Miami's Mad Max Marines

[thedrifter]

3rd MAW provides security/transport during elections
Submitted by: 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing
Story Identification #: 20052615738
Story by Cpl. Joel A. Chaverri



AL ASAD, Iraq (Feb. 06, 2005) -- The 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing played a vital, yet largely unseen role in support of the recent Iraqi elections.

Transportation of elections materials and workers throughout the Al Anbar province was largely the responsibility of the 3rd MAW team.

“We were tasked with moving Iraqi elections workers and ballots to their polling stations,” said Maj. Rod A. Funk, operations officer, Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 452, Marine Aircraft Group 16, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing.

VMGR-452 took extra precautions to guarantee a safe mission in the face of insurgents who threatened to sabotage the elections.

“We planned for a worse case scenario,” said Funk, a 40-year-old native of Lancaster, Pa. “We even trained ‘provisional air marshal teams’ to be security for the election workers.”

Marine Light/Attack Helicopter Squadron 367 with their AH-1W Super Cobras also helped ensure safe elections by provided aerial security in the northwestern areas of the province.

“We were responsible for the security of numerous towns surrounding Korean Village,” said Capt. Jeff J. Meisenger, pilot, HMLA-367. “We try to make the ground guys’ job as easy as possible.”

Marines and Iraqi National Guardsmen already had a lot to worry about on the ground, so the added security in the air eases some of the stress.

“We can cover a lot of ground really fast and the Cobra’s can be pretty intimidating,” said Meisenger, a 36-year-old native of Sugar Grove, Ill. “It’s a show of force to deter the insurgents from doing anything the day of elections.”

The importance of the day required a level of commitment from the Marines not called for on a daily basis.

“Our Marines have worked lot of extra hours,” said Gunnery Sgt. James R. Keller, a 24-year-old native of Bogalusa, La., and staff noncommissioned officer-in-charge, HML-367. “They constantly have to be on alert for anything that might happen.”

Even with the long hours and apparent danger threatened by insurgents in their intimidation campaign to deter voters, for many, the payoff of a successful election made it well worth the effort.

“The elections workers were so happy to be with the Marines when we flew them to their elections sites,” said Lt. Col. Bradley S. James, commanding officer, VMGR-452. “It was satisfying to see the happiness on their faces.”

James, a reserve Marine who also flies for United Airlines said he is proud to have played a part in this historic event.

“After I got back, I saw some of the Iraqi’s that voted and they were laughing and smiling,” said the 45-year-old native of Alpharetta, Ga. “That’s when it hit me of how important all of this really is, and it’s just the beginning.”


Ellie

[thedrifter]

CNN slimes our troops
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michelle Malkin
February 9, 2005

One of the most common complaints I hear from our troops is that the media rarely report on the military's good deeds.

A simple column I wrote last month lauding the humanitarian efforts of our men and women in the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, for example, resulted in an avalanche of mail from military members and their families expressing astonishment and relief over a bit of positive press.

"I cannot tell you how much that it meant to myself as well as several of my shipmates to be praised," wrote Mariano Gonzales, a member of Strike Fighter Squadron 151 aboard the Lincoln. "Sometimes it seems that in today's world, it is just not fashionable for someone in a position to influence public opinion to admit that the U.S. military's role in the world involves more than just war and bloodshed."

Well, with folks like powerful CNN executive Eason Jordan in charge -- a man who clearly has issues with the U.S. military -- it's no wonder our troops so often feel smeared and slimed.

For the past week, Internet weblogs ("blogs") around the world have been buzzing about outrageous comments regarding American soldiers reportedly made by Jordan, the head of CNN's news division, at a World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, Switzerland. (My reporting on the controversy, with extensive links to other bloggers, is at www.michellemalkin.com.) According to several eyewitnesses, Jordan asserted on Jan. 27 that American military personnel had deliberately targeted and killed journalists in Iraq. (Jordan has since disputed the characterization of his remarks.)

Why wasn't this headline news?

Forum organizers have stonewalled citizen attempts to gain access to a videotape or transcript of the Davos meeting. But American businessman Rony Abovitz, who attended the panel Jordan participated in, reported immediately after the forum that "Jordan asserted that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by U.S. troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted. He repeated the assertion a few times, which seemed to win favor in parts of the audience (the anti-U.S. crowd) and cause great strain on others."

Another panel attendee, historian Justin Vaisse, wrote on his blog that Jordan "didn't mince words in declaring that the intentions of journalists in Iraq were never perceived as neutral and were made deliberate targets by 'both sides.'"

On Monday, journalist and presidential adviser David Gergen, who moderated the panel, told me that Jordan indeed asserted that journalists in Iraq had been targeted by military "on both sides." Gergen said Jordan tried to backtrack, but then went on to speculate about a few incidents involving journalists killed in the Middle East -- a discussion Gergen cut off because "the military and the government weren't there to defend themselves."

Panel member Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., also told me that Jordan asserted that there was deliberate targeting of journalists by the U.S. military and that Jordan "left open the question" of whether there were individual cases in which American troops targeted journalists.

Finally, panel attendee Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., issued a statement in response to my inquiry that he "was outraged by the comments. Senator Dodd is tremendously proud of the sacrifice and service of our American military personnel."

Jordan's defenders say he was "misunderstood" and deserves the "benefit of the doubt." But the man's record is one of incurable anti-American pandering.

Jordan's the man who admitted last spring that CNN withheld news out of Baghdad to maintain access to Saddam Hussein's regime. He was quoted last fall telling a Portuguese forum that he believed journalists had been arrested and tortured by American forces (a charge he maintains today). In the fall of 2002, he reportedly accused the Israeli military of deliberately targeting CNN personnel "on numerous occasions." He was in the middle of the infamous Tailwind scandal, in which CNN was forced to retract a Peter Arnett report that the American military used sarin gas against its own troops in Laos. And in 1999, Jordan declared: "We are a global network, and we take global interest[s] first, not U.S. interests first."

Now, who is more deserving of the benefit of the doubt? Eason Jordan or our men and women on the battlefield?

I support the troops.

---Malkin is a contributor to Fox News Channel, which competes with CNN.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

COMMENTARY: The Marines: a few good sensitive men
KATHLEEN PARKER
Feb. 9, 2005

In the 1998 movie "Soldier," Sgt. Todd is talking to the woman who nursed him back to health when she asks: "What are you going to do?"

Todd replies: "I'm going to kill them all, sir."

Excellent. Just the sort of response we expect from a soldier and by which we understand that his spirit, if not his body, is intact. War is hell, but somebody has to prevail and preferably that somebody is "us."

Or maybe not. Given the breathless reaction to Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis of the U.S. Marine Corps, who had the audacity to speak candidly - admitting that he sometimes enjoys his work - maybe we'd be happier if Todd said something (cue violins) along these lines:

"Actually, Sandra - may I call you Sandra? - I've been thinking about that. As soon as I'm all patched up, I'm going to get some therapy and seek forgiveness from those who left me for dead."

Whereupon Sandra says, "Oopsey-daisy, we're fresh out of painkillers."

That's a joke, I hasten to add, lest the bow-tied brigades of humorless harrumphers unleash a Deeply Offended jeremiad my way.

That I have to say so ruins the joke, of course, but so it goes in the briar patch these days. I do not personally wish to inflict pain and suffering on anyone, but - if I may speak candidly - I don't mind if a few murdering Islamofascists cease contributing to depletion of Earth's precious oxygen supply.

Oh, chortle, chortle. If only Mattis had said some such, or thrown out some "attic humor," as humorist Christopher Buckley once put it. You know, the sort of bon mot that elicits precious titters from the studiously dowdy. Why, then, Mattis would be the darling of dyspeptic America instead of the barbarian anathema he's become.

But, alas, Mattis isn't a parlor boy; he's a kick-down-the-door Marine who, as a military friend defines the job, "takes human life on behalf of the nation." Mattis doesn't speak latte; he speaks spit. So instead of making some arch remark about how to conduct warfare against terrorists, he ignited a national snit by saying that he found killing the enemy, in so many words, not unpleasant.

His precise words were: "Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. ... It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up front with you, I like brawling." Mattis told a San Diego gathering that included military personnel, many of whom reportedly laughed.

Then Mattis went on to clarify who "some people" are.

"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

Hear, hear. With all due respect to sensitive Talibanistas, who, in addition to routinely killing women for walking down a street unescorted by a male relative, also aided and abetted Osama bin Laden, I find Mattis' attitude neither too cold nor too hot, but just about right.

Nevertheless, his comments have provoked scathing editorials and calls for his resignation. His boss, Gen. Michael Hagee, commander of the Marine Corps, has declined to impose disciplinary action on Mattis but did counsel him about choosing his words more carefully.

Hagee also praised Mattis for his record as a warrior and leader. Mattis' resume is too long for this space, but suffice it to say he fought both in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Afghanistan, he commanded the 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade during Operation Enduring Freedom; in Iraq, he commanded 1st Marine Division during the initial attack and subsequent stabilizing operations.

He did not accomplish these successful military operations by being nice. My guess is he spoke candidly to his men, who from all reports greatly admire their leader.

The crux of the Mattis problem, aside from the obvious exercising of antiwar sentiment whenever possible, is our discomfort with the warrior culture. We want Clint Eastwood in the trenches and David Niven home for dinner.

Parfait. As soon as we get World Peace straightened out, maybe we can send Mattis for a weekend with Prudence. In the meantime, it seems neither shocking nor offensive that a Marine general might find some pleasure - whether moral reward or winning the battle for survival - in taking out a particularly despicable enemy.

As a woman trying to imagine living under a Taliban regime, I'd be whole lot happier to see Mattis coming to my rescue than any of those whose tiny feathers got mussed by his blunt talk.

Kathleen Parker, a syndicated columnist for the Orlando Sentinel, welcomes comments via e-mail at kparker@kparker.com.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Purple Heart times 3
Submitted by: MCB Camp Pendleton
Story Identification #: 200527171035
Story by Cpl. Tom Sloan



SAN MATEO, CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (Jan. 26, 2005) -- Pinned on the chest of Pfc. Rogelio F. Rosales, of Riverside, Calif., a mortarman with Company A, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, are three Purple Hearts.

Standing less than 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighing a buck 50 soaking wet, the 23- year-old doesn’t consider himself a walking disaster, though. He believes he’s living a charmed life and that a greater power has been looking out for him during his three and a half years in the Corps.

“God is taking care of me,” Rosales said humbly in his soft Latin accent. “He has to be, or I would be here today.”

His friends call him “Angel,” and the nickname suits him. Rosales has seen combat in Iraq twice – Operation Iraqi Freedom 1 and 2. He has taken an indirect hit from a rocket propelled grenade, had a enemy mortar lobbed almost right on top of him and was shot with an AK-47; all failed to take him out of commission for good. Rosales marches on and, besides the three awards, a slight limp in his walk is the only thing he has to show for all his injuries.

Rosales went through OIF 1 unscathed, but that wasn’t the case in OIF 2. Fallujah proved to be a bad place for Rosales as he was awarded all three of his Purple Hearts for injuries he sustained during his deployment there.

His first injury occurred while he was serving as a humvee driver for Weapons Platoon.
“We were going down the road and we started to take heavy (enemy) fire,” recalled Rosales. “I jumped out (of the humvee) and started to lay down fire. An RPG hit the humvee and (some of the blast) hit me. It seemed to come out of nowhere.”

Rosales received wounds to the face but without careful study, few can tell he was hit there. “I had a good surgeon fix me up,” he said while grinning.
Injury number two drips with irony. Though Rosales was serving a humvee driver, his military occupational specialty is mortarman.

He was engaged in another firefight and had just got permission to call in a fire mission. While he was on the radio, an enemy mortar landed and exploded right next to him. He was a mortarman hit by a mortar while calling in a fire mission to lob mortars on the enemy.

His third injury was an AK-47 round to the right arm just before he left Fallujah. “I got shot my last day there.”

Each time the warrior was injured, he was evacuated from the battlefield by medics and treated at the facilities there. Because of his injuries, Rosales could have stayed there where it was safer, but he didn’t. He paid no regard to his injuries and routinely disobeyed medical officers orders to stay. Each time he would leave to find his way back to his “Marine brothers” and join then again in waging war against the enemy.

“He would disobey the MOs, hop a convoy, and find his way back to the guys,” said Sgt. David L. Boire, 28, of Carson City, Mich., and section leader for Weapons Platoon. “He was always volunteering his services for me and the other Marines.”

Rosales was Boire’s humvee driver and was “the best one there,” Boire said, recalling a time when he took Rosales from the field hospital and put him back behind the wheel.
“I was in a convoy visiting some of my other Marines at the hospital when Rosales came up to me and said, ‘the MOs said I was good to go and can leave,’ so I put him back to work because we were hurting for Marines,” Boire said.

Boire said he’s not sure the MOs gave Rosales permission to leave or not.

Rosales has a positive attitude and good character, according to Boire and other Marines who know him.

Despite the glory of receiving three Purple Hearts, Rosales prefers being in the United States where he can enjoy his favorite things, which are street-racing his Mitsubishi 3000 GT VR4 Twin Turbo with his friends through his hometown of Riverside, Calif., and eating grilled shrimp, a food he considers a delicacy and should be reserved for special occasions “like a fine bottle of wine.” He also enjoys attending Christian youth functions too.

Though his nickname is “Angel,” he considers himself to be a bit of a daredevil.

“I’ve gone 140 (mph) before,” he said. “If I was going to die, I would have in Iraq.”

Rosales will be re-deploying to Iraq when 1/5 leaves in late February.

When he returns, he plans on leaving the Marines to attend college and pursue a career in law enforcement.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

The Marines: A few sensitive men

Kathleen Parker, Tribune Media Services. Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist for the Orlando Sentinel, a Tribune newspaper
Published February 9, 2005


In the 1998 movie "Soldier," Sgt. Todd is talking to the woman who nursed him back to health, and she asks: "What are you going to do?"

Todd replies: "I'm going to kill them all, Sir."

Excellent. Just the sort of response we expect from a soldier. War is hell, but somebody has to prevail and preferably that somebody is "us."

Or maybe not. Given the breathless reaction to Lt. Gen. James Mattis of the Marine Corps, who had the audacity to speak candidly--admitting that he sometimes enjoys his work--maybe we'd be happier if Todd said something (cue violins) along these lines:

"Actually, Sandra--may I call you Sandra?--I've been thinking about that. As soon as I'm all patched up, I'm going to get some therapy and seek forgiveness from those who left me for dead."

Whereupon Sandra says, "Oopsey-daisy, we're fresh out of painkillers."

That's a joke, I hasten to add, lest the bow-tied brigades of humorless harrumphers unleash a Deeply Offended jeremiad my way.

That I have to say so ruins the joke, but so it goes in the briar patch these days. I do not personally wish to inflict pain and suffering on anyone, but I don't mind if a few murdering Islamofascists cease contributing to the depletion of Earth's precious oxygen supply.

Oh, chortle, chortle. If only Mattis had said some such, or thrown out some "attic humor," as humorist Christopher Buckley once put it. You know, the sort of bon mot that elicits precious titters from the studiously dowdy. Why, then, Mattis would be the darling of dyspeptic U.S. instead of the barbarian anathema he has become.

But, alas, Mattis isn't a parlor boy; he's a kick-down-the-door Marine who, as a military friend defines the job, "takes human life on behalf of the nation." Mattis doesn't speak latte; he speaks spit. So instead of making some arch remark about how to conduct warfare against terrorists, he ignited a national snit by saying that he found killing the enemy, in so many words, not unpleasant.

His precise words were: "Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. ... It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up front with you, I like brawling." Mattis told that to a San Diego gathering that included military personnel, many of whom reportedly laughed.

Then Mattis went on to clarify who "some people" are.

"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

Hear, hear. With all due respect to sensitive Talibanistas, who, in addition to routinely killing women for walking down a street unescorted by a male relative, also aided and abetted Osama bin Laden, I find Mattis' attitude neither too cold nor too hot, but just about right.

Nevertheless, his comments have provoked scathing editorials and calls for his resignation. His boss, Gen. Michael Hagee, the commandant of the Marine Corps, has declined to impose disciplinary action on Mattis but did counsel him about choosing his words more carefully.

Hagee also praised Mattis for his record as a warrior and leader. Mattis' resume is too long for this space, but suffice it to say he fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Afghanistan, he commanded the 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade during Operation Enduring Freedom; in Iraq, he commanded the 1st Marine Division during the initial attack and subsequent stabilizing operations. He did not accomplish these successful military operations by being nice. My guess is he spoke candidly to his men, who from all reports admire their leader.

The crux of the Mattis problem is our discomfort with the warrior culture. We want Clint Eastwood in the trenches and David Niven home for dinner.

Parfait. As soon as we get World Peace straightened out, maybe we can send Mattis for a weekend with Prudence. In the meantime, it seems neither shocking nor offensive that a Marine general might find some pleasure--whether moral reward or winning the battle for survival--in taking out a particularly despicable enemy.

As a woman trying to imagine living under a Taliban regime, I'd be whole lot happier to see Mattis coming to my rescue than any of those whose tiny feathers got mussed by his blunt talk.


E-mail: kparker@kparker.com


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Security holds at Iraqi elections
Submitted by: 1st Marine Division
Story Identification #: 20052245921
Story by Lance Cpl. Paul Robbins Jr.



FALLUJAH, Iraq (Jan. 30, 2005) -- With the streets lined in concertina wire, multiple security checkpoints and a host of Marines standing by, this wasn’t your average election.

The Marines of 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 1, provided security alongside the Iraqi Army at two poll sites inside the city of Fallujah Jan. 30.

Nearly 1,800 voters made their voices heard at the two sites without any disturbances from anti-Iraqi forces.

“There really weren’t any security issues,” said Capt. Joseph M. Turgeon, 32, the commanding officer of Company K, 3/4, “ We almost expected something to happen, but nothing did.”

Citizens of Fallujah filed through the security starting at 7 a.m. and didn’t stop until the polls closed at 5 p.m.

“The turnout was very good,” Turgeon said. “More showed up to our site than they showed up for food and water when it was a (humanitarian assistance) site.”

Soldiers of the Iraqi Army provided the bulk of security for the voters. Marines assisted on the outskirts of the polling site and kept a quick reaction force nearby.

“We were just assisting the Iraqi officials with their security,” said 1st Sgt. George W. Young, 40, a native of Danville, Va., who serves as the Weapons Company First Sergeant for 3/4. “We weren’t actually involved with the voting process.”

The Marines of 3/4 stood watch at the very entrance to the poll site, nearly three blocks from the voting area.

“We were working in conjunction with the (Iraqi Army) soldiers,” said Turgeon, a native of Cathlamet, Wash. “We had external and they had internal.”

Voters filed through the tight security during the ten-hour process with no fear of attack or reprisal from anti-Iraqi forces.

“The Marines and (Iraqi Army) soldiers provided such a tight blanket of security, that it gave the locals a feeling of safety and comfort,” said Gunnery Sgt. Jean-Paul Courville, 32, a native of Denham Springs, La., who serves as company gunnery sergeant for Company K.

The two sites, where 3/4 assisted in providing security, received no attacks during the process and elections there went as smoothly as the Marines could have hoped.

“I was pleased with the low level of violence in the city,” said Lt. Col. Andrew R. Kennedy, commanding officer of 3/4, “ and the voter turnout was pretty surprising to me.”

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Serving in every clime and place
Study of troop strength overseas shows global ebb and flow, not static Cold War-era structure

By Vince Crawley
Times staff writer


When President Bush announced a plan in August to bring home 60,000 to 70,000 Americans from Germany, South Korea and other overseas bases, officials characterized the troops involved as being stranded in leftover Cold War bases that are no longer relevant to modern geopolitical reality.
However, a researcher with the Heritage Foundation analyzed more than half a century of global deployment statistics and found that rather than being a static Cold War structure, the U.S. military presence on foreign shores has ebbed and flowed significantly over the past six decades, with battles won and lost and constant shifts in political alliances.

Of course, Germany has been, by far, the top location for Americans stationed abroad, racking up more than 10 million U.S. military “man-years” since the 1950s. However, most troops served multiyear and multiple tours in Germany, so the number of Americans who actually served there is likely closer to 3 million — still more than 1 percent of the entire U.S. population. And that doesn’t count family members or Defense Department civilians.

But until the late 1960s, tens of thousands of American troops also lived on bases in France, and until the early 1970s, Libya provided a safe haven for thousands more military troops. Also, close to 1,000 Americans were based in Iran until shortly before the pro-American shah was swept from power in 1979.

In fact, since 1950, at least 54 nations have hosted 1,000 or more American troops on their soil, Heritage researcher Tim Kane said.

Although Bush’s announced moves “have been characterized by some as dramatic — even risky — they are actually part of an ongoing process of threat assessment and long-range planning at the Pentagon,” Kane said.

In compiling what he calls a “troop deployment dataset” for Heritage’s Center for Data Analysis, Kane was surprised to find that the Pentagon had no comprehensive database showing where troops have been stationed during the past half century.

The Pentagon’s Directorate for Information Operations and Reports publishes annual records of where Americans have been stationed. But it was up to Kane to compile the records into a single database so that troop-deployment figures could be compared from region to region and across the years.

The database reinforces many current assumptions while also unearthing a few surprises.

The 12 nations that have hosted the most American troops over the past half-century are Germany, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Great Britain, France, the Philippines, Italy, Panama, Thailand, Spain and Turkey.

On average, Kane found that 22 percent of the U.S. military was deployed overseas at any given time.

The low point was the height of the post-Cold War drawdown in the mid-1990s, when just 13.7 percent of U.S. troops were stationed overseas. The high points were 1951 and 1968, when 31 percent of all service members were deployed overseas because of the wars in Korea and Vietnam.

In 2003, the most recent year in Kane’s database, 27 percent of all U.S. troops were deployed overseas, mainly due to the Iraq war. In human terms, 387,920 troops were based on foreign soil last year.

Total overseas troop strength peaked at 1.08 million in 1968 and hit a low of 206,000 in 1999, a time when many politicians complained of the strains on an “over-deployed” force.

Perspective needed

Bush’s proposed redeployment of 70,000 troops from foreign countries to domestic bases has been greeted as a “major movement,” Kane said. “But it needs to be kept in perspective.”

Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, more than 20 percent of all U.S. troops were based overseas. In Europe, troop strength averaged roughly 312,000 in the late 1980s, and then was quickly slashed to less than 110,000 after the Berlin Wall fell.

In other regions, U.S. troop levels in Africa ranged from 5,000 to 6,000 through the late 1960s, chiefly in Eritrea, Ethiopia and Libya, then dropped off sharply in the late 1960s before recently rising again as terrorist groups migrated to Africa.

In the Middle East, deployments ranged as high as 25,000 troops a year in the 1950s and 1960s, dropping dramatically in the 1980s, then climbing again during the 1990s.

In Latin America, troop levels averaged 37,000 in the 1950s, then declined to a steady 14,000 to 16,000 after the 1960s.

In Asia, U.S. presence spiked during the Korean and Vietnam wars, then maintained a steady presence of more than 100,000 personnel through the end of the Cold War. In the 1990s, troop levels declined to roughly 80,000 in the Pacific region.

There are gaps in Kane’s data, and he acknowledges having problems in trying to meld the Pentagon’s often conflicting rosters.

Short-duration missions also aren’t always accurately captured because the data are reported on an annual basis. For example, the U.S. mission in Somalia peaked at more than 25,000 troops in early 1993, but Kane’s numbers show just 6,345 service members were there that year.

Many recent deployments also were marked by high turnover of personnel on the ground for just a few months at a time. So, in the Somalia example, the peak force may have been 25,000, but perhaps twice that number of Americans actually served there at one time or another over the main 16 months of the mission.

The data also account for the 15,000 American troops in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1996 and more than 7,000 in Algeria in 1954. Kane heartily writes “unknown” for the number of U.S. troops in Cambodia in the early 1970s. He even discovered obscure deployments of several hundred troops to Antigua and South Africa in the late 1950s.

However, Kane’s data don’t capture the massive, brief deployment of 500,000 U.S. troops to the Persian Gulf in 1990-91, probably due in part to the short duration of the overall mission, which saw the bulk of that force rush home in the weeks following the swift liberation of Kuwait.

His data also don’t fully reflect that an average of 20,000 U.S. personnel were deployed to the Persian Gulf region throughout the mid- and late 1990s in the mission to keep Iraq’s military from becoming a regional threat.

Still, the data make clear that “no other military in the world has been so widely deployed as that of the United States,” Kane noted. “Troop deployments are overwhelmingly supportive of host countries, and warm relations between [troops] and local populations are the norm.”

However, Kane said, the “first priority” of U.S. deployments is “not a particular foreign government’s desire to keep a certain number of American troops in its country,” but rather “the American need to align its forces against contemporary and future threats.”


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Serviceable material disposal saves money
Submitted by: MCB Camp Lejeune
Story Identification #: 200523155143
Story by Lance Cpl. Matthew K. Hacker



MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (Jan. 31, 2005) -- With ever-increasing war costs, the Pentagon and government officials are constantly searching for methods to save money and maximize the use of serviceable items limiting the amount of unnecessary disposals.

The Hazardous Material Control Center, located on Michael Street, reissues serviceable hazardous materials back to various units instead of being disposed of as hazardous waste.

The HMCC became a reality in 2003, when the Resource Recovery and Conservation Section of what obtained the use of building 908, previously used by Marine Corps Base Motor Transport vehicle body repair. The building was refurbished before occupancy and has been updated since the HMCC became fully operationally in October 2003.

“The center allows units to turn in excess materials they no longer need,” said Sgt. Merrick Reid of Jackson Township, N.J., with Headquarters and Service Battalion, Marine Corps Base, site manager of the center since 2002. “It gives them an opportunity to check items out instead of just disposing of them. It gives the items a second chance.”

Reid currently upgrades the inventory tracking system, oversees the site to make sure it agrees with base environment compliances and also coordinates liaisons with units and finds home for items that units might not be aware they have.

The HMCC services Camp Lejeune, Marine Corps Air Station New River and tenant commands. Due to local success, other bases have participated in the program as well. MCAS Cherry Point, N.C., Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., MCAS Yuma, Ariz., and Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C., have requested and received products in the HMCC inventory.

Units do not pay to draw items from the building, giving them an opportunity to save money on their ServMart credit cards, according to Reid.

The proper management of hazardous materials, to include waste, has always been the primary objective of the RRCS.

“The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act reduces the amount of waste streams and helps recycle to cut down on waste in general,” said Reid. “The way the HMCC is setup, it allows us to take items that would be disposed of and allows us reuse them as its intended purchase.”

In past years, disposal of serviceable, shelf-life extendable material accounted for up to 60 percent of the hazardous material and hazardous waste disposed through the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office.

Better management practices brought that figure down considerably, but they strive to achieve a disposal of shelf-life serviceable material of zero percent.

Materials that are received at the HMCC are primarily sent from base tenant commands. Before being delivered to the center, they are received at the Hazardous Waste Consolidation in building 977. Personnel there determine if any materials meet the criteria for shelf-life extension; if so, the materials are transported across the street to the HMCC.

Most of the materials received at the center come from Southwest Asia, according to Eugene Jones, environmental protection specialist with the HWCB.

Petroleum, oil and lubricants are returned to the base due to regular rotation of the various units. POL has also accumulated due to units purchasing excess material for the war effort and having no use for the material.

POL constitutes approximately 90 percent of the materials received and issued through the HMCC. Of the POL in stock, approximately 75 percent is Fire Resistant Hydraulic fluid, which is widely used in military vehicles such as landing assault crafts and amphibious assault vehicles. The HMCC has the largest stockpile of FRH on the East Coast.

Materials worth over $6 million have been received in the HMCC since conception in 2003. This money, made up of stock, constitutes over 150,000 items, according to Jones.

“Overall, in 2004, customers at Camp Lejeune and other participating [Department of Defense] installations have saved over $4 million by utilizing the HMCC,” said Jones.

With the success of the HMCC they will continue to upgrade and expand their facilities to support ongoing military operations.

“The HMCC is always going to continue to charge forward because units over purchase, and by using the center it reduces the amount of items they need on hand,” said Reid. “We also to a lot to help increase environmental awareness – not only each unit, but everyone who takes advantage of its services helps the environment.”

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Camp Pendleton Marines welcomed home from Iraq

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. Nearly 180 Marines have returned from Iraq to cheers and hugs.

Members of the Eleventh Marine Expeditionary Force were greeted at Camp Pendleton today by relatives who haven't seen them for eight months.

Seven Marines from the expeditionary force died in August as they battled insurgents loyal to a radical cleric.

Several Marines who were in Iraq during the winter holidays said they will be celebrating a late Christmas with their relatives, who have put up stockings and decorated trees.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Eleven Marines must give back their Purple Hearts

ATCHISON, Kan. Nearly two years ago, Marine Corporal Travis Eichelberger watched as his commandant pinned a Purple Heart to his hospital gown at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

Now the same commandant is revoking that medal and removing it from the Kansas man's record -- because he was run over by a tank driven by an American.

Eichelberger is one of eleven Marines who have received "letters of error" within the past two months telling them that they were given their medals by mistake.

The commandant says it was necessary to revoke Eichelberger's medal because his injuries weren't caused directly or indirectly by enemy action.

Eichelberger says he's disappointed and doesn't understand how the mistake could have happened.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

First Medal of Honor Since Somalia
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Commentary by Steve Yuhas
February 9, 2005

Not since the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993 has a member of the armed forces of the United States earned the Medal of Honor; a distinction so rare that since the medal was created in 1862 it has been awarded by the President in the name of Congress a mere 3,459 times. That is about to change and it is the war in Iraq and the bravery of an army Sergeant First Class from Tampa named Paul Smith who will forever change the way an entire generation looks at a hero.

Bravery is not an uncommon commodity on the battle fields for freedom. Whether it is Iraq, Afghanistan or places we don't hear about all over the world where America is answering the call to purge the world of those who would impose the will of a tyrannical few on the many, American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are doing what they always do.

So many are overcoming the challenges and pain of battle to uphold the adage of Admiral Chester Nimitz when he described the Marines for the battle of Iwo Jima that "uncommon valor was a common virtue" cannot simply apply to Marines anymore.

In a nation starving for heroes it is sometimes curious that so many look to football, Hollywood and journalists to find them, but it is only on a battlefield where a hero can be discovered and heroism be defined.

On April 4, 2003 Sergeant Smith's platoon came under tremendous fire and without hesitation he boarded an armored vehicle and manned a machine gun to cover the withdrawal of his troops. Smith was fatally wounded and died after the engagement and was the only American to die during the fight.

As medals for bravery go there is none so coveted and so difficult to achieve that it often requires the sacrifice of ones life in order to attain it. Nobody knows that better than the group of living Medal of Honor recipients who will gather in Phoenix later this year to welcome their newest member, posthumously, in a club of heroes that dwarfs any other.

Sergeant Smith was just thirty-three-years old when he defended his men, but what all of us can learn from him is something that only age and wisdom can teach. There is no greater calling for a man or woman serving in the military than to be in a position where the troops assigned beneath you survive even if it costs you your life; Sergeant Smith put himself in that position and still there are Americans who focus on the events of Abu Ghraib to represent soldiers during the war and who look at the mediocrity of Hollywood for heroism.

Heroism in combat is not an unusual thing, but for an act of heroism to rise to the level of receiving the Medal of Honor is.

In a column once I wrote of my first encounter with a man who earned the Medal of Honor. I was sitting in the waiting room at the spine injury center at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in La Jolla, California. While there I was contemplating my future as an injury of mine progresses and we began to exchange words - I was dismissive at first, but eventually we exchanged cards and he told me to keep my chin up. Never once did he speak of the heroism that he did and his sole concern was my feeling sorry for myself for an injury that has forever changed my life.

The point is that heroes don't talk about their heroism - they don't have to. When I returned home to find out that the man who bucked me up won the Medal of Honor and didn't mention it I realized that I was in the presence of a true hero, but that is how selfless men act. It is when a man runs around telling everyone that he is a hero that you have to dismiss him because if he has to tell you - he probably isn't.

During the State of the Union address the most telling moment was when a woman, Safia Taleb al-Suhail, who lost her father to Saddam Hussein was embraced by the mother of Marine Corps Sergeant Byron Norwood who was killed during a battle in Iraq. The moment will forever be remembered by those of us who saw it because the embrace of two women who had never met and the genuine tears that brought the House chamber to applause for minutes was the acknowledgment that the sacrifice of our men and women is not lost on those who came out in percentages that put American voters to shame in Iraq.

Parents should take the video of the State of the Union and focus their efforts on that segment to show their children what a hero is. A hero is a man or woman who is wiling to give up his or her life for the life, liberty or support of strangers; a hero is not a fictional character in a Hollywood film or a man who is the best defensive back that football has ever seen.

Heroism comes whenever America is at war and it is true that sometimes peacetime makes us yearn for someone for our children to emulate or look up to. It is unfortunate that so many parents don't know that they have to look no further than their closest military installation or to any man or woman who made the sacrifice to serve the country.

Army Sergeant First Class Paul Smith sacrificed his life so that Iraqis could live one of freedom and so his soldiers could return home, Marine Corps Sergeant Byron Norwood would have been proud, according to his mother, that the vote in Iraq happened and that Iraqis braved terrorists in order to do what so many of us take for granted.

Every generation has an opportunity to put forward people who inspire us to action and for the Baby Boomers they've redefined it as celebrities and sports stars, but the times are changing back to the way they used to be where heroes are defined by what they do for others, not for what they do for themselves.

The Medal of Honor is the nation's highest award and Sergeant Smith will proudly represent the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who may not have earned that medal, but provide us every day with the inspiration that can only come from people who dismiss their heroism by describing it as doing their job.

If only there were more of them and less of the other.

---Steve Yuhas is a columnist and radio talk show host on KOGO AM 600 in San Diego.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

The Unforgotten
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By Ragnar Carlson
The Honolulu Weekly
February 02, 2005

O'ahu is home to the world's largest forensic anthropology laboratory, charged with retrieving the dead. Ragnar Carlson tries to get past its closely guarded doors, where American soldiers missing in action-some for more than 100 years-are identified.

Neither I nor the photographer with me, both of us longtime Hawai'i residents, has ever been out here. Like most local people, we've driven past the Hickams and the Schofields for most of our lives without much more than a vague sense of what goes on inside. As everyone on both sides of the military/kama'aina divide is well aware, there's not much interaction between the two worlds. Though Hawai'i is among the most heavily militarized places on earth, few residents have spent more than a few hours on a local military base.

While awaiting our military escort at Hickam Airforce Base-civilians cannot travel even short distances on base without one-I wonder whether the assignment that led me here emerged in part from a narrowing of that gap in recent months. Last week's loss of 27 Kane'ohe Marines in a single incident brought the military closer to our minds, and whatever one's feelings about Makua or Kaho'olawe or even the war itself, the loss of a human life is a singular experience. The military has become much more a part of the local dialogue in the past year.

Death and its consequences have brought us here today. We are charged with exploring an organization called the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, a Hickam-based group whose mission is the reclamation, identification and reburial of American servicemen and women lost overseas. Our editor at the Weekly was thumbing through a national magazine last fall when she read that JPAC is home to the most advanced forensic pathology lab in the world. She called and said "If the New Yorker knows this, why doesn't everyone in Hawai'i? Check it out."

It isn't quite true that JPAC is unknown in the islands. Many recall the local news' occasional eerie segments in which flag-draped coffins arrived on Honolulu tarmac accompanied by solemn-faced soldiers and the haunting melody of "Taps." More recently, JPAC has garnered press attention for the secondary portion of its mission. In the aftermath of the Asian tsunami, JPAC sent recovery teams to Indonesia and Thailand to help identify remains.

The first thing you notice is the drive. Hickam Air Force Base, nestled against Honolulu International Airport on one side and Pearl Harbor on the other, is a sprawling installation. Hickam has the feel of a superbase, the kind usually found in places like Mannheim, Germany, or Kadena, Okinawa. The wide lawns, endless rows of houses-the sheer size of Hickam-carry a not-so-subtle message of American power and reach. Added to all of this is the impossibly low, and strictly enforced, speed limit of 25 mph. The net effect is one of an endless sprawl of hangars, office complexes, housing and other buildings. The other net effect is the growing sense, as the buildings begin to thin out and give way to long stretches of road and stands of ironwood trees, that JPAC headquarters is removed from the heart of the base.

The old suspicions about the military leap to mind. Are they hidden away out here on purpose? Is this operation, with its disturbing implications, a too-heavy reminder of the ultimate costs of military service?

We don't have to wait for our escort to signal to know we've arrived. High above the road in front of us, the official unit flag looms like some sort of restless ghost. Black with white lettering, it reads "POW/MIA" and instead of a traditional insignia bears the silhouette of a soldier, his head bowed, with a guard tower looming in the distance. Below this, the words "You are not forgotten." Even on a cloudless January day, the effect is chilling. It's easy to imagine why this flag does not hang prominently at the center of the base. Our initial instincts-that JPAC is a necessary but awkward member of the Pacific Command community-seem confirmed.

Upon entering the main JPAC facility, however, any such suspicions are quickly dispelled. The one-story complex is a hive of activity and defies expectations to an almost absurd degree. If it's true, as it surely is, that the military has a culture of its own, then JPAC is a nation-within-a-nation.

We are immediately shown to a state-of-the-art videoconference room, where we sit in on a briefing for a visiting official from the Philippine Army. As we wait for the meeting to begin, we're approached by JPAC employees, both from the media relations section and regular operations staff. Again I am struck by the way reality defies perception: however dark or morbid their mission might appear to an outsider, JPAC's 425 men and women are passionate about their work, and conversations with them carry a distinct and even moving message of hope. As they speak about their accomplishments and the work ahead of them, I am struck by the sense of responsibility they convey. Something about their mission rises above regular military operations for these soldiers, their sense of duty is almost spiritual.

JPAC was formally created in 2003, when the government merged two organizations-the Army's Central Identification Laboratory and the Joint Task Force, Full Accounting-with responsibility for locating, collecting and identifying the remains of American personnel lost in military conflicts. "Joint," in military language, denotes a cooperative effort between multiple branches; JPAC is composed of carefully selected personnel from all four branches of the armed forces, in addition to civilian employees of the Department of the Navy, many of whom are trained historians and anthropologists.

While JPAC technically carries responsibility for prisoners of war, no living POW has been rescued since the immediate aftermath of the war in Vietnam. So JPAC's practical mission focuses on the repatriation and identification of Americans killed in action who, for a variety of reasons, have not yet been returned.

Many Americans associate the POW/MIA distinction almost exclusively with Vietnam. Aware of this, JPAC staff are quick to point to the startling fact that missing American soldiers number nearly 120,000 (almost the entire population of Maui), with nearly 80,000 of those cases dating to World War II alone. While there are approximately 1,800 still missing in Vietnam, Korea accounts for about 9,000 of the missing soldiers. There remains a single soldier-Navy pilot Michael Speicher-missing from the first Gulf War.

JPAC supports 19 investigation and recovery teams, each with a specific area of emphasis. Ten teams are devoted to recovery from Southeast Asian conflicts, five to the Korean War, and three to World War II, the Cold War and the Gulf War. The teams are made up of 10 to 14 members, all of whom are military personnel with the exception of the forensic anthropologist, who oversees the scientific portion of the process and conducts analysis back at the Hickam lab. Due to the remote and often treacherous locations the teams must visit, each brings with it a trained medic, a life-support technician and an ordnance-disposal specialist. Simply reaching many MIA locations, let alone performing painstaking forensic work on site, is no small feat. The teams regularly visit remote parts of Alaska, Siberia, South America and Southeast Asia. In Vietnam and Laos, in particular, the remains are often found in areas where buried explosives are still plentiful.

The first step in recovery efforts involves staff historians and other researchers who process a steady stream of reports about possible MIA remains. These reports vary in origin from newly released or rediscovered government documents to word-of-mouth information from residents near a potential site. In one case, some of the evidence pointing to a site came from villagers' rubber slippers-their unusual soles turned out to have been fashioned from the landing gear of an American aircraft.

Once JPAC researchers are satisfied that a site may yield a missing person, the organization conducts direct negotiations with the government in question. In many cases, particularly where governments are friendly toward the United States, the process is smooth, but there are exceptions.

With more than 8,000 missing personnel in North Korea, for example, the U.S. expressed strong interest in the late 1980s in sending recovery teams, but was rebuffed. Instead, the Pyongyang government unilaterally returned the remains of more than 200 soldiers. Because the North Korean techniques did not properly handle the remains, and even commingled many of them, the Hickam lab was able to identify only a fraction of them. Eventually an agreement allowed an American team to investigate in North Korea in 1996, and today JPAC sends five missions each year.

When negotiations are complete, an investigative team conducts research in the field, and, finally, when a site is positively identified, a recovery team is put in place to extract the remains and bring them back to Hickam for positive identification. This year's recovery activities will take JPAC teams to Papua New Guinea, Iraq, Laos and several other destinations. There will even be a mission into O'ahu's Ko'olau mountain range, where a P-38 aircraft crashed during World War II.

When the briefing ends-with the Filipino sergeant gushing "We have absolutely nothing like this, but I'm going to talk to some people when I get home"-we head to the Central Identification Lab. I've spent the last week conjuring up images from television shows I've seen, complete with green lights, metallic-blue surfaces and hi-tech gadgetry everywhere.

It turns out a bit differently. We enter the antechamber to the laboratory, a brightly lit room with soft carpet and high ceilings. Beyond a wall made entirely of 15-foot glass panels lies a room that looks suspiciously like my high school biology classroom. There are long white tables arranged in three rows, with a few microscopes here and there. The walls hold a set of ordinary-looking cabinets. CSI, it isn't.

Of course, what we see from here is not the entire lab. John Byrd, a forensic anthropologist, explains that the facility extends far beyond what's visible, but due to concerns about DNA contamination, access is tightly controlled and visitors are not allowed. Still, he says, it's more or less as it appears: The work of the JPAC scientists has as much to do with toothbrush-like combs and bright overhead lighting as with hi-tech analysis.


continued........

[thedrifter]

Byrd tells us that this lab has positively identified nearly 1,200 American personnel since 1973, in many cases using techniques pioneered on site. The investigation begins by assembling a biological profile of the individual using whatever dental and skeletal remains are available.

The profile includes the sex, age, height and ethnic/racial profile of the individual and gives investigators a place to start. From there, they compare the remains to databases full of dental and skeletal information on missing personnel.

In many cases, this process results in a positive match, the return of the remains to the family and, ultimately, reburial.

In roughly half of JPAC's cases, investigators use mitochondrial DNA analysis to complete the process. DNA analysis is slow, taking up to a year to complete, but often provides the final piece of evidence needed to establish identity.

One of the keys to the entire process, according to Byrd, is that the entire investigation process is carried out "blind," which means that the scientist leading the identification effort has no information about the suspected identity of the individual, nor where the remains were recovered. This "blind" process sets a very high standard for identification, as in many cases at least three separate parts of a mission will have come up with the same suspected identification of the remains.

Despite JPAC's size and the military's commitment to its mission, the work is slow going. In addition to the 100,000-plus remains yet to be recovered, there are many thousands more for whom the technology and supporting information does not yet exist to make a positive identification. In addition to its heavy workload, JPAC conducts a high number of tours and trains civilians and military officials from around the world.

Still, the atmosphere at JPAC is upbeat. The current tsunami relief efforts in which JPAC is participating have brought greater publicity to the operation, but one gets the sense that the JPAC staff prefers to work anonymously. "They've got a bit of interview fatigue around here," one press aide told me. "Most of these people just like to focus on the work."

"This is where I want to be," says Master Sgt. Frank Tauanuu, the senior enlisted leader at JPAC. "I love Hawai'i…but it helps that our mission is so rewarding." Born on O'ahu, Tauanuu attended 'Aiea High School before his family moved to Pennsylvania in his late teens. He joined the Army in 1984 and has gone on to a distinguished career. Everything about Tauanuu-his bearing, the cadence of his speech-suggests Georgia or North Carolina. That he was raised here is a shock, and another testament to the military's intense sense of culture.

A few days after my visit, JPAC announced the deployment of two teams to Papua New Guinea, where they will investigate 15 cases; a recovery team is operating in the Port Moresby area, where a B-25 aircraft was lost in bad weather in 1942. There are currently three JPAC teams in Southeast Asia assisting in identification of remains.

"The important thing to understand," says Air Force Lt. Ken Hall, "is that our mission is that no one, ever, is left behind. However long it takes, we're committed to bringing every American home." Like everyone else I spoke with, Hall's discussion of JPAC activities sounded a lot more like personal commitment than corporate mission-speak.

As if to underscore Hall's point, two sets of skeletal remains sat just on the opposite side of the glass from where we stood. Each had been largely reconstructed, and the anatomical dimensions looked about right. I asked Byrd about them.

"We received those remains recently," he said. "They're from men who died aboard the USS Monitor."

I was stunned. The Monitor, the first ironclad ship, sank during the Civil War. Byrd and Hall smiled.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

9 lives?
Lance corporal may hold record for surviving bombings in Iraq



The first time Lance Cpl. Tony Stevens was bombed in Iraq, a car packed with 155mm shells exploded next to his Humvee just as a device containing five more shells detonated beneath it.
By bombing No. 9, the former minor league shortstop had become a good luck-bad luck icon and the awe of 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, patrolling the so-called “triangle of death” south of Baghdad.

With a couple of weeks remaining in his second tour in Iraq as of late January, the 26-year-old might be counting the days a little more closely than most.

Many Marines in Iraq have been bombed two or three times, and a couple have survived seven or eight.

Stevens, at nine, appears to hold the record that no one wants to break.

His streak started Aug. 8 when his unit was checking on a mortar attack; his Humvee ended up next to one bomb and on top of a second.

Bombing No. 2 was Aug. 9 — the next morning. A freezer filled with five 155mm shells was set off by a detonating cord left on the road. It cost a fellow Marine some fingers.

Bomb No. 3 exploded on a security patrol. It injured a Marine riding in the turret of Stevens’ vehicle.

Bomb No. 4 hit his vehicle; there were no wounded.

Bomb No. 5 hit his vehicle and sheared off a live power line overhead, sending it sparking onto the collar of Stevens’ flak jacket.

Bombs Nos. 6 through 9 hit convoys in which he was traveling.

Despite all the bombings, Stevens says he would sign up again. He speaks against a backdrop of explosions as his company sets off cratering blasts to destroy a dirt road, preventing insurgents from using it.

“Ow!” the Marine standing next to Stevens shouts. The man grabs a wrist slapped numb by a stinging chunk of dirt thrown from a cratering blast more than a quarter-mile away.

“I told you not to be around me,” Stevens says.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

3/4 motor transport keeps battalion mobile
Submitted by: 1st Marine Division
Story Identification #: 20052862735
Story by Lance Cpl. Paul Robbins Jr.



CAMP ABU GHURAYB, Iraq (Feb. 5, 2005) -- From the first light of the early morning to the waning light of the evening, the sound of impact wrenches, power drills and roaring engines can be heard aboard Camp Abu Ghurayb, Iraq.

The Marines of the motor transport section of 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team-1, have the never-ending task of keeping more than 100 High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicles, also known as ‘humvees,’ ready to navigate the hazardous city of Fallujah.

“Our job is to keep all the motor transport assets in a high state of maintenance,” said Sgt. Daniel T. HillMcBride, 28, a native of Lewisville, Texas, who serves as the shop chief for the motor transport section, Headquarters and Service Company.

In order to accomplish this, the section, consisting of seven Marines, works all day long on various mechanical problems.

“My guys are here from sun up to sun down,” said Gunnery Sgt. Jason W. Milbery, 34, a native of Bridgewater, Mass., who serves as the staff non-commissioned officer in charge of the motor transport section, “We have a heavy workload and they work hard.”

When the battalion arrived in early January, they took charge of 147 humvees, a dozen of which were already in need of repairs.

“We had 12 to work on when we got here,” said HillMcBride, “that number doubled in the first week.”

The motor transport section takes care of a wide array of problems relating to the humvees. The Marines deal with the external engine, drive train, electrical and more; but their biggest job is troubleshooting, according to HillMcBride.

“The operators come in and tell us their vehicle’s making a weird noise or isn’t working right and we have to decipher what the problem is,” said HillMcBride.

The biggest contributor to the motor transport section’s workload is time. Some of the vehicles used by 3/4 have been in country for more than two years, according to Milbery.

“The ones we received from the Army have been here since the beginning,” said Lance Cpl. Charles E. Paige, 21, a native of Petoskey, Mich., who serves as a motor transport mechanic for the motor transport section. “They’re worn out.”

The most common problem found in the battalion’s humvees has been worn brakes. This is caused by the armor attached to the vehicles, which the suspensions are not made to support, said HillMcBride.

Despite the many problematic vehicles under the charge of motor transport Marines, the turn-around time on a vehicle is minimal.

“Most problems can be fixed (within 36 hours),” Milbery said.

The battalion is yet to lose a humvee and the sturdy vehicles continuing to show their ability to shrug off wear and tear, enemy fire or improvised explosive devices, according to Paige.

“They’re pretty tough, but not indestructible,” said Paige. “You just have to keep them within their limits.”

With more than 130 vehicles operational, and and a small percentage being repaired by motor transport mechanics, the battalion is able to maintain it’s mobility in the city of Fallujah.

Ellie