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thedrifter
05-09-06, 01:22 PM
May 15, 2006
Grieving family sees ceremony live in Iowa via video feed

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — Newly promoted Sgt. Maj. Brad Kasal spoke to a grainy image of his mother on a widescreen monitor as she sat at a table at Kirkwood College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1,850 miles away.

An hour earlier, with the help of the same video teleconference feed, Myrna Kasal watched her son receive the Navy Cross, thanks to the New York-based Freedom Calls Foundation, a charity organization that helped link Kasal at Pendleton with his relatives in Iowa.

The career infantryman had hoped his parents and siblings would be able to join him in California for the ceremonies.

But with his father, Gerald, on his deathbed, the family decided to remain in Iowa.

Kasal’s father died the day before his son’s ceremony, but the VTC connection allowed Kasal to speak directly to his mother and to his brothers, who were connected through a second feed.

The military is rooted in the Kasals, a farming family from Afton, Iowa, a town southwest of Des Moines.


Kasal’s father served in the Iowa Army National Guard, and three of Kasal’s four brothers have military experience: Jeff retired as a sergeant first class after 20 years in the Army and lives in North Carolina; Kelly did a four-year tour in the Army; and Kevin served in the Corps and Iowa National Guard. Randy, who attended the ceremony at Pendleton, did not serve in the military.

Kelly and Kevin spoke to their brother via VTC from Southwest Community College in nearby Creston, Iowa.

They watched their leatherneck brother receive his medal and promotion while surrounded by several reporters.

Kasal left for Iowa the next day to help the family prepare for his father’s funeral and burial.

He will return to his Oceanside, Calif., home to pack up and move to Des Moines, where he will become the senior enlisted recruiter at the Corps’ recruiting station there.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-09-06, 01:24 PM
May 15, 2006
Honor & loss
Marine grievously wounded in Iraq awarded Navy Cross

By Gidget Fuentes
Times staff writer

As a crowd of 400 people looked on, Sgt. Maj. Brad Kasal stood holding a microphone, glancing at his notes, trying to scrape together words of appreciation and gratitude.

It wasn’t easy.

At the May 1 ceremony, Kasal received the Navy Cross and was promoted to the highest enlisted rank of sergeant major. What made it difficult was that Kasal’s father couldn’t hang on long enough to see his son receive the nation’s second-highest medal for combat heroics.

Gerald Kasal, 69, passed away the day before after battling cancer.

“It’s an emotional day,” the Marine told the crowd, as if apologizing for his pause.

During a ceremony at Assault Amphibian School, where Kasal has been assigned while he continues his recovery from wounds suffered in Iraq, the 22-year veteran received the blue-and-white medal from Marine Installations West commander Maj. Gen. Mike Lehnert.

His biography “reflects superb performance at every step,” the two-star general said. “You are an inspiration,” he added, turning to Kasal to honor his father. “He is watching this ceremony.”

The event was broadcast live, via video teleconferencing, to Kasal’s family in Iowa.

Kasal, an infantry unit leader who was meritoriously promoted three times as a young Marine, has become an Iraq war legend. His heroic actions took place during a violent urban battle with insurgent fighters in Fallujah on Nov. 13, 2004.

Kasal said he was humbled by the attention.

“Words cannot say how much I appreciate you and love you to death,” he told the crowd, which included members of his former unit, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines.

‘One of our heroes’

While Kasal has deflected much of the attention given to him, several generals praised his dedication.

“This is one of our heroes,” Lehnert told the crowd, which included former 1st Marine Division commander Lt. Gen. James Mattis and current division commander Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski.

Kasal led a squad of Marines with the Pendleton-based 3/1 into a house in the Jolan neighborhood, where several Marines were caught in a gun battle with Iraqi insurgents.

Inside, Kasal and Pfc. Alexander Nicoll took fire from the second floor as Kasal came face-to-face with another fighter, who fired his AK-47 assault rifle.

The shots missed. Kasal fired back, killing the man. Another fighter sent a burst of automatic fire from upstairs that sliced through the two Marines, knocking them to the ground. Kasal, his leg hit with six rounds, dragged Nicoll away from the doorway, but another AK-47 round hit Kasal in his buttocks.

With both Marines bleeding, Kasal used the only two compression bandages they had to control Nicoll’s bleeding. As he was treating the wounds, he saw a grenade roll into the doorway.

“When the grenade landed next to us, I thought the chance of survival was probably zero,” he said.

It was the third time that morning Kasal thought he might die. “I thought for sure I was going to bleed out. ... Might as well let one of us live,” he recalled.

“I rolled over on top of him and kind of bear-hugged him to try to cover him up with my arms and body,” Kasal said in an interview with Marine Corps Times last year. Nicoll survived.

The battle lasted more than an hour. In the end, Sgt. Byron Norwood, a 25-year-old Texan, had been killed and about a dozen other Marines were wounded.

Kasal came out fighting, holding his 9mm pistol in his right hand as two Marines, sans rifles, carried him by his shoulders out of the house. “They left their weapons behind so they can better carry me out ... putting them at risk,” he said.

Photographer Lucian Reed captured the iconic photograph of the bloodied Kasal exiting the building. Reed’s photo quickly circulated around the Internet and was published in countless newspapers and magazines, including on the cover of Marine Corps Times with the headline ‘Hard as Hell.’

A limited-edition motivational poster of the photograph, printed by the Marine Corps Association at Mattis’ behest, quickly sold out. No more copies are expected, because of an expired limited copyright. The poster features Reed’s photo and the words “He is the reason for our daily routine.”

Lou Palermo, who came from Cleveland to attend the ceremony, clutched a poster in her hand. Palermo, a Marine mom, met Kasal in January 2005 and has been a close family friend since.

“Once you have a son in the Marines, they’re all your Marines,” she said.

Kasal, who was Weapons Company first sergeant during the fight in Fallujah, responded to a question he said many have asked about that day: Why was there a first sergeant in that battle?

“When I heard there were wounded Marines in that house, it was just the right thing to do. ... And I’d do it again a thousand times over, and those Marines did it for me,” he said. “It’s not because of my rank — it’s because I’m a Marine, it’s because they’re Marines.”

“I’ve been blessed. It’s been a great career,” he told the crowd that assembled to watch him receive the award. “I’ve seen remarkable Marines do some remarkable things throughout my career.”

The long road back

Kasal is a fighter.

He survived that day despite taking seven gunshots, 40-plus pieces of shrapnel and losing half his blood. He’s battled self-doubt at times and worried about his future. He’s endured 22 surgeries and defied doctors’ calls to amputate his mangled right leg.

He shared his story of a tough battle to get healthy and fight off doctors’ insistence to amputate his leg. But the 39-year-old Kasal, the fourth of five brothers who grew up an Iowa farm boy and turned into a fighting Marine infantryman, refused to give up.

“I got more determined to prove [my doctor] wrong,” he said. Support from Marines, friends and relatives helped, he said, adding, “It got me through it.

“I knew I was tough. I knew I can make it. I knew what I was capable of,” he said.

So he ignored stares when he pedaled his bike, his leg in a cast, around the neighborhood.

“I was that determined to get back. I wanted my life back, and I wanted my career back,” he said.

Doctors said “there was no way I would ever walk again,” he recalled. But two days before receiving his award, Kasal said he took to a trail near his Oceanside, Calif., home and ran 1½ miles. “It wasn’t pretty, but,” he noted, his voice dropping as the crowd applauded, “now my goal is to pass the PFT again.”

Kasal is moving to Iowa, where he has orders for his second recruiting tour and will be the top enlisted leader at Recruiting Station Des Moines.

As for his promotion to the top enlisted rank, he promised this: “I’m going to bust my butt every day ... and lead my Marines as best as I can.”

In the weeks before his father died, Kasal was able to talk with him about the Navy Cross.

“He’d be very proud,” he said, speaking to reporters after the ceremony.

Ellie