thedrifter
10-02-05, 07:20 AM
Lima: Blast brings loss of second family
'They truly loved each other,' platoon commander says
By Antonio Castaneda
Associated Press
HADITHA DAM, IRAQ | Associated Press reporter Antonio Castaneda spent three weeks in western Anbar province in Iraq with Marines in Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment, 4th Division. He was with the unit when they led an offensive into the city of Haditha in late May. He returned to the area after an August blast killed 14 Marines — and shortly before the unit began demobilizing to return to the United States by early October.
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Cpl. David Kreuter had a new baby he'd seen only in photos. Lance Cpl. Michael Cifuentes was counting the days to his wedding. Lance Cpl. Nicholas Bloem had just celebrated his 20th birthday.
Travis Williams remembers them all — all 11 men in his Marine squad — all now dead. They shared a cramped room stacked with bunk beds at this base in northwest Iraq. Now the room has been stripped of several beds, brutal testament that Lance Cpl. Williams' closest friends are gone.
For the 12 young Marines who landed in Iraq early this year, the war was a series of hectic, constant raids into more than a dozen lawless towns in Iraq's most hostile province, Anbar. The pace and the danger bound them together into what they called a second family, even as some began to question whether their raids were making any progress.
Now, all of the Marines assigned to the 1st Squad, 3rd Platoon, Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment, based in Columbus are gone — all except Williams. They died in a roadside-bomb set by insurgents on Aug. 3 that killed a total of 14 Marines.
"They were like a family. They were the tightest squad I've ever seen," said Capt. Christopher Toland of Austin, Texas, the squad's platoon commander. "They truly loved each other."
All that is left now are photos and snippets of video, saved on laptops, that run for a few dozen seconds.
In one video, Lance Cpl. Christopher Dyer, who graduated with honors last year from a Cincinnati area high school, strums his guitar and does a mock-heartfelt rendition of Puff the Magic Dragon as his friends laugh.
In a photo, Kreuter rides a bicycle, swerving under the weight of body armor and weapons, as Marines and Iraqis watch and chuckle.
Each video ends abruptly. Some are switched off as soon as they start — some images just hurt too much to see right now.
Deadly mission like many others
The August operation began like most of the squad's missions — with a rush into another lawless Iraqi city to hunt insurgents and do house-to-house searches.
On Aug. 1, six Marine snipers had been ambushed and killed in Haditha. Two days later, Marines in armored vehicles, including the 1st Squad, rumbled into the area to look for the culprits.
Like other cities in this region, Haditha has no Iraqi troops, and its police force was destroyed by a wave of insurgent attacks. Marines patrol roads on the perimeter and occasionally raid homes.
Since their arrival in February, the Marines had spent nearly all their time on such sweeps or preparing for them, sometimes hurrying back to their base to grab fresh clothes and then heading off again to cities that hadn't seen American or Iraqi troops in months.
The intense pace of the operations, and the enormous area their regimental combat team had to cover — an expanse the size of West Virginia — caught some off guard.
The combat was certainly not what Williams, 21, had expected.
"I didn't ever think we'd get engaged," said the soft-spoken Marine from Helena, Mont. "I just had the basic view of the American public — it can't be that bad out there."
In some sweeps, residents warmly greeted the Marines. In others, such as operations in Haditha and Obeidi near Syria, the squad members met gunfire and explosions. In the Obeidi operation in early May, another squad from Lima Company suffered six deaths.
The night before the Aug. 3 operation, Toland couldn't sleep. He spent his last night with his squad members talking and joking, trying to suppress worries the mission was too predictable for an enemy that knew how to watch and learn.
The road had been checked by engineers and other units, Marine commanders say. But insurgents had been clever — hiding the bomb under the road's asphalt.
Several Humvees first drove over the bomb, but the triggerman in the distance waited for a vehicle with more troops. Then a blast erupted, caused by explosives weighing hundreds of pounds. It threw a 26-ton Amphibious Assault Vehicle into the air.
The blast was so large that Toland and his radioman, Williams — traveling two vehicles ahead and not injured — thought their vehicle had been hit. They scrambled out to inspect the damage, but instead found the blazing carnage down the road.
Fourteen Marines and one Iraqi interpreter were killed.
Grieving had to wait
There was no time for grieving — not at first. There was only sudden devastation, then intense anger as the Marines pulled the remains of their friends from the vehicle.
Then there was frustration, as they fanned out to find the triggerman. Instead, they found only Iraqis either too sympathetic toward the insurgency, or too afraid, to talk.
Although the bomb had been planted in clear view of their homes, residents claimed they had seen nothing of the men who had spent hours digging a large hole several feet deep and concealing the bomb.
It was a familiar, frustrating problem.
"They are totally complacent with what's going on here," said Maj. Steve Lawson of Columbus, Ohio, who commands Lima Company. "The average citizen in Haditha either wants a handout, or wants us to die or go away."
In a war where intelligence is the most valued asset, the Marines say few local people will divulge information that could be used to locate insurgents.
Some Iraqis apparently fear reprisal attacks. Many just want to stay out of the crossfire. Others hate the Americans enough to protect the insurgents: Marines say lookouts in cities would often launch flares as their vehicles approached.
In this region ruled by Sunni tribal loyalties, few voted for the new central Iraqi government, and many suspect the U.S. military is punishing them and empowering their longtime rivals, the Shiites of the south and the Kurds of the north.
"From a squad leader's perspective, the intelligence never helped me accomplish my mission," said Sgt. Don Owens, a squad leader in Lima Company from Cincinnati, who fought alongside the 1st Squad throughout their tour.
Losing second family
The first night after the attack, Williams couldn't sleep. He thought of his best friend, Lance Cpl. Aaron Reed, 21, now dead.
A world without his second family had begun. The young men Williams had planned to meet up with again, back in the States, had vanished. He was alone.
Yet from a military standpoint, it was important to press on to show the enemy that even their best hits couldn't stop the world's most powerful military. The Marines were ordered away from the blast site, to hunt insurgents, one hour after the explosion.
They stayed out for another week.
Marine commanders say the large-scale raids in western Anbar province have kept the insurgency off-balance, killing hundreds of militants and leaving a dwindling number of insurgent bases in the area.
They say the sweeps are critical to beat back the insurgent presence in larger cities such as Ramadi and Baghdad, where suicide bombings have been rampant.
But among some Marines and even officers, there are doubts whether progress has been made.
The insurgents lurk nearby — capable of launching mortars and suicide car bombs and quietly re-entering cities soon after the Marines return to their outskirt bases.
"We've been here almost seven months and we don't control" the cities, said Gunnery Sgt. Ralph Perrine, an operations chief in the battalion from Brunswick, Ohio.
Even commanders acknowledge that with the limited number of U.S. and Iraqi troops in the region, the mission is focused on "disrupting and interdicting" the insurgency — that is, keeping them on the run — and not controlling the cities.
"It's maintenance work," said Col. Stephen W. Davis, commander of all Marine operations in western Anbar. For Williams, the calculation is much more visceral and personal.
"Personally, I don't think the sweeps help too much," he said.
Williams, a Marine for three years, has decided not to re-enlist.
He said his "best memory" will be the day he leaves Iraq. His only good memories, he said, are of his friends.
Ellie
'They truly loved each other,' platoon commander says
By Antonio Castaneda
Associated Press
HADITHA DAM, IRAQ | Associated Press reporter Antonio Castaneda spent three weeks in western Anbar province in Iraq with Marines in Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment, 4th Division. He was with the unit when they led an offensive into the city of Haditha in late May. He returned to the area after an August blast killed 14 Marines — and shortly before the unit began demobilizing to return to the United States by early October.
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Top 5 stories
* Students spread word on predatory lending
* Mighty jet to mark new day for 445th
* Manhunt: Search hot on Keeling's cold trail
* Aftermath of rape leaves 'everything mixed up'
* Festivals today
>RSS headlines available
Cpl. David Kreuter had a new baby he'd seen only in photos. Lance Cpl. Michael Cifuentes was counting the days to his wedding. Lance Cpl. Nicholas Bloem had just celebrated his 20th birthday.
Travis Williams remembers them all — all 11 men in his Marine squad — all now dead. They shared a cramped room stacked with bunk beds at this base in northwest Iraq. Now the room has been stripped of several beds, brutal testament that Lance Cpl. Williams' closest friends are gone.
For the 12 young Marines who landed in Iraq early this year, the war was a series of hectic, constant raids into more than a dozen lawless towns in Iraq's most hostile province, Anbar. The pace and the danger bound them together into what they called a second family, even as some began to question whether their raids were making any progress.
Now, all of the Marines assigned to the 1st Squad, 3rd Platoon, Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment, based in Columbus are gone — all except Williams. They died in a roadside-bomb set by insurgents on Aug. 3 that killed a total of 14 Marines.
"They were like a family. They were the tightest squad I've ever seen," said Capt. Christopher Toland of Austin, Texas, the squad's platoon commander. "They truly loved each other."
All that is left now are photos and snippets of video, saved on laptops, that run for a few dozen seconds.
In one video, Lance Cpl. Christopher Dyer, who graduated with honors last year from a Cincinnati area high school, strums his guitar and does a mock-heartfelt rendition of Puff the Magic Dragon as his friends laugh.
In a photo, Kreuter rides a bicycle, swerving under the weight of body armor and weapons, as Marines and Iraqis watch and chuckle.
Each video ends abruptly. Some are switched off as soon as they start — some images just hurt too much to see right now.
Deadly mission like many others
The August operation began like most of the squad's missions — with a rush into another lawless Iraqi city to hunt insurgents and do house-to-house searches.
On Aug. 1, six Marine snipers had been ambushed and killed in Haditha. Two days later, Marines in armored vehicles, including the 1st Squad, rumbled into the area to look for the culprits.
Like other cities in this region, Haditha has no Iraqi troops, and its police force was destroyed by a wave of insurgent attacks. Marines patrol roads on the perimeter and occasionally raid homes.
Since their arrival in February, the Marines had spent nearly all their time on such sweeps or preparing for them, sometimes hurrying back to their base to grab fresh clothes and then heading off again to cities that hadn't seen American or Iraqi troops in months.
The intense pace of the operations, and the enormous area their regimental combat team had to cover — an expanse the size of West Virginia — caught some off guard.
The combat was certainly not what Williams, 21, had expected.
"I didn't ever think we'd get engaged," said the soft-spoken Marine from Helena, Mont. "I just had the basic view of the American public — it can't be that bad out there."
In some sweeps, residents warmly greeted the Marines. In others, such as operations in Haditha and Obeidi near Syria, the squad members met gunfire and explosions. In the Obeidi operation in early May, another squad from Lima Company suffered six deaths.
The night before the Aug. 3 operation, Toland couldn't sleep. He spent his last night with his squad members talking and joking, trying to suppress worries the mission was too predictable for an enemy that knew how to watch and learn.
The road had been checked by engineers and other units, Marine commanders say. But insurgents had been clever — hiding the bomb under the road's asphalt.
Several Humvees first drove over the bomb, but the triggerman in the distance waited for a vehicle with more troops. Then a blast erupted, caused by explosives weighing hundreds of pounds. It threw a 26-ton Amphibious Assault Vehicle into the air.
The blast was so large that Toland and his radioman, Williams — traveling two vehicles ahead and not injured — thought their vehicle had been hit. They scrambled out to inspect the damage, but instead found the blazing carnage down the road.
Fourteen Marines and one Iraqi interpreter were killed.
Grieving had to wait
There was no time for grieving — not at first. There was only sudden devastation, then intense anger as the Marines pulled the remains of their friends from the vehicle.
Then there was frustration, as they fanned out to find the triggerman. Instead, they found only Iraqis either too sympathetic toward the insurgency, or too afraid, to talk.
Although the bomb had been planted in clear view of their homes, residents claimed they had seen nothing of the men who had spent hours digging a large hole several feet deep and concealing the bomb.
It was a familiar, frustrating problem.
"They are totally complacent with what's going on here," said Maj. Steve Lawson of Columbus, Ohio, who commands Lima Company. "The average citizen in Haditha either wants a handout, or wants us to die or go away."
In a war where intelligence is the most valued asset, the Marines say few local people will divulge information that could be used to locate insurgents.
Some Iraqis apparently fear reprisal attacks. Many just want to stay out of the crossfire. Others hate the Americans enough to protect the insurgents: Marines say lookouts in cities would often launch flares as their vehicles approached.
In this region ruled by Sunni tribal loyalties, few voted for the new central Iraqi government, and many suspect the U.S. military is punishing them and empowering their longtime rivals, the Shiites of the south and the Kurds of the north.
"From a squad leader's perspective, the intelligence never helped me accomplish my mission," said Sgt. Don Owens, a squad leader in Lima Company from Cincinnati, who fought alongside the 1st Squad throughout their tour.
Losing second family
The first night after the attack, Williams couldn't sleep. He thought of his best friend, Lance Cpl. Aaron Reed, 21, now dead.
A world without his second family had begun. The young men Williams had planned to meet up with again, back in the States, had vanished. He was alone.
Yet from a military standpoint, it was important to press on to show the enemy that even their best hits couldn't stop the world's most powerful military. The Marines were ordered away from the blast site, to hunt insurgents, one hour after the explosion.
They stayed out for another week.
Marine commanders say the large-scale raids in western Anbar province have kept the insurgency off-balance, killing hundreds of militants and leaving a dwindling number of insurgent bases in the area.
They say the sweeps are critical to beat back the insurgent presence in larger cities such as Ramadi and Baghdad, where suicide bombings have been rampant.
But among some Marines and even officers, there are doubts whether progress has been made.
The insurgents lurk nearby — capable of launching mortars and suicide car bombs and quietly re-entering cities soon after the Marines return to their outskirt bases.
"We've been here almost seven months and we don't control" the cities, said Gunnery Sgt. Ralph Perrine, an operations chief in the battalion from Brunswick, Ohio.
Even commanders acknowledge that with the limited number of U.S. and Iraqi troops in the region, the mission is focused on "disrupting and interdicting" the insurgency — that is, keeping them on the run — and not controlling the cities.
"It's maintenance work," said Col. Stephen W. Davis, commander of all Marine operations in western Anbar. For Williams, the calculation is much more visceral and personal.
"Personally, I don't think the sweeps help too much," he said.
Williams, a Marine for three years, has decided not to re-enlist.
He said his "best memory" will be the day he leaves Iraq. His only good memories, he said, are of his friends.
Ellie