thedrifter
02-03-06, 11:31 AM
Taking back Iraqi roads seen as only way to reduce deaths
By: MARK WALKER - Staff Writer
CAMP PENDLETON ---- Twice wounded in roadside bomb explosions, Lance Cpl. Jordan Sherwood said Thursday that a proposal to "take back the roads" in Iraq is the only way to cut the number of deaths and injuries suffered by U.S. troops.
Sherwood was reacting to a statement by Rep. Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who said Wednesday that he wants the Pentagon to adopt new strategies to target insurgents and prevent the bombs from ever getting embedded in Iraqi roads.
Hunter, R-El Cajon, is scheduled to meet with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld today to discuss ways to increase surveillance on suspected insurgents and on the roadways where the bombs continue to inflict severe casualties on U.S. and Iraqi forces.
"That's exactly what we need to do," said Sherwood, 23, a native of Roanoke, Va. "Stopping them before they're planted is the key."
A combat photographer, Sherwood has a facial scar from wounds suffered in a May 2004 roadside bomb explosion while accompanying a combat patrol near Fallujah.
Assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment at Camp Pendleton, he returned to Iraq in March of last year and suffered leg injuries and the loss of his right index finger in a second roadside bomb explosion near Ramadi.
"There is no bigger threat than IEDs," Sherwood said in reference to the "improvised explosive devices," the term the military uses in reference to the roadside bombs. "It doesn't matter how much body armor you're wearing, because some part of you is always going to be exposed."
Roadside bombs are blamed for 897 of 1,738 combat military deaths and nearly two-thirds of the more than 16,500 troops wounded since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, according to the Pentagon.
The Pentagon announced Thursday that three U.S. soldiers died Wednesday in a roadside bomb explosion near Baghdad while on patrol.
On Saturday, 26-year-old Army Sgt. David L. Herrera, a 1997 graduate of Oceanside High School, died in a roadside bombing in Baghdad.
A total of 2,245 U.S. military personnel have died in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003, including 272 locally based Marines and five North County residents in the Army.
Rep. Hunter was in Iraq over the weekend and returned with what he said in a telephone interview were classified strategies to prevent roadside bombings.
"We need a campaign to take back the roads," Hunter said.
On Thursday, defense contractor Lockheed Martin announced new surveillance and technology methods, adapted from those used by police departments to track gang members, were being introduced in Iraq.
Marine encouraged by Hunter
Sherwood said he was encouraged by Hunter's statements and by the increasing emphasis in the Pentagon and in Iraq to reduce roadside bombings.
A recipient of two Purple Hearts and now on limited duty as he recovers from his wounds, Sherwood's remarks to a reporter came just before he was set to take pictures at a ceremony at the base conducted in honor of a change in the sergeant major's role for the 1st Marine Division.
The highest rank that an enlisted Marine can attain, Sgt. Maj. Wayne Bell is being replaced by Sgt. Maj. Frank Pulley.
The ceremony took place on an open field before about 400 members of the 1st Marine Division Association, who were on base this week to take part in a series of activities celebrating the division's 65th anniversary.
The division is the oldest in the Marine Corps, and before the ceremony, association members were briefed by Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, the division's commanding general.
Natonski told the former Marines and their family members on hand that he is confident that the current U.S. force of 138,000 troops in Iraq will be reduced this year.
"This is the year the Iraqi army is going to start taking over the fight," Natonski said. "It's like a baby bird being pushed out of the nest ---- we're telling them it's time to leave, but know that we'll be right here to back you up if you need us."
Other improvements critical
Besides new and improved measures to reduce roadside bombings, Natonski said that restoring the Iraqi economy is also critical. Right now, insurgents can easily persuade unemployed young Iraqi men to undertake the planting of those bombs by offering them as little as $150, he said.
Natonski, who led the U.S. battle to retake the city of Fallujah in November 2004 after it was abandoned by coalition troops in April of that year, said the focus this year for the troops in Iraq is to get the Iraqi army and civilian security forces fully trained.
The general's comments came as units attached to the I Marine Expeditionary Force continue to leave Camp Pendleton and Miramar Marine Corps Air Station for Iraq to relieve the II Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
More than 25,000 Marines and sailors from this region are being deployed, including 300 from the headquarters element of the 5th Marine regiment that left for Iraq on Thursday. Their mission is to train and mentor Iraqi security forces in the Fallujah area.
Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.
By: MARK WALKER - Staff Writer
CAMP PENDLETON ---- Twice wounded in roadside bomb explosions, Lance Cpl. Jordan Sherwood said Thursday that a proposal to "take back the roads" in Iraq is the only way to cut the number of deaths and injuries suffered by U.S. troops.
Sherwood was reacting to a statement by Rep. Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who said Wednesday that he wants the Pentagon to adopt new strategies to target insurgents and prevent the bombs from ever getting embedded in Iraqi roads.
Hunter, R-El Cajon, is scheduled to meet with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld today to discuss ways to increase surveillance on suspected insurgents and on the roadways where the bombs continue to inflict severe casualties on U.S. and Iraqi forces.
"That's exactly what we need to do," said Sherwood, 23, a native of Roanoke, Va. "Stopping them before they're planted is the key."
A combat photographer, Sherwood has a facial scar from wounds suffered in a May 2004 roadside bomb explosion while accompanying a combat patrol near Fallujah.
Assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment at Camp Pendleton, he returned to Iraq in March of last year and suffered leg injuries and the loss of his right index finger in a second roadside bomb explosion near Ramadi.
"There is no bigger threat than IEDs," Sherwood said in reference to the "improvised explosive devices," the term the military uses in reference to the roadside bombs. "It doesn't matter how much body armor you're wearing, because some part of you is always going to be exposed."
Roadside bombs are blamed for 897 of 1,738 combat military deaths and nearly two-thirds of the more than 16,500 troops wounded since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, according to the Pentagon.
The Pentagon announced Thursday that three U.S. soldiers died Wednesday in a roadside bomb explosion near Baghdad while on patrol.
On Saturday, 26-year-old Army Sgt. David L. Herrera, a 1997 graduate of Oceanside High School, died in a roadside bombing in Baghdad.
A total of 2,245 U.S. military personnel have died in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003, including 272 locally based Marines and five North County residents in the Army.
Rep. Hunter was in Iraq over the weekend and returned with what he said in a telephone interview were classified strategies to prevent roadside bombings.
"We need a campaign to take back the roads," Hunter said.
On Thursday, defense contractor Lockheed Martin announced new surveillance and technology methods, adapted from those used by police departments to track gang members, were being introduced in Iraq.
Marine encouraged by Hunter
Sherwood said he was encouraged by Hunter's statements and by the increasing emphasis in the Pentagon and in Iraq to reduce roadside bombings.
A recipient of two Purple Hearts and now on limited duty as he recovers from his wounds, Sherwood's remarks to a reporter came just before he was set to take pictures at a ceremony at the base conducted in honor of a change in the sergeant major's role for the 1st Marine Division.
The highest rank that an enlisted Marine can attain, Sgt. Maj. Wayne Bell is being replaced by Sgt. Maj. Frank Pulley.
The ceremony took place on an open field before about 400 members of the 1st Marine Division Association, who were on base this week to take part in a series of activities celebrating the division's 65th anniversary.
The division is the oldest in the Marine Corps, and before the ceremony, association members were briefed by Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, the division's commanding general.
Natonski told the former Marines and their family members on hand that he is confident that the current U.S. force of 138,000 troops in Iraq will be reduced this year.
"This is the year the Iraqi army is going to start taking over the fight," Natonski said. "It's like a baby bird being pushed out of the nest ---- we're telling them it's time to leave, but know that we'll be right here to back you up if you need us."
Other improvements critical
Besides new and improved measures to reduce roadside bombings, Natonski said that restoring the Iraqi economy is also critical. Right now, insurgents can easily persuade unemployed young Iraqi men to undertake the planting of those bombs by offering them as little as $150, he said.
Natonski, who led the U.S. battle to retake the city of Fallujah in November 2004 after it was abandoned by coalition troops in April of that year, said the focus this year for the troops in Iraq is to get the Iraqi army and civilian security forces fully trained.
The general's comments came as units attached to the I Marine Expeditionary Force continue to leave Camp Pendleton and Miramar Marine Corps Air Station for Iraq to relieve the II Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
More than 25,000 Marines and sailors from this region are being deployed, including 300 from the headquarters element of the 5th Marine regiment that left for Iraq on Thursday. Their mission is to train and mentor Iraqi security forces in the Fallujah area.
Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.