thedrifter
05-23-09, 07:43 AM
MILITARY: Off to war
By MARK WALKER - mlwalker@nctimes.com
CAMP PENDLETON ---- About 1,000 Camp Pendleton Marines and sailors are headed into the cauldron of southern Afghanistan, where narco-dollars from the illicit poppy crop stoke a resurgent Taliban in a relentless fight with U.S. and coalition troops.
Sgt. Christopher Shranko and about 200 other men from the base's 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment climbed into buses at the base early Friday morning for a drive to March Air Reserve Base to board a plane for the start of a 7,700-mile journey to war. The troops are departing in waves.
"I'm hoping we can work with the Afghan army and security forces and get them prepared to handle their own destiny," the Oceanside resident said a couple of hours earlier as the battalion's Weapons Company gathered with loved ones on a pleasant spring night for some precious final minutes together.
Shranko, his arms wrapped around his wife and his mother standing nearby, was departing for his fourth combat assignment. This is his first deployment to Afghanistan, where President Barack Obama has ordered 21,000 more troops to go this spring in an effort to turn the tide in a nearly 8-year-old war for which there is no end in sight.
The battalion is joining several thousand other Marines from bases around the world for a seven-month assignment in the embattled Helmand province of southern Afghanistan.
The troops are expected to spend much of their time in the countryside and villages and not on large bases, a shift in U.S. tactics that borrows a page from the Marine Corps' successes in Iraq's Anbar province. It's one way that military commanders believe they can bolster the Afghan army and police, turn back the Taliban and bring renewed confidence in the ability of the Afghan government to provide security for its people.
Tactics were not among the discussions taking place Thursday night near the regimental headquarters a few miles south of San Clemente.
Jackie Botello was only half-kidding when she said she wanted to whisk away her boyfriend, Cpl. Joshua Crandall, a machine gunner.
"I just want to take him out of here," she said as the two sat wrapped tightly together under a camouflage blanket, sharing a memory album she had prepared titled "From the Beginning." Botello would not get her way.
"We've got to go take care of the Taliban," Crandall said of the mission awaiting the first large-scale deployment of Camp Pendleton Marines to Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.
Crandall, a native of Spring Ranch, Texas, with two prior assignments in Iraq, said he expects to see a lot of combat this deployment.
"This is going to be different," he said.
Weapons Company commander Capt. Matt Danner of Oceanside agreed, saying, "It's going to be a very busy summer" for his troops as they toil in daytime temperatures that soar to 120 degrees and above.
"The enemy is going to want to test us, and they're going to be sorry," said Danner, who a short time earlier had said his goodbyes to his wife and 9-month-old son. "I don't see much hope for the Taliban."
One of Danner's sergeants, John Kitchen, will lead 54 of the unit's Marines into battle. The Carlsbad resident said many of the younger troops are anxious to get into the fight.
Kitchen's wife, Leticia, wasn't eager to hear about her husband being in battle. But after 10 years of seeing him leave for duty, she is more stoic than many of the wives and girlfriends of the younger troops.
"Any time they go is weird, but what can you do?" she said.
As the buildup of U.S. troops in Afghanistan nears 60,000, with 8,000 more expected by year's end, some are calling for Obama to end American involvement.
"We think the troops should be brought home," said Gil Field of the 100-member San Diego Veterans for Peace. "We believe there is a better way to reach peace in Afghanistan than taking the imperialist approach."
For the Marines about to board the buses, the policy debate had little resonance.
"I want to help the people of Afghanistan become secure and be able to make their own way," Lance Cpl. Brian Monahan said. "We're more than ready to do that and handle whatever comes our way."
At the side of the combat Marines will be Navy medical corpsmen such as Eric Harris, who at age 40 is heading into his first war zone.
"My job is to keep my Marines safe and treat them for anything they need, be it gunshots or athlete's foot," he said.
Gunshot was not a word that Sgt. Shranko's mom, Jeri Shranko of Phoenix, wanted to hear as she saw her son off to war for the fourth time.
"But I don't have a choice," she said. "I just say a lot of prayers and tell him to keep safe and cover his ass."
Contact staff writer Mark Walker at 760-740-3529.
Video and pix's
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/05/23/military/ze1a9a8a01b09124d882575be0051c7a2.txt
Ellie
By MARK WALKER - mlwalker@nctimes.com
CAMP PENDLETON ---- About 1,000 Camp Pendleton Marines and sailors are headed into the cauldron of southern Afghanistan, where narco-dollars from the illicit poppy crop stoke a resurgent Taliban in a relentless fight with U.S. and coalition troops.
Sgt. Christopher Shranko and about 200 other men from the base's 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment climbed into buses at the base early Friday morning for a drive to March Air Reserve Base to board a plane for the start of a 7,700-mile journey to war. The troops are departing in waves.
"I'm hoping we can work with the Afghan army and security forces and get them prepared to handle their own destiny," the Oceanside resident said a couple of hours earlier as the battalion's Weapons Company gathered with loved ones on a pleasant spring night for some precious final minutes together.
Shranko, his arms wrapped around his wife and his mother standing nearby, was departing for his fourth combat assignment. This is his first deployment to Afghanistan, where President Barack Obama has ordered 21,000 more troops to go this spring in an effort to turn the tide in a nearly 8-year-old war for which there is no end in sight.
The battalion is joining several thousand other Marines from bases around the world for a seven-month assignment in the embattled Helmand province of southern Afghanistan.
The troops are expected to spend much of their time in the countryside and villages and not on large bases, a shift in U.S. tactics that borrows a page from the Marine Corps' successes in Iraq's Anbar province. It's one way that military commanders believe they can bolster the Afghan army and police, turn back the Taliban and bring renewed confidence in the ability of the Afghan government to provide security for its people.
Tactics were not among the discussions taking place Thursday night near the regimental headquarters a few miles south of San Clemente.
Jackie Botello was only half-kidding when she said she wanted to whisk away her boyfriend, Cpl. Joshua Crandall, a machine gunner.
"I just want to take him out of here," she said as the two sat wrapped tightly together under a camouflage blanket, sharing a memory album she had prepared titled "From the Beginning." Botello would not get her way.
"We've got to go take care of the Taliban," Crandall said of the mission awaiting the first large-scale deployment of Camp Pendleton Marines to Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.
Crandall, a native of Spring Ranch, Texas, with two prior assignments in Iraq, said he expects to see a lot of combat this deployment.
"This is going to be different," he said.
Weapons Company commander Capt. Matt Danner of Oceanside agreed, saying, "It's going to be a very busy summer" for his troops as they toil in daytime temperatures that soar to 120 degrees and above.
"The enemy is going to want to test us, and they're going to be sorry," said Danner, who a short time earlier had said his goodbyes to his wife and 9-month-old son. "I don't see much hope for the Taliban."
One of Danner's sergeants, John Kitchen, will lead 54 of the unit's Marines into battle. The Carlsbad resident said many of the younger troops are anxious to get into the fight.
Kitchen's wife, Leticia, wasn't eager to hear about her husband being in battle. But after 10 years of seeing him leave for duty, she is more stoic than many of the wives and girlfriends of the younger troops.
"Any time they go is weird, but what can you do?" she said.
As the buildup of U.S. troops in Afghanistan nears 60,000, with 8,000 more expected by year's end, some are calling for Obama to end American involvement.
"We think the troops should be brought home," said Gil Field of the 100-member San Diego Veterans for Peace. "We believe there is a better way to reach peace in Afghanistan than taking the imperialist approach."
For the Marines about to board the buses, the policy debate had little resonance.
"I want to help the people of Afghanistan become secure and be able to make their own way," Lance Cpl. Brian Monahan said. "We're more than ready to do that and handle whatever comes our way."
At the side of the combat Marines will be Navy medical corpsmen such as Eric Harris, who at age 40 is heading into his first war zone.
"My job is to keep my Marines safe and treat them for anything they need, be it gunshots or athlete's foot," he said.
Gunshot was not a word that Sgt. Shranko's mom, Jeri Shranko of Phoenix, wanted to hear as she saw her son off to war for the fourth time.
"But I don't have a choice," she said. "I just say a lot of prayers and tell him to keep safe and cover his ass."
Contact staff writer Mark Walker at 760-740-3529.
Video and pix's
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/05/23/military/ze1a9a8a01b09124d882575be0051c7a2.txt
Ellie