‘How a Marine is supposed to fight’

[thedrifter]

Heroes 2007:
‘How a Marine is supposed to fight’

By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, June 14, 2007

WASHINGTON — Cpl. Jason Clairday was always the first Marine into the fight.

"I never saw him walking behind someone else," said Cpl. Richard Laster, who served as a private under Clairday during the second battle of Fallujah, Iraq. "He never told someone else to go in and he’d hang back. He was always up front."

On Dec. 12, 2004, Clairday was leading his men into an insurgent stronghold when he was shot in the legs. He pressed on, guiding his men though the building and insisting on heading the pack until he was struck by another volley of bullets, this time fatal.

Last month the Corps recognized Clairday as one of its greatest heroes, posthumously awarding him the Navy Cross for his courage and leadership during the battle. Laster said those actions were not a surprise to him.

"He always led by example," Laster said. "If we had a post to guard or a position to dig in, he was out front getting dirty.

"He’s working so hard that I’m saying to myself, ‘Now I’ve gotta make myself even better than he is.’ So we all worked harder, and that made us into better leaders."

The unit was part of the security force during the battle to retake Fallujah in fall 2004, and was conducting security sweeps in December to help root out the remaining cells of insurgents hiding throughout the city.

On the day he was killed, Clairday’s fire team was backing assault squads when they received news that several Marines were cornered inside a house. According to Corps reports, he lead his men up an adjacent building and was the first to leap across a 4-foot gap — in full combat gear — to get to the trapped men.

From there he threw several grenades into the house and charged in. Laster said he saw him take only a few steps before going down in a heap.

"He started crawling back out while returning fire," Laster said. "We figured he must not have been hit too bad, but we knew he got hit. I heard him say later there was a wall of bullets that he ran into."

The men regrouped, tossed in some more explosives and pulled out the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon. Clairday and his gunner took position in the doorway and killed their attackers with the heavy weaponry.

Corps reports said Clairday ignored instructions to get medical assistance and continued to sweep through the building with his men, clearing each room. Laster said when they reached a back bedroom, the squad leader again insisted he took the lead.

"He was hit as soon as he went in the room," he said. "Everybody knew this time it was much worse."

Laster and the other men pulled him back out and managed to eliminate the heavily fortified insurgents. They rushed Clairday back out to the medics, and called in an airstrike to take out arriving enemy reinforcements.

Before that air support arrived, Clairday died from his wounds.

The Arkansas native, just 21 when he died, was the 18th Marine in the war in Iraq to receive the award, second only to the Medal of Honor. Laster, who spoke at a service for Clairday last month, called him a daily inspiration for all of his men.

"He’s someone for other Marines to look up to," Laster said. "That’s a person you want to be. That’s how a Marine is supposed to fight."

Cpl. Jason
Clairday

Unit: Company K, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines

Medal: Navy Cross

Earned: Dec. 12, 2004, in Fallujah, Iraq

———

Heroes 2007
Read more stories about valor in the fight against terrorism here, or download the 2007 Heroes special section in PDF form here.

www.stripes.com/07/jun07/heroesweb/index.html

www.stripes.com/heroes/heroes07.pdf

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Cpl. Jason Clairday honored
Family receives Navy Cross of fallen corporal

06/13/07
Gidget Fuentes Marine Corp Times Staff Writer

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — Bullets from insurgents’ AK47 rifles tore into his legs, but Cpl. Jason S. Clairday wasn’t about to be stopped.

Clairday, 21, had just leaped across a four-foot gap between rooftops three stories above the Fallujah street to reach a mortally wounded member of another platoon felled in an intense firefight that Dec. 12, 2004, morning. He reorganized first squad and pushed into the house again, throwing grenades and firing his rifle to lead his men against the insurgent fighters inside.

Enemy fire again struck him, and he was evacuated to a field surgical unit, where he died.

Through that battle, Marines say, Clairday never gave up. On Monday, the Marine Corps awarded the Navy Cross medal — the second-highest for valor in combat — to his widow during a Camp Pendleton ceremony as members of 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, looked on.

During the ceremony, held on a parade deck next to 3/5’s headquarters at Camp San Mateo, Col. Larry D. Nicholson told the story of Clairday’s perseverance leading his men despite his wounds.

“He was asked to evacuate. He was told to evacuate. He was supposed to evacuate,” said Nicholson, the 5th Marines regimental commander, his booming voice carrying across the vast parade deck. “He did not evacuate. What did he do? He went back and rallied his fire team. He rallied all the Marines that were on that rooftop and he said, we’re going to go back in ... and that’s exactly what they did.”

Clairday, who hailed from Salem, Ark., was wounded again, mortally, but not before leading several Marines to kill three insurgents in the house. Honor, service and commitment “are more than just words,” Nicholson said, noting they “are not old-fashioned concepts.”

Fellow Marines with 3/5 recalled Clairday’s motivation, aggressiveness and decisiveness.

Capt. Todd Moulder, who was Clairday’s 2nd Platoon commander at the time, recalled his “loyalty to his brothers,” as well as his “sometimes very colorful” cadences.

“The platoon would follow him anywhere,” Moulder told the crowd.

“This was a tragic day for us all. Sarah, you lost a husband,” he said, looking at Clairday’s widow seated among other relatives and veterans. “Some lost a son. For us, we lost a brother. I will attest that without Jason’s decisiveness leadership and extraordinary heroism, more husbands, sons and brothers would have been lost that 12th day of December.”

Former Cpl. Travis Icard remembers his fire team leader’s determination to push on that ill-fated day despite his wounds.

“His brave example saved lives and is the definition of courage,” he said.

Icard credits Clairday’s hard-work ethic and “tough-as-nails” example with inspiring him to be a better Marine. “I’d always hoped to be half the Marine he always was,” he said.

Cpl. Richard Laster, then a young private first class new to the platoon, recalled Clairday’s mentorship, selflessness and courage.

“I’d always see him pushing others, never letting them quit,” Laster said.

His example “guided me to be a better Marine, a better man ... and to guide my Marines.”

Several relatives and friends traveled to California for the morning ceremony. For Clairday’s family, hearing his final actions brought tears of grief and joy at the recognition of a young man who had “a mischievous bent” but who they always knew was a good-hearted soul.

After the ceremony, his mother, Nancy McWilliams of Delta, Colo., said Clairday “wanted to do something ... wanted to make a difference.”

McWilliams said she wasn’t surprised at hearing how he had refused several times to be evacuated during the fighting. “That’s not him,” she said, trying to hold back tears.

Charles Hargett, a Marine veteran who fought in Vietnam, presented a plaque to Sarah Clairday from the Military Order of the Purple Heart’s North San Diego chapter. Hargett, the chapter commander, looked across the parade deck, where 3/5’s men waited for the ceremony to begin. “I was that age when I was in,” he said.

Hargett, who was wounded three times during his 1967-68 tour in Vietnam, said he was amazed when he read the citation that accompanied Clairday’s award.

“I think he’s a helluva man to give his life for something like that,” he said. “It’s way beyond the call of duty.”




Ellie