thedrifter
03-16-08, 09:56 AM
More on Evan Morgan
Basic training
As a Fairview High School student, Evan Morgan knew he wanted to enlist with the Marines after school, but he still wanted to capture the fun of summer his senior year.
So, during the summer of 2002, Evan stayed home to help his father paint the house, and took a road trip with the family to visit relatives in up-state New York.
After one last hurrah with some high school friends at a July 4 party, Evan signed enlistment papers at a Boulder recruitment station.
On Aug. 12, 2002, Evan flew on a commercial flight from Denver to San Diego, where his “transformation” began.
After enduring a 13-week boot camp that Evan said tested him mentally and physically, he completed a three-month infantry school and learned vehicle and weapons maintenance.
Evan’s assignment from the Marines was for him to become an operator for the TOW, or tube-launched, optically-tracked missile system. His job was to use a scope to direct an anti-tank missile from the back of a military Humvee to its target.
Evan’s orders were to join up with the 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Division in Twentynine Palms, Calif.
“It turned out that unit was already in Kuwait,” Evan said, so he and other members of the unit flew to the Middle Eastern country at the end of February 2003.
By then, the military community knew war with Iraq was coming, Evan said.
“Tip of the spear”
One night in Kuwait, a platoon sergeant drove up to Evan’s patrol position and told his unit it would be “the tip of the spear.”
At the Iraqi border, Evan’s unit was given orders from the president to move in, as Scud missiles cruised over their heads.
“A bulldozer pushed a hole through (a barricade at the border), and all of America drove through.”
The unit’s first mission was to secure a gas-separation plant known as “the crown jewel.”
That first night, Evan found himself shooting at a group of Iraqi-manned, Soviet-made T-55 tanks.
“(The training) just does kick in, and you return fire,” he said, adding that his unit was lucky. “We didn’t have any horror stories — nobody died from enemy fire in our battalion.”
In fact, faced only with a few other “sporadic fire fights” to slow them down, the unit captured the production facility without incident. From there, they drove into the heart of Baghdad.
Evan said he remembers Iraqis — free for the first time from Saddam Hussein’s regime — hailing the arrival of U.S. troops and freely celebrating previously forbidden religious holidays in the streets. He even drove by the now-famous scene of a large statue of Hussein that was brought down after the U.S. invasion.
“People were really happy that we were there — very, very happy.”
In October 2003, Evan’s Marine unit was recalled to the United States after a nine-month deployment in Iraq.
It was the first time he got to see his permanent military base at Twentynine Palms.
“It’s in the middle of a desert in California,” Evan said. “It’s like Iraq, except you can drive to a Wendy’s”
Back in the States
At boot camp, Evan made friends with Travis Harless, a young Marine from Bakersfield.
The pair was inseparable, sleeping next to one another’s bunks at the Marine base and finding lots of time to talk and hang out in Harless’s home town during weekend leave.
Among the pictures hanging on Harless’s bunk wall was a photo of a girl, Jillian Lansing, who was friends with Harless’s fiancée.
While Evan was intent on meeting Jillian from that moment on, he said, she had other ideas.
“I don’t want to meet a Marine,’” Jillian frequently told her friends.
Even though the pair spoke once over the phone, Evan said, they wouldn’t meet in person until the following year when Harless was married in February 2004.
“We drove down to Bakersfield for fittings for the wedding,” Evan said. “We went to the mall and low and behold, (Jillian) walks up. I was trying to throw on the charm thick.”
It worked.
Evan said he laid plans to ask Jillian, then 19, out for a date the following weekend.
“I had this scheme,” Evan said. “I asked her to show me around town to go shopping for a gift.”
Jillian said she was hooked on Evan almost from the start.
“He was funny,” she said. “He wasn’t like any of the other guys I’d dated.”
After their first date, Evan made the 300-mile drive from his base to Bakersfield every weekend to see Jillian, sleeping at her parents’ house.
“I was proud of myself, because I said ‘I’m gonna date that girl’ a year earlier.”
In August 2004, Evan brought Jillian to Boulder to see the Rocky Mountains and to meet his parents.
But just as Evan and Jillian’s relationship was picking up steam, Evan’s Marine battalion was called to Iraq for a second deployment in October 2004.
A second deployment
Evan left California, and his blossoming relationship with Jillian, to head to Al Qaim, Iraq — an area northwest of Baghdad near the Syrian border.
When he arrived, Evan was promoted to corporal and given command of a Humvee and three other Marines.
For two months, Evan split his time performing security patrols and looking out for improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, that littered the roads. He also spent time guarding a bridge built by the Army Corps of Engineers that stretched over the Euphrates River.
Although his unit had not lost a single person during the first deployment, the military insurgency in Iraq had picked up steam by the time Evan’s unit arrived again.
Evan’s commander, a man Evan said he admired, was killed at the bridge.
“I really liked my company commander,” Evan said. “Then he died, the second day we were there — cut in half by an IED. We guarded that bridge to make sure that didn’t happen again.”
But after insurgents began shelling Evan’s unit with mortars on a regular basis, the military decided the bridge wasn’t worth the trouble, and had it dismantled.
New Year’s Day
For most military personnel deployed in a combat situation, traditional holidays take a back seat to the day’s routine work.
So much was true for Evan on New Year’s Day 2005.
The previous night, Evan returned from a 48-hour patrol running vehicle check-points. The crew, including Evan, was able to finally get some rest after a relatively uneventful patrol.
At the base, Evan chose to spend some time at the gym, but still remained on alert as part of a “quick-reaction force” that would respond outside the base to emergencies as they arose.
Most of the afternoon was quiet, Evan recalled, until a message barked over the radio for his unit to respond to a supply truck that had become disabled after striking a land mine on its way to the town of Husaybah.
Evan strapped on his vest, gathered his equipment and headed toward his Humvee.
Another vehicle commander was already inside and ready to go, Evan said, but a platoon leader made the call that Evan would lead the escort for a tow truck.
To minimize the threat of encountering an IED themselves, the squad drove through the open desert and avoided roads. When they arrived at the scene at about 3 p.m., things were uneventful in that part of the Al Anbar province.
“So, we get in our vehicles and we get ready to leave,” Evan said. “The last thing I remember is we were driving away.”
Evan’s fellow Marines have told him, as best they can, what happened as his vehicle drove off that day.
“There is some confusion about whether or not it was an anti-tank mine or an IED,” Evan said. “But whatever it was, it detonated on my side of the vehicle.”
The violent explosion ejected the soldier manning the Humvee machine gun and rattled the others in the truck, but no one was hurt as badly as Evan, who was sitting directly over the blast.
“I remember coming to and being on the ground,” Evan said. “They got me out of the vehicle. They were talking to me, trying to keep me conscious.”
A Navy corpsman and another Marine who administered first aid at the scene were decorated for bravery.
On the ground, Evan’s thoughts went to Jillian, and home, as a Blackhawk helicopter evacuated him to a nearby Navy Shock Trauma Platoon for emergency surgery.
Evan thinks he managed to give his fellow Marines a thumbs-up from the chopper, even though his right arm and several fingers had been shattered.
Ellie
Basic training
As a Fairview High School student, Evan Morgan knew he wanted to enlist with the Marines after school, but he still wanted to capture the fun of summer his senior year.
So, during the summer of 2002, Evan stayed home to help his father paint the house, and took a road trip with the family to visit relatives in up-state New York.
After one last hurrah with some high school friends at a July 4 party, Evan signed enlistment papers at a Boulder recruitment station.
On Aug. 12, 2002, Evan flew on a commercial flight from Denver to San Diego, where his “transformation” began.
After enduring a 13-week boot camp that Evan said tested him mentally and physically, he completed a three-month infantry school and learned vehicle and weapons maintenance.
Evan’s assignment from the Marines was for him to become an operator for the TOW, or tube-launched, optically-tracked missile system. His job was to use a scope to direct an anti-tank missile from the back of a military Humvee to its target.
Evan’s orders were to join up with the 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Division in Twentynine Palms, Calif.
“It turned out that unit was already in Kuwait,” Evan said, so he and other members of the unit flew to the Middle Eastern country at the end of February 2003.
By then, the military community knew war with Iraq was coming, Evan said.
“Tip of the spear”
One night in Kuwait, a platoon sergeant drove up to Evan’s patrol position and told his unit it would be “the tip of the spear.”
At the Iraqi border, Evan’s unit was given orders from the president to move in, as Scud missiles cruised over their heads.
“A bulldozer pushed a hole through (a barricade at the border), and all of America drove through.”
The unit’s first mission was to secure a gas-separation plant known as “the crown jewel.”
That first night, Evan found himself shooting at a group of Iraqi-manned, Soviet-made T-55 tanks.
“(The training) just does kick in, and you return fire,” he said, adding that his unit was lucky. “We didn’t have any horror stories — nobody died from enemy fire in our battalion.”
In fact, faced only with a few other “sporadic fire fights” to slow them down, the unit captured the production facility without incident. From there, they drove into the heart of Baghdad.
Evan said he remembers Iraqis — free for the first time from Saddam Hussein’s regime — hailing the arrival of U.S. troops and freely celebrating previously forbidden religious holidays in the streets. He even drove by the now-famous scene of a large statue of Hussein that was brought down after the U.S. invasion.
“People were really happy that we were there — very, very happy.”
In October 2003, Evan’s Marine unit was recalled to the United States after a nine-month deployment in Iraq.
It was the first time he got to see his permanent military base at Twentynine Palms.
“It’s in the middle of a desert in California,” Evan said. “It’s like Iraq, except you can drive to a Wendy’s”
Back in the States
At boot camp, Evan made friends with Travis Harless, a young Marine from Bakersfield.
The pair was inseparable, sleeping next to one another’s bunks at the Marine base and finding lots of time to talk and hang out in Harless’s home town during weekend leave.
Among the pictures hanging on Harless’s bunk wall was a photo of a girl, Jillian Lansing, who was friends with Harless’s fiancée.
While Evan was intent on meeting Jillian from that moment on, he said, she had other ideas.
“I don’t want to meet a Marine,’” Jillian frequently told her friends.
Even though the pair spoke once over the phone, Evan said, they wouldn’t meet in person until the following year when Harless was married in February 2004.
“We drove down to Bakersfield for fittings for the wedding,” Evan said. “We went to the mall and low and behold, (Jillian) walks up. I was trying to throw on the charm thick.”
It worked.
Evan said he laid plans to ask Jillian, then 19, out for a date the following weekend.
“I had this scheme,” Evan said. “I asked her to show me around town to go shopping for a gift.”
Jillian said she was hooked on Evan almost from the start.
“He was funny,” she said. “He wasn’t like any of the other guys I’d dated.”
After their first date, Evan made the 300-mile drive from his base to Bakersfield every weekend to see Jillian, sleeping at her parents’ house.
“I was proud of myself, because I said ‘I’m gonna date that girl’ a year earlier.”
In August 2004, Evan brought Jillian to Boulder to see the Rocky Mountains and to meet his parents.
But just as Evan and Jillian’s relationship was picking up steam, Evan’s Marine battalion was called to Iraq for a second deployment in October 2004.
A second deployment
Evan left California, and his blossoming relationship with Jillian, to head to Al Qaim, Iraq — an area northwest of Baghdad near the Syrian border.
When he arrived, Evan was promoted to corporal and given command of a Humvee and three other Marines.
For two months, Evan split his time performing security patrols and looking out for improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, that littered the roads. He also spent time guarding a bridge built by the Army Corps of Engineers that stretched over the Euphrates River.
Although his unit had not lost a single person during the first deployment, the military insurgency in Iraq had picked up steam by the time Evan’s unit arrived again.
Evan’s commander, a man Evan said he admired, was killed at the bridge.
“I really liked my company commander,” Evan said. “Then he died, the second day we were there — cut in half by an IED. We guarded that bridge to make sure that didn’t happen again.”
But after insurgents began shelling Evan’s unit with mortars on a regular basis, the military decided the bridge wasn’t worth the trouble, and had it dismantled.
New Year’s Day
For most military personnel deployed in a combat situation, traditional holidays take a back seat to the day’s routine work.
So much was true for Evan on New Year’s Day 2005.
The previous night, Evan returned from a 48-hour patrol running vehicle check-points. The crew, including Evan, was able to finally get some rest after a relatively uneventful patrol.
At the base, Evan chose to spend some time at the gym, but still remained on alert as part of a “quick-reaction force” that would respond outside the base to emergencies as they arose.
Most of the afternoon was quiet, Evan recalled, until a message barked over the radio for his unit to respond to a supply truck that had become disabled after striking a land mine on its way to the town of Husaybah.
Evan strapped on his vest, gathered his equipment and headed toward his Humvee.
Another vehicle commander was already inside and ready to go, Evan said, but a platoon leader made the call that Evan would lead the escort for a tow truck.
To minimize the threat of encountering an IED themselves, the squad drove through the open desert and avoided roads. When they arrived at the scene at about 3 p.m., things were uneventful in that part of the Al Anbar province.
“So, we get in our vehicles and we get ready to leave,” Evan said. “The last thing I remember is we were driving away.”
Evan’s fellow Marines have told him, as best they can, what happened as his vehicle drove off that day.
“There is some confusion about whether or not it was an anti-tank mine or an IED,” Evan said. “But whatever it was, it detonated on my side of the vehicle.”
The violent explosion ejected the soldier manning the Humvee machine gun and rattled the others in the truck, but no one was hurt as badly as Evan, who was sitting directly over the blast.
“I remember coming to and being on the ground,” Evan said. “They got me out of the vehicle. They were talking to me, trying to keep me conscious.”
A Navy corpsman and another Marine who administered first aid at the scene were decorated for bravery.
On the ground, Evan’s thoughts went to Jillian, and home, as a Blackhawk helicopter evacuated him to a nearby Navy Shock Trauma Platoon for emergency surgery.
Evan thinks he managed to give his fellow Marines a thumbs-up from the chopper, even though his right arm and several fingers had been shattered.
Ellie