Desert Diaries
Lance Cpl. Regina A. Ruisi


MARINE CORPS BASE HAWAII(Nov. 16, 2007) -- Since 1965, the Marine Corps has effectively preserved its history through the Marine Corps Oral History Branch. The corps-wide program is conducted here by Capt. Diana Mearns, the historical program officer, who documents the accounts of Hawaii’s service members. The warriors’ stories are collected orally and join the ranks of thousands of Marines and Sailors who’ve come before them, dating back to the Vietnam War.
“Desert Diaries” tells the personal stories of pride and loyalty, humor and sadness, and the glory and horror of America’s wars. The stories are provided by the base historian, and are published to help share our warriors’ stories with the public.

A career with Marine Reconnaissance teams throughout the Marine Corps began for Gunnery Sgt. William Burrows in Reno, Nev., in 1992 when Burrows passed the force recon indoctrination.

He deployed to Iraq from November, 2003, to September, 2004, as team leader, 7th Platoon, 1st Force Reconnaissance Company, I Marine Expeditionary Force. There, he made his way around Iraq providing recon for different units. Most of his team’s missions were sniper observance and providing recon surveillance to find out what insurgents in the country were doing.

“The unit’s commander gives you an area he wants surveillance on, and our job is to observe everything and send pictures back,” Burrows said. “Our information wasn’t used just to counter improvised explosive devices, but to find out what insurgents were up to.”

On his first recon mission in country, Burrows and the 16 Marines he was in charge of spent eight days on a 180-mile patrol and observed vehicle check points.

“My mission at the time was to build a forward operating base and report on any activity near the vehicle check points,” he said. “The vehicle check points were never set up, so we spent eight days sitting out there, taking pictures, sending them back and that’s about it.”

Fears of IEDs and snipers weren’t prominent in the minds of recon Marines, according to Burrows. Their biggest fears were their assigned units not using them to their best abilities and not being able to do their jobs to the best of their abilities.

“Not being employed the right way or running out of missions due to the recon reputation was one of our biggest fears,” Burrows said. “With a lot of people it’s either really good or really bad and a lot of the time infantry doesn’t like recon because of past relationships. You don’t really know how you’re going to get employed, if you’re going to have a positive effect on the mission or not really do anything. You’re also worried about getting to know the population well enough to identify a terrorist cell. Being white and going into an Islamic country I don’t know customs and courtesies, I don’t know their daily life, I don’t know if them carrying a bag around is normal. I don’t know their religion well enough to identify their five calls of prayer. Missing something that was part of their daily lives was a huge fear of mine. Fears of getting shot or blown up are secondary. We just don’t want to fail, don’t want to let someone down.”

One of the most memorable moments in Iraq happened during a night patrol. His platoon would dress up their driver in traditional Iraqi clothes and drive down the roads, looking for insurgents planting IEDs or doing other suspicious things.

“Part of the Iraqi culture is to always offer people something,” Burrows said. “We pulled up in front of someone’s house, and they came out of their house to offer our dressed-up driver tea or food or something. He thought it was strange and took off. It was strange to see both sides, from them being really great toward someone who was like them to being really hostile toward us.”

The morale of Burrows’ Marines was high throughout their entire deployment until the operational tempo slowed down.

“They wanted to do the job all the way through until three weeks before we left Iraq, when there was three weeks of down time,” he said. “That three weeks was the worst part of the whole deployment because people were getting bored and sitting around. There was no missions, no training. It was a lesson to me that they need to have something going on at all times. It needs to happen cause otherwise it’s just people throwing rocks at each other all the time.”

The only challenges Burrows had with his Marines was in the beginning of the deployment, he said. Being a newly formed team wasn’t easy on him as a team leader or on the Marines.

“The challenge began with the other two teams being very seasoned, and my team was basically put together with everybody else that just came in,” he said. “We had never worked together. We even had a few guys that weren’t recon, and they were great. The young recon guys really did have big egos. They were young lance corporals who, in the beginning, were working together really well and in the end fell apart. In a small team, I don’t like to have the rigidity of leadership so you tend to be really informal, and I found that working with the new Marines, that didn’t work.”

After learning how to work as a team, the Marines took a lot of initiative and began to do everything that needed to be done without being told. That made the deployment easier on everyone, Burrows said.

Burrows and his Marines returned to Alabama from Iraq in September, 2004. Burrows changed stations to Marine Corps Base Hawaii in 2006, and has served with 4th Force Reconnaissance Company ever since. He plans to retire from the Corps in four and a half years.

Ellie