Marine firsts

[Shaffer]

The Marines Corps seemed to be everywhere in Operation Iraqi Freedom. They helped the British tame Basra. They fought Fedayeen Saddam guerrillas in southern Iraqi towns. They did urban combat in Kut. They entered east Baghdad and ended up in the town square, where a Marine vehicle pulled down a huge metal statue of Saddam Hussein. For an encore, they went on to Tikrit, Saddam's last stronghold. Along the way, the Corps managed some firsts. It was the first war where the primary means of communication between the battlefield and the United States was e-mail. The Corps also saw its first black women pilots fly helicopters over the war zone. Nine in 10 munitions were precision-guided, compared with 10 percent in the 1991 Persian Gulf war.