thedrifter
03-19-09, 07:48 AM
March 18, 2009
Marines Ross Nevienski and Jim Pinsonneault reflect on their service
On March 19, 2003, the United States launched the Iraq war to topple Saddam Hussein.
At the time, Ross Nevienski of the town of Franzen was a 20-year-old Marine private first class. As the American cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs fell in Baghdad, he and the Marines in his squadron were gathered in Kuwait, waiting to enter Iraq.
“We were all kind of pumped,” Nevienski said. “We were sitting around for so long.”
Since then, Saddam’s regime was toppled and Saddam executed. Insurgencies sprouted and grew, and now are on the wane. As of Tuesday, 4,260 U.S. military men and women have died in the Iraq war, according to the Department of Defense. And Nevienski is one of 31,131 U.S. service members who have been wounded in hostile action.
And even though there is plenty of positive news coming out of Iraq lately, about 3,200 Wisconsin National Guard soldiers — members of the 32nd Infantry Brigade — now are training at Fort Bliss in Texas for deployment to Iraq at the end of April.
Seven days after the war began, Nevienski was lying face down in the desert somewhere south of Nasiriya. He had been shot high in his right hip, after a convoy his unit had been guarding came under enemy fire. The bullet passed through his lower torso and damaged the nerves of his right leg.
Nevienski is still recovering, but he and fellow Marine Jim Pinsonneault of Weston, who served in Fallujah, fear that if the United States pulls out of Iraq too early, the advances gained would be lost.
Ellie
Marines Ross Nevienski and Jim Pinsonneault reflect on their service
On March 19, 2003, the United States launched the Iraq war to topple Saddam Hussein.
At the time, Ross Nevienski of the town of Franzen was a 20-year-old Marine private first class. As the American cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs fell in Baghdad, he and the Marines in his squadron were gathered in Kuwait, waiting to enter Iraq.
“We were all kind of pumped,” Nevienski said. “We were sitting around for so long.”
Since then, Saddam’s regime was toppled and Saddam executed. Insurgencies sprouted and grew, and now are on the wane. As of Tuesday, 4,260 U.S. military men and women have died in the Iraq war, according to the Department of Defense. And Nevienski is one of 31,131 U.S. service members who have been wounded in hostile action.
And even though there is plenty of positive news coming out of Iraq lately, about 3,200 Wisconsin National Guard soldiers — members of the 32nd Infantry Brigade — now are training at Fort Bliss in Texas for deployment to Iraq at the end of April.
Seven days after the war began, Nevienski was lying face down in the desert somewhere south of Nasiriya. He had been shot high in his right hip, after a convoy his unit had been guarding came under enemy fire. The bullet passed through his lower torso and damaged the nerves of his right leg.
Nevienski is still recovering, but he and fellow Marine Jim Pinsonneault of Weston, who served in Fallujah, fear that if the United States pulls out of Iraq too early, the advances gained would be lost.
Ellie