thedrifter
04-11-03, 07:30 PM
FROM THE FRONTLINES
Comrade aids fallen Marine's journey home
By Roger Roy | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted April 9, 2003
NUMANIYAH, Iraq -- For nearly 24 hours the young Marine watched over the body of the fallen gunnery sergeant he never knew.
He brushed the desert sand from the black body bag and made sure the American flag stayed taped to the dead Marine's chest.
The sad, chance encounter seems to govern so much of war.
Lance Cpl. Ryan Yung, 21, had just emptied his truck after pulling into a resupply area, about 50 miles south of Baghdad, and was waiting to head back south when he got a new assignment.
Drive the body of a Marine killed in action back to Kuwait.
Immediately, Yung, who is with the Orlando-based 6th Motor Transport Battalion, knew he had to make sure that full honors were given to his fallen brother-in-arms.
Yung, of Hopedale, Mass., who was just about to finish flight school in Fort Pierce when he got called up, put the canvas top over the bed of his truck.
At the field hospital, Yung was given a manifest and asked to sign for the body of a gunnery sergeant with the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, killed during a battle at a nearby village March 27.
Long journey home
Yung was determined that the start of the long journey home for the gunnery sergeant would be done right.
But first there was the problem of the truck. There was no way Yung was going to allow the body to be carried in a filthy truck, even if he had to sweep the sand and mud away with his hands.
Knowing the body would have to be strapped down for the rough ride, Yung went in search of tie-downs. The ones in his truck were dirty and frayed. He finally found some clean ones in another truck.
"They were almost new, like they'd barely been used," Yung said.
From the States, Yung had brought an American flag. He planned to have the Marines in his unit sign it as a keepsake. Instead, he placed his flag reverently on the chest of the fallen gunnery sergeant, using tape to hold it in place.
By now it was late afternoon, but as some trucks were still being unloaded, word was passed that the convoy would not move out until the morning.
So Yung curled up in the cab of his truck a few feet from the body and tried to sleep.
Convoy trucks are supposed to have a crew of two, but with supplies desperately needed at the front and drivers in short supply, most trucks have only the driver.
It was 6 a.m. when the convoy left -- all but one of the 70-odd trucks was empty.
There was nothing on Yung's truck to mark its precious cargo, but everyone in the convoy knew that it carried a dead Marine.
The trip to Camp Viper was only 150 miles, but there were detours along the way, bottlenecks at bridges thrown up hastily by Marine engineers, trucks that had broken down and others that had flat tires.
'Anyone's father'
For 11 hours, Yung rode alone with the gunnery sergeant's body.
"I kept thinking that he could be anyone's father," said Yung, whose father, a former Marine, taught him the Corps is a brotherhood.
The convoy route was covered with white dust as fine as talcum powder that seeped deep into the back of Yung's truck despite the canvas cover.
"I hated to see him back there all covered with dust," Yung said.
So at every stop, Yung would climb into the back of the truck, brush the dust from the sergeant's body bag and make sure the flag was still secure.
The convoy's progress was slow and tedious, but there were no snipers, no ambushes. The troops pulled into Camp Viper, about 100 miles south of Baghdad, tired but grateful that all had escaped injuries.
The stop at the rear supply base was supposed to be only the first for the gunnery sergeant's body. The plan called for the gunnery sergeant to be driven south into Kuwait, another long day's drive through the desert.
But it didn't seem right to Yung that the dead Marine would have to be trucked for another day.
So Yung went to his commanding officer, Maj. Michael Yaroma of Oviedo.
Yaroma interceded, and it was decided to take the body to the hospital at the supply base.
Yung remembered later that when they carried the gunnery sergeant into the hospital's morgue, there were already 13 Marines there.
When Yaroma learned the flag was Yung's, the major asked whether the Marine wanted it back.
"But I wanted to leave it with the gunney," Yung said. "I thought maybe his family would know that he was being taken care of -- that he wasn't just forgotten."
Yung never knew the sergeant's first name -- only his last name, Menusa, printed on the manifest when he picked up the body.
"I'll never forget Gunney Menusa," Yung said. "I keep thinking about how, even in his name, it says USA."
FOOTNOTE: The body that Lance Cpl. Ryan Yung drove was that of Sgt. Joseph Menusa, 33, of Tracy, Calif. Born in the Philippines, Menusa was a veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He is survived by his wife, Stacy, and their 3-year-old son, Joshua. On April 4, he was posthumously awarded U.S. citizenship. Family members plan to read from the citizenship papers at his funeral Friday.
Roger Roy may be reached through Ann Hellmuth at ahellmuth@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5054 or Lauren Ritchie at lritchie@orlandosentinel.com or 352-742-5918.
Sempers,
Roger
Comrade aids fallen Marine's journey home
By Roger Roy | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted April 9, 2003
NUMANIYAH, Iraq -- For nearly 24 hours the young Marine watched over the body of the fallen gunnery sergeant he never knew.
He brushed the desert sand from the black body bag and made sure the American flag stayed taped to the dead Marine's chest.
The sad, chance encounter seems to govern so much of war.
Lance Cpl. Ryan Yung, 21, had just emptied his truck after pulling into a resupply area, about 50 miles south of Baghdad, and was waiting to head back south when he got a new assignment.
Drive the body of a Marine killed in action back to Kuwait.
Immediately, Yung, who is with the Orlando-based 6th Motor Transport Battalion, knew he had to make sure that full honors were given to his fallen brother-in-arms.
Yung, of Hopedale, Mass., who was just about to finish flight school in Fort Pierce when he got called up, put the canvas top over the bed of his truck.
At the field hospital, Yung was given a manifest and asked to sign for the body of a gunnery sergeant with the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, killed during a battle at a nearby village March 27.
Long journey home
Yung was determined that the start of the long journey home for the gunnery sergeant would be done right.
But first there was the problem of the truck. There was no way Yung was going to allow the body to be carried in a filthy truck, even if he had to sweep the sand and mud away with his hands.
Knowing the body would have to be strapped down for the rough ride, Yung went in search of tie-downs. The ones in his truck were dirty and frayed. He finally found some clean ones in another truck.
"They were almost new, like they'd barely been used," Yung said.
From the States, Yung had brought an American flag. He planned to have the Marines in his unit sign it as a keepsake. Instead, he placed his flag reverently on the chest of the fallen gunnery sergeant, using tape to hold it in place.
By now it was late afternoon, but as some trucks were still being unloaded, word was passed that the convoy would not move out until the morning.
So Yung curled up in the cab of his truck a few feet from the body and tried to sleep.
Convoy trucks are supposed to have a crew of two, but with supplies desperately needed at the front and drivers in short supply, most trucks have only the driver.
It was 6 a.m. when the convoy left -- all but one of the 70-odd trucks was empty.
There was nothing on Yung's truck to mark its precious cargo, but everyone in the convoy knew that it carried a dead Marine.
The trip to Camp Viper was only 150 miles, but there were detours along the way, bottlenecks at bridges thrown up hastily by Marine engineers, trucks that had broken down and others that had flat tires.
'Anyone's father'
For 11 hours, Yung rode alone with the gunnery sergeant's body.
"I kept thinking that he could be anyone's father," said Yung, whose father, a former Marine, taught him the Corps is a brotherhood.
The convoy route was covered with white dust as fine as talcum powder that seeped deep into the back of Yung's truck despite the canvas cover.
"I hated to see him back there all covered with dust," Yung said.
So at every stop, Yung would climb into the back of the truck, brush the dust from the sergeant's body bag and make sure the flag was still secure.
The convoy's progress was slow and tedious, but there were no snipers, no ambushes. The troops pulled into Camp Viper, about 100 miles south of Baghdad, tired but grateful that all had escaped injuries.
The stop at the rear supply base was supposed to be only the first for the gunnery sergeant's body. The plan called for the gunnery sergeant to be driven south into Kuwait, another long day's drive through the desert.
But it didn't seem right to Yung that the dead Marine would have to be trucked for another day.
So Yung went to his commanding officer, Maj. Michael Yaroma of Oviedo.
Yaroma interceded, and it was decided to take the body to the hospital at the supply base.
Yung remembered later that when they carried the gunnery sergeant into the hospital's morgue, there were already 13 Marines there.
When Yaroma learned the flag was Yung's, the major asked whether the Marine wanted it back.
"But I wanted to leave it with the gunney," Yung said. "I thought maybe his family would know that he was being taken care of -- that he wasn't just forgotten."
Yung never knew the sergeant's first name -- only his last name, Menusa, printed on the manifest when he picked up the body.
"I'll never forget Gunney Menusa," Yung said. "I keep thinking about how, even in his name, it says USA."
FOOTNOTE: The body that Lance Cpl. Ryan Yung drove was that of Sgt. Joseph Menusa, 33, of Tracy, Calif. Born in the Philippines, Menusa was a veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He is survived by his wife, Stacy, and their 3-year-old son, Joshua. On April 4, he was posthumously awarded U.S. citizenship. Family members plan to read from the citizenship papers at his funeral Friday.
Roger Roy may be reached through Ann Hellmuth at ahellmuth@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5054 or Lauren Ritchie at lritchie@orlandosentinel.com or 352-742-5918.
Sempers,
Roger