thedrifter
07-05-03, 06:58 AM
Marines return home to Camp Pendleton from combat duty in Iraq
By Gidget Fuentes
ASSOCIATED PRESS
7:41 p.m., July 2, 2003
CAMP PENDLETON – Hundreds of Marines hit the beaches of Southern California on Wednesday, arriving in air-cushioned landing craft similar to Hovercraft as anxious family members waited to welcome them home from the Persian Gulf.
The Marines, who arrived on two separate beaches on this sprawling military installation north of San Diego, were then ferried five miles by bus to a staging area where they were reunited with their families.
Handmade signs proclaiming "I Love Daddy" and "Welcome Home" dotted the route.
"I couldn't wait to get here," said Cpl. Francisco Fernandez, 21, of Yuba City after the Marines' arrival was slowed by heavy fog hanging off the coast.
"It took forever for him to get here," Cody Sack, his girlfriend, said as she sat on the bed of a pickup truck.
The Marines and their trucks and artillery cannons were brought home from the Persian Gulf by the USS Anchorage and USS Comstock. About 600 sailors were to ferry overnight to the ship's home base at San Diego Naval Station, about 40 miles south.
The returning crew included members of the 1st Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, an artillery unit that operated at times within a mile of the front lines in Iraq.
"Sometimes we ended up actually being in the front of everybody else," said Fernandez, who manned an M-240G machine gun. "It was a rush."
"They did very well in the fight," Lt. Col. Jim Seaton, holding his youngest daughter, Erin, 3, said of the battalion.
Cpl. Jason Taylor, 22, of Ephrata, Wash., found himself on the front lines with the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion engineer unit, which lost two men to enemy fire.
Taylor, a heavy equipment operator with the unit, cut safe lines through berms and obstacles for the tanks and other combat vehicles after they crossed into Iraq on March 21. The troops braved sniper fire and met heavily armed Iraqi soldiers using night-vision scopes near their positions.
"You were sitting at the edge of your seat everyday," Taylor said.
Susan Maicovski of Yonkers, N.Y., said she and her family thought her son, Cpl. Vladimir Maicovski, was a safe distance from combat until he called April 13. It turned out her son's 1st Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment had been firing 155-millimeter artillery rounds near the front lines to protect the 1st Marine Regiment.
"It was tough, and especially during the first couple of days of the war," she said.
The final day of waiting was also difficult.
"We won't stop worrying until he gets off the bus," said Maicovski, who planned a family reunion this weekend in Las Vegas.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20030702-1941-ca-marinesreturn.html
Sempers,
Roger
:marine:
By Gidget Fuentes
ASSOCIATED PRESS
7:41 p.m., July 2, 2003
CAMP PENDLETON – Hundreds of Marines hit the beaches of Southern California on Wednesday, arriving in air-cushioned landing craft similar to Hovercraft as anxious family members waited to welcome them home from the Persian Gulf.
The Marines, who arrived on two separate beaches on this sprawling military installation north of San Diego, were then ferried five miles by bus to a staging area where they were reunited with their families.
Handmade signs proclaiming "I Love Daddy" and "Welcome Home" dotted the route.
"I couldn't wait to get here," said Cpl. Francisco Fernandez, 21, of Yuba City after the Marines' arrival was slowed by heavy fog hanging off the coast.
"It took forever for him to get here," Cody Sack, his girlfriend, said as she sat on the bed of a pickup truck.
The Marines and their trucks and artillery cannons were brought home from the Persian Gulf by the USS Anchorage and USS Comstock. About 600 sailors were to ferry overnight to the ship's home base at San Diego Naval Station, about 40 miles south.
The returning crew included members of the 1st Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, an artillery unit that operated at times within a mile of the front lines in Iraq.
"Sometimes we ended up actually being in the front of everybody else," said Fernandez, who manned an M-240G machine gun. "It was a rush."
"They did very well in the fight," Lt. Col. Jim Seaton, holding his youngest daughter, Erin, 3, said of the battalion.
Cpl. Jason Taylor, 22, of Ephrata, Wash., found himself on the front lines with the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion engineer unit, which lost two men to enemy fire.
Taylor, a heavy equipment operator with the unit, cut safe lines through berms and obstacles for the tanks and other combat vehicles after they crossed into Iraq on March 21. The troops braved sniper fire and met heavily armed Iraqi soldiers using night-vision scopes near their positions.
"You were sitting at the edge of your seat everyday," Taylor said.
Susan Maicovski of Yonkers, N.Y., said she and her family thought her son, Cpl. Vladimir Maicovski, was a safe distance from combat until he called April 13. It turned out her son's 1st Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment had been firing 155-millimeter artillery rounds near the front lines to protect the 1st Marine Regiment.
"It was tough, and especially during the first couple of days of the war," she said.
The final day of waiting was also difficult.
"We won't stop worrying until he gets off the bus," said Maicovski, who planned a family reunion this weekend in Las Vegas.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20030702-1941-ca-marinesreturn.html
Sempers,
Roger
:marine: