thedrifter
10-25-05, 02:25 PM
October 31, 2005
‘I’m 21 years old, and I feel like I’m 45’
It’s the 3rd war tour for some Marines, and their view of life — and their country — has been changed forever
Stories by Gordon Trowbridge
RAMADI, Iraq — Only 34 months have passed for the rest of the world. But for Cpl. David Blea and his comrades, time has moved at a different pace.
“I’m 21 years old, and I feel like I’m 45,” said Blea, one of a handful of Marines on their third combat tour in Iraq.
Blea, of Elkhart, Ind., and two friends and fellow squad leaders in 2nd Platoon, Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, have spent 18 months over a span of less than three years in sand, heat, mud and combat. They arrived about six weeks ago in Ramadi, one of the hottest spots in the anti-U.S. insurgency, to serve another seven months.
Back home, these young men perhaps would be finishing up college or trade school, starting careers and families. Here in the war zone, however, they are the voice of experience — combat wisdom personified.
“The first time over here, I was just a lonely little [guy] following orders,” said Lance Cpl. Ryan Ruckel, 21, of Denton, Texas, who leads one of Lima 2’s three squads, along with Blea and Cpl. Matt Haugan. “Now, I’m responsible for the lives of 10 guys.”
War stories flow easily as the three talk at an observation post on Ramadi’s western edge. It’s good, they say, to talk.
But they also say they protect close family — especially moms, wives and fiancées — from knowing the worst of what they see. And while each says this third deployment will be difficult physically and emotionally, the biggest challenges seem to be back home: readjusting to the outside world, confronting civilians who seem not to know or care what they have endured, wondering whether the nation they say they are fighting to protect acknowledges their effort — whether they’re seen in the same light as the heroes of World War II and Desert Storm, or the shunned vets of Vietnam.
“I’ve seen too many of my friends go down,” Blea said, “for us to go through what the Vietnam veterans went through.”
Young men transformed
The Marines of 3/7 made the invasion march to Baghdad in March and April 2003 before spending several months occupying Karbala, south of the capital.
Last year, February through September was spent in Iraq’s western desert, near the Syrian border, battling insurgents for the town of Husaybah and elsewhere — a brutal deployment that cost the lives of 17 of the battalion’s Marines. A daylong clash in April 2004 took the life of their company commander.
As their lives have changed, leaving for Iraq again has become more complicated, the three say.
“It was very hard,” said Haugan, 22, of Hayward, Calif., who is now married and the father of a 4-year-old son. “With a wife and kids, it was so tough. I re-enlisted, and I could have gotten out of coming back. My wife took it like any wife would.”
“It’s good for us to be here, because there’s a lot of inexperience in the battalion,” Blea said. “But [three deployments] pushes the limits of what Marines can do.”
Ruckel and Blea both have fiancées. Both say they do their best to shield them from the dangers they face.
Ruckel’s fiancée learned from another Marine of a roadside bomb attack during the last deployment that Ruckel had not revealed to her, a blast that struck his vehicle but left him uninjured.
“She said, ‘You got blown up?’ And then she started crying,” Ruckel said. “It took me awhile to talk her down.”
But they also acknowledge that the time here has changed them, altered their personalities, sometimes subtly, sometimes in more obvious ways.
“When I hear some guy has tried to talk to my girl, I get mad,” Ruckel said. “I’ve got so much to lose now, and I don’t want to lose anything.”
“I guess I’m a little more aggressive, a little more willing to take people on,” Haugan said.
Each said he has had confrontations with civilians who questioned him about the war.
“We believe more in respect and honor now,” Haugan said. “When someone disrespects you and what you’ve done, it’s like a punch in the face.”
Belief in the mission
When it comes to politics, Blea is the most animated of the three, questioning how a nation at war could give its president such low poll ratings, and whether Americans recognize — or even deserve — the service he and others are sacrificing to give.
Blea says he believes deeply in the goal of bringing democracy to Iraq.
“[Iraq] is a free, sovereign nation now — that’s what we’re fighting for,” he said. “That’s what our nation was founded on. Why not let the world see that it works?”
Blea and Ruckel have younger brothers, each of whom has said he wants to follow his older sibling into the Corps. Each has been told decisively: Forget it.
“I tell him I’ve done our share of fighting,” Blea said.
“I tell him and his friends I’ll break their legs first,” Ruckel said.
But all three talk passionately about the bonds of military service and of combat.
“The people that have died here — people want to say it’s a negative,” Haugan said. “But they died for their buddies. That’s not a negative. That’s great.”
“In the end, it’s just about these guys,” Ruckel said. “You’re never gonna be left behind. You’re always gonna be OK.”
Life after three tours
The Corps’ top operational planner, Lt. Gen. Jan Huly, admitted that deploying for three seven-month tours to Iraq during one four-year enlistment can be difficult for Marines, but it shouldn’t be a surprise four years after Sept. 11.
“I’m sure it’s tough, but I don’t think in a time of war that’s abnormal,” Huly said in an Oct. 19 interview.
“That’s what we’re enlisting people to do. ... I don’t think 21 months out of a 48-month enlistment is an inordinate thing to be expected to serve” in the war zone.
Huly said the Corps keeps close tabs on the operational tempo of Marines heading to the war zone but still doesn’t see a strain on the force as a result of the near-constant trips to Iraq and Afghanistan.
As for any Marines who might be deploying to Iraq for a fourth time, Huly said that was rare. The math doesn’t add up, he argued, because after training and rotations back to the United States, a typical Marine enlistee either leaves the Corps after his four-year enlistment or is transferred to a B-billet or another non-combat duty if he decides to stay a Marine. In other words, he’s not going to war a fourth time unless he raises his hand and asks to.
Huly said he can’t think of any Marine who is being rotated back to the war zone for a fourth tour unwillingly. Marine manpower officials track the operations tempo of individual Marines and monitor such things as retention rates to measure overall stress on the force and whether Marines are getting burned out, a Marine Corps spokesperson added.
So far, the Corps has met its retention goals for the last 11 years, manpower officials have said.
“We may have flags — meaning unit organizations — that are going back for their fourth time,” he said. “I dare say there’s nobody in those organizations that doesn’t want to be there that’s going back for their fourth time.”
Staff writer Christian Lowe contributed to this report from Washington.
Ellie
‘I’m 21 years old, and I feel like I’m 45’
It’s the 3rd war tour for some Marines, and their view of life — and their country — has been changed forever
Stories by Gordon Trowbridge
RAMADI, Iraq — Only 34 months have passed for the rest of the world. But for Cpl. David Blea and his comrades, time has moved at a different pace.
“I’m 21 years old, and I feel like I’m 45,” said Blea, one of a handful of Marines on their third combat tour in Iraq.
Blea, of Elkhart, Ind., and two friends and fellow squad leaders in 2nd Platoon, Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, have spent 18 months over a span of less than three years in sand, heat, mud and combat. They arrived about six weeks ago in Ramadi, one of the hottest spots in the anti-U.S. insurgency, to serve another seven months.
Back home, these young men perhaps would be finishing up college or trade school, starting careers and families. Here in the war zone, however, they are the voice of experience — combat wisdom personified.
“The first time over here, I was just a lonely little [guy] following orders,” said Lance Cpl. Ryan Ruckel, 21, of Denton, Texas, who leads one of Lima 2’s three squads, along with Blea and Cpl. Matt Haugan. “Now, I’m responsible for the lives of 10 guys.”
War stories flow easily as the three talk at an observation post on Ramadi’s western edge. It’s good, they say, to talk.
But they also say they protect close family — especially moms, wives and fiancées — from knowing the worst of what they see. And while each says this third deployment will be difficult physically and emotionally, the biggest challenges seem to be back home: readjusting to the outside world, confronting civilians who seem not to know or care what they have endured, wondering whether the nation they say they are fighting to protect acknowledges their effort — whether they’re seen in the same light as the heroes of World War II and Desert Storm, or the shunned vets of Vietnam.
“I’ve seen too many of my friends go down,” Blea said, “for us to go through what the Vietnam veterans went through.”
Young men transformed
The Marines of 3/7 made the invasion march to Baghdad in March and April 2003 before spending several months occupying Karbala, south of the capital.
Last year, February through September was spent in Iraq’s western desert, near the Syrian border, battling insurgents for the town of Husaybah and elsewhere — a brutal deployment that cost the lives of 17 of the battalion’s Marines. A daylong clash in April 2004 took the life of their company commander.
As their lives have changed, leaving for Iraq again has become more complicated, the three say.
“It was very hard,” said Haugan, 22, of Hayward, Calif., who is now married and the father of a 4-year-old son. “With a wife and kids, it was so tough. I re-enlisted, and I could have gotten out of coming back. My wife took it like any wife would.”
“It’s good for us to be here, because there’s a lot of inexperience in the battalion,” Blea said. “But [three deployments] pushes the limits of what Marines can do.”
Ruckel and Blea both have fiancées. Both say they do their best to shield them from the dangers they face.
Ruckel’s fiancée learned from another Marine of a roadside bomb attack during the last deployment that Ruckel had not revealed to her, a blast that struck his vehicle but left him uninjured.
“She said, ‘You got blown up?’ And then she started crying,” Ruckel said. “It took me awhile to talk her down.”
But they also acknowledge that the time here has changed them, altered their personalities, sometimes subtly, sometimes in more obvious ways.
“When I hear some guy has tried to talk to my girl, I get mad,” Ruckel said. “I’ve got so much to lose now, and I don’t want to lose anything.”
“I guess I’m a little more aggressive, a little more willing to take people on,” Haugan said.
Each said he has had confrontations with civilians who questioned him about the war.
“We believe more in respect and honor now,” Haugan said. “When someone disrespects you and what you’ve done, it’s like a punch in the face.”
Belief in the mission
When it comes to politics, Blea is the most animated of the three, questioning how a nation at war could give its president such low poll ratings, and whether Americans recognize — or even deserve — the service he and others are sacrificing to give.
Blea says he believes deeply in the goal of bringing democracy to Iraq.
“[Iraq] is a free, sovereign nation now — that’s what we’re fighting for,” he said. “That’s what our nation was founded on. Why not let the world see that it works?”
Blea and Ruckel have younger brothers, each of whom has said he wants to follow his older sibling into the Corps. Each has been told decisively: Forget it.
“I tell him I’ve done our share of fighting,” Blea said.
“I tell him and his friends I’ll break their legs first,” Ruckel said.
But all three talk passionately about the bonds of military service and of combat.
“The people that have died here — people want to say it’s a negative,” Haugan said. “But they died for their buddies. That’s not a negative. That’s great.”
“In the end, it’s just about these guys,” Ruckel said. “You’re never gonna be left behind. You’re always gonna be OK.”
Life after three tours
The Corps’ top operational planner, Lt. Gen. Jan Huly, admitted that deploying for three seven-month tours to Iraq during one four-year enlistment can be difficult for Marines, but it shouldn’t be a surprise four years after Sept. 11.
“I’m sure it’s tough, but I don’t think in a time of war that’s abnormal,” Huly said in an Oct. 19 interview.
“That’s what we’re enlisting people to do. ... I don’t think 21 months out of a 48-month enlistment is an inordinate thing to be expected to serve” in the war zone.
Huly said the Corps keeps close tabs on the operational tempo of Marines heading to the war zone but still doesn’t see a strain on the force as a result of the near-constant trips to Iraq and Afghanistan.
As for any Marines who might be deploying to Iraq for a fourth time, Huly said that was rare. The math doesn’t add up, he argued, because after training and rotations back to the United States, a typical Marine enlistee either leaves the Corps after his four-year enlistment or is transferred to a B-billet or another non-combat duty if he decides to stay a Marine. In other words, he’s not going to war a fourth time unless he raises his hand and asks to.
Huly said he can’t think of any Marine who is being rotated back to the war zone for a fourth tour unwillingly. Marine manpower officials track the operations tempo of individual Marines and monitor such things as retention rates to measure overall stress on the force and whether Marines are getting burned out, a Marine Corps spokesperson added.
So far, the Corps has met its retention goals for the last 11 years, manpower officials have said.
“We may have flags — meaning unit organizations — that are going back for their fourth time,” he said. “I dare say there’s nobody in those organizations that doesn’t want to be there that’s going back for their fourth time.”
Staff writer Christian Lowe contributed to this report from Washington.
Ellie