May 22, 2006
Hawaii welcomes home 1/3 Marines

By William Cole
Honolulu Advertiser

The early end of an Afghanistan deployment for a battalion of Kaneohe Bay leathernecks may be the end of Hawaii Marines’ contributions to that fight, according to Marine Corps officials.

An advance party of 100 leathernecks and sailors with 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, returned to Hawaii on May 8 from a shortened five-month deployment to Afghanistan, where they rooted out Taliban and al-Qaida militants near the Pakistan border.

The deployment had been expected to last seven months.

NATO is gradually assuming control of security in Afghanistan and is expected to take over counterinsurgency operations in the south and east from the U.S. by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, a Pentagon decision to delay deployment of a Germany-based Army combat brigade to Iraq hints at growing optimism that conditions are improving, but officials cautioned that it does not signal the start of a sizable military withdrawal. The brigade, consisting of about 3,500 soldiers, was set to deploy this month.

The Army said the move has little impact, as yet, on plans to send four other combat brigades to Iraq in August and September, including the 3rd Brigade at Schofield Barracks.

But officials did not rule out the possibility of decisions in coming months that could keep some of those units at home and lead to a substantial reduction of U.S. troops in Iraq just before the November congressional elections.

The red carpet

About 200 family and friends greeted the Hawaii Marines yesterday with signs, leis and hugs after a chartered jet landed at Marine Corps Base Kaneohe Bay.

A red carpet ran to a hangar on base where families and friends waited to welcome home their loved ones. Several of the troops saw their newborn children for the first time when they walked off the plane, including one captain who kneeled to hold his 8-week-old firstborn.

“It was a very overwhelming experience, and it was great to see an early group of our [Marines] come home,” said spokesman 2nd Lt. Binford Strickland.

The returning Marines from 1/3 are an advance party for about 800 more from the battalion who will be returning from Afghanistan within the next few weeks.

The Marines deployed in January, following tours of about seven months by the 3rd and then 2nd battalions at Kaneohe Bay.

Officials said May 8 that the Army’s 10th Mountain Division, which assumed command of Combined Joint Task Force 76 in late February, took over for the Hawaii Marines in eastern Afghanistan.

The U.S. is expected to keep about 16,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, down from about 19,000, but they will be under NATO command.

The 1/3 Marines were engaged in numerous firefights in March in the Shuryak Valley of Kunar province and in the often hostile area between Camp Blessing in Nangalam and Camp Wright in Asadabad.

During the search of a house in Salar Ban, the Marines discovered 1,000 pounds of explosives and came under rocket-propelled grenade and small-arms fire in what was described as one of the most ferocious firefights troops had faced since 2004 fighting in Fallujah, Iraq.

The Hawaii Marines also took part in Operation Mountain Lion, which began April 11. An estimated 2,500 Afghan and U.S. forces moved into the Korengal Valley for the operation to root out insurgents.

First Lt. Kevin Frost, in a report, said every company from 1/3 had been in firefights.

“It’s a credit to our abilities as coalition forces that they’ve shot at us but haven’t come close to winning any engagements,” Frost said.

Three Marines and a Navy corpsman from the battalion died as a result of injuries received in Afghanistan. Lance Cpl. Billy D. Brixey Jr., 21, died Jan. 27 from injuries received when a roadside bomb hit his convoy.

Pfc. Matthew L. Bertolino, 20, was a passenger in a vehicle that overturned Feb. 9 during a patrol near Jalalabad. Lance Cpl. Nicholas R. Anderson, 21, was killed March 13 in a nonhostile vehicle accident.

Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class John T. Fralish, 30, was killed Feb. 6 during combat operations.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Ellie