thedrifter
04-10-08, 08:42 AM
Passed over for Iraq during active duty, soldier signs up for deployment
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
By DAN PROCHILO
of The Montclair Times
The Marine’s response had become automatic, instinctual.
While driving his vehicle, he spotted crushed debris down the road, right where a car’s passenger’s side tires would roll over it. The flattened bit of trash had the placement typical of an insurgent booby trap, of an improvised explosive camouflaged as litter.
Cpl. Scott McGrath jerked the steering wheel, swerving widely to avoid the object, nearly crashing his car.
He then pulled over for a minute to “snap back into it,” he said.
McGrath wasn’t in Iraq anymore.
He was driving southbound on Christopher Street, here in Montclair.
In the convoys, McGrath, a self-proclaimed “thrill seeker,” was always the lead gunner, relied upon by his fellow soldiers to be the first to spot danger.
On winter nights in the Iraqi desert, the mercury dipped well below freezing. Sitting on the roof of a seven-ton truck going 55 mph, manning an M2 .50-caliber machine gun for hours, the cold became unbearable, penetrating his two facemasks and his goggles.
Sipping Rip It energy drinks and downing fat-burning pills, McGrath had to maintain constant alertness. Every sand dune could be hiding a gunman.
“By the cities, there’s garbage everywhere,” said McGrath. “Anything could be a bomb.”
Crossing the bridge into Fallujah gave the 26-year-old Montclair resident a rush. His heart pounding, McGrath scanned the desolate landscape of refuse, bullet-riddled buildings, scattered fires and stray dogs, searching for threats.
“That’s the reason I went there,” he said. “To see all that.”
During his four years of active duty starting in 2002, he never got the opportunity.
It seemed as if every time McGrath volunteered to go Iraq something got in his way. Once, it was his left leg, which he broke playing on the battalion soccer team.
Few Marines stationed with McGrath at Camp Pendleton, California, were being sent to fight in the war, and those who were deployed were selected through a raffle. McGrath submitted his name, then broke his right index finger — his trigger finger — after dropping a heavy engine part on it while working on a Humvee.
Was he just not meant to go to war?
His deployment ended in 2006 and he returned home to reside with his parents on Grove Street. He considered joining a police or fire department. McGrath took the FDNY exam and passed with good marks. He signed up for the Essex County Police Academy. He was interviewed for jobs, and had a physical exam.
But during those six months back home, McGrath was restless over a perceived lack of resolution to his stint in the military. He would tell people he was in the Marines, and that prompted the inevitable follow-up question: Had he served in the Iraq war?
“I wasn’t proud of myself at all,” he said.
He could not shake this feeling that he had been cheated. He had spent years preparing for combat, and for what?
“Imagine being Derek Jeter and training every day of your life to go to the World Series,” McGrath said, “and then you never went, and quit baseball.
“My brothers were scared I wanted to be a war hero with fancy stories, but that was not the case,” McGrath said. “I just wanted to fulfill my own goals, and to feel good about myself.”
One day he told his mother, “I have to go. I can’t go on with my life until I go to Iraq.”
When he told his parents he had signed up for a year’s deployment with a reserve unit out of Red Bank, they were proud, but terrified. His father broke down in tears.
“He’s going away again,” Kevin McGrath thought. But his son’s drive and confidence reassured the parents and helped them get through his tour, which started in August 2007.
He was stationed at Al Taqaddum Airbase, informally known as “Camp TQ,” situated near Ramadi and Fallujah in an insurgent stronghold once referred to as the Triangle of Death.
After ammunition, food and other supplies were flown in to the airbase, they needed to be trucked to other installations. Stretching from 60 to 90 vehicles long, the convoys sometimes also served as prisoner transport.
Occasionally they took road trips that lasted up to 30 hours, although the missions averaged 16 hours. The soldiers would take one day off between missions to load the trucks and to prep and test their weapons. It got to the point that they looked forward to their journeys, which provided distractions that staved off homesickness and boredom.
McGrath said that often the convoys would be traveling through the empty desert when young sheep herders, roughly between 4 and 10 years old, would come running toward the trucks, picking up empty water bottles from the ground and waving them, asking the soldiers for water.
It took a few months, but eventually McGrath grew accustomed to the foul stench of the Iraqi air, a combination of the odors of burning cars and waste, and of camels, sheep and other animals.
His unit experienced combat, he said, but none of his 40 to 45 platoon members were killed. Citing military policy, McGrath said he could not describe the specific details of battles he was involved in.
All told, he went on 88 missions, and was awarded the Naval Achievement Medal.
He returned to Red Bank on March 22, and when he came home to Montclair, a long banner bearing the symbol of the Marine Corps was hung from two posts stuck in the front lawn: “Welcome home Scott. Back from Iraq.”
Since his return, strangers have been coming to the door and sending anonymous cards thanking McGrath. He has been getting two to four cards a day, mostly from people he doesn’t know, he said.
“It would shock you, how many people go out of their way,” said McGrath.
A family stopped by to meet him. A retired general from Montclair gave McGrath a gold “challenge coin,” the emblem of a longstanding military tradition. Soldiers are supposed to carry one with them at all times, since whoever doesn’t have a coin to slam down on the bar is expected to buy drinks for all his or her comrades.
Many of these grateful people are Vietnam veterans, apparently trying to make sure McGrath does not come home to the condemnation they faced from an American public fed up with war.
One envelope arrived addressed to just “Scott, U.S.M.C.” Inside, McGrath found a sheet of paper folded in three that, when opened, revealed $50 in cash and a two-word message in Latin, “Semper Fi,” short for “Semper Fidelis,” or “Always faithful,” the slogan of the United States Marine Corps.
It is appropriate. Between now and the May 14 end of his contract, McGrath will be in the post-deployment stage, a readjustment and evaluation period for homecoming soldiers. He is interested in becoming a member of the Montclair Fire Dept., he said, but if that doesn’t work out, then he might reenlist and become a career Marine.
Contact Dan Prochilo at prochilo@montclairtimes.com.
Ellie
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
By DAN PROCHILO
of The Montclair Times
The Marine’s response had become automatic, instinctual.
While driving his vehicle, he spotted crushed debris down the road, right where a car’s passenger’s side tires would roll over it. The flattened bit of trash had the placement typical of an insurgent booby trap, of an improvised explosive camouflaged as litter.
Cpl. Scott McGrath jerked the steering wheel, swerving widely to avoid the object, nearly crashing his car.
He then pulled over for a minute to “snap back into it,” he said.
McGrath wasn’t in Iraq anymore.
He was driving southbound on Christopher Street, here in Montclair.
In the convoys, McGrath, a self-proclaimed “thrill seeker,” was always the lead gunner, relied upon by his fellow soldiers to be the first to spot danger.
On winter nights in the Iraqi desert, the mercury dipped well below freezing. Sitting on the roof of a seven-ton truck going 55 mph, manning an M2 .50-caliber machine gun for hours, the cold became unbearable, penetrating his two facemasks and his goggles.
Sipping Rip It energy drinks and downing fat-burning pills, McGrath had to maintain constant alertness. Every sand dune could be hiding a gunman.
“By the cities, there’s garbage everywhere,” said McGrath. “Anything could be a bomb.”
Crossing the bridge into Fallujah gave the 26-year-old Montclair resident a rush. His heart pounding, McGrath scanned the desolate landscape of refuse, bullet-riddled buildings, scattered fires and stray dogs, searching for threats.
“That’s the reason I went there,” he said. “To see all that.”
During his four years of active duty starting in 2002, he never got the opportunity.
It seemed as if every time McGrath volunteered to go Iraq something got in his way. Once, it was his left leg, which he broke playing on the battalion soccer team.
Few Marines stationed with McGrath at Camp Pendleton, California, were being sent to fight in the war, and those who were deployed were selected through a raffle. McGrath submitted his name, then broke his right index finger — his trigger finger — after dropping a heavy engine part on it while working on a Humvee.
Was he just not meant to go to war?
His deployment ended in 2006 and he returned home to reside with his parents on Grove Street. He considered joining a police or fire department. McGrath took the FDNY exam and passed with good marks. He signed up for the Essex County Police Academy. He was interviewed for jobs, and had a physical exam.
But during those six months back home, McGrath was restless over a perceived lack of resolution to his stint in the military. He would tell people he was in the Marines, and that prompted the inevitable follow-up question: Had he served in the Iraq war?
“I wasn’t proud of myself at all,” he said.
He could not shake this feeling that he had been cheated. He had spent years preparing for combat, and for what?
“Imagine being Derek Jeter and training every day of your life to go to the World Series,” McGrath said, “and then you never went, and quit baseball.
“My brothers were scared I wanted to be a war hero with fancy stories, but that was not the case,” McGrath said. “I just wanted to fulfill my own goals, and to feel good about myself.”
One day he told his mother, “I have to go. I can’t go on with my life until I go to Iraq.”
When he told his parents he had signed up for a year’s deployment with a reserve unit out of Red Bank, they were proud, but terrified. His father broke down in tears.
“He’s going away again,” Kevin McGrath thought. But his son’s drive and confidence reassured the parents and helped them get through his tour, which started in August 2007.
He was stationed at Al Taqaddum Airbase, informally known as “Camp TQ,” situated near Ramadi and Fallujah in an insurgent stronghold once referred to as the Triangle of Death.
After ammunition, food and other supplies were flown in to the airbase, they needed to be trucked to other installations. Stretching from 60 to 90 vehicles long, the convoys sometimes also served as prisoner transport.
Occasionally they took road trips that lasted up to 30 hours, although the missions averaged 16 hours. The soldiers would take one day off between missions to load the trucks and to prep and test their weapons. It got to the point that they looked forward to their journeys, which provided distractions that staved off homesickness and boredom.
McGrath said that often the convoys would be traveling through the empty desert when young sheep herders, roughly between 4 and 10 years old, would come running toward the trucks, picking up empty water bottles from the ground and waving them, asking the soldiers for water.
It took a few months, but eventually McGrath grew accustomed to the foul stench of the Iraqi air, a combination of the odors of burning cars and waste, and of camels, sheep and other animals.
His unit experienced combat, he said, but none of his 40 to 45 platoon members were killed. Citing military policy, McGrath said he could not describe the specific details of battles he was involved in.
All told, he went on 88 missions, and was awarded the Naval Achievement Medal.
He returned to Red Bank on March 22, and when he came home to Montclair, a long banner bearing the symbol of the Marine Corps was hung from two posts stuck in the front lawn: “Welcome home Scott. Back from Iraq.”
Since his return, strangers have been coming to the door and sending anonymous cards thanking McGrath. He has been getting two to four cards a day, mostly from people he doesn’t know, he said.
“It would shock you, how many people go out of their way,” said McGrath.
A family stopped by to meet him. A retired general from Montclair gave McGrath a gold “challenge coin,” the emblem of a longstanding military tradition. Soldiers are supposed to carry one with them at all times, since whoever doesn’t have a coin to slam down on the bar is expected to buy drinks for all his or her comrades.
Many of these grateful people are Vietnam veterans, apparently trying to make sure McGrath does not come home to the condemnation they faced from an American public fed up with war.
One envelope arrived addressed to just “Scott, U.S.M.C.” Inside, McGrath found a sheet of paper folded in three that, when opened, revealed $50 in cash and a two-word message in Latin, “Semper Fi,” short for “Semper Fidelis,” or “Always faithful,” the slogan of the United States Marine Corps.
It is appropriate. Between now and the May 14 end of his contract, McGrath will be in the post-deployment stage, a readjustment and evaluation period for homecoming soldiers. He is interested in becoming a member of the Montclair Fire Dept., he said, but if that doesn’t work out, then he might reenlist and become a career Marine.
Contact Dan Prochilo at prochilo@montclairtimes.com.
Ellie