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thedrifter
03-05-06, 06:57 AM
Posted on Sun, Mar. 05, 2006
Marines hit the beach
Amtrac maneuvers draw crowd
By JOSHUA NORMAN
jdnorman@sunherald.com

GULFPORT - Standing on the beach in Gulfport on Saturday under clear, sunny skies, both the hurricane and the war in Iraq were a distant thought for some of the Marines - such as Cpl. Zach Schudrowitz - of 3rd Platoon, Alpha Company, 4th Amphibious Assault Battalion.

For Schudrowitz, it was good just to see his old friends back in action.

Schudrowitz has spent the last several months in a burn unit in San Antonio. He was recovering from injuries received when his amphibious assault vehicle, or Amtrac, blew up last May, killing eight Marines who were from a different company being transported by this group.

Schudrowitz was incredibly glad to see his friend, Staff Sgt. Dennis Woullard. Woullard had pulled him from the burning Amtrac that day and was injured himself in the process, taking shrapnel to his head and getting several burns.

The two men embraced warmly when Schudrowitz arrived late in the morning and they chatted while looking out over the glistening water as their comrades sped around in circles in their Amtracs.

Woullard said he was also injured three days prior to saving Schudrowitz when he was shot in the back while on foot patrol. He said his Kevlar vest saved his life.

Schudrowtiz said he was full of admiration for his comrades, who all have dealt repeatedly with difficult situations in the last several months.

"Despite all the bad news, they sucked it up and moved on," Schudrowitz said.

Most of the Marines of the 3rd Platoon have spent a large portion of the last two years in Iraq. Specifically, they were in the Al-Anbar province near Syria conducting some of the most dangerous operations of the war.

There isn't a lot of water in the Iraqi desert for this group, equal parts fearless and jovial, to practice what they are the best at: amphibious assault.

So Saturday was the first day in almost two years these Marines, stationed at the Naval Construction Battalion Center in Gulfport, really got their feet wet, said Warrant Officer Takafumi Wince.

On a day filled with bright sunshine twenty or so Marines took turns driving four of their 26-ton Amtracs, in and out of the Gulf of Mexico from the beach just west of Gulfport's port, to the delight of a curious crowd of 50 or so people.

Wince said this was part of the normal weekend training schedule for this company, which is mostly made up of reservists. They were practicing here in the calm, shallow waters of the Mississippi Sound in preparation for a two-week series of maneuvers in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego this summer.

Many of the Marines said they were just happy to be out and about. It seemed as though the experience was cathartic for many of them, as they are just a few short months removed from both combat and the shock of coming home to a hurricane-destroyed region.

Most of the Marines of this platoon come from the area, and arrived here from active duty about a month after the storm.

"You spend your whole time out there thinking about coming home and while you're out there you hear about the biggest natural disaster that ever hit," said Cpl. Christian Adams of New Orleans.

Many Marines of the 3rd platoon said it was hard to come back from a war zone and see the destruction where they lived. Adams said he believed a handful of Marines lost their homes, too.

Some members of the platoon, like Lance Cpl. Brett Cuevas, were here during the storm. Cuevas, of Slidell, said several of the Marines who stayed behind drove out of the Seabee base with two Amtracs in the early afternoon of Aug. 29 and made their way to the Van Duc Buddhist Temple in Biloxi where they met up with Biloxi police and began rescuing people.

The next day, Cuevas said, the Marines drove along the beach through Pass Christian and then went across the bay to Waveland, where they assisted a search-and-rescue team from Virginia for a couple of days.

Today, though, there was no rescuing to be done and no patrol to go on. Just a lot of circles to be driven in the welcoming waters of the Gulf.

Ellie