PDA

View Full Version : Reservists watch towers fall, fight back



thedrifter
08-20-05, 07:24 AM
Reservists watch towers fall, fight back
2nd Force Service Support Group
Story by Cpl. C. J. Yard

AL ASAD, Iraq (August 20, 2005) -- “I watched it happen. I felt helpless. My friends and I wanted to help out, but I couldn’t go because the fire department, where I’m a volunteer fire fighter, was on stand by. I had to go with the fire department if they went.”

This is the beginning of Lance Cpl. Michael Sprung’s story of what became his journey to becoming one of the few and the proud.

Sprung, a 29-year-old truck driver with Transportation Support Company, Combat Logistics Battalion 2, 2nd Force Service Support Group (Forward), recalled what happened that fateful September day that rocked the nation onto its heels.

The reservist from Rutherford, N.J., said he wanted to do anything he could to help. He even called the Red Cross to donate blood.

“They used the main road in my town as a route for the medical evacuations,” said Sprung. “For like a half an hour, it was a parade of ambulances. My wife was stuck in the city for three or four days. You couldn’t get in or out of the city at all.”

It wasn’t until he was Christmas shopping that same year when he saw the recruiters in the mall and had approached them to talk about his brother joining.

“The next thing I knew, they were talking to me about joining,” said Sprung. After that he enlisted and made the transition to the reserves keeping his job as a volunteer fire fighter and working for Nestle.

Not quite the same story, but Lance Cpls. James B. Brady and Christopher R. Fazio, both natives of Waretown, N.J., were both in high school when terrorist-hijacked planes smashed into the World Trade Center.

“You could see the smoke from my high school,” said Fazio. “The announcement came over the loudspeaker. It seemed like the right thing to do. Me and a couple of friends were thinking about joining. We were all going to go active-duty.”

Due to problems that arose with his family, Fazio found that joining the Marine Reserves would be the best way for him to serve his country.

“One of our buddies coerced us to join,” said the 21-year-old Brady.

New Jersey police officer J. M. Cabrera was beginning what he recalled as a very surreal 23-hour day of work when he saw what was happening in the distant horizon.

“As I pulled into the command center I was watching the flames from the first tower,” said the staff sergeant with 6th Motor Transport Battalion of Red Bank, N.J., augmented to CLB-2, along with Sprung, Fazio and Brady. “By the time I had got on the roof of the station the first tower had gone down. It was crazy.”

The day had begun just like any other for Cabrera, leaving for work, but when the radios and cell phones went out his initial reaction was shock and disbelief.

“You never thought something like this could happen,” said the 15-year Marine Corps veteran.

Cabrera, who missed fighting in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm by just a couple months, went into the city to help sift through the rubble and deliver supplies to the workers who had already been cleaning up and searching for those who were still in the buildings with a part of the 6th Motor Transport Battalion.

“My wife wanted to help out, but there were just too many people,” said Cabrera. “They had more volunteers than stuff that needed to get done. Literally, people were getting in the way of each other.”

Sprung and Cabrera said their wives were supportive in their decision to do their part in the Global War on Terrorism.

“My wife is supportive and has been through it all,” said Sprung. “She’s even supportive of me wanting to change [Military Occupational Specialty] to infantry.”

Cabrera said his wife knew that she was marrying a police officer and Marine.

“She knew who she was marrying,” said Cabrera. “The difference of being here is the bad guys are different and it’s forty degrees hotter. She doesn’t like being at home by herself with the baby, though.”

Brady said his family, and mainly his dad, can not stop bragging about all the good things he and his fellow Marines are doing here. However, they realize the imminent danger the young men and women face everyday they leave the base.

“They don’t like the danger we’re in,” said Brady, who survived a mine strike that hit his logistics vehicle system. “They’re supportive though, and that’s what helps us here. My dad is constantly telling everybody about what we’re doing here.”

Insurgents have been using mine strikes and Improvised Explosive Devices to hinder the progress of Coalition Forces, and by planting these make-shift bombs and fleeing the scene have become a faceless enemy to the Marines.

“It’s hard because we’re seeing our friends being injured,” said Fazio. “It’s more frustrating than anything because we can’t see who’s shooting the [Indirect Fire] or setting the mines and IEDs.”

“Out here we’re the targets,” added Brady, who was in Reserve Officer Training Corps in high school. “We’d take action if we saw who was doing all of it, but you never see them. It is pretty hard to drive while dodging mortars and worrying about hitting a mine or IED. The [Military Police] have been doing a great job of patrolling before we head out on our convoys, though.”

Brady said that he feels people focus on the negatives too much and do not see all of the positive things coming from their job.

“We’re here to do a job: give freedom to these people,” said Brady. “We’re getting that job done.”

Making that job safer for the Marines has been the use of the Marine Armor Kits, improving the structure of the vehicles used by the Marines, Sailors and Soldiers traveling the treacherous roads between the bases of Coalition Forces.

“This time around things are a lot safer because of the up-armor kits,” said Cabrera, who was also deployed during the beginning of the war in 2003. “The vehicle hardening has been a life-saver.”

Despite the rough times the three lance corporals faced during their time deployed, all three feel they need to come back to continue their supportive roles in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

“I’ve already made up my mind,” said Sprung, who used a picture of all the fire fighters who died Sept. 11 as motivation during his time at recruit training. “I’m going to be coming back out here no matter what.”

Ellie