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thedrifter
01-19-06, 06:59 AM
Marine battalion ready for tour in Iraq
By Tom Lochner
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

ALAMEDA - 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 mostly male and young reservists said goodbye to family and friends at the Navy and Marine Corps Reserve Center in Alameda Sunday before leaving that night for Southern California, joining 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 where.

"Serving my country, that's all I care about," said Marine Lance Cpl. Pete Rios of Pittsburg.

But for Jose Anguiano, 22, of Santa Rosa, it had to be Iraq, to follow his older brother's tough act.

"The Saddam Hussein statue, we took it down, in the middle of Baghdad Square or whatever they call it," said former Marine Ignacio Anguiano, 25. "We led the whole Marine Corps element."

"I'm passing the torch," said Ignacio Anguiano, whose uncle was also a Marine. "The Marine Corps runs in the family."

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 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 terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

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 mother, Monique Romero.

With the Romero family to see off their Marine 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."

"He's been there," said Romero. "He has the right to his opinion."

"Michael is an all-American kid," Robinson said. "He's a representative of everything that's good in Concord."

"This is what you see in a working-class neighborhood. All these kids here are like Michael, they represent the best of their communities.

The fact that they're going means someone else won't have to, he said.

Reach Tom Lochner at 510-262-2760 or tlochner@cctimes.com.

Ellie