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thedrifter
02-08-06, 08:05 AM
Posted on Wed, Feb. 08, 2006
Quiet shattered in Iraq town
Bomb kills 3 Marines following 2 months of goodwill and peace
NELSON HERNANDEZ
Washington Post

HIT, Iraq - The troops of the Camp Lejeune-based 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit had every reason to feel a sense of accomplishment. Violence in Hit, the ancient Iraqi town along the western Euphrates River, had dropped sharply since their arrival. They were only a few days from heading home. And they had not lost a single Marine during two months in Iraq's most dangerous province.

Until Monday. Word spread around the 22nd's main camp, among those who had stayed awake late to watch the Super Bowl: Five Marines were hit at 1:30 a.m. while driving in an armored Humvee. It was a roadside bomb. They were unconscious.

The 2,300 troops of the 22nd, many of whom are veterans of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, are familiar with war and its consequences. But their tour in Hit, a city of 30,000 to 40,000 in Iraq's restive Anbar province, had been unlike the others.

They walked the streets on foot, passing out candy, chocolates and the occasional soccer ball to waving children. Their patrols weaved fearlessly around lines of cars and through packed markets.

No unit was more involved in the Hit campaign than Charlie Company of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit's Battalion Landing Team.

Led by Capt. David Handy, a native of New Bern, the company hadn't suffered a single man killed or wounded since coming to town in December. Handy recorded 18 violent incidents a week when he arrived, and said it was down to four thanks to an aggressive program of patrolling the city's streets 24 hours a day.

"I think we've built a foundation here," Handy, 31, said before setting out on another patrol in the rain-soaked city Friday. "I really do hope that I read in six months that the Marines are able to leave this city."

Mine blasts away the calm

Charlie Company's bad luck began a few hours after Handy stated his hope. It had been a quiet day. They assembled a convoy of five vehicles to make the day's "chow run" to two other bases in the city, delivering a hot dinner of beef stew and peas to the units standing guard there.The three Marines in the last Humvee, accompanied by a reporter, were grousing about the wet weather when the sharp sound of an explosion ended their conversation.

The explosion had come from an anti-tank mine planted in an opaque puddle along the road, only 200 yards from the end of the barbed wire and barricades protecting their headquarters.

The explosion had ripped the Humvee's tires off and sprayed the cab with shrapnel. Three Marines sitting in the rear stumbled out in a daze, deafened and shaken by the blast. The two others, who sat in the cab, were bleeding. Miraculously, none was killed.

Charlie Company kept on patrolling. On Sunday afternoon, they were accompanied by the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit's commander, Col. Frank McKenzie. He said he likes to walk the streets two or three times a week to get his own sense of how his strategy is working.

As he walked along the three-mile route, he kept an eye out for what he and his officers call "atmospherics": How the residents look and react to the patrol. The Marines received a warm welcome from children calling out for chocolate.

The grown men glared at the Marines from their store stalls, but would slowly nod or wave when McKenzie's troops greeted them.

The commander said his methods have deprived the insurgents of the popular support they need to win, adding that they've received growing support from residents who are willing to tip off American troops and a city council made up of local tribal leaders.

"Do they love us?" McKenzie said. "No. They don't, and they never will. But can you get a reasonable system of government here? Yeah, I think you can. I see nothing fundamentally ideological here that prevents us."

A deadly blow

The second blow came that night, around 1:30 a.m. Monday. A roadside bomb had exploded beneath an armored Humvee from Charlie Company on a routine mission.

The enormous bomb destroyed the vehicle, McKenzie said. The explosion killed two Marines almost immediately. A third died later of his wounds, and two others were injured in the explosion. The names of the dead have been withheld until their relatives can be notified.

McKenzie vowed that the attack wouldn't change his strategy.

"What we have to do is stay on the mission and not get caught up with the anger of the moment. And we go out and patrol, and that's what's going to happen today," he said.

Developments in Iraq

• Gunmen assassinated a Sunni community leader Tuesday in Fallujah.

• Bombs and bullets killed at least 11 other people, including four as yet unidentified Camp Lejeune-based Marines killed in two bombings in Anbar province.

• Iraqi security forces detained at least 26 suspected Sunni Arab insurgents who officials said were planning to attack Shiite Muslim pilgrims during Ashoura commemorations, which climax Thursday.

Ellie