready members of a squad that four days earlier had battled foreign fighters holed up in a house in the town of Ubaydi. In that fight, two squad members were killed and five were wounded.

In 96 hours of fighting and ambushes in far western Iraq, the squad had ceased to be.

Every member of the squad -- one of three that make up the 1st Platoon of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment -- had been killed or wounded, Marines here said. All told, the 1st Platoon -- which Hurley commands -- had sustained 60 percent casualties, demolishing it as a fighting force.

"They used to call it Lucky Lima," said Maj. Steve Lawson, commander of the company. "That turned around and bit us."

Wednesday was the fourth day of fighting in far western Iraq, as the U.S. military continued an assault that has sent more than 1,000 Marines down the ungoverned north bank of the Euphrates River in search of foreign fighters crossing the border from Syria. Of seven Marines killed so far in the operation, six came come from Lima Company's 1st Platoon.

Lima Company drew Marine reservists from across Ohio into the conflict in Iraq. Some were still too young to be bothered much by shaving, or even stubble.

They rode to war on a Marine Amtrac, an armored vehicle that travels on tank-like treads. Marines in Iraq typically crowd thigh to thigh in the Amtrac, with one or two men perched on cardboard boxes of rations. Only the gunners manning the top hatches of Amtracs have any view of the passing scenery. Those inside find out what their field of combat is when the rear ramp comes down and they run out with weapons ready.

Marines typically pass travel time in the Amtrac by extracting favorite bits from ration packets, mercilessly ribbing a usual victim for eating or sleeping too much, or sleeping themselves.

On Monday, when the Marine assault on foreign fighters formally began, the young Marines of the squad from the 1st Platoon were already exhausted. Their encounter at the house in Ubaydi that morning and the previous night had been the unintended first clash of the operation, pitting them against insurgents who fired armor-piercing bullets up through the floor. It took 12 hours and five assaults by the squad -- plus grenades, bombing by an F/A-18 attack plane, tank rounds and rockets at 20 yards -- to kill the insurgents and permit recovery of the dead Marines' bodies.

Afterward, they slept in the moving Amtrac, heads back and mouths agape. One stood up to stretch his legs. He fell asleep again standing up, leaning against the metal walls.

Squad members spoke only to compare what they knew about the condition of their wounded. Getting the latest news, they fell silent again. After one such half-hour of silence, a Marine offered a terse commendation for one of the squad members shot at Ubaydi: "Bunker's a good man."

With the operation underway, Marine commanders kept the 1st Platoon largely to the back, letting its men rest.

Commanders had hoped the operation would swiftly capture or kill large numbers of foreign fighters. But the foreigners, and everyone else here, had plenty of warning that the Marines were coming -- including those ready to fight at Ubaydi.

By the time the squad from Lima Company crossed north of the Euphrates, whole villages consisted of little more than abandoned houses with fresh tire tracks leading into pastures or homes occupied only by prepubescent boys or old men. Men of fighting age had made themselves scarce. The AK-47 assault rifles ubiquitous in Iraqi households had disappeared.

Many Marines complained bitterly that commanders had pulled them out of the fight at Ubaydi while the insurgents were still battling, to start the planned offensive. "They take us from killing the people they want us to kill and bring us to these ghost villages," one complained Wednesday on the porch of a house commandeered as a temporary base.

Uneventful house searches stretched into late afternoon, the tedium broken only by small-arms fire and mortar rounds lobbed by insurgents hiding on the far side of the river.

This correspondent had just gotten off the Amtrac and the reconstructed squad from 1st Platoon was rolling toward the Euphrates in a row of armored vehicles, headed for more house searches, when the vehicle rolled over the explosive.

Marines initially said they believed the blast was caused by two mines stacked on top of each other. But reports from Marines that they had seen an artillery round and two hand-held radios near the blast site raised suspicions that the explosion was caused by a bomb that had been activated remotely, Lawson said.

Hurley and others pulled their comrades out of the Amtrac as flames detonated -- or "cooked off," in military jargon -- its ammunition. As Marines carrying stretchers ran to the Amtrac, bullets snapped out of the burning hulk and traveled hundreds of feet. The Marines ran back through the fusillade, carrying out the wounded. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon," some shouted, desperate to get the wounded out.

The four dead were trapped inside the vehicle, Lawson said.

"We passed right over it. We passed right over it," one of many Marines in the convoy ahead of the burning Amtrac said of the explosive, puzzling over why he was still alive.

"That's the last of the squad," said another, Cpl. Craig Miller, whose reassignment last month had taken him out of the unit. "Three weeks ago, that would have been me."

Late Wednesday, helicopters flew out Hurley and the remaining members of 1st Platoon for time off. They are to return after the platoon is remade, Marines said.

Another Lima Company platoon commander ordered his men to bed early, in preparation for the next day's operations. Mourning could wait.

"We don't have time," the commander said.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-13-05, 08:41 AM
Ground combat is more than just a "women's issue"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Mackubin Thomas Owens
National Review Online
May 12, 2005

On May 11, the Subcommittee on Military Personnel of the House Armed Services Committee approved legislation requiring the Army to prohibit women from serving in any company-size unit that provides support to combat battalions or their subordinate companies. This is in no way revolutionary. In fact, as I wrote in National Review in December 2004, the House panel is merely telling the Army to abide by existing regulations.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the U.S. military opened a number of specialties to women. Changes in regulations permitted women to serve on the Navy's combatant ships and fly Navy and Air Force combat aircraft. Ground combat, however, was still closed to them.

One of the reasons for these changes was the widespread acceptance of the view that technological advances had created a "revolution in military affairs" (RMA). Many of the more vociferous RMA promoters argued that emerging technologies had so completely changed the nature of war as to render the old verities that underpinned the traditional military ethos no longer true. RMA advocates contended that these emerging technologies and "information dominance" would eliminate "friction" and the "fog of war," providing the commander and his subordinates nearly perfect "situational awareness," thereby promising the capacity to use military force without the same risks as before. If this was the case, why did we need these old restrictions that merely hampered the progress of women? As former congresswoman Pat Schroeder famously remarked, a woman can push a button just as easily as a man.

Nonetheless, restrictions remained on women when it came to ground combat. On January 13, 1994, then-secretary of defense Les Aspin issued regulations prohibiting the assignment of women to units that engage in direct ground combat, e.g., infantry and armor. In his memo to the Services, Aspin said that "women should be excluded from assignment to units below the brigade level whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground," defined as "engaging an enemy on the ground with individual or crew-served weapons, while being exposed to hostile fire and to a high probability of direct physical contact with the hostile force's personnel." This prohibition extended to the support units that were collocated with direct ground combat forces as well.

These regulations are still in effect. But the U.S. Army has violated these regulations without the notification required by current law, which requires the secretary of defense to provide formal advance notice to Congress of policy changes regarding female soldiers, accompanied by an analysis of proposed revisions on women's exemption from Selective Service obligations.

In an attempt to make its units more "expeditionary," the Army has developed a new concept that permits the deployment and employment of self-contained formations tasked organized for specific combat tasks. The 3rd Infantry Division, which recently redeployed to Iraq is the first Army unit to deploy to a combat zone under the new organizational concept.

The Army originally envisioned support troops as part of a self-contained "unit of action." But if a forward-support company (FSC) is part of a combat unit, current DoD policy says that it cannot include women. Claiming that there are not enough male soldiers to fill its FSCs, the Army moved the FSCs from the maneuver battalions into the "gender"-integrated brigade support battalions (BSBs). Of course no matter where the FSCs appear on a table of organization, the fact is that in order to be effective, the soldiers of an FSC would have to live and work with the maneuver battalions all of the time.

As Elaine Donnelly has pointed out, the Army has apparently rewritten the regulations regarding women in such a way as to make Bill Clinton's infamous statement that "it depends on what the meaning of is, is," appear to be straightforward. In her May 8 NRO piece describing a presentation by Army chief of staff General Peter Schoomaker at the American Enterprise Institute, she writes:


Current directives exempt female soldiers from direct ground-combat units such as the infantry and armor, and from smaller support companies that "collocate" (operate 100 percent of the time) with land-combat troops. The new, unauthorized wording narrows the "collocation rule" to apply only when a combat unit is actually "conducting an assigned direct ground combat mission." (Emphasis added.)

General Schoomaker recited Defense Department regulations, but claimed (without justification) that the Army has separate rules that exempt female soldiers from collocation with land-combat battalions "at the time that those units are undergoing those operations" (emphasis added). By adding the words "conducting" or "undergoing" (a direct ground-combat mission) to the collocation rule, the Army has created a new regulation that has not been authorized by the secretary of defense, or reported to Congress in advance, as required by law.

In other words, the Army says it is not in violation of DoD regulations because women in FSCs are not really "collocated" until the combat unit is engaged or about to be engaged in a direct combat mission. The breathtaking assumption here is that women in these units can be pulled out before the battle starts.

General Schoomaker is a very experienced and able soldier. He certainly understands the role of "friction" and the "fog of uncertainty" in battle, having experienced these phenomena first hand. He must know that trying to pull women out of their units under such circumstances, even if it could be done at all in the chaos and confusion of combat, would be incredibly disruptive, undermining unit cohesion and effectiveness and diverting resources needed to prevail in the battle.

Over the years, I have argued against the idea of placing American women in combat or in combat support or service support associated with direct ground combat. I base my position on the fact there are substantial physical differences between men and women that place the latter at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to ground combat. In addition, men treat women differently than they treat other men. This can undermine the comradeship upon which the unit cohesion necessary to success on the battlefield depends. The presence of women also leads to double standards that have a serious impact on morale and performance. In other words, men and women are not interchangeable. As I wrote in January, even the Israelis, who draft women into the IDF, do not place them in ground combat units.

As persuasive as I believe my arguments are, the decision to place women in units that expose them to direct ground combat does not depend on my opinion. But it does not depend exclusively on the Army either. If the president and the secretary of defense believe the regulations should be changed to reflect the Army's new approach, the latter needs to advise Congress, as current law requires. As Donnelly observes, this is a national-security matter, not a less important "women's issue." As such, Congress needs a say in this matter.

- Mackubin Thomas Owens is an associate dean of academics and a professor of national-security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. He is writing a history of U.S. civil-military relations.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-13-05, 11:02 AM
Chicago native does his part in PSD
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Division
Story Identification #: 200558235818
Story by Lance Cpl. Athanasios L. Genos



CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (May 9, 2005) -- As the sun began to rise, Lance Cpl. Juan T. O’Neal donned his protective gear in preparation for the day’s journey.

The Chicago native is part of the Personal Security Detachment, which keeps a watchful eye on the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment’s executive officer as he travels throughout the unit’s area of operations.

“Whenever we get out of the vehicles I stay close to him providing security with the other Marines,” said O’Neal, a 2003 Brownsville Military Academy graduate.

O’Neal and his fellow Marines with PSD are prepared to face any attack the insurgents may plan to ensure Maj. Larry Miller’s safe movement through their AO. The PSD has fended off a number of attacks in the past as they provided security for the XO.

“When out with the XO there is usually something happening,” explained O’Neal. “We are usually out in the action and our convoys have been regularly hit by enemy attacks.”

Each time the vehicles stop to check out anything along the road or to search a house, O’Neal and the other Marines exit the vehicle first to check for improvised explosive devices.

“Out on convoys and patrols we are always searching the streets and houses for IED’s and any weapons,” O’Neal said.

While on foot, O’Neal has his personal radio on him at all times ensuring he is always in communication with the vehicles and other Marines in the convoy. Staying connected ensures that he is aware of any threat in the area and is able to provide the best security possible for the XO.

“We keep radio contact all the time because the XO and I may be in a different room or different houses and if something happens we need to always be in radio contact to get other Marines to us or for us to get to them,” O’Neal explained.

As the battalion continues to conduct operations here supporting the Operation Iraqi Freedom, O’Neal and his fellow Marines will continue to ensure Millers safety as he provides the subordinate units with guidance to direct their efforts in stabilizing the country.

“O’Neal has one of the unsung jobs and his role is to always protect the battalion commander or myself putting his own safety aside every time out,” explained Miller.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-13-05, 11:03 AM
Commandant’s vision focuses on Marines, extends Corps’ capabilities for future conflicts <br />
Submitted by: Headquarters Marine Corps <br />
Story Identification #: 20055910581 <br />
Story by Staff Sgt. Cindy...

thedrifter
05-13-05, 11:03 AM
Final resting place honors Iraqis from years gone by
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing
Story Identification #: 200551252355
Story by Gunnery Sgt. Shannon Arledge



AL ASAD, Iraq (May 12, 2005) -- In 1980 Iraq conducted an air and land invasion of western Iran. The war, over territorial, religious and ethnic disputes, endured eight long years and both countries paid a heavy price in human life.

The Iran and Iraq War, reported as one of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th Century, lasted nearly a decade and it is estimated that the number of dead was more than 1.5 million.

A small resting place on the west side of the air base, marks the final resting spot for many Iraqi soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice between 1980 and 1988; many others including children and adults are also laid to rest here.

According to a former general in the Iraqi Army here, the cemetery, almost forgotten, has been a part of this region for more than 50 years. Approximately 100 Iraqis, possibly more, make up this burial place. A small village once occupied this location, but was forced to vacate by Saddam Hussein in the early 1980s when construction of Al Asad Air Base began. This location was home to those who are buried in this graveyard.

The heavy lifters from Marine Wing Support Squadron 271 Heavy Equipment Platoon, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, removed discarded junk and rubble from the inside and surrounding area of the cemetery. These warriors constructed a protective fence and placed neat berms of earth around the resting place to preserve it from any possible desecration.

“Some people buried in the cemetery are by our standards war heroes,” said Cpl. Jamie A. Jarvi, 21, from Laurium, Mich. “Those people and all others deserve the same respect that any American would want.”

The heat and dusty air posed the biggest challenge for the operators. The task took six days to complete and about 750 man-hours were devoted to the assignment.

“I feel it was an honor to do this project because some day when the people of this country come on to the base and see what we have done, it shows that we do care,” said Sgt. Michael D. Johnson, project supervisor, from Covington, Ga. “We want their heroes to have the same honor that our heroes in the United States have when they [make the ultimate sacrifice].”

“My first thought was that this project was well out of the ordinary scope of projects we normally receive,” said Chief Warrant Officer Todd L. McAllister, platoon commander from Roseburg, Ore. “Due to the importance of it, it had to become a personal project and set forth an image to the Iraqi people that we are here to help in anyway possible.”

These Marines feel that this endeavor gives their deployment a different meaning. Although, by all accounts, Iraqi soldiers have fought against America, these Iraqi soldiers were killed in a different time; a time when the United States remained neutral between the Iran-Iraq conflict. More than 17 years since the guns fell silent and fighting between the two Arab nations ceased, these Marines see this as an opportunity to help restore a nation.

“This project gave me a chance to take a direct part in the rebuilding of Iraq,” said Jarvi. “Hopefully this shows the Iraqi people that we are not only here to fight terrorism, but to help rebuild their country.”

Brig. Gen. Robert E. Milstead Jr., the commanding general of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing (Forward), thanked the Marines for taking his vision and making it a reality. Their devotion and committed passion was evident in the job.

“This sacred ground was surrounded by trash, and that isn’t the way to honor the Iraqi dead,” said the general. “All the Marines here appreciate the good Iraqi people and the sacrifices of those Iraqis who were killed in action during the war between Iraq and Iran ,” he added. “You can see the results of the Marine’s hard work. I appreciate the Marine Wing Support Squadron for their respect of those who have gone before us.”

“This project was a privilege to be a part of; knowing first hand what it is like to bury a loved one, it brought on more personal meaning,” lamented McAllister. “It’s an honor to take part in protecting and preserving a sacred cemetery for the heroes [and Iraqi civilians] who are buried here.”

Editors Note: This marked the final step in a project that started in mid April with a clean up of a nearby oasis and surrounding stone structures. According to Arab legend, around 1900 B.C., Abraham was cast from his kingdom south of here because of his religious beliefs. As Abraham wandered the desert he came to the oasis located in the palm grove here to drink. As legend goes, the oasis now has healing powers. True or not, the Euphrates River, located only a few miles away, served as a major travel route during ancient times. According to those taking part in the restoration, this location was a fitting burial site for the fallen Iraqis.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-13-05, 03:31 PM
Frocking proves abilities, allows husband and wife reunion
Submitted by: II Marine Expeditionary Force (FWD)
Story Identification #: 20055851320
Story by Cpl. Christi Prickett



CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (May 8, 2005) -- After serving as executive officer for 2nd Military Police Battalion, II Marine Expeditionary Force (FWD), since the end of March, Captain Amy R. Ebitz was ready to be promoted to her selected rank. Her husband, Maj. Curtis V. Ebitz, flew in to help pin on her new rank.

Captain Ebitz was frocked to major May 1 here during a ceremony, presided over by Maj. Gen. Stephen T. Johnson, commanding general, II Marine Expeditionary Force (FWD).

“It is an honor to be here today, giving Captain Ebitz a rank that is well deserved,” the general said. “With the rank [of Major] comes new responsibilities and new experiences and I have faith that she will live up to those.”

Curtis, who was able to pin his wife during the ceremony, is an augment from Marine Aircraft Group 29 assigned to the Tactical Air Command Center, 2nd Marine Air Wing (FWD), and is currently stationed at Al Asad, Iraq. He works as the rotary-wing tasker and flies as an augment pilot with Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 264 based out of Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C.

“It was a very special moment for me,” said Curtis, speaking of his wife’s frocking. “I am extremely proud of her and what she has accomplished to date. I am glad I was able to make it here today.”

Amy, who has been in the Corps for 10 years, sees her frocking as just part of her journey in the Marine Corps.

“I don’t think of the pay part of it,” she said. “I see this as my promotion, which is a huge milestone. I am ready for this.”

As an executive officer, Ebitz’s duties are centered around helping her staff.

“Ninety percent of what I do is personnel related,” she said. “As XO, I have a say in what goes on. I just like to lead and take care of my Marines.”

This is Amy’s second deployment to Iraq. Her first tour was last year with the same battalion.

“I have been through the tough times with my Marines,” she said. “When I was here last time as a company commander, I completed over 50 convoys with them. They amaze me because even with the hard times, their fears were put aside and we pulled through.”

When Amy was first deployed, it was hard on Curtis because he understood what was going on.

“He knew if I went out on a convoy that there were risks,” she said. “Most people don’t understand all that we go through as Marines, but he does.”

Being married in the Corps has its ups and downs, Curtis explained.

“A lot of people ask how we handle it,” said Amy. “As a Marine family, we both do it because we want to.”

Curtis has his own thoughts.

“We want to continue together as Marines,” he said. “The Marine Corps emphasizes strong morals and character and we bring that into our relationship. Our relationship is based on trust and we confide in each other. We know what the other person is going through.”

Amy and Curtis met while at Amphibious Warfare School, Quantico, Va., and were married on Oct. 11, 2003.

“The pieces just fell together for us to be here together,” said Curtis. “It’s not often you see your wife in a combat zone, so I cherish every opportunity I get. She deserved her frocking because she has proven herself, yet again, and she has been performing well above the expectations.”

EDITOR’S NOTE
For more information about this article, please send an e-mail to cepaowo@cemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil


Ellie

thedrifter
05-13-05, 03:32 PM
From behind the desk to the front lines
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Division
Story Identification #: 2005573172
Story by Sgt. Stephen D'Alessio



CAMP BLUE DIAMOND, AR RAMADI, Iraq (May 7, 2005) -- While Marines fight the insurgency outside camp, there's a force of Marines within the walls less visible, but never more important. Unlike most though, one of the Marines volunteered for the job.

Private First Class Augustin Melendez is one of the Marines on the camp's security force, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious - day or night. He stands taller than many of the officers and personnel who walk into the combat operations center (COC) here, as he scans the area with an M-16 A4 service rifle slung around his body.

Melendez is a 22-year-old special intelligence communicator and administrator with 2d Radio Battalion, 2d Marine Division. The Roselle Park, N.J. native rotates between guarding the COC, where all 2d Marine Division missions are tracked, to handling insurgent detainees and even guarding the mess hall while Marines and other service members eat.

But that's not all he does.

The 2001 graduate of Roselle Park High started his career in computers when he worked at the Schering-Plough pharmaceutical company on a high school co-op work program. Instead of going to college, Melendez decided to get some life experience in the Corps. Since his decision, he's been an instrumental part of the Marine Corps' transition from a military to a civilian contracted computer network.

Now, he greets the Marines and other personnel going in and out of the facilities he guards around camp. For him, it's a chance to get some first hand experience in Global War on Terrorism.

Despite his accomplishments, Melendez wanted something more.

"When the battalion left the first time for Iraq I couldn't go because I underwent ankle surgery, but I really wanted to be a part of it," said Melendez. "When they went around asking for any volunteers, I was right on it," he added, in a confident tone.

Now he has his chance and he's making the best of things here. It's a total change from what he's used to, but according to him, it's nothing he can't handle.

As he stood on guard, his flak jacket and helmet dusty with sand, Melendez broke his serious expression for a moment and cracked a smile to say, "It's an experience I'll remember for the rest of my life.

"Getting to deal with the detainees when they come in is a change for me," said Melendez. "It's a world of a difference than working in an office behind a computer. This is one of the reasons I joined the Marines - to do something for my country."

When he gets back to the U.S., Melendez plans to continue his life's passion - - racing import cars. His 1996 black Mazda Miata with racing wheels, roll cage and body kit is waiting to be raced again on one of the local tracks in the Onslow County, N.C. area.

"I'll take my car around the track a few times once I put my new headlight kit on. But then it's back to 'Jersey either for a career in automotive mechanics or computers," said Melendez. "But with my experience in the Marine Corps, I shouldn't have trouble getting a job in either field."


Ellie

thedrifter
05-13-05, 04:07 PM
May 12, 2005

Earplugs may become mandatory in Iraq

By Laura Bailey
Times staff writer


Marines in Iraq are instructed to carry earplugs, but they aren’t always keen on actually using them.
Knowing this, the Marine Corps could soon add “tactical earplugs” to the list of mandatory utility uniform items.

Senior Corps leaders, meeting at an Executive Safety Board meeting held in March, debated how to make earplugs more widely used, noting that leathernecks in Iraq are suffering hearing loss amid the explosion of roadside bombs and other ordnance.

Now, the Safety Division at Marine Corps headquarters is looking into the idea of making earplugs a mandatory uniform item, said Lt. Col. Carlen Charleston, the ground safety officer at Safety Division.

He said the division will go before the Corps’ uniform board with the proposal.

But the proposed mandatory plugs are more advanced than the “foamies” or plastic plugs most Marines now use. Called “Combat Arms and AOSafety Indoor/Outdoor Range” plugs, the earplugs allow users to hear normally until a loud noise occurs. In the event of a loud noise, a pressure-activated valve in the plug engages, blocking sound and protecting the wearer’s ear.

The two-ended plastic plugs can also be reversed to offer continuous protection against ongoing noise.

While Marines are already required to have some type of earplugs, the Safety Board’s change would require that Marines carry the tactical plugs, perhaps in the pocket of their camouflage blouse, at all times, Charleston said. He said the Army already uses similar earplugs.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-13-05, 04:27 PM
Posted on Fri, May. 13, 2005





Gulfport Marines have been SH's faces of war in Iraq

Gulfport Marines made war personal

By KATE MAGANDY


kmagandy@sunherald.com
When war with Iraq loomed as a likelihood in early 2003, Marine reservists with the 3rd Platoon, Company A, 4th Assault Amphibian Battalion were activated.

The Gulfport reservists, trained to use Amtracs, or amphibious assault craft, were called upon to provide transportation to the Marine infantrymen being massed in Kuwait in preparation for war to topple Saddam Hussein.

In February, the Marines learned Sun Herald military writer Patrick Peterson would join them on deployment. Peterson, who now works at Florida Today, lived with and reported on the Marines for three months, including the push into and the fall of Baghdad.

Peterson's daily coverage through stories, postcards of individuals and photos kept South Mississippians in touch with their loved ones. Employees in all departments of the Sun Herald were asked to pass along words of thanks from friends and families able to keep abreast of what the Marines were doing because of his work.

An e-mail from JoAnn Blackwell summed up the thoughts of families back home: "My son is attached with the 4th AABN "B" company. I follow (the) Web page very closely and what a blessing it is to our families. Thank you for that."

On April 28, 2003, Peterson returned from his assignment in Iraq, greeted not only by his family, friends and Sun Herald co-workers, but also by family members of the Marines he'd lived with and written about.

The Marines he left behind, who left Baghdad and returned to Kuwait after the city fell, stayed another two months, returning home June 19, 2003, after six months away from home.

Peterson returned to Iraq twice more, traveling with Gulfport Seabee battalions.

The Marines were home just over a year when more than half the Gulfport Marine reservists who served in Iraq volunteered to return for six months. In December 2004, the Department of Defense said the entire unit would be recalled.

In January 2005, the Marines were returned to active duty and sent to Camp Lejeune, N.C., for training. The Marines have been in Iraq since March with the 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment and are expected to rotate back to the States in September or October.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marines timeline

Here is a timeline for the Marine Reservists based out of the Naval Construction Battalion Center in Gulfport:

January 2003: About 85 Marines from the 3rd Platoon, Company A, 4th Assault Amphibian Battalion are called to active duty in Iraq.

February 2003: The U.S. Marine Detachment Gulfport leaves for a week of training at Camp Pendleton in California to prepare for war with Iraq. Patrick Peterson, The Sun Herald's military reporter, accompanies.

Feb. 14, 2003: Gulfport Marines, now part of the 4th Amphibian Assault Battalion, leave California for Kuwait.

March 2003: Marines put their final letters home in the bags that will remain behind, as they prepared to move toward Iraq on the eve of war. Sea bags with nonessential items have been packed for storage. The platoon has been put on an eight-hour standby to move to a forward area.

March 20, 2003: As cruise missiles signalled the beginning of war with Iraq, Marines of Gulfport's 3rd Platoon of Amtrackers suited up in their chemical suits and prepared to cross the border and engage whatever enemy may await them on the other side.

March 21, 2003: Marine reservists from Gulfport reached the Iraqi border without being fired upon after an all-night trip through the desert. They were part of a massive convoy of 5,000 vehicles and 20,000 Marines that is heading toward Baghdad. About 80 Gulfport Marines are driving amphibious vehicles that are carrying Marine infantrymen.

March 25, 2003: As Marines prepared to cross the Euphrates River on Monday, they prepared for more resistance. The battalion was a few miles from the bridge over the Euphrates on Sunday and was preparing to cross over the bridge at about 9 p.m. CST Monday, or 6 a.m. this morning Iraq time.

March 28, 2003: U.S. Marines, nerves frayed by suicide bus attacks, dozens of roadside bunkers, occasional light-arms fire and a civilian population of unknown allegiance, continue to wait for an expected battle with Saddam Hussein's most elite troops. The 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Division is expected to wait another 24 to 36 hours while the attack is planned.

April 4, 2003: Marines of the 4th Assault Amphibian Battalion are feeling pretty good about what they've accomplished since arriving in the Middle East from the United States about six weeks ago.

April 10, 2003: Elated crowds handed yellow flowers to U.S. Marines as they enter Baghdad. They flashed V-for-victory signs at U.S. Army tanks. They waved palm fronds, blew kisses and danced atop splintered symbols of oppression. After 24 years of clenched-fist repression and only three weeks of war, Saddam's control of Iraq all but evaporated Wednesday.

April 22, 2003: Marines from Gulfport left Baghdad and camped about 80 kilometers southeast of the city. Today they will go to an assembly area where they will prepare to ship their Amtracs to Kuwait City on trucks. The Marines camped during the night along Highway 1 and on Monday were allowed to move around their camp without flak jackets or helmets. "It feels great," said Lance Cpl. Jesse Dupas of Slidell.

April 29, 2003: Loud cheers, a few happy tears and resounding "uuh rah" greeted Sun Herald war correspondent Patrick Peterson when he returned Monday after five weeks covering the war in Iraq.

June 20, 2003: Gulfport Marines who helped take Baghdad turned in their rifles, greeted their families and began re-learning to breathe the humid air of home. The Marines returned at 6 a.m. from Camp Pendleton to the Marine Reserve Center at the Naval Construction Battalion Center. The Marines left Feb. 1, and six remained in Kuwait to ship back equipment.

Oct. 20, 2004: More than half the Gulfport Marine reservists who served in Iraq last year volunteered to return for six months. The platoon was placed on alert this weekend for a likely mobilization early next year, almost exactly two years after the unit was activated to serve in the Iraq war.

Dec. 7, 2004: As the Defense Department increases troop levels in pre-election Iraq, about 30 Marine Reserve veterans of last year's war learned they may no longer have a choice about being mobilized in January for a nine-month deployment to the dangerous Sunni Triangle.

March 5, 2005: Marines of the 4th Amphibious Assault Battalion, 3rd Platoon in Gulfport are activated and sent to Iraq. They are expected home in September or October.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ellie

thedrifter
05-13-05, 09:39 PM
Brookfield native serving with Marines dies from injuries in Iraq

(Brookfield-WTNH, May 13, 2005 Updated 10:05 PM) _ A Connecticut Marine injured during fighting in Iraq four months ago has died. Lance Corporal John Schmidt III of Brookfield is the 26th person with ties to Connecticut to die in Iraq or Afghanistan.

by News Channel 8's Leigh Frillici
Brookfield's First Selectman says Schmidt never left intensive care after his injury. News of his death was released Friday, and it was a tough blow to those that knew him and his family.

"It made me cry when I first heard it," says Michelle Milton of Brookfield.

Visibly shaken by the news, Milton just learned her neighbor's son, 21-year-old Lance Corporal John T. Schmidt III, had died. The Marine succumbed on Wednesday to injuries he received during a combat mission in Iraq in January.

"A good kid and he's a kid supporting our country," she said.

January 30th, the day of elections in Iraq was filled with fierce fighting. Schmidt was seriously wounded in an explosion. Milton said the Marine's mother left their home on this quiet street in Brookfield to be by her son's side during his treatment at a Texas hospital.

"I'm so sorry. They are the dearest neighbors. My thoughts and prayers are with them.

"If the injuries were that severe he's in a better place now."

During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Schmidt's unit was attached to First Marine Division, One Marine Expeditionary Force. Schmidt was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune.

Gov. Jodi Rell has ordered the Connecticut state flag to remain at half-staff until Schmidt's internment.

In a statement Rell said "I ask everyone in Connecticut to keep our servicemen and servicewomen in their thoughts and prayers. I also ask everyone in the state to join with me in letting Cpl. Schmidt's family know that we share their grief."

Cpl. Schmidt was the 26th military member or civilian from Connecticut who was killed in Iraq or Afghanistan since March 2002.

A spokesperson for the 2nd Marine Division told News Channel 8 it's likely Cpl. Schmidt will be recommended for the Purple Heart.

http://wtnh.static.worldnow.com/images/3341995_BG1.jpg

Lance Corporal John T. Schmidt, III


Ellie

Rest In Peace

thedrifter
05-13-05, 09:44 PM
Church boosts Marines morale in Iraq and at home

By: DARRIN MORTENSON - Staff Writer

CAMP PENDLETON ---- Soon after the Marines of Alpha Company emerged from fighting rebels in the streets of Najaf, Iraq, in August, they found some 2,000 pounds of snacks and other gifts back at their base.

Thousands of pounds of more care packages followed at Halloween and Thanksgiving, outdone only by the personalized gifts and heaps of goodies each of the approximately 150 Camp Pendleton-based Marines received at Christmas in Iraq.

And now, the same central California Church that supported infantrymen with gifts from home during their dangerous deployment to Iraq is sending the Marines to the San Diego Padres game today ---- just to say "thanks."


St. John's Episcopal Church of Yuba City, near Sacramento, bought tickets for 156 members of the Pendleton-based Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment to see the Padres play the Florida Marlins at Petco Park, according to Capt. Sean Roach, Alpha Company's commander.

"These folks have gone way above and beyond for us," Roach said of the St. John's parishioners. "They really made the difference."

Doug MacIvor, 48, a member of the governing board of St. John's, said the congregation's support of the Marines started with personal connections in his family, and soon became personal for all 120 parishioners.

MacIvor's son, Lance Cpl. William MacIvor, is a member of the unit, which was sent to the Persian Gulf and Iraq in June 2004 and returned in late February.

And MacIvor's father, Douglas, was a Marine officer who fought the Japanese in the Pacific during World War II.

MacIvor said his son's deployment to Iraq and his father's stories of deprivation and homesickness during World War II drove him to get his fellow parishioners involved.

"My Dad had told me what it was like in the Pacific in World War II, how much it meant to get something from somebody," he said.

"I told them my ideas, and they all thought it was a really good idea," MacIvor said of the 120 members of St. John's, who began raising money last summer almost as soon as the Marines had left San Diego for the war.

After receiving generous cash donations from Marine Corps veterans who had fought during World War II, they started sending magazines, flashlights, dried fruit and other extras to the troops, the first arriving just three days after the combat ended in Najaf.

The money kept coming in as more individuals and local groups heard of the tiny church's gifts, so St. John's kept sending shipments of thousands of pounds at a time, MacIvor said.

His son wrote to say what they needed, and the community responded in kind, shipping the troops everything from gourmet cheeses and salamis to cigars and cognac.

They bought iPod digital music devices for four severely wounded Marines who were sent home from the summer's fighting. Every parish family adopted at least one Marine for Christmas, sending each a personalized gift.

"We wanted those guys to know that someone back here cared for them," he said. "There's always three or four guys who get a bunch of stuff from home, but the other 150 guys don't get anything."

Lance Cpl. Michael Ayup, a 21-year-old member of Alpha Company, said he was "totally surprised" by the generosity of strangers.

"I got a Raider's hat and T-shirt," he said.

The unit's nickname, which dates to World War II, is "The Raiders," so many received memorabilia of the Oakland Raiders professional football team, he said.

In the monthlong fighting in Najaf in August, two of the Alpha "Raiders" were killed and about 30 were wounded, including Lance Cpl. MacIvor, Roach said.

"It's a tight unit," he said, adding that the Christmas gifts had really lifted morale.

"You had guys cryin' that day," he said. "It was really somethin'."

MacIvor said that since the church had almost $3,000 from donations left over after the Marines returned to Camp Pendleton in February, he called to ask the Marines how they wanted to spend it.

"They wanted to go to a ball game," he said. "That's great. The whole idea was to let them know that we cared and how much what they were doing meant to all of us,"

He said the whole project, from deployment to homecoming, did as much for the spirit of the St. John's community as it probably did for the Marines.

"It just goes to show what a small group of people can do if they really want to."

Contact staff writer Darrin Mortenson at (760) 740-5442 or dmortenson@nctimes.com.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-14-05, 04:58 AM
Marines sweep through towns in search of insurgents


By Solomon Moore / Los Angeles Times

RIBAT, Iraq -- After he served the Marines tea and sat them in his garden, the former Iraqi government official pulled up his shirt to show his scars.

There were small circular burns on his legs. There were brown welts on his back where he was flogged. He pulled up his upper lip to reveal broken teeth. He held out his hands and displayed red lines where handcuffs cut into his skin during his eight days of captivity.

"The terrorists frighten and hurt the people here. They do checkpoints and patrols. Anyone they catch going to Qaim they will kill with a knife and throw him by the road," said the former official, who asked a reporter embedded with the Marines to not publish his name for fear that insurgents will kill him and his family.

"Frankly, I don't like the American occupation," he said. "But I prefer the American occupation to occupation by al-Qaida."

A mission of more than 1,000 Marines, one of the larger deployment since the battle of Fallujah last November, has this week been pressing through villages along the Euphrates River seeking insurgent strongholds.

Since initial sharp fighting Sunday, the Marines have found few insurgents. But they have found plenty of people complaining about the guerrillas.

The Marines project a fearsome presence when they come into a town: convoys led by rumbling tanks, followed by armored amphibious vehicles bristling with guns. The Marines fan out, hustle people out of their homes with stern commands and set off a series of "controlled explosions," detonations of suspicious cars, possible landmines and improvised bombs.

But nearly everyday, a reporter traveling with the Marines has witnessed Iraqis providing Americans with information about foreign insurgents, who appear to play a more prominent role out here near the border. The fighters have been coming to their towns in greater numbers since U.S.-led forces seized Fallujah.

Residents say that the insurgents threaten, beat and sometimes kill those who do not cooperate with them. They say that the insurgents commandeer their homes and cars, prevent them from seeking jobs with the Iraqi security forces and endanger their towns by launching attacks against Americans from their back yards.

They acknowledge, however, that they have no love of the U.S. occupation and fear that speaking to the Marines could bring the insurgents' wrath upon them after the Marines leave.

"We must go inside," said one man to Marines, who were questioning him in the street. "It is not safe to speak here."

As the Marines have swept through villages in the Ramana district of western Al-Anbar province, a wild region of smugglers, criminal tribes and al-Qaida safe houses, they have relied on locals to tell them where mines have been planted and where insurgents might be hiding. From time to time, townspeople have even named insurgents and their collaborators.

"We haven't killed as many insurgents as we wanted to," said Maj. Kei Braun, executive officer of Lima Company of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment, one of the units at the leading edge of the sweep. "But we also haven't killed any civilians; there hasn't been much collateral damage. So I think we've made friends here. We're probably winning some hearts and minds."

(Begin optional trim)

Marines can, however, be a gruff bunch during a sweep, and it was evident traveling with Lima Company that some residents resent the imposition of so many troops coming through their homes.

On Friday, for example, Marines systematically went into houses, toppled high stacks of blankets and pillows and trampled over garden plots to question residents. With their helmets, impact-resistant sunglasses, flak jackets and guns, Marines walking through residents' bedrooms were an imposing presence.

(End optional trim)

As Marines with Lima Company walked into a home in Ribat on Friday, the father of the house suddenly walked behind them to be their guide.

Sgt. Guy Zierk turned around and violently pushed the man out of the house. The Iraqi smiled nervously as he retreated. Another Marine gave him a backhanded slap to his face as he rushed past.

"He could've been wearing a suicide vest!" the Marine said.

As the Marines left the man's home, he glared at them while puffing a cigarette from across the street.

Marines also commandeer homes, temporarily casting out families in a matter of minutes if they deem a house to be a secure location from which to plan their next moves.

"These children belong to your brother?" Zierk asked a man standing in a garden. The man's wife and three children sat on the front step. A puppy chained to a pole yipped away at the Marines. The man said he was the uncle of the children on the step.

"You, your brother's children, go. Now!" the sergeant commanded.

The family took the dog as well.

Whatever inconveniences the Americans brought with them, however, the man, a former government official, seemed glad to see them. He invited the Marines back to his home, afraid that malicious eyes might be watching, and told them about how foreign insurgents had held his town hostage for a year, and then fled to Syria four days ago.

"They tried to harm me because I worked for the government," the man said. "They held me for eight days until my tribe forced them to let me go. They said that if you kill me, my tribe would kill four of al-Qaida.."

The man described to the Marines how the U.S. mandate in Iraq limiting each household to one firearm and a small amount of ammunition had hindered his town's ability to defend itself. He also said that Iraq's porous borders were endangering his town.

"If Americans or Iraqis close the border, the terrorists would not be able to come back," he said. "But if you leave town tomorrow, they will be back, and they will kill anyone who has helped the Americans."

Someone asked why he then chose to speak so freely to the Marines about the insurgents who had been living in his town.

"Because they are bad guys," the man said matter-of-factly. "Ask anyone here. These four days when the terrorists have gone have been so different from when the Americans came."


Ellie

thedrifter
05-14-05, 05:00 AM
First the Insurgents, Then Marines
Villagers in west Iraq are glad troops swept out rebels. But they're also wary of the U.S.
By Solomon Moore
Times Staff Writer

May 14, 2005

RIBAT, Iraq — After he served the Marines tea and sat them in his garden, the former Iraqi government official pulled up his shirt and showed his scars.

There were brown welts on his back where he had been flogged. There were small circular burns on his legs. He lifted his upper lip and revealed broken teeth. He held out his hands and displayed red lines where handcuffs had cut into his skin during eight days of captivity.

"The terrorists frighten and hurt the people here. They do checkpoints and patrols. Anyone they catch going to Al Qaim they will kill with a knife and throw him by the road," said the former official, who asked a Los Angeles Times reporter traveling with the Marines not to publish his name for fear that insurgents would kill him and his family.

"Frankly, I don't like the American occupation," he said. "But I prefer the American occupation to occupation by Al Qaeda."

A mission of more than 1,000 Marines, one of the larger deployments since the battle of Fallouja in November, has pressed this week through villages along the Euphrates River near the border with Syria looking for insurgent strongholds.

The Marines launched the campaign Sunday and were immediately engaged in sharp fighting. They have come across few insurgents since, but they have found plenty of people who complain about the guerrillas.

The Marines project a fearsome presence when they come into a town: convoys led by rumbling tanks, followed by armored amphibious vehicles bristling with guns. The Marines fan out, hustle people from their homes with stern commands and set off "controlled explosions" — detonations of suspicious cars, possible land mines and improvised bombs.

Nearly every day, the Iraqis provide the Marines with information about foreign insurgents, who appear to play a prominent role in this part of western Iraq. The fighters have been pouring into the towns in greater numbers since U.S.-led forces seized Fallouja, which had been the capital of the insurgency.

Residents say insurgents threaten, beat and sometimes kill those who do not cooperate with them. They say the rebels take over their homes and cars, prevent them from seeking jobs with the Iraqi security forces, and endanger their towns by launching attacks against Americans from their backyards.

The residents say they do not like the U.S. occupation, and worry that speaking to Marines could bring the insurgents' wrath after the troops leave.

"We must go inside," one man told Marines who were questioning him in the street. "It is not safe to speak here."

Others struggle to communicate with the troops, who often lack interpreters. On Friday, an old man spoke animatedly to a frustrated Marine for nearly 15 minutes, at one point sketching what appeared to be a picture of the Syrian border in the dusty ground outside his home.

"I guess he's trying to say that they all went to Syria," the Marine said.

As the Marines have swept through villages in the Ramana area of western Al Anbar province, a region of smugglers, criminal tribes and Al Qaeda safe houses, they have relied on locals to tell them where mines have been planted and where insurgents might be hiding. Villagers have even named insurgents and their collaborators.

"We haven't killed as many insurgents as we wanted to," said Maj. Kei Braun, executive officer of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment, one of the units leading the campaign. "But we also haven't killed any civilians. There hasn't been much collateral damage. So I think we've made friends here. We're probably winning some hearts and minds."

But Marines can be a gruff bunch during a sweep, and it was evident traveling with Lima Company that some residents resented that troops had trampled through their homes.

On Friday, Marines systematically went into houses, toppled stacks of blankets and pillows, and walked through garden plots to question residents. With their helmets, sunglasses, flak jackets and guns, they were an imposing presence.

On Wednesday, Lt. Joseph Clemmey, 26, of Worcester, Mass., commander of 3rd Platoon, Kilo Company, ordered a group of about 20 detained women to unveil their faces so he could make sure there were no male insurgents trying to hide among them. The women grumbled, and some refused.

"Tell them that they have no choice," Clemmey told his interpreter. "If they don't do it themselves, then we'll have to force them."

As Marines with Lima Company walked into a home in Ribat on Friday, the father of the house walked behind them to be their guide.

Sgt. Guy Zierk turned and violently pushed the man out of the house. The Iraqi smiled nervously as he retreated. Another Marine gave him a backhanded slap to the face as he rushed past.

"He could've been wearing a suicide vest," a Marine said.

As the troops left, the man glared at them while puffing a cigarette across the street.

Marines also take over homes, temporarily casting out families in minutes if they think a house is a secure location to plan their next move.

"These children belong to your brother?" Zierk asked a man standing in a garden. A woman and three children sat on the home's front step. A puppy chained to a pole yipped at the Marines. The man said he was an uncle of the children.

"You, your brother's children, go. Now!" the sergeant commanded.

The family took the dog too.

Whatever inconveniences the Marines had brought, the former Iraqi government official seemed glad to see them. He invited them to his home, afraid that malicious eyes might be watching, and told them that foreign fighters had held his town hostage for a year. The insurgents fled to Syria four days ago.

"They tried to harm me because I worked for the government," the man said. "They held me for eight days until my tribe forced them to let me go. They said that if you kill me, my tribe would kill four of Al Qaeda."

The man told the Marines that the U.S. mandate limiting each Iraqi household to one firearm and a small amount of ammunition had hindered the town's ability to defend itself. He also said Iraq's porous borders were endangering residents.

"If Americans or Iraqis close the border, the terrorists would not be able to come back," he said. "But if you leave town tomorrow, they will be back, and they will kill anyone who has helped the Americans."

Why then did he choose to speak to Marines about the insurgents who had controlled his town?

"Because they are bad guys," the man said. "Ask anyone here. These four days when the terrorists have gone have been so different from when the Americans came."

Ellie

thedrifter
05-14-05, 05:50 AM
Operation Matador Enters Seventh Day
Saturday, May 14, 2005

OBEIDI, Iraq — Large numbers of U.S. forces supported by helicopters gathered outside this Euphrates River (search) village Saturday, pushing ahead with their region-wide operation to wipe out supporters of Iraq's most wanted militant.

Also on Saturday, the U.S. military announced that four U.S. Marines were killed in fighting in western Iraq, taking the number of U.S. personnel killed during a weeklong operation against insurgents to nine.

The four were killed Wednesday when their troop transporter was struck by a bomb near Karabilah, a village close to the Syrian border, during Operation Matador, the Marines said in a statement.

In the current fighting, frightened residents retreated indoors as a large convoy of mainly Marines, backed by tanks redeployed several miles from Rommana to Obeidi, on the northern bank.

The military had no immediate comment on the Obeidi operation, but it appeared to signal a new phase in the high-profile offensive.

Operation Matador (search) was launched last Saturday in several villages close to the Syrian border known as major routes for foreign fighters entering Iraq to battle coalition forces.

Residents said U.S. troops blocked the main road linking Obeidi with safer areas to the east outside the field of operations.

"There is fear among the residents of Obeidi, but we don't think it (the village) has any military importance. There are no fighters in the village," said one resident, 35-year-old Khalaf Ali.

The campaign, the largest since insurgents were forced from Fallujah six months ago, has killed more than 100 suspected foreign fighters allied with Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (search), the military has said. Scores have also been captured.

Al-Zarqawi, a Sunni Muslim terror mastermind, has claimed responsibility for scores of bombings, assassinations and kidnappings in a bid to derail the U.S.-backed, Shiite-led government.

The offensive came amid a surge of militant attacks that have killed at least 430 people across Iraq since the government was announced April 28.

Violence continued Saturday with three Iraqi street cleaners killed when a roadside bomb exploded apparently prematurely in Dora, a southern Baghdad neighborhood, said Dr. Zaid Adil of Yarmouk Hospital.

A homicide bomber detonated his vehicle near an Iraqi police patrol in central Baqouba (search), north of the capital, wounding three policemen and a civilian, said police Col. Mudhafar Muhammed.

At least nine more Iraqis were killed Friday in a series of bombings, ambushes and other attacks.

Also Friday, an American soldier was killed and four others wounded when a car bomb exploded in Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad (search), the military said in a statement.

Obeidi is in Iraq's violent Anbar province, where Iraqi fighters with machine guns and grenade launchers have been setting up checkpoints in recent days, apparently in preparation to do battle.

But in Obeidi, the streets were virtually empty Saturday as residents bolted doors, remained inside and waited for a possible U.S. offensive.

Overnight, U.S. warplanes streaked noisily overhead and several loud explosions were heard in various locations throughout the region, but the source of the blasts was not immediately clear.

This remote desert region is a haven for foreign combatants who slip across the border along ancient smuggling routes and collect weapons to use in some of Iraq's deadliest attacks, according to the military.

At least 1,613 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

New interim prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, extended Iraq's state of emergency for another 30 days Friday throughout Iraq, except the northern Kurdish-run areas.

The state of emergency, renewed monthly since being first imposed Nov. 7 — hours before the Fallujah offensive, includes a nighttime curfew and gives security forces powers of arrest without warrants.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-14-05, 07:34 AM
Mother organizes writers' brigade for Marines
By Linda McIntosh
UNION-TRIBUNE COMMUNITY NEWS WRITER
May 14, 2005

CAMP PENDLETON - Paulette Benz cried the first weekend her son went to Iraq. Then she decided to do something about it.

Benz and her husband wrote letters every day to their son, Terry Wagner II, 27, a Navy corpsman in the 1st Medical Battalion of the 1st Force Service Support Group based at Camp Pendleton.

They asked friends and family around the country to do the same.

Wagner got letters from Ohio, Hawaii and Oklahoma.

"It helped me stay sane," said Benz, 56.

Then their son told them that some of his buddies weren't getting mail.

Benz didn't like that. She sent letters to anyone she heard wasn't getting mail, and it snowballed.

"I wouldn't feel good if someone didn't get taken care of," she said.

That's what prompted Benz to start sending more than 100 handmade postcards each month to her son's unit and another unit stationed in Iraq.

Benz organized a writers' brigade on Tuesday afternoons and invited friends and neighbors, many from a nearby senior community, to sit down and write to Marines and sailors.

She made the postcards herself. Some showed pictures of the women from the writers' brigade, and others were patriotic shots.

One picture showed a preschool window filled with handprints and a message of support for the troops.

"I wanted them to see that lots of people were supporting them," Benz said.

When she mailed a pile of cards and care packages at the post office, people asked what she was doing and joined the cause.

"I've had a lot of help from the community donating items to send," Benz said.

The troops got the message.

"They wrote and said it really helped to know people cared," she said.

Benz was named Camp Pendleton Unit Volunteer of the Year for 2005 during a volunteer recognition ceremony last month on base.

"I was so surprised. I'm just a mom, and I don't even live on base," said Benz, who lives in Encinitas.

But she mobilized dozens of volunteers, including area schoolchildren, to write cards and donate to care packages.

The effort grew out of Benz's work as a Key Volunteer, passing along information from two unit commands and the 60 or so families connected with the units.

"She did a fantastic job boosting morale," said Lt. Cmdr. Martha Cutshall.

Now that Benz's son is back, she says she won't stop writing to troops.

"I can't not do this," Benz said. "My heart is with them."

For information about volunteer opportunities, call Carmen Carlisle, volunteer program manager at Camp Pendleton, at (760) 725-3856.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-14-05, 09:39 AM
Marines Killed in Iraq Insurgent Search
Saturday, May 14, 2005 9:05 AM CDT

By MOHAMMED BARAKAT
OBEIDI, Iraq - Large numbers of U.S. forces supported by helicopters gathered outside this Euphrates River village Saturday, pushing ahead with their region-wide operation to wipe out supporters of Iraq's most wanted militant. The military said four more Marines were killed.

Frightened residents retreated indoors as a large convoy of mainly Marines, backed by tanks redeployed several miles from Rommana to Obeidi, on the northern bank.



Shelling began several hours later, damaging a house in the old part of this village and wounding five people, said Obeidi hospital doctor Saadallah Anad. He said he did not know if U.S. weapons fire hit the house but said helicopters were hovering over the area.

"We are living in a catastrophic situation. We don't have medicines or equipment and we are worried that when our ambulances go out the Americans could strike at them," he said.

The U.S. military said the four Marines were killed when their troop transporter was struck by a bomb near Karabilah, a village near Obeidi and close to the Syrian border. Their deaths brought to nine the number of U.S. casualties in the week-old campaign.

Marine commanders estimated that more than 100 insurgents and foreign fighters have been killed in the campaign, aimed at allies of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The Jordanian-born militant has claimed responsibility for scores of bombings, ambushes and kidnappings.

The military had no immediate comment on the Obeidi operation, but it appeared to signal a new phase in the high-profile offensive.

Operation Matador was launched last Saturday in several villages close to the Syrian border known as major routes for foreign fighters entering Iraq to battle coalition forces. Residents said U.S. troops blocked the main road linking Obeidi with safer areas to the east outside the field of operations.

"There is fear among the residents of Obeidi, but we don't think it (the village) has any military importance. There are no fighters in the village," said one resident, 35-year-old Khalaf Ali.

The campaign, the largest since insurgents were forced from Fallujah six months ago, has killed more than 100 suspected foreign fighters allied with Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the military has said. Scores have also been captured.

Al-Zarqawi, a Sunni Muslim terror mastermind, has claimed responsibility for scores of bombings, assassinations and kidnappings in a bid to derail the U.S.-backed, Shiite-led government.

The offensive came amid a surge of militant attacks that have killed at least 430 people across Iraq since the government was announced April 28.

Violence continued Saturday with three Iraqi street cleaners killed when a roadside bomb exploded apparently prematurely in Dora, a southern Baghdad neighborhood, said Dr. Zaid Adil of Yarmouk Hospital.

A suicide bomber detonated his vehicle near an Iraqi police patrol in central Baqouba, north of the capital, wounding three policemen and a civilian, said police Col. Mudhafar Muhammed.

A similar car bomb attack in central Baghdad on Saturday killed at least four Iraqis and injured 11, police said at the scene. The blast outside the former Ministry of Education destroyed cars and set fire to a minibus.

In the northern city of Mosul a roadside bomb killed a 10-year-old boy and wounded two Iraqi soldiers and a policeman on patrol, police Col. Wathiq Mohammed said.

At least nine more Iraqis were killed Friday in a series of bombings, ambushes and other attacks. Also Friday, an American soldier was killed and four others wounded when a car bomb exploded in Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, the military said in a statement.

Obeidi is in Iraq's violent Anbar province, where Iraqi fighters with machine guns and grenade launchers have been setting up checkpoints in recent days, apparently in preparation to do battle. But here the streets were virtually empty Saturday as residents bolted doors, remained inside and waited for a possible U.S. offensive.

Overnight, U.S. warplanes streaked noisily overhead and several loud explosions were heard in various locations throughout the region.

U.S. military spokesman Capt. Jeffrey Pool said Marines are conducting a "cordon and search" operation in Obeidi "looking for insurgents, foreign fighters, weapons and IED making material." He said there were no airstrikes in Obeidi Saturday.

This remote desert region is a haven for foreign combatants who slip across the border along ancient smuggling routes and collect weapons to use in some of Iraq's deadliest attacks, according to the military.

The U.S. military has confirmed five Marine deaths so far and says about 100 insurgents have been killed in the operation.

But a Washington Post reporter embedded with U.S. forces put the American death toll Thursday at seven _ six of them from one squad.

At least 1,613 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

A service of the Associated Press(AP)


Ellie

thedrifter
05-14-05, 10:01 AM
The President's Radio Address
May 14, 2005


May 14, 2005 10:45 am US/Eastern
WASHINGTON (CBS) The following is text of the President's radio address to the nation, May 14, 2005.

Good morning. I'm pleased to report that we see new signs that the pro-growth policies we have pursued during the past four years are having a positive effect on our economy. We added 274,000 new jobs in April -- and we have added nearly 3.5 million jobs over the past two years. Unemployment is down to 5.2 percent, below the average rate of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. We have seen steady job gains during each of the past 23 months, and today more Americans are working than at any time in our history.

There are other good reasons for optimism. The economy grew at a solid rate of 3.6 percent over the past four quarters, and economists expect strong growth for the rest of 2005. Manufacturing activity is enjoying its longest period of growth in 16 years. Inflation and mortgage rates remain low -- and we have more homeowners in America than ever before.

These positive signs are a tribute to the effort and enterprise of America's workers and entrepreneurs. But we have more to do. So next week, I will focus on three priorities that will strengthen the long-term economic security of our nation.

On Monday, I will travel to West Point, Virginia, to highlight the benefits of biodiesel, an alternative fuel that will help our country achieve greater energy independence. We'll also discuss our need for a comprehensive national energy strategy that reduces our dependence on foreign oil. This strategy will encourage more efficient technologies, make the most of our existing resources, help global energy consumers like China and India reduce their own use of hydrocarbons, encourage conservation, and develop promising new sources of energy such as hydrogen, ethanol and biodiesel.

I applaud the House for passing an energy bill that is largely consistent with these goals. Now the Senate must act. Congress needs to get a good energy bill to my desk by the August recess so I can sign it into law.

On Tuesday I will welcome our newest United States Trade Representative, former Congressman Rob Portman. Ambassador Portman understands that expanding trade is vital for American workers and consumers. He will make sure we vigorously enforce the trade laws on the books, while also working to continue opening foreign markets to American crops and products. The Central America Free Trade Agreement would help us achieve these goals. This agreement would help the new democracies in our hemisphere deliver better jobs and higher labor standards to their workers, and it would create a more level playing field for American goods and services. Congress needs to pass this important legislation.

Finally, on Thursday, I will travel to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to discuss with young people the importance of acting now to strengthen Social Security. The Social Security safety net has a hole in it for younger workers. For the sake of our children and grandchildren, we need to make Social Security permanently solvent. And we need to make the system a better deal for younger workers, by allowing them to put some of their payroll taxes, if they so choose, into a voluntary personal retirement account. Because this money will be saved and invested, workers will have the opportunity to earn a higher rate of return on their money than anything the current Social Security system can now give them.

The American economy is the envy of the world. For the sake of our nation's hardworking families, we must work together to achieve long-term economic security, so that we can continue to spread prosperity and hope throughout America and the world.

Thank you for listening.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-14-05, 02:06 PM
Marines join ranks to help wounded comrade <br />
<br />
By James Lomuscio <br />
Special Correspondent <br />
<br />
Published May 14 2005 <br />
<br />
<br />
STAMFORD -- The dozens of Marines who assembled at The Thirsty Turtle last night...

thedrifter
05-14-05, 02:08 PM
Combat Water Course looking for a few good swimmers
Submitted by: MCB Quantico
Story Identification #: 2005512112633
Story by Cpl. Justin P. Lago



MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. (May 12, 2005) -- The Marine Combat Instructors of Water Survival are looking for a few Marines to help with the overall instruction of students who will attend the MCIWS courses at The Basic School’s Rammer Hall. The course trains eligible Marines to become Combat Water Safety swimmers to aid in the safety of the students.

The Combat Water Safety swimmers’ responsibilities are to assist MCIWS trainers during a course of instruction and serve as safety swimmers for pool and other aquatic training. A CWSS candidate should possess good communication skills and be able to work in a potentially stressful environment.

The CWSS course packs training into a seven-day cycle. During the first day, instructors at the school will screen the Marines to ensure they are physically capable of completing the training, and will certify them in cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Students are taken to a beach shoreline area and taught waterfront life saving techniques which include spinal board securing, where students learn how to properly secure and transport an injured person on a rescue board. Students are also taught gear waterproofing methods and learn different styles of swimming strokes.

“Throughout the course, the students will be trained in basic lifeguarding skills, as well as the skills required to become a Combat Water Safety swimmer,” said Sgt Joao Z. Araujo, Marine Combat Instructor Trainer of Water Survival, or MCITWS. “The students will also receive American Red Cross Life Guarding and Standard First Aid training.”

At the end of the course, they are given a practical application test on their rescue skills as well as a written test on the CWSS and their duties.

“It is definitely a physically demanding course,” said Sgt. Eric R. Bellard, TBS enlisted instructor and former CWSS student. “You are definitely pushed beyond that mental and physical barrier. Beyond all the knowledge you learn in the course, you learn how to push past that break point. The course had outstanding instructors and it was a great course.”

“The CWSS course is a challenging school even for the best of swimmers. Students will swim around 15 miles in seven days,” said Sgt. Zachary J. Hulet, MCITWS.

Class enrollment must be complete by June 2 for the course prescreening and there is a limited amount of class space available, according to Sgt. Scott R. Rocco, MCIWS. The course is scheduled for June 2-10. For more information about CWSS or to enroll in the CWSS course, contact Sgt. Joao Z. Araujo or Sgt. Zachary J. Hulet, (703) 784-5617/5304.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-14-05, 03:06 PM
U.S. Calls Iraq Border Operation a Success

By MOHAMMED BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer
44 minutes ago



OBEIDI, Iraq - The U.S. military pronounced its weeklong offensive near the Syrian border over Saturday, saying it had successfully "neutralized" an insurgent sanctuary and killed more than 125 militants.

During the weeklong operation, many more suspected insurgents were injured and 39 with "intelligence value" were captured, the military said in a statement. It provided no details about the detainees.

Nine U.S. Marines were killed and 40 injured during the campaign known as Operation Matador, during which American forces searched the Euphrates River villages of Karabilah, Rommana and Obeidi for followers of Iraq's most-wanted militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The pronouncement came hours after U.S. forces had encircled the Euphrates River village of Obeidi, causing frightened residents to flee indoors as American helicopters hovered overhead and military vehicles briefly rumbled through Obeidi's old quarter, meeting no resistance.

Insurgents, meanwhile, staged a series of attacks elsewhere in Iraq, killing at least 10 people, including a top Iraqi Foreign Ministry official who was assassinated in a drive-by shooting as he stood outside his Baghdad home.

U.S. air strikes also destroyed two unoccupied buildings near Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, on Saturday that the military identified as an insurgent command center.

Marines based in the area said the targeted buildings were about 20 miles northwest of Fallujah, the scene of a large scale November campaign west of Baghdad to rout militants responsible for multiple attacks. No casualties were immediately reported.

More than 1,000 Marines, soldiers and sailors participated in Operation Matador, which began late Saturday in Qaim, a border town of 50,000 people about 200 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Marines met resistance soon after from heavily armed insurgents — some in body armor — in the nearby village of Obeidi, home to 10,000 people, the statement said. Some 70 insurgents were killed in the first 24 hours alone, the military said.

Thousands have fled the area, pitching tents along sandblown desert highways or seeking shelter in schools and mosques in nearby towns.

The remote desert region, an ancient smuggling route and insurgent hideout, had been used as a staging area where fighters who slipped over the border from Syria received weapons and equipment for deadly attacks in Iraq's major cities, according to the military statement.

"During the seven-day operation, Marines disrupted the known infiltration routes through the region and disrupted sanctuaries and staging areas," the military said. It said U.S. and Iraqi forces would return in the future.

Marines searching small towns near the Syrian border discovered numerous weapons caches containing machine guns, mortar rounds and rockets. Six car bombs and material for making other explosive devices also were found, the statement said.

The military said the operation confirmed previous intelligence about the region north of the Euphrates River, including the existence of "cave complexes" in the nearby escarpment. It did not elaborate.

The military denied resident reports they had been without water and electricity in some areas since the offensive began.

"Throughout the course of the operation, Marines strove to ensure the well-being of the local Iraqi citizens," the statement said. "The Marines were greeted with greater hospitality from local villagers than is normally encountered."

In Obeidi, scene of some of the fiercest fighting in the campaign's first days, residents retreated indoors as a large convoy of mainly Marines, backed by tanks and helicopters, rolled across the river from Rommana.

Shelling began several hours later, damaging a house in the old part of the village and wounding five people, said Dr. Saadallah Anad at Obeidi General Hospital.

Anad said he did not know if U.S. weapons fire hit the house but helicopters were hovering over the area.

"We are living in a catastrophic situation. We don't have medicines or equipment, and we are worried that when our ambulances go out the Americans could strike at them," he said.

Marines launched a "cordon and search" operation in Obeidi, looking for insurgents, foreign fighters, weapons and bomb-making material, U.S. military spokesman Capt. Jeffrey Pool said. But he denied Obeidi was hit by air or artillery strikes Saturday.

Rival insurgent groups are fighting among themselves in the nearby town of Qaim, trading mortar, rocket and machine gun fire almost nightly, Pool said. Residents acknowledged fighting in Qaim began before the U.S. offensive, characterizing it as tribal clashes.

While armed fighters control Qaim's streets, Obeidi residents said they have seen no more gunmen in their village, where the U.S. military says it killed more than 50 insurgents the first night of the campaign, the largest since insurgents were forced from Fallujah six months ago.

The operation was aimed at allies of al-Zarqawi, whose terror network has claimed responsibility for scores of bombings, ambushes and kidnappings in Iraq.

Also Saturday, Iraqi soldiers backed by U.S. forces captured 52 men suspected of insurgent activities in a raid in Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Haider al-Tamimi told Associated Press Television News.

Iraqi soldiers also raided the Sunni Muslim Sheik Nasar Mosque after midday prayers in central Baghdad, arresting eight members of a suspected militant cell, including their leader, known as Abu Huthaifa, said police Lt. Col. Foad Asaad.

Weapons and ammunition were confiscated during the arrests of the eight men, who police said were wanted in connection with multiple attacks and assassinations.

The push around Obeidi came a day after Marine warplanes launched air strikes that killed 12 insurgents manning a checkpoint east of Husaybah and targeted a suspected terrorist safe house in Karabilah, also near Obeidi and the Syrian border.

The four Marines were killed Wednesday when a bomb struck their troop transporter near Karabilah, a Marine statement said. The U.S. military announced previously that two other Marines had died and 14 were wounded in the same attack.

At least 1,620 U.S. military members have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The offensive came amid a surge of militant attacks that have killed at least 440 people across Iraq since Iraq's first democratically elected government was announced April 28.

Jassim Mohammed Ghani, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry's director-general, was killed at about Saturday evening in western Baghdad's al-Kharijiyah district, Capt. Talib Thamer said. Three bystanders were also wounded.

Insurgents have routinely targeted Iraqi government officials in a relentless campaign to derail the country's postwar reconstruction efforts.

A car bomb also targeted a police patrol in central Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least five Iraqis and injuring 12, most civilians, police said. The afternoon blast destroyed cars and set fire to a minibus. Shards of glass and pieces of flesh were strewn in the bloodstained street.

Earlier Saturday, a roadside bomb exploded — apparently prematurely — in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, killing three Iraqi street cleaners and injuring four, police and hospital officials said.

In Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, a roadside bomb exploded when a joint army and police patrol passed by, killing a 10-year-old boy and wounding two Iraqi soldiers and a policeman, police Col. Wathiq Mohammed said. A car bomb in the same city injured three policemen, he said.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-14-05, 04:00 PM
Commandant's vision focuses on Marines, extends Corps' capabilities for future conflicts <br />
<br />
by Staff Sgt. Cindy Fisher <br />
Headquarters Marine Corps <br />
<br />
<br />
HEADQUARTERS MARINE CORPS, Washington -- The...

thedrifter
05-14-05, 04:10 PM
Marines' Families Await Word From Iraq

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Families of some Ohio Marines waited anxiously Saturday for word of whether their loved ones were injured during a major U.S. offensive in Iraq that has claimed the lives of four members of a reserve unit.

The families of those in the Columbus-based Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment were meeting Saturday with a grief counseling team, hoping to find out who was injured during Operation Matador near Karabilah, a village close to the Syrian border.

"There is a lot of uncertainty for the families," said Navy Cmdr. Roosevelt Brown, the chaplain who leads the stress-management team.

Three members of Lima Company were killed Wednesday when an explosive detonated near their armored transport vehicle, Marine Reserves spokesman Capt. Patrick Kerr said Saturday. Another member of Lima Company was killed last Sunday.

Others from the company were injured, but Kerr would not say how many. The military said a total of 40 Marines were hurt during the campaign.

Kerr would not confirm a report last week by The Washington Post, which has a reporter embedded with Operation Matador, that six members of the company were killed and another 15 injured.

Isolde Zierk, whose son is a part of Lima Company, leads a volunteer group in Columbus that supports Marine families. Even as she tries to comfort the grieving and anxious families, she is fighting an inner struggle herself.

"I need to be strong so I don't fall apart," she said, her voice breaking. Lima Company has about 160 members, and most of their families have not heard from them because they are still fighting.

Zierk said she has spoken to more than 100 family members, telling them to not jump to conclusions. At the same time, she has to remind herself.

"Once people express their fears and anxieties, they calm down," she said. "We talk. That's all. And as long as I can do that with them, then I've done something worthwhile."

Ellie

thedrifter
05-15-05, 05:31 AM
Marines end push against insurgents in Iraq

By Ellen Knickmeyer and Caryle Murphy

The Washington Post

OBEIDI, Iraq — U.S. Marines rumbled back across the Euphrates River on a floating bridge yesterday, ending a weeklong offensive against foreign fighters that had taken U.S. forces within two miles of the Syrian border.

Marines said the sweep north of the Euphrates was a success. Involving more than 1,000 Marines, it was the largest sustained U.S. offensive since the assault on Fallujah six months ago.

"The mission was to put on the pressure and show they did not have a safe haven from us. They ran from us," Lt. Col. Tim Mundy of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, said on the riverbank as Army engineers broke down the linked rafts that the Marines and their armored vehicles had traversed going to and from the campaign.

The operation had targeted foreign insurgents, particularly followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the reputed al-Qaida leader blamed for many of the suicide bombings in Iraq. The hunt took Marines to a part of northwestern Iraq where neither Iraq's new government nor its security forces have a foothold, and where U.S. forces have not ventured in large numbers for a year.

The offensive came at a cost of at least nine Marines killed and about 40 wounded, Marines said.

The U.S. military said the operation had killed more than 125 foreign and Iraqi insurgents, most of whom died in a battle that broke out at Obeidi last Sunday as Marines were massing for the river crossing. In addition, 39 "terrorists of intelligence value" were detained, the military said yesterday.

But less than 24 hours earlier, fighters armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades swaggered through Qaim, the desert town where the campaign began.

Al-Arabiya television showed footage of a small demonstration in Qaim, where people were demanding the release of a 57-year-old woman reportedly detained by the Marines. Wafiq Samarrai, security adviser for Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, told al-Arabiya that "some sheiks contacted us and said the U.S. Marines have detained women in the city of Qaim. We called the multinational forces, and they denied this news."

In central Baghdad yesterday, a suicide car bomber targeted a police patrol, killing three Iraqis and wounding more than 35. The 1:30 p.m. bombing on Nidhal Street sent thick plumes of black smoke into the air.

In a second attack, insurgents hurled grenades at a police convoy in western Baghdad and killed one policeman.

Meanwhile, drive-by gunmen killed Jassim Mohammed Ghani, identified by police as a senior Foreign Ministry official, outside his Baghdad home at around 9 last night.

But Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said no one by that name held a senior post in the ministry. Zebari added that the slain man may have worked at the Foreign Ministry at a lower level or been a former employee.

The governor of the province of Diyala survived one of two bombings in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghad, early today that a hospital official said killed four people and injured 37. The two explosions detonated about five minutes apart in a busy street as people were heading to work.

The first targeted the convoy of Diyala governor Raed Rashid Hamid al-Mullah Jawad, who escaped unharmed, said police Col. Mudhafar Muhammed. A second bomb exploded minutes later about 500 yards away, rocking a crowded Baqouba area where the city's police, army, court and taxation headquarters are sited.

Insurgents have targeted Iraqi government officials in an attempt to sabotage postwar reconstruction efforts. The offensive in western Iraq came during a surge of insurgent attacks that have killed at least 430 people across Iraq since Iraq's National Assembly approved a new transitional government on April 28.

The operation employed coordinated attacks by ground and air forces, with AH-1 Cobra helicopter gunships and AV-8 Harrier and F/A-18 Hornet jets backing Marines as they swept through towns and combed caves. Col. Stephen Davis, commander of Marine Regimental Combat Team 2, called the air campaign one of the successes of the offensive.

But the weeklong village-to-village push along the river's north bank turned up few of the foreign fighters estimated by Marines to number in the hundreds. The foreign fighters apparently had been in the northern Euphrates towns as recently as two to three days before the Americans arrived, said Maj. Steve Lawson of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, another ground commander in the attack.

Commanders said they believed some of the insurgents had slipped away to the east and to Husaybah, a lawless city on the Syrian border where foreign and local insurgents are thought to be battling among themselves for control.

The U.S. military in Iraq lacks the manpower to challenge the insurgent hold on Husaybah now, Mundy and other commanders said, and the Americans' focus will be on stabilizing the larger western cities of Fallujah and Ramadi.

Residents of towns near the border told Marines that a large number of foreign fighters sped into Syria when the Marines temporarily removed a blocking force posted on a main route near the border.

On Friday, the hunt took Marines almost within rifle-shot range of the border. They probed caves in sheer rock cliffs, briefly looking for tunnels rumored to be used to move fighters, guns and other insurgent support across the border.

No tunnels were found, Lawson said.

Elsewhere yesterday, U.S. airstrikes destroyed two unoccupied buildings near Fallujah that the military identified as an insurgent command center, weapons storage site, detention and possible torture facility.

Meanwhile, arrest warrants were issued against Former Transport Minister Louei Hatim Sultan al-Aris and ex-Labor Minister Leila Abdul-Latif as the new government cracks down on corruption, according to officials in the office of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and his party.

Information from Reuters and The Associated Press is included in this report

Ellie

thedrifter
05-15-05, 06:00 AM
Offensive near Syrian border ends with 9 Marines, 115 Iraqi rebels dead

U.S. CLAIMS SUCCESS IN BIGGEST FIGHT OF THIS YEAR; MINISTRY OFFICIAL ASSASSINATED OUTSIDE HIS HOME

By Michael Martinez

Chicago Tribune


AL-ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq -- More than 1,000 Marines and Army soldiers near the Syrian border completed a weeklong offensive Saturday, the coalition's biggest campaign since last year's bloody Al-Fallujah battle in terms of insurgents reportedly killed, more than 115, and the number of troops deployed.

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, a top Iraqi Foreign Ministry official was assassinated in a drive-by shooting while he stood outside his home, authorities said. Police said Jassim Mohammed Ghani, the ministry's director-general, was killed late Saturday night in western Baghdad. Three bystanders were reported injured.

The Marines declared their mission to weed out foreign fighters and their arms entering Iraq through a Syrian smuggling route a success. The offensive targeted collaborators of militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who were using cave complexes in an escarpment on the north side of Euphrates River, a regional staging area for terror strikes against Baghdad and other large cities such as Ar-Ramadi, Al-Fallujah and Mosul, the military said.

However, nine Marines were killed. All were with the 2nd Marine Division's Regimental Combat Team-2, which led Operation Matador. Six died in one incident, when a mine destroyed an amphibious assault vehicle. Forty more U.S. service members were wounded during the offensive, officials said.

The border battle unfolded as more than 400 people across Iraq were killed in a new round of insurgent attacks after the formation of the country's new government April 28.

U.S. forces began the offensive last Sunday as they constructed a bridge to cross the Euphrates just outside the village of Ubaydi. There was information that insurgents had been gathering in the lush plains of Ramana on the north side of the river, and U.S. commanders assembled 1,000 soldiers to cordon off and search the banks and cave-riddled cliffs.

Suddenly anti-coalition fighters launched mortars from behind the U.S. forces, and seven days of warfare ensued. U.S. aircraft bombed suspected safe houses in riverfront towns such as Karabilah on the river's south side.

While some residents on the outskirts of Ubaydi told the Associated Press that the fighters were Iraqi tribesmen and not foreigners, U.S. officers again said Saturday that the insurgents were outsiders. Col. Stephen Davis, the mission's commander, has said the presence of foreign fighters was conclusively confirmed during the operation.

Marines also said they found fighters bearing the markings of an organized force, such as body armor, and U.S. forces also said they discovered suicide-bomb vests and six car bombs under preparation.


Ellie

thedrifter
05-15-05, 06:12 AM
Parents say troops need extra items
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Kathianne Boniello
Poughkeepsie Journal

A group of Dutchess County parents is celebrating National Military Appreciation Month by collecting goods for troops in Iraq.

Throughout May, Semper Fi Parents of Hudson Valley is asking for donations to help deployed troops.

"The weather has gotten hot over there — it's already over 100 degrees," Paula Zwillinger, head of Semper Fi Parents, said.

Zwillinger's son, U.S. Marine Pfc. Bob Mininger, 20, deployed to Iraq this year. The LaGrange mom launched Semper Fi Parents of Hudson Valley as a way to support parents of Marines.

Most items the group collects will help the troops deal with the brutally hot Iraqi summer, Zwillinger said. Seven drop-off points are set up in Dutchess and there is one in Ulster County.

Semper Fi Parents has been well-received by the public so far, Zwillinger said. The group marched at the Wappingers Falls St. Patrick's Day parade and held a fundraiser at the Poughkeepsie Galleria, among other events.

"We had a lot of overwhelming support," Zwillinger said. "It was emotional, it really was."

The items donated in May will be shipped to the troops in early June, she said.

William Moore, commander of Red Hook Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7765, said he's happy to support Semper Fi Parents.

"We're 100 percent behind them and what they're doing," Moore said. "I think the whole community, in a sense, is behind them."

In addition to VFW Post 7765, other drop-off points are: the Red Hook post office, the American Legion in Rhinebeck, the U.S. Marine Corps recruiting office in Poughkeepsie, the LaGrangeville post office, Union Vale town hall, Stop & Shop supermarkets in Wappingers Falls and on Route 9 in Poughkeepsie and the West Camp post office in Ulster County.

Kathianne Boniello can be reached at kboniello@poughkeepsiejournal.com

Resources:

Semper Fi Parents of Hudson Valley seeks donations of the following for troops overseas: batteries, hand-held battery-operated fans, DVDs, powdered drink mixes, white socks, beef jerky, snacks, nuts and soft candy.

For more information on the group, contact President Paula Zwillinger by e-mail at mommini68@aol.com or by phone at 1-914-474-2295 or 845-223-7658. You can also contact Secretary Susan Gleeson by e-mail at rsuebaru@aol.com or by phone at 1-914-489-1359 or 845-384-6841.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-15-05, 06:13 AM
Survivors of fallen grateful for increase in death benefit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Elliott Minor
ASSOCIATED PRESS
9:58 a.m. May 14, 2005

ALBANY, Ga. - Stacey Sammis was devastated when she learned her husband, a Marine Corps helicopter pilot, had been killed in Iraq. She was insulted when she received only $6,000 as a military death benefit.

"Your life had been almost completely destroyed and 'Here's a check for $6,000,'" said Sammis, an Alexandria, Va., speech therapist whose husband, Capt. Benjamin Sammis, died in an April 2003 helicopter crash.

Sammis eventually received another $6,000 when the military's "death gratuity" was doubled later in 2003. Last week, she learned she would be getting more.

President Bush signed into law Wednesday an increase in the death benefit from $12,000 to $100,000 for the next of kin of any military personnel killed in combat zones or in combat-related training since Oct. 7, 2001.

The increase was part of an $82 billion emergency appropriations bill to fund the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, which also included a provision increasing military life insurance payments from $250,000 to $400,000.

News of the increases stunned 24-year-old Angela Davis of Twentynine Palms, Calif. Her husband, Marine Sgt. Zachariah S. Davis, was killed Jan. 6 during enemy action in Iraq's volatile Anbar province.

The initial payments went toward bills, a used car and savings bonds for the couple's two young sons, 3-year-old Landen and 10-month-old Gabriel. She said she's been scraping by on a monthly $1,500 Social Security check, and the additional money will help cover the costs of raising her sons in California.

"I believe it's a great thing, but I also think people should understand that doesn't replace a life," Davis said. "I would trade the money any day to have my husband back."

More than 1,600 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003. At least 1,229 have died as a result of hostile action, according to the Defense Department.

Brad Snyder, president and CEO of Armed Forces Services Corp., which specializes in keeping retirees and survivors up-to-date on military benefits, cautioned that some military survivors may not qualify for the increased benefits.

"We don't want to fire up expectations," he said. "We know that anybody killed in Iraq or Afghanistan is covered. But is a hand grenade accident at Fort Benning going to be included?"

Colleen Evans, whose husband was killed in November when his Blackhawk helicopter crashed in Texas, has studied the legislation and believes she's qualified for the higher payments, even though her husband didn't die in a combat zone.

She plans to use the money to take her children's minds off the loss of their father and fulfill a dream of his to take them to Disney World and on a cruise.

"It's the one crazy splurge we're going to do," said Evans, who lives with her 5-year-old son and 3-year old daughter in Killeen, Texas, near Fort Hood. "We had talked about it for years but put it off because it was so expensive."

Jorge Rincon said he had to close the family's carpet business in Conyers, Ga., to stay home and comfort his wife, Yolanda, when their 19-year-old son, Diego, was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq in 2003.

As their son's next of kin, the Rincons collected the death gratuity and life insurance.

"It's nothing for the price we pay," Jorge Rincon said.

The father said he will use the extra money to help educate Diego's three siblings, but said it will be hard to spend because "it comes from the blood of my son."

The war widows said it was time to increase compensation for military survivors, even if they didn't benefit personally.

"He was gone and within a day, they bring you a measly $12,000 check," Evans recalled.

"I don't think you could imagine what I'd pay just to hold his hand a little while and watch him play with our babies," she said. "The pain and heartache I feel not having him with us runs through all of me."

Associated Press writer Jeremiah Marquez in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

On the Net:

Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors: www.taps.org/

Gold Star Wives of America: www.goldstarwives.org

Armed Forces Services Corp: www.aafmaa.com/member/afsc.asp

Ellie

thedrifter
05-15-05, 06:14 AM
A Father's Public Grief, Private Healing
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By John-Thor Dahlburg
Times Staff Writer
May 15, 2005

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. - For families of the fallen in Iraq, the grief is usually private, the sorrow and tears poured out behind closed doors. But not for Carlos Luis Arredondo.

When three Marines arrived at his suburban home one afternoon last summer to inform him that his 20-year-old son, a lance corporal, had been killed in action, Arredondo went berserk with grief, anger and incomprehension. He grabbed a propane torch and a 5-gallon can of gasoline and set fire to the Marines' van on the street, badly burning himself in the process.

Much of America watched the burning wreck live on cable television.

Nine months later, Arredondo, 44, is still healing, the singed flesh of his calves a ruddy brown. His doctors have recommended that he keep out of the sun for a year.

He has apologized to the Marines, is receiving grief counseling and will be moving this month to Massachusetts to be closer to his son's grave and the boy's younger brother. In November, a Boston intersection was renamed in the late serviceman's honor - he was born in the city and, before enlisting, had graduated from a Boston-area vocational school with an electrician's degree.

"I miss him every day that goes by," Arredondo said of his son. "I wake up, and I think of him. If he was alive, maybe he'd be thinking about being married and having some children."

Marine Lance Cpl. Alexander Arredondo was shot in Najaf on Aug. 25. It was his father's birthday, and the older Arredondo, a handyman and former bus driver, was building a white picket fence at the home in Florida that he'd moved into six weeks earlier. He was carrying his cellphone, expecting his son's call.

Instead, the Marines pulled up in their van.

When his son was buried in a cemetery in Walpole, Mass., Arredondo was brought in an ambulance to attend.

The ache of Alexander's death is still acute for three generations of his family.

"We have had two family tragedies - what happened to Alex and what happened to my son," said Luz Arredondo, 65, the boy's grandmother.

It has taken its toll on her too. Her son said she had a nervous breakdown and was seeing a psychiatrist. Music makes her weep.

Alexander's mother, who had earlier remarried and now lives in Bangor, Maine, is subject to bouts of brooding she calls "Alex's days" when she wants to be alone and won't answer the phone.

The other child she had with Arredondo, Brian, 18, was supposed to go live with his father, she said, but the turmoil caused by his brother's death ended that plan.

These days, Arredondo seems embarrassed, as well as puzzled, by what he did the day the Marines pulled up in front of his home. He snapped, he said, when he couldn't get though on the phone to a Marine sergeant he knew in an effort to get more news about his son.

At first, he said, he had thought the Marines had come to do recruiting. When they refused his request to leave, he clambered into their vehicle with the torch, gas can and a hammer. Standing on the street outside, he said, they did nothing to stop him.

"I was calling my son, 'Alexander, Alexander,' and saying, 'This is not happening,' " he said. "I picked up the hammer and started smashing things inside the van. I was totally crazy in that moment."

He sloshed gasoline around the interior, and it exploded, propelling him into the street. He suffered second-degree burns over 20% of his body. His mother, who had been trying to pull him from the van, tugged off his flaming socks

At hospitals in Hollywood, Miami and Boston, doctors worked to treat his burns, which extended from his right ear to his lower legs. In Massachusetts, he said, he was entitled to help from Medicaid. The Florida hospitals that admitted him sent him more than $53,000 in bills.

But his public display of a father's agony over the death of a child in Iraq caught the attention and sympathy of others. More than 400 people, he said, sent cards and letters, often enclosing money to help him pay his medical expenses.

"It was overwhelming," said Arredondo, who immigrated from Costa Rica to the U.S. in 1980.

When a New Jersey man mailed him a $1,000 check, Arredondo telephoned to thank him. The donor promptly sent another $1,000. Arredondo decided not to call again.

From California, two Latino boys, 7 and 10, who heard about Arredondo's loss, gave up their weekly treat at McDonald's and mailed $10.

"I wasn't alone on this," Arredondo said.

He was ready to sell his single-story house in this town between Miami and Fort Lauderdale to pay for his medical treatment, but between the gifts and adjustments the two Florida hospitals made in his bills, he said he wouldn't have to do so and, instead, could rent out the house when he moved north.

To help him come to grips with his loss, the muscular, black-haired Arredondo has been seeing a grief counselor, sent weekly by the Veterans Administration, and meeting with members of other families who have had loved ones killed in Iraq.

At Christmastime, Arredondo visited a Marine Corps Reserve unit in suburban Miami to meet with the Marines who had come to his house and apologize for destroying their van.

From the Marines' perspective, a spokesman said last week, the grieving father had nothing to apologize for.

"Losing a vehicle pales in comparison to losing a son," said Bryan Driver, public affairs officer for the Marine Corps Casualty Assistance Office in Washington. "That is news that no one wants to hear."

Arredondo said his grief counselor had advised him to put away his son's belongings, so he filled four plastic tubs with letters and other personal effects.

Not all mementos have been stored away. A portrait of the late Lance Cpl. Arredondo in his high-collared dress uniform sits on a table in the living room, his dog tags draped over the picture frame.

His father has made photocopies of one of his son's letters, written as he crossed the Pacific.

"Soon enough," Alexander Arredondo wrote, "I will be in the desert, outside the city of [Baghdad], in full combat gear, ready to carry out my mission….

"I am not afraid of dying," he told his parents. "I am more afraid of what will happen to all the ones that I love if something happens to me."

Arredondo said that burying his son was "very hard, very hard, knowing that he had so much to look forward to."

He said he prayed for all families who had lost a service member in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Keep writing, he urges parents whose children are serving.

"They want to read your letters," he said. "They need to hear that we are very proud of them and that we love them."

Ellie

thedrifter
05-15-05, 06:15 AM
Time hasn't erased invisible scars
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By ROGER H. AYLWORTH - Staff Writer

A scar, left by a slashing samurai sword, still shows on Marvin Hertsfeldt's wrist, but it is the wounds that never bled and the scars that do not show that plague the former Marine.

Tall and robust, Hertsfeldt sat at a small kitchen table and gazed six decades into the past to a time when the Wisconsin native experienced things that still tear at his heart, and took part in activities he's convinced most people can't understand.

"It's crazy ... crazy. War is crazy. If you haven't been there, you don't know."

Hertsfeldt knows war. He served on Guadalcanal, the nation's first land campaign in the Pacific, before landing on Okinawa on Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945.

"It was a hell of a way to celebrate Easter," recalled Hertsfeldt.

Hertsfeldt found himself in the Pacific because he didn't want to face the possibility of fighting relatives.

While he was born in the United States, Hertsfeldt was the son of German immigrant parents.

"All my grandparents moved from Germany. I'm from Wisconsin. Wisconsin is at least about 50 percent German," claimed Hertsfeldt.

He said there was "quite a mix in your heritage, your background, your culture, your feelings about the future," that went into his decision to join the Marines, but he knew the Marines were fighting the Japanese in the Pacific.

"I wouldn't want to compete with relatives, so to speak."

In some ways Hertsfeldt was uncomfortable talking about his time in the service. He resisted talking about his rank.

"I don't want to talk about a rank, really. Let me avoid that. I wouldn't want to impress anybody. It's something that's not there. It wouldn't be asked. Nobody cares."

He was also fearful that talking about what he went through might be interpreted as boasting.

"I don't want any glory. The heroes are all dead. They all got killed. All these guys that went through the same things that I did will tell you the same thing."

He said the landing that Sunday morning on the beach in Okinawa was relatively easy, but that was the last thing that was easy.

"Japanese, they are very smart and very tough. Anybody who ever met them can tell you that."

On Okinawa, the Japanese fought with a fanatic, often suicidal dedication. Everywhere Hertsfeldt went, he ran into evidence of that intensity.

He recalled crossing one creek where the bodies of the dead Japanese were so thick, the Marines crossed the stream without touching the water, walking on the bodies of their enemies.

Combat is never clean or as sterile as it can appear in movies and television. At times it is terrible, immediate and horribly personal.

Hertsfeldt owns a samurai sword, one that a Japanese officer used to slash at the Marine, wounding him in the wrist.

Hertsfeldt took the sword from the dead officer, but when he was asked about the incident, he sat silently staring.

He gazed not across his pleasant second-floor apartment in east Chico, but across a gulf of years to a place where life was measured in seconds and inches, and who -- at that moment -- had the better weapon and the chance to use it.

Tears welled up in his eyes and his strong baritone voice cracked.

"Sometimes you get in very, very close quarters. The best weapon you have when you really get close of course is the rifle butt. A hard lateral butt stroke."

Images of the deadly struggle mixed seamlessly with thoughts about his enemy.

"They were so damn aggressive, so very aggressive."

New tears trickled down his rugged features.

"It would be hard to visualize, but the action can be so close. It is just push and shove and you only have six rounds available in your M-1911 Colt automatic pistol, and we had eight rounds in the rifle."

"This went on every day.

"He was an officer and I dropped him, and I wound up finally with my .45-caliber pistol to his head. It goes on every day, every day, every day for three months for us. It goes on every day. It wasn't an event. It was simply the day," he said as the tears continued to flow.

"These guys were aggressive. They didn't give a hoot about dying. There will never be another time like that."

Hertsfeldt said his most "vivid remembrance" is of the stone tombs on the island.

The Okinawans maintained tombs where the bones of family members were enshrined.

The tombs, which Hertsfeldt described as being "igloo-like," were made out of stone or concrete and were natural bunkers.

"It was a tactical thing for the (Japanese) military to crawl in there too. If you walk by -- if you are dumb enough to walk by -- they shoot you in the back."

That meant survival for the Americans on the island could depend on tossing a grenade or two through the low entrances just as a matter of routine precaution.

"You had to do it, but sometimes there were civilians in there. Obviously sometimes there were, but you never knew. You really never knew if anyone was in there. Maybe it wasn't even occupied, but you're betting your life on it."

Hertsfeldt was on Okinawa when the battle ended in July and he was still there preparing for the invasion of Japan when the use of the atomic bombs ended the war.

Staff writer Roger H. Aylworth can be reached at 896-7762 or raylworth@chicoer.com.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-15-05, 06:20 AM
'They deserve recognition'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, May 15, 2005
By Leslie Williams
of the Journal Star

WASHINGTON - Doris Waterworth hasn't seen her grandson, Lance Cpl. Tyler Ziegel, since he left his hometown of Metamora last July to serve a tour of duty in Iraq.

But the man she's traveling today to visit won't be the same person she hugged, kissed and waved goodbye to as he prepared to leave with his fellow Marines in Company C of the 6th Engineering Support Battalion, based in Peoria.

Ziegel now lies in an Army hospital bed in Texas, recovering from injuries he sustained during a suicide bomb attack Dec. 22.

According to what family members have told her, "he doesn't look at all like himself," said Waterworth, also of Metamora. "Then there's the pictures. ..."

She never finished the sentence and stared down at her hands clasped together on top of a table. A soft smile escaped across her face as she took a breath and looked back up.

"We keep saying how proud we are of him," said Waterworth. "I'm excited to see him."

Waterworth wasn't alone as she talked about Ziegel, who has undergone more than 30 surgeries to mend broken bones in his face, including his jaw, and both arms. He also is recovering from burns to his head, face and arms.

Zeigel is one of six wounded Company C Marines who will benefit from a fund-raiser held Saturday at Vietnam Veterans of Illinois, a club on Bittersweet Lane also known as The Bunker, where veterans regularly mingle.

This is the second year Chris Block, mother of Company C Marine Cpl. Ryan Block, arranged the event she calls Military Appreciation Day.

"It started out as a welcome-home party for the soldiers," said Block of East Peoria. "But we need to let all our soldiers, past and present, know we care. They deserve recognition."

Her efforts didn't go unnoticed. At the beginning of the event, Washington Mayor Gary Manier announced May 14 as U.S. Military Appreciation Day for the village.

"We too often forget the reason we honor the men and women who serve," Manier said to a crowd of 30.

"Company C has distinguished itself through its tireless and selfless commitment in meeting its duties, obligations and responsibilities."

Several Marines with Company C, along with their family and friends, gathered at the club to show their support for the wounded soldiers. They grabbed a bite to eat, listened to live music and took part in games of horseshoes and volleyball.

Manier's proclamation, in addition to Block turning the party into a fund-raiser to raise money for families of the seriously injured soldiers, made this year's event more significant.

Money collected from a silent auction, raffle drawings and plastic jugs placed at several businesses in Washington and East Peoria will be given to the soldiers' families.

"We had guys get injured," said Ryan Block, who has "no visible scars" from his time in Iraq, according to his mother. "It causes a lot of hardship on the families," he said. "They're traveling around the country, visiting their kids and grandkids, and taking off work.

"They already are going through a lot," he said, adding the extra money would help make trips like Waterworth's trek to Texas a possibility.

In addition to Ziegel, Lance Cpl. Jesse Schertz, 21, of Lowpoint; Cpl. Pete Carey, 24, of Washington; Lance Cpl. Jeremy Janssen, 22, of LaSalle County; Cpl. Matthew Dickson, 23, of Springfield, and Sgt. Jason Constable, 32, of O'Fallon, were wounded when the convoy they were riding in was attacked with a car bomb. All have received the Purple Heart.

Schertz, who broke both legs, and suffered shrapnel wounds and burns, will leave home Monday for surgery Tuesday in Texas. He's had about a dozen surgeries so far, said his father, Sid Schertz.

"It think it's great," Sid Schertz said about the fund-raising event. "It's the only war I can recall having support like this. It's great the public supports the troops."

Schertz said the injuries his son suffered have greatly affected the mood of Jesse Schertz, who uses a wheelchair to get around.

"It's been tough to deal with, but we're in it together," the father said. "Like anything else, you wish you could do more.

"Stuff like this takes time. But in his situation time goes slow. For the rest of the family it goes fast."

Chris Block said she expected more than 100 people to attend the event that was to last until 1 a.m.

Collection jars for the fund-raiser will remain posted at Tony & Sons, Washington Road Barbers and Fondulac Park District Administration Building, all in East Peoria, and Russell's Cycling & Fitness Center in Washington.

At Morton Community Bank, donations can be given to the "C Company Wounded Marine Fund."

Ellie

thedrifter
05-15-05, 07:07 AM
Marine memorializing those who didn't make it home from Iraq
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By CRAIG KAPITAN
Eagle Staff Writer

Marine Cpl. Andrew Sullens of College Station, back from serving in Iraq for seven months, is starting a campaign to write to each family of Texas service members who have been killed in Iraq.

After eight years of enlistment, it wasn’t until Andrew Sullens’ seven-month stint in Iraq that he received a nickname from his Marine buddies.

They started calling the College Station resident “Tackleberry,” a joking reference to the character who showed an overzealousness for firearms throughout the Police Academy movies in the 1980s.

The nickname stuck after Cpl. Sullens — preparing for a two-day mission with two other Marines — ordered 3,600 rounds of machine-gun ammunition, nearly 250 grenades, four anti-armor rockets and six Claymore mines.

“I ordered more ammunition than a platoon would get,” he said last month, laughing as he recalled how command eventually refused the Claymore mines request.

“It was heeaaavy,” he added as he told the story with a smile, stretching the word to emphasize the weight. “I didn’t care.”

While Sullens can joke about the mission now, the situation that spawned his nickname wasn’t so much an indication of any love for weapons, he was careful to point out. Instead, he explained, it was influenced by a determination to be able to eventually return home to his newlywed wife unscathed.

And now Sullens has reason to smile. He did return home last month, and with his third term of enlistment coming to an end in September, the 26-year-old has plans to start a fitness business and to enroll at Texas A&M University.

But in addition to the hectic pace of putting together a post-military life, the veteran is taking steps to remember his Iraq experience — specifically, those servicemen and -women who weren’t as lucky as he ended up being.

Sullens has started a project to write letters to the families of each of the more than 150 military personnel from Texas who have died fighting in Iraq. Along with each letter, he said, will be a bracelet displaying the soldier’s name, rank and date of death.

The purpose of the correspondence, he said, will be to let the families know “that we remember their sacrifice and we’re very thankful for what they’ve given up.”

“I want them to know somebody else is thinking about them, and they’re missed,” he said. “It’s a tremendous loss to society.”

Sullens’ project to remember his fallen comrades started last year with the death of 20-year-old Army Pfc. David Parker, the first soldier from the Bryan-College Station area to die in the war.

Although he didn’t know Parker, Sullens joined the many strangers who attended the soldier’s funeral out of respect for the young man’s sacrifice. After listening to his eulogy, Sullens felt as though he had missed out by not knowing Parker, he said, and he later introduced himself to Jim Parker, the soldier’s father.

One year later, Sullens was in Iraq himself — the third combat zone of his military career — and Parker still was on his mind, he said. So in January, on the first anniversary of Parker’s death, Sullens made arrangements to have an American flag flown over Iraq in his honor.

After two more months of training Iraqi soldiers and hauling bunker-busting weaponry during missions, it was time for Sullens to come home. He invited Jim Parker to a welcome-home ceremony in Austin, surprising the father with the flag and a certificate.

“I just felt like it was something that needed to be done,” Sullens recalled. “Someone else should remember besides family and friends.”

Jim Parker initially was speechless.

“I just think that’s the greatest thing that ever happened,” he said last month of the surprise. “It just kind of blew me away.”

Sullens has just begun the project to purchase the bracelets, which he plans to buy for $12 each from www.herobracelets.org. So far he has bought two — for Cpl. Zachary Kolda of Corpus Christi and Cpl. Joseph Fite of Round Rock, both of whom were attached to his unit when they were killed.

He currently is wearing both of the black aluminum bands around his own wrists, but he intends to present them to his comrades’ families in August when his unit begins drilling again in Austin, he said.

Herobracelets.org was launched in December by an Austin businessman who was looking for a way to support the troops, according to the company Web site. All after-tax profits from the business are directed to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, a nonprofit that provides financial support to the families of military personnel killed in action.

“We felt that these men and women deserved to be honored and respected by all of us, without retribution,” the Web site states. “We also thought that in a world of huge legal settlements, the surviving families of our fallen heroes just didn’t get enough to help them cope with the financial burden that naturally came along with the great sense of loss they were experiencing.

“So we looked back to the POW bracelet of the 70s and saw a way to help address both of those problems.”

The most difficult part of the project won’t be raising the more than $1,800 needed for the endeavor, but tracking down each of the families, Sullens predicted.

But it should be worth the effort, he said, explaining that it is important to recognize such heroes.

“I’m not a hero — I went over there and did my job and came back home, whereas these guys didn’t,” he explained. “I just want to be known as a nice guy who maybe helped somebody out along the way.”

Not everyone has agreed with Sullens’ humble self-assessment. As for Jim Parker, who said he still is touched by the effort Sullens put into remembering his son, he believes there is room for Sullens to be a hero as well.

“He’s everything that’s right about our country,” he said.

• Craig Kapitan’s e-mail address is craig.kapitan@theeagle.com.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-15-05, 01:57 PM
Marines unit begin landing at Kuwaiti naval base for possible deployment in Iraq
By DIANA ELIAS : Associated Press Writer
May 15, 2005 : 2:14 pm ET

MOHAMMED Al AHMED NAVAL BASE, Kuwait -- Hover crafts on Sunday began ferrying hundreds of U.S. Marines from their ships anchored in Kuwaiti waters to this base for training ahead of possible deployment in neighboring Iraq.

Most of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit will be training in the Kuwaiti desert for "a number of weeks," said Col. Tom Qualls, the unit's commanding officer. After training, "our future is not quite revealable at this point," he added.

It took the three ships of the unit, USS Kearsarge, Ashland and Ponce, a month and a half to reach the Kuwait waters from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. The landing will be completed "in the course of the next three days," Qualls said.

The "flexible" fighting force of 2,175 Marines and U.S. Navy sailors has the ability to carry out humanitarian assistance, embassy evacuations, shore-based and maritime security operations, and combat operations in Iraq, Qualls said. He said the majority of the force would be landing in Kuwait but did not give a number.

"In terms of the future for us, we could be doing any one of those items, and perhaps every one of them," he told reporters over the near-deafening hum of jet-engined crafts carrying the Marines and their weapons -- including tanks, trucks, humvees and artillery guns -- ashore.

Their landing will raise to some 15,000 the number of U.S. military personnel in Kuwait, the small oil-rich state that has been a major ally of Washington in the Gulf since the U.S.-led international coalition liberated it in the 1991 Gulf War from a seven-month Iraqi occupation. The figure fluctuates as troops are deployed to Iraq.

Kuwait was the launch pad for the war that toppled Saddam Hussein in April 2003, and it continues to be a logistics base for the multinational forces serving there.

"We couldn't do this without Kuwait," Qualls told reporters, describing the country as an "incredibly important" foothold and springboard.

Marines stretched out on the ground in the shade of a line of trees at the naval base before being transported to their desert camp. Up to 60 percent of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit are veterans of the Iraq invasion and Washington's war on terror in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

Staff Sgt. William Sudbrock, 32, of Vero Beach, Fla., said he had been training hard for the last 10 months and was not concerned about the worsening security situation in Iraq, where insurgents have been carrying out attacks against multinational forces and civilians in an effort to derail the war-ravaged country's reconstruction.

"Well-trained, well-outfitted, prepared for combat," he said confidently.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-15-05, 02:57 PM
Marines of 3/8 not lacking in name recognition
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, May 15, 2005

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq - They could have used the names of their prominent families to take an easy way through life, capitalizing on the accomplishments of those who came before them.

But for three members of the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, easy wasn't an option.

They chose the life of a Marine and deployed to Iraq, getting down and dirty in a dangerous chess match of explosives and bombings with insurgents.

To the world, Lance Cpl. Jake Mathers' grandfather, retired Air Force Col. George "Bud" Day and Medal of Honor recipient, is the most decorated officer since Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

To Mathers, he's just "Grapo. It's just one of those things," the 18-year-old said of the name he calls his 80-year-old grandfather. "He's just granddaddy to me."

For Mathers, Day is the man who taught him to fish, inspired a love of aviation and introduced the poetry of Robert Frost.

Mathers comes from a family of military men. His father and two stepfathers all served, as did their fathers.

"I wanted to be a Marine ever since I was seven years old. I think they're just a little tougher than the rest," said the infantryman, who spends his days in Iraq tracking the ground movement of friendly forces.

He asks questions of his relatives, and gets a lot of advice. But in the end, he is looking to carve his own path, he said. And that's not easy, being the grandson of his mother's father, a Medal of Honor recipient with a dramatic story that is frequently told.

Day, now a lawyer in Florida, had served in the Marines and Army Reserve before joining the Air Force. Thirty-seven years ago, he was the forward air control pilot in an F-105 when he was shot down Aug. 26, 1967, over North Vietnam. He was held captive for more than five years, tortured, beaten and injured until being released on March 14, 1973.

"If they're expecting me to be a Medal of Honor winner, they're expecting too much. They can pound sand," Mathers said. "There is a lot of added pressure. People expect me to do good things, to add up a little to him, try to do above and beyond.

"I do that, but I do that for me."

When he's stuck on an issue, 1st Lt. Erik Cooper sometimes looks for solutions in words penned by his grandfather, a retired lieutenant general turned author. In his book "Cheers and Tears: A Marine's Story of Combat in Peace and War," Charles Cooper speaks of leadership and the band-of-brothers concept. The younger Cooper has read it three times. Still, the olive-green paperback was among the items the 25-year-old commander of the battalion's 1st Platoon, Weapons Company packed when he set off for a seven-month deployment to Iraq.

He doesn't like to broadcast that he's the son of a Navy captain and grandson of a retired three-star general, who graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, fought in the Korean War, commanded two infantry battalions and the 1st Marine Division, and served as commanding general of Fleet Marine Force Pacific.

"Yeah, I don't like too many people knowing about it, but sometimes it happens," said Cooper. "[The Marine Corps] is a small community and I try to keep it under wraps."

While his family steered him toward the military, their efforts were unnecessary because that's the life Cooper planned all along.

"When I was a kid, back in the day, I loved playing G.I. Joe," he said. "They didn't need to pressure me, even though they did."

Because of the military accomplishments of his grandfather and father, Cooper puts pressure on himself to lead his men well.

"I do put in an extra effort," he said, "because I don't want to mess up the family name and all the stuff they did really well."

Politics is in 2nd Lt. Perry Akin's blood. The son of U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., says he has political ambitions of his own.

But first, he wants to get the Marine Corps out of his system.

Akin, 24, of Company A, 1st Platoon, 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion out of Camp Lejeune, N.C., said he has been fascinated with military life since childhood, both because he studied it and from hearing stories from his grandfather, who fought in World War II, and from his father, who joined the Army Corps of Engineers during the Vietnam War but did not see combat.

"I wanted to be the best, and the Marines are the best," the platoon commander said. "I wanted to be a Marine. They garner a lot of respect. They're a smaller force, with a lot of history, and they are more willing to accept change and adapt to new and cutting-edge ideas, which is what has made us such an effective force on today's battlefield."

Though his father sits on the House Armed Services Committee, he finds no conflict of interest in serving and doesn't advertise who he is.

He's more focused on keeping his men and himself alive as they conduct their business of moving Marines and equipment, sweeping roadways for bombs, and erecting facilities for the thousands of deployed Marines.

Akin said that in both military and politics, he wants to make it on his own hard work. And despite his father's position in Congress, he said the competitive edge in his personality comes from somewhere else.

"My competitive streak? That comes from my mom."

Ellie

thedrifter
05-15-05, 04:11 PM
Going on tour takes new meaning for Marine
Submitted by: II Marine Expeditionary Force (FWD)
Story Identification #: 2005512112820
Story by Lance Cpl. Aaron P. Mankin



CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (May 12, 2005) -- A Marine serving in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom left a successful career in order to deploy. Having lived a life laced with music, he now plays to a different tune.

Major Mike Corrado, company commander, Headquarters and Service Company, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Headquarters Group, II MEF (FWD) is the lead vocalist in The Mike Corrado Band. The band has played concerts with several recording artist including Vertical Horizon, Train and John Mayer.

Corrado received a flare for music at a young age.

“I originally started out playing drums when I was in second grade,” said Corrado, Jacksonville N.C. native. “When I was in college I bought a guitar and learned how to play just because I started doing some writing.”

Corrado started performing in bars wherever he could play. He later found Marines who were serving in the 2nd Marine Division Marine Corps Band and desired to form a band of there own. The Mike Corrado Band was born and has continued to evolve.

“It [the band] went from all Marines to no Marines other than myself and now back to two of its original members,” explained Corrado.

It was accessible for Corrado to find talent in the Marine Corps Band, but he was looking for something more.

“You have to find people with the right vision too,” he continued. “As we started getting bigger in the Carolinas it was a little bit easier to find people who wanted to play. We were out there making a name for ourselves, things were moving up and things were getting bigger with every month that went by. I had a little more flexibility to pick people that I thought would perform well.”

Upon leaving the states for his deployment, Corrado released a solo album titled Falling Awake. He dedicated the recording to his wife Kate and his 5-month-old daughter Olivia.

The song My Watch contains backup vocals by recording artist Edwin McCain. Corrado and McCain have been friends since 1992. McCain had his own way of showing his support of Corrado’s decision to defend the United States.

“Edwin gave me a guitar to bring over here,” Corrado said. “He has been a good mentor. He has been through some ups and downs and he has been through some pitfalls. He’s given me a lot of advice along the way.”

With the support of his family and friends, Corrado was willing to put his dream on hold. He takes his duty serious and wants there to be no misunderstanding about why he made his decision.

“Sometimes there is a misconception between what the media put out compared to what people here really feel,” explained Corrado. “People aren’t here under duress. We signed up to support our country and its constitution and if this is what it takes then here we are.

Corrado has plans to complete his tour of duty and return to the stage with his musical comrades.

“With this whole thing about taking time off the road, I could have just said no thanks, but I look at this as my personal tax for the freedoms I enjoy and the freedoms my family enjoys,” he continued. “Being away from them and being here with these Marines and supporting whatever mission is tasked to us, if that’s what’s asked of me than that’s the least I can do for everything that I enjoy.”

EDITOR’S NOTE
For more information about this article, please send an e-mail to cepaowo@cemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil


Ellie

thedrifter
05-15-05, 05:03 PM
Brooklyn's "Heroes of Operation Iraqi Freedom Way" honors today's warriors

by Sgt. Beth Zimmerman
New York City Public Affairs


NEW YORK -- The newest proclamation from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg reads, "while no action can ever fully convey our appreciation for our men and women in uniform, this sign ensures we will never forget."

Community and service members gathered in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, to create a permanent tribute to service members deployed in support of the war on terror today. They renamed the intersection of Oriental Boulevard and Corbin Place to "Heroes of Operation Iraqi Freedom Way."

"We need to honor [our service members] 365 days a year," said Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels and Master of Ceremonies for the street renaming ceremony. "First and foremost, they are more important than anything."

The Be Proud Foundation, a Brooklyn organization founded by Raisa Chernina that supports and recognizes Russian service members, worked with Russian American Service Members of Armed Forces (RAS) to rename the street. Marine Sgt. Alex Presman, who was medically retired from the Corps last year, founded RAS with Chernina's help. Presman was a reservist with 6th Communication Battalion in Brooklyn before losing his foot in Iraq in 2003. The 27-year-old Brooklyn native is originally from Minsk, Belarus.

Be Proud and RAS have stressed the importance of honoring the service members currently fighting. Chernina said it is important to honor them now, rather than years after the war has ended.

"It is crucial that we do not hesitate to declare our gratitude for men and women in uniform," Chernina previously stated, "as they did not hesitate to risk their lives for us."

"This is a chance for our community to come together," said City Councilman Gifford Miller. "(We are) making sure for the rest of time, that this spot will honor and remember the heroes who make our daily lives possible."

Major General Richard Colt, Commander of the Army Reserve 77th Regional Readiness Command, thanked the community members for their support.

"You are here today to honor the best of America," said Colt. "You have no idea how much it means to these Marines...and others serving."

"We are here together making history," said Senator Martin Golden, "...and paying tribute to our warriors as the war on terrorism rages."

Before the official unveiling of the new street sign, the community observed a moment of silence for service members who have paid the ultimate sacrifice. Then, Marines from 6th Comm Bn performed a 21-gun salute in their memory.

"You are all American heroes," said Golden. "Your sacrifices will never be forgotten."


Ellie

thedrifter
05-15-05, 07:07 PM
Iraqi rebels better armed than we first thought, say US Marines
By Oliver Poole in Baghdad
(Filed: 16/05/2005)

Iraqi insurgents have proved to be better equipped and more elusive than expected, United States marines have said at the end of a week-long operation near the Syrian border.

Many rebels wore bullet-proof vests and a number had Soviet-designed armour piercing bullets and night sights, equipment rarely seen previously in Iraq.

In one clash two marines were killed when militant fighters lay on their backs in the narrow gap under a house and fired through the concrete floor.

The end of the offensive, which saw US troops pulled back towards Ramadi on the Euphrates, came as Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, made a unannounced one-day visit to meet members of the new government in Baghdad.

She called on all Iraqis to be included in the political process. "Yes, the insurgency is very violent, but you can beat insurgencies not just militarily," said Miss Rice during a stop in Kurdish city of Irbil. "You can beat them having a political alternative that is strong."

Her visit follows the deaths of more than 450 people since the new government was announced last month, and comes amid Sunni frustration at receiving only a handful of places on a 55-seat committee to draw up the new constitution.

Yesterday the bodies of 30 murdered men, including 10 soldiers, were found and eight more Iraqis were killed in drive-by shootings and suicide bombs.

The murdered men - who had mostly been bound and blindfolded - were found in three locations in Baghdad and to the west and south of the city.

The week-long Operation Matador near the Syrian border was the largest sustained operation since the assault on Fallujah six months ago and was intended to target foreign fighters, particularly supporters of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qe'ada leader in Iraq.

Helicopters and jets swept over the area as more than 1,000 marines investigated villages along the north Euphrates near Qaim.

At one point troops reached within rifle-shot distance of the Syrian border. Nine marines died and about 40 were wounded in the fighting.

A spokesman described the operation as a "success" saying that more than 125 insurgents were killed and that it had established that the area was no longer an insurgent "safe haven".

It was previously used as a staging post for foreign fighters entering the country from Syria and as a refuge from which equipment and fighters were provided to insurgents in the rest of Iraq.

Col Stephen Davis, the mission's commander, said the presence of foreign fighters had been conclusively confirmed and a number of suicide vests and car bombs under preparation discovered.

The marines also unearthed a bicycle with a seat made from explosives.

The region, in north-west Iraq, is one where Iraqi security forces do not have a foothold and where US troops have rarely ventured in large numbers for a year.

More than half of the insurgents deaths occurred in the first day of fighting when marines crossing the Euphrates near Ubaydi faced unexpected resistance leading to a 12-hour battle.

The marines were initially supposed to play only a blocking role as special operations raids were conducted against followers of Zarqawi, who are believed to be hiding in a cave network.

This is now thought to have lost the American forces the element of surprise, with insurgents having learnt the lesson of their stand in Fallujah when 2,100 were killed. This time they took the opportunity to slip away rather than confront US forces.

The number of foreign fighters in the region had been estimated at the operation's onset as in the hundreds.

"That was the frustrating piece: coming up here for a fight and not finding anyone," said Major Steve Lawson of the 3rd Btn, 25th Marine Regiment.

15 May 2005: Trigger-happy US troops 'will keep us in Iraq for years'

Ellie

thedrifter
05-15-05, 07:17 PM
Elementary School Sends goodies to Marines
Submitted by: 2nd Marine Division
Story Identification #: 2005515115131
Story by Lance Cpl. Athanasios L. Genos



CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq (May 15, 2005) -- Fegley Elementary School in Portage, Ind. came together to show its support for the Marines and sailors deployed with 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The service members with Weapons Company received letters and care packages from the faculty and students of Fegley Elementary who wanted to show their appreciation for the sacrifices the troops are making.

“The support we get from the children from the school is great,” said Sgt. Daniel Blackwell, a Bolingbrook, Ill., native and infantryman with 1st Platoon, Weapons Co.

Brandi Amones, a teacher at Fegley Elementary and Capt. Ed Nevgloski’s, Weapons Company Commander, sister-in-law took the first steps to get the project started after learning about her brother-in-law’s deployment here.

“We thought it was important to somehow make this war seem more personal to kids. I think that this war is so far away that kids often have no idea of what the military is doing over there…for them,” explained Amones.

The students began sending letters to the Marines and sailors while they worked to put together care packages consisting of magazines, DVDs, snacks and banners.

“I want to be a teacher when I am done in the Marines, so it is really nice getting the letters from the younger children,” Cpl. Daniel A. Nichols, an infantryman with 1st Platoon and a Lucedale, Miss. native. “It all means a lot to me.”

The Marines had been receiving these letters for a few weeks when Nevgloski received the first shipment of care packages. He gave each of his platoons a box to open and share.

“When I went to give the packages to the Marines they said the boxes were from the same school they had been getting letters from for about two weeks,” he said.

To show their appreciation for the support the students gave them, the Marines prominently displayed the banners the kids made so everyone could see them. The students designed the banners with their signatures enveloping well-designed pieces of art.

The Marines’ rigorous schedule doesn’t offer much down time, so the letters and packages for the students of Fegley Elementary School they are receiving make a large impact on their morale.

“Getting all the packages is one thing that helps us keep our heads up,” explained Nichols.

According to Nevgloski, the students’ efforts in providing the service members with items they would enjoy was quite apparent as well.

“There were so many things like the magazines that were gone as soon as they opened up the boxes,” Nevgloski explained. “The children must have been trying extra hard to think about what the Marines here would like.”

Ellie