thedrifter
01-02-06, 07:51 AM
Posted on Mon, Jan. 02, 2006
Bay Area Marines set off for duty in Iraq
By Tom Lochner
Knight Ridder
Some 180 Bay Area Marines are about to get their first taste of combat in Iraq -- at last.
``They're biting at the bit to go,'' Sgt. Major Enrique Borgzinner said Sunday. ``We're one of the last units not to go to Iraq.''
The reservists, mostly young and male, said goodbye to family and friends at the Navy and Marine Corps Reserve Center in Alameda Sunday on before leaving for Southern California to join six other units who will serve seven months in a military police battalion in western Iraq. First they will have about five weeks of training.
``They're all kind of wishing they were there yesterday,'' Borgzinner said.
Some were gung-ho to go, regardless of where.
``Serving my country, that's all I care about,'' said Marine Lance Cpl. Pete Rios of Pittsburg.
Borgzinner told reporters not to ask the Marines about politics or such questions as ``how do you feel about the war?'' But some volunteered opinions, as did some in their entourage.
Cpl. Michael Romero, 26, a 1997 graduate of Mt. Diablo High School in Concord, had served two tours in Kuwait when his four years of active duty were about to end in September 2001. Then came the Sept. 11 attacks.
In 2002 he rejoined the Marines.
``I saw Iraq was going to happen and I wanted to be a part of it,'' Romero said
In April 2003 he began a half-year's tour in Iraq.
``He said, if they never found weapons of mass destruction, the mass graves that he saw were enough reason for him to be there,'' said his mom, Monique Romero.
With the Romero family was their neighbor, Robbie Robinson, a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War who said he is ``part of the peace movement.''
``We have our disagreements,'' Robinson said, ``but as combat vets there's a common bond that we all share.''
Ellie
Bay Area Marines set off for duty in Iraq
By Tom Lochner
Knight Ridder
Some 180 Bay Area Marines are about to get their first taste of combat in Iraq -- at last.
``They're biting at the bit to go,'' Sgt. Major Enrique Borgzinner said Sunday. ``We're one of the last units not to go to Iraq.''
The reservists, mostly young and male, said goodbye to family and friends at the Navy and Marine Corps Reserve Center in Alameda Sunday on before leaving for Southern California to join six other units who will serve seven months in a military police battalion in western Iraq. First they will have about five weeks of training.
``They're all kind of wishing they were there yesterday,'' Borgzinner said.
Some were gung-ho to go, regardless of where.
``Serving my country, that's all I care about,'' said Marine Lance Cpl. Pete Rios of Pittsburg.
Borgzinner told reporters not to ask the Marines about politics or such questions as ``how do you feel about the war?'' But some volunteered opinions, as did some in their entourage.
Cpl. Michael Romero, 26, a 1997 graduate of Mt. Diablo High School in Concord, had served two tours in Kuwait when his four years of active duty were about to end in September 2001. Then came the Sept. 11 attacks.
In 2002 he rejoined the Marines.
``I saw Iraq was going to happen and I wanted to be a part of it,'' Romero said
In April 2003 he began a half-year's tour in Iraq.
``He said, if they never found weapons of mass destruction, the mass graves that he saw were enough reason for him to be there,'' said his mom, Monique Romero.
With the Romero family was their neighbor, Robbie Robinson, a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War who said he is ``part of the peace movement.''
``We have our disagreements,'' Robinson said, ``but as combat vets there's a common bond that we all share.''
Ellie