thedrifter
05-20-03, 10:03 AM
A General's View of the War
May 14, 2003
At a stop during a short visit to the states, a Marine Corps leader reflects on the war in Iraq, the sacrifices of U.S. troops, the Iraqi people's elation and what's next for his division.
TEMECULA, Calif. - Like thousands of Marines, soldiers, airmen and sailors returning home from Iraq, John F. Kelly is coming back from war a changed man.
Months of anxious anticipation, rushes of adrenaline and sheer moments of calm and fear when U.S. forces crossed into Iraq in March have changed the 53-year Marine and infantry officer. Although a silver star is pinned on each collar of his khaki uniform shirt, the brigadier general's rank doesn't ease the effects a war zone has on a foot soldier, green or seasoned.
"I returned a different person than when I went over, and, frankly, a much more emotional person than I was before," Kelly told the Military Officers Association of America's Southwest Riverside chapter on May 13. The assistant division commander of the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, Calif., gave the first public talk by a Marine Corps's senior ground commanders back from Iraq.
A week ago, Kelly, a Boston native who enlisted in 1970, left the Persian Gulf for Washington, D.C., where he remembered the war's injured and dead just as he mourned his father-in-law, a World War II combat veteran, who passed away two weeks ago.
At the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., the one-star general spent the day with Marines recovering from combat wounds they received during the battles in Iraq. "Some of them have very, very long roads to go," Kelly said. "Some of them, frankly, will never recover."
On May 11, he visited Arlington National Cemetery, the nation's famed resting place for its war dead, and met several families of young men killed in the war. The families had found some solace and comfort in spending time with the Marines from their loved ones' units who were recuperating at Bethesda, he said.
The 1st Marine Division lost 23 Marines killed during the battles that left 232 injured. Another 118 Marines were wounded from non-battle injuries. "Words cannot express how amazed I was at their patriotism and their understanding of what it takes to keep a nation free," said the blue-eyed Kelly, the father of a daughter and two sons, one a Marine lieutenant and another who will soon join the Coast Guard.
"There's not anything anyone can say to anyone who lost a loved one in war," he added, acknowledging Capt. Aaron J. Contreras, a 31-year-old Huey pilot born on the Fourth of July in San Jose and killed March 30 in Southern Iraq. Contreras' widow, Janelle, the mother of their three children, listened from a table nearby.
Like casualties of past wars, the American troops who fought and died during Operation Iraqi Freedom "are part of the legend that is America," Kelly said.
For several weeks, Kelly moved with the 1st Marine Division's headquarters from northern Kuwait across Iraq's desert sands and bogs in a canvas-covered Humvee, with his driver, aide and, of course, ammunition.
The infantry division, the sharp spear of the 45,000-strong I Marine Expeditionary Force, was ordered to cross into Iraq 48 hours earlier than Kelly and others had originally expected. U.S. officials feared Iraqi forces would light up the vast oilfields north of Kuwait and ordered the Marines, both American and British, to get control of the oilfields.
"How fast can you go?" Kelly recounted the question from his top boss, Marine Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, I MEF commander. "I said, 'Sir, well how fast do you want us to go?'" Four hours later, the division rolled north through southern Iraq's maze of irrigation canals and spongy bogs. They seized the oilfields before too many oil wells could be sabotaged. "We very quickly took over that corner of Iraq," Kelly said.
After handing the reins to British military commanders, the division quickly shifted its focus and set its compass north in the race to Baghdad. They encountered assorted Iraq Army units in battles that at times were fiery and chaotic like a Hollywood action movie. "They didn't fight very well, but there was a lot of fighting" going on, Kelly said of the Iraqis. "When it's right there with you...if it's close, it's heavy fire."
The Marines suffered their worst blow in a single day, losing 18 Marines in battle near as-Nasiriyah. It was the war's biggest one-day toll. But the Marines ultimately captured some key bridges over the Euphrates River, he said.
The canal system that marks the low-lying lands between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers -- many believe where the Garden of Eden took root -- made travel difficult for military vehicles. "It is the worst terrain in the Middle East," said Kelly. Heavily populated, the land hid rogue gunmen and Saddam Fedayeen fighters who dared to fight U.S. and British forces in the south and pull innocent civilians into the crossfire.
By Day 8, the Marines had reached the Tigris near al-Kut -- a 500-mile road march from Kuwait and an historic "phenomenal" feat for the Marine Corps, Kelly said. He said the division managed to do it with "a logistical light diet" and with strict discipline, both physical and mental: They traveled as light as possible. They took extra fuel and fuel cans. They took extra water. They carried enough food for one or two full Meals-Ready-to-Eat for each Marine and sailor. Though intentional, "no one went a few days without eating," he said, "and that was the mindset we put ourselves in."
In those 500 miles, he added, "there wasn't a lot of people sleeping (or) a lot of people eating, but there was a lot of people fighting. And (the Marines) did just a magnificent job."
In the war's second week, Kelly was ordered to take a regimental force north to Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, 650 miles north of Kuwait. Military analysts had expected the Iraqi leader would flee there, into his native tribe's protective arms. So Kelly assembled a combined arms task force that included a platoon of Navy SEALs, and "we snuck out of Baghdad in the middle of the night. By the time the folks in Tikrit woke up, we were in the city."
The Marines killed a few dozen Iraqis in small firefights that raged before they took control that first day, according to reports. "They kicked in a few doors, banged a few heads and saved a few Americans," the general noted.
Before they reached Tikrit, Marines near the city of Samarra received information that led to the successful rescue of seven American POWs held by Iraqi forces.
By the 12th day in Tikrit, the lights were on, water was running and some government offices and hospitals were functioning, Kelly said. He and the task force handed control to the Army's 4th Infantry Division commander and he left for Karbala, where the 1st Marine Division and his boss, Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis, now oversees Iraq's southern sector.
The Marine division has focused its efforts in five southern cities, each secured by an infantry battalion and led by its commander.
Kelly himself did a stint as the mayor of Tikrit. When the Marines arrived, an Iraqi man said he was a cousin of Saddam Hussein and the city's mayor. He rode around in a black Mercedes-Benz sedan, apparently funded and fueled on the backs of the local residents.
So what happened to the mayor?
"I sent him home," Kelly recalled.
As for the black sedan, it stayed behind.
Kelly will soon return to Iraq and rejoin the Division before the higher headquarters is ordered home to Camp Pendleton. Caught up on e-mail and the news, he now has a bigger picture of the war and its global impact. Even as a general, he knew little of the war's details as he moved through Iraq. He had no access to TV or radio. At times, he got emails from his wife and family. Through them, he learned of the anti-war protest movement and of France's opposition to the war. To them, he relayed the feats and heroics of his Marines, like those who searched a town to find the body of one fallen comrade.
"When we left, not many of those young kids could find Iraq on a map," Kelly said of his Marines, and noted "they went because we asked them to go. They're still in there doing the job that's not quite over.
"Some of them will never come back, but they are part of the legend now."
© 2003 Gidget Fuentes.
Sempers,
Roger
May 14, 2003
At a stop during a short visit to the states, a Marine Corps leader reflects on the war in Iraq, the sacrifices of U.S. troops, the Iraqi people's elation and what's next for his division.
TEMECULA, Calif. - Like thousands of Marines, soldiers, airmen and sailors returning home from Iraq, John F. Kelly is coming back from war a changed man.
Months of anxious anticipation, rushes of adrenaline and sheer moments of calm and fear when U.S. forces crossed into Iraq in March have changed the 53-year Marine and infantry officer. Although a silver star is pinned on each collar of his khaki uniform shirt, the brigadier general's rank doesn't ease the effects a war zone has on a foot soldier, green or seasoned.
"I returned a different person than when I went over, and, frankly, a much more emotional person than I was before," Kelly told the Military Officers Association of America's Southwest Riverside chapter on May 13. The assistant division commander of the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, Calif., gave the first public talk by a Marine Corps's senior ground commanders back from Iraq.
A week ago, Kelly, a Boston native who enlisted in 1970, left the Persian Gulf for Washington, D.C., where he remembered the war's injured and dead just as he mourned his father-in-law, a World War II combat veteran, who passed away two weeks ago.
At the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., the one-star general spent the day with Marines recovering from combat wounds they received during the battles in Iraq. "Some of them have very, very long roads to go," Kelly said. "Some of them, frankly, will never recover."
On May 11, he visited Arlington National Cemetery, the nation's famed resting place for its war dead, and met several families of young men killed in the war. The families had found some solace and comfort in spending time with the Marines from their loved ones' units who were recuperating at Bethesda, he said.
The 1st Marine Division lost 23 Marines killed during the battles that left 232 injured. Another 118 Marines were wounded from non-battle injuries. "Words cannot express how amazed I was at their patriotism and their understanding of what it takes to keep a nation free," said the blue-eyed Kelly, the father of a daughter and two sons, one a Marine lieutenant and another who will soon join the Coast Guard.
"There's not anything anyone can say to anyone who lost a loved one in war," he added, acknowledging Capt. Aaron J. Contreras, a 31-year-old Huey pilot born on the Fourth of July in San Jose and killed March 30 in Southern Iraq. Contreras' widow, Janelle, the mother of their three children, listened from a table nearby.
Like casualties of past wars, the American troops who fought and died during Operation Iraqi Freedom "are part of the legend that is America," Kelly said.
For several weeks, Kelly moved with the 1st Marine Division's headquarters from northern Kuwait across Iraq's desert sands and bogs in a canvas-covered Humvee, with his driver, aide and, of course, ammunition.
The infantry division, the sharp spear of the 45,000-strong I Marine Expeditionary Force, was ordered to cross into Iraq 48 hours earlier than Kelly and others had originally expected. U.S. officials feared Iraqi forces would light up the vast oilfields north of Kuwait and ordered the Marines, both American and British, to get control of the oilfields.
"How fast can you go?" Kelly recounted the question from his top boss, Marine Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, I MEF commander. "I said, 'Sir, well how fast do you want us to go?'" Four hours later, the division rolled north through southern Iraq's maze of irrigation canals and spongy bogs. They seized the oilfields before too many oil wells could be sabotaged. "We very quickly took over that corner of Iraq," Kelly said.
After handing the reins to British military commanders, the division quickly shifted its focus and set its compass north in the race to Baghdad. They encountered assorted Iraq Army units in battles that at times were fiery and chaotic like a Hollywood action movie. "They didn't fight very well, but there was a lot of fighting" going on, Kelly said of the Iraqis. "When it's right there with you...if it's close, it's heavy fire."
The Marines suffered their worst blow in a single day, losing 18 Marines in battle near as-Nasiriyah. It was the war's biggest one-day toll. But the Marines ultimately captured some key bridges over the Euphrates River, he said.
The canal system that marks the low-lying lands between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers -- many believe where the Garden of Eden took root -- made travel difficult for military vehicles. "It is the worst terrain in the Middle East," said Kelly. Heavily populated, the land hid rogue gunmen and Saddam Fedayeen fighters who dared to fight U.S. and British forces in the south and pull innocent civilians into the crossfire.
By Day 8, the Marines had reached the Tigris near al-Kut -- a 500-mile road march from Kuwait and an historic "phenomenal" feat for the Marine Corps, Kelly said. He said the division managed to do it with "a logistical light diet" and with strict discipline, both physical and mental: They traveled as light as possible. They took extra fuel and fuel cans. They took extra water. They carried enough food for one or two full Meals-Ready-to-Eat for each Marine and sailor. Though intentional, "no one went a few days without eating," he said, "and that was the mindset we put ourselves in."
In those 500 miles, he added, "there wasn't a lot of people sleeping (or) a lot of people eating, but there was a lot of people fighting. And (the Marines) did just a magnificent job."
In the war's second week, Kelly was ordered to take a regimental force north to Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, 650 miles north of Kuwait. Military analysts had expected the Iraqi leader would flee there, into his native tribe's protective arms. So Kelly assembled a combined arms task force that included a platoon of Navy SEALs, and "we snuck out of Baghdad in the middle of the night. By the time the folks in Tikrit woke up, we were in the city."
The Marines killed a few dozen Iraqis in small firefights that raged before they took control that first day, according to reports. "They kicked in a few doors, banged a few heads and saved a few Americans," the general noted.
Before they reached Tikrit, Marines near the city of Samarra received information that led to the successful rescue of seven American POWs held by Iraqi forces.
By the 12th day in Tikrit, the lights were on, water was running and some government offices and hospitals were functioning, Kelly said. He and the task force handed control to the Army's 4th Infantry Division commander and he left for Karbala, where the 1st Marine Division and his boss, Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis, now oversees Iraq's southern sector.
The Marine division has focused its efforts in five southern cities, each secured by an infantry battalion and led by its commander.
Kelly himself did a stint as the mayor of Tikrit. When the Marines arrived, an Iraqi man said he was a cousin of Saddam Hussein and the city's mayor. He rode around in a black Mercedes-Benz sedan, apparently funded and fueled on the backs of the local residents.
So what happened to the mayor?
"I sent him home," Kelly recalled.
As for the black sedan, it stayed behind.
Kelly will soon return to Iraq and rejoin the Division before the higher headquarters is ordered home to Camp Pendleton. Caught up on e-mail and the news, he now has a bigger picture of the war and its global impact. Even as a general, he knew little of the war's details as he moved through Iraq. He had no access to TV or radio. At times, he got emails from his wife and family. Through them, he learned of the anti-war protest movement and of France's opposition to the war. To them, he relayed the feats and heroics of his Marines, like those who searched a town to find the body of one fallen comrade.
"When we left, not many of those young kids could find Iraq on a map," Kelly said of his Marines, and noted "they went because we asked them to go. They're still in there doing the job that's not quite over.
"Some of them will never come back, but they are part of the legend now."
© 2003 Gidget Fuentes.
Sempers,
Roger