thedrifter
11-27-05, 11:55 AM
Thanks given for Corporal Cohen of A Co.
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Sunday, November 27, 2005.
By DENNIS ANDERSON
Valley Press Editor
Part of my Thanksgiving ritual involved raking leaves with the kids. We'd get a couple of big leaf drops, and this was one of our days to do something together.
If there were Hefty bags from the store, we'd bag them up, or my son, Garrett, reminded me that "those stacks of leaves could hang out in piles for a month."
We didn't have the big "green waste" bin back then. So, if we had the bags, we'd bag. If not, we'd just rake and horse around a bit. Garrett; my stepson, Michael; and my daughter, Grace. Marie worked out the turkey and stuffing.
This year after the big leaf drop, the daughter was away at college, Michael at a girlfriend's place, and the other one was at Marine Corps Base Hawaii. We were enjoying our holiday cell phone call and glad to get it.
"I can't believe it's been a year since last Thanksgiving, old man," my son, the lance corporal told me. He's an old man of 20 summers now.
Hard for me to believe, also. A year ago, on Thanksgiving, the then 19-year-old son was an infantry grunt, with Alpha Co. of the 1/3 Marines, taking the fight to the enemy in Fallujah.
This year was better for us, and for Fallujah, too. It's called one of the "most secure cities" in western Iraq.
My son was back at home base in Hawaii, and I was sitting, phone at my ear, out on the front lawn, watching sunshine and blue sky filter around and through the red and gold falling leaves. The leaf fall was later this year. Warm weather.
Garrett was talking to me from his "rack" in the barracks, watching TV news crews make a fuss about Thanksgiving at Camp Prosperity in Baghdad.
"Hey, look at that," he said, laughing. "We didn't get turkey and trimmings at Camp Prosperity. What a lame name for a camp."
Remembering last year, he said the support troops did their best to get turkey and trimmings into steel canisters and haul them out to the shattered houses that the grunts were holding as security outposts while they hunted for Musab al Zarqawi's legion of creeps. The creeps had abandoned their beheading chambers on the run from Marines and Army grunts and tanks.
"Got to give the 'POGs' credit, they did their best to get that meal out to the grunts in the field," the lance corporal said.
The term "POG" stands for "People Other than Grunts," and usually isn't expressed with kindness or esteem by grunts. On the other hand, it's the "POGs" that keep the green machine running, and they are every day doing more than most citizens ever will to defend this blessed land.
My recollection was a little hazy. Had my son gotten a Thanksgiving phone call home last year? His memory was more specific.
"Nope. I called a day before Thanksgiving. It was the day after Cohen was killed."
And that's how memories differ between a civilian and a combat soldier. Our holiday memories may take on a glaze of warm and hazy forgetfulness. Grunt remembers the day his best buddy was killed. He'll remember it if and when grunt lives to old age.
The day was Nov. 22, 2004, as my son told it to me last year. In Iraq, it was already Nov. 23. The Marines had been on the ground and on the move in Fallujah since Nov. 8, the beginning of the long-promised offensive to clean the human trash that imposed a regional reign of terror.
Cpl. Michael R. Cohen of Jacobus, Pa., was a squad leader, 23 years old, one of my son's best friends. Garrett admired him, as a brother Marine, a friend, a kind soul and a smart guy.
Cohen, as was his habit, led from the front, busted into the house and ran past a door. That was unusual, my son recalled. Because in most of the house fighting, Cohen wouldn't have rushed past a door without scanning, shooting or maybe tossing a grenade to clear the room. A terrorist shot him, and the bullet hit home through a space between the plates in the corporal's body armor.
Back in the rear, at Camp Fallujah (yes, the "Forward Operating Base" is considered the "rear" even if it's getting mortared and rocketed daily), my son and his "Lava Dog" jarhead buddies mourned a brother they all looked up to.
For the grunts of Alpha Co., it was out to the field again, to patrol, and to wait for the support troopies to reach them with stuffed bird in a steel canister.
For us, this year, Thanksgiving is better. For all who loved Michael Cohen, it marks a year of ache and loss.
"We got our call through to Cohen's family yesterday, and that was good," my son said.
We need to remember to give thanks that this nation benefits from the protection of kind souls like Michael Cohen, 23, Jacobus, Pa., killed in action, Nov. 22, 2004, in Fallujah, Iraq.
"He had yet to fall in love with a girl," my son recalled in a letter home soon after his friend's death. "He died pure. He was the best of us."
Thanks to all of you still out there, grunts, POGs, all. And thanks to the Cohens of Pennsylvania.
Ellie
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Sunday, November 27, 2005.
By DENNIS ANDERSON
Valley Press Editor
Part of my Thanksgiving ritual involved raking leaves with the kids. We'd get a couple of big leaf drops, and this was one of our days to do something together.
If there were Hefty bags from the store, we'd bag them up, or my son, Garrett, reminded me that "those stacks of leaves could hang out in piles for a month."
We didn't have the big "green waste" bin back then. So, if we had the bags, we'd bag. If not, we'd just rake and horse around a bit. Garrett; my stepson, Michael; and my daughter, Grace. Marie worked out the turkey and stuffing.
This year after the big leaf drop, the daughter was away at college, Michael at a girlfriend's place, and the other one was at Marine Corps Base Hawaii. We were enjoying our holiday cell phone call and glad to get it.
"I can't believe it's been a year since last Thanksgiving, old man," my son, the lance corporal told me. He's an old man of 20 summers now.
Hard for me to believe, also. A year ago, on Thanksgiving, the then 19-year-old son was an infantry grunt, with Alpha Co. of the 1/3 Marines, taking the fight to the enemy in Fallujah.
This year was better for us, and for Fallujah, too. It's called one of the "most secure cities" in western Iraq.
My son was back at home base in Hawaii, and I was sitting, phone at my ear, out on the front lawn, watching sunshine and blue sky filter around and through the red and gold falling leaves. The leaf fall was later this year. Warm weather.
Garrett was talking to me from his "rack" in the barracks, watching TV news crews make a fuss about Thanksgiving at Camp Prosperity in Baghdad.
"Hey, look at that," he said, laughing. "We didn't get turkey and trimmings at Camp Prosperity. What a lame name for a camp."
Remembering last year, he said the support troops did their best to get turkey and trimmings into steel canisters and haul them out to the shattered houses that the grunts were holding as security outposts while they hunted for Musab al Zarqawi's legion of creeps. The creeps had abandoned their beheading chambers on the run from Marines and Army grunts and tanks.
"Got to give the 'POGs' credit, they did their best to get that meal out to the grunts in the field," the lance corporal said.
The term "POG" stands for "People Other than Grunts," and usually isn't expressed with kindness or esteem by grunts. On the other hand, it's the "POGs" that keep the green machine running, and they are every day doing more than most citizens ever will to defend this blessed land.
My recollection was a little hazy. Had my son gotten a Thanksgiving phone call home last year? His memory was more specific.
"Nope. I called a day before Thanksgiving. It was the day after Cohen was killed."
And that's how memories differ between a civilian and a combat soldier. Our holiday memories may take on a glaze of warm and hazy forgetfulness. Grunt remembers the day his best buddy was killed. He'll remember it if and when grunt lives to old age.
The day was Nov. 22, 2004, as my son told it to me last year. In Iraq, it was already Nov. 23. The Marines had been on the ground and on the move in Fallujah since Nov. 8, the beginning of the long-promised offensive to clean the human trash that imposed a regional reign of terror.
Cpl. Michael R. Cohen of Jacobus, Pa., was a squad leader, 23 years old, one of my son's best friends. Garrett admired him, as a brother Marine, a friend, a kind soul and a smart guy.
Cohen, as was his habit, led from the front, busted into the house and ran past a door. That was unusual, my son recalled. Because in most of the house fighting, Cohen wouldn't have rushed past a door without scanning, shooting or maybe tossing a grenade to clear the room. A terrorist shot him, and the bullet hit home through a space between the plates in the corporal's body armor.
Back in the rear, at Camp Fallujah (yes, the "Forward Operating Base" is considered the "rear" even if it's getting mortared and rocketed daily), my son and his "Lava Dog" jarhead buddies mourned a brother they all looked up to.
For the grunts of Alpha Co., it was out to the field again, to patrol, and to wait for the support troopies to reach them with stuffed bird in a steel canister.
For us, this year, Thanksgiving is better. For all who loved Michael Cohen, it marks a year of ache and loss.
"We got our call through to Cohen's family yesterday, and that was good," my son said.
We need to remember to give thanks that this nation benefits from the protection of kind souls like Michael Cohen, 23, Jacobus, Pa., killed in action, Nov. 22, 2004, in Fallujah, Iraq.
"He had yet to fall in love with a girl," my son recalled in a letter home soon after his friend's death. "He died pure. He was the best of us."
Thanks to all of you still out there, grunts, POGs, all. And thanks to the Cohens of Pennsylvania.
Ellie