thedrifter
07-02-09, 05:39 AM
Local marine Edward Bonifay glad to be home for July 4
By Clayton Wallace The upcoming Fourth of July holiday is special for Edward Bonifay of Gulf Shores. “I’m going to spend it with my family and friends,” the 2006 Gulf Shores High School graduate said. Although his plans don’t sound like anything out of the ordinary, Bonifay considers himself fortunate to be able to spend the holiday here. Until less than one month ago, his Marine Corps unit was deployed in Afghanistan. “We were over there from November until June 4,” he said. According to Bonifay, being in Afghanistan has made him appreciate our American way of life all the more. “It’s weird and just so different from here,” he said. “Over there you see the poppy fields and the marijuana plants just growing by the side of the road.” He said although Afghanistan is now the largest supplier of illegal opiates and marijuana to the U.S., our military personnel are forbidden from destroying the fields. “The people over there are destitute,” he said. “The only way they have of making money is through growing and selling poppies (for opiates) and marijuana, even though the drug trade is funding the Taliban.” People who lived near his base of operations in the Gulistan Valley in southern Afghanistan seemed to appreciate the American military presence there more than villagers from farther away. “We were in between two villages. Both of them were in range of our 120mm mortars, so we were able to keep them safe. The people in those towns really liked us,” he said. “The people in villages further out – not so much.” To keep on good relations with the local villagers, the Marines performed improvement projects in the villages. “We did a lot for neighboring communities,” he said. “We installed solar-powered street lamps in one village and dug an irrigation ditch on both sides of a bazaar – the local market.” Bonifay and his fellow Marines also helped distribute backpacks donated by a NATO organization to local schoolchildren. “The kids were great, I really enjoyed interacting with them,” he said. “Although I thought it was a little weird that only the boys were allowed to go to school.” If any girls received education, it was of an informal variety because of the Taliban. “The Taliban had burned down their school in the past for teaching girls,” he said. The weather was another thing to which Bonifay had to adjust. “The weather is a series of extremes. It was either really cold or really hot,” he said. “The cold was miserable. It got up to 130 degrees during the day, but I’m from down here, so I could deal with the heat. When it got so hot during the day, the nights were frigid enough that snow stuck to the ground in the surrounding mountains.” He said a typical day in the life of a Marine deployed in Afghanistan is fairly mundane. “You wake up and do your patrols, whether they’re mounted or dismounted patrols. Then you come back to camp and go to bed,” he said. “Then you do it all again the next day.” The deployment may have been mundane day-to-day, but it wasn’t without its dangers. “We were involved in several firefights where the Afghan fighters attacked us and the U.S. flag,” he said. “We were lucky nobody was killed, but I did have one of my team members injured with some torn ligaments from one of the skirmishes.” Bonifay is a Corporal in Kilo Company, Second Platoon, Eighth Division of the Third Marines Battalion. While in Afghanistan, he was team leader of a five-man patrol team. Being home for the Fourth of July makes him think about fellow military personnel who are either still in Afghanistan, or won’t experience another Fourth of July with their friends and families. Bonifay said he plans to share his holiday with his father Larry, and his stepmother Terri along with various other friends and relatives. “Being home for the Fourth is great. It makes you feel good about what you and your buddies are doing. I was over there defending our rights to carry on living our lives over here,” he said. “It’s also hard because you know you have buddies that won’t come back to be here on any more Fourths of July.” Pictured: Marine Corporal Edward Bonifay of Gulf Shores with one of the children near his deployment base in southern Afghanistan.
Ellie
By Clayton Wallace The upcoming Fourth of July holiday is special for Edward Bonifay of Gulf Shores. “I’m going to spend it with my family and friends,” the 2006 Gulf Shores High School graduate said. Although his plans don’t sound like anything out of the ordinary, Bonifay considers himself fortunate to be able to spend the holiday here. Until less than one month ago, his Marine Corps unit was deployed in Afghanistan. “We were over there from November until June 4,” he said. According to Bonifay, being in Afghanistan has made him appreciate our American way of life all the more. “It’s weird and just so different from here,” he said. “Over there you see the poppy fields and the marijuana plants just growing by the side of the road.” He said although Afghanistan is now the largest supplier of illegal opiates and marijuana to the U.S., our military personnel are forbidden from destroying the fields. “The people over there are destitute,” he said. “The only way they have of making money is through growing and selling poppies (for opiates) and marijuana, even though the drug trade is funding the Taliban.” People who lived near his base of operations in the Gulistan Valley in southern Afghanistan seemed to appreciate the American military presence there more than villagers from farther away. “We were in between two villages. Both of them were in range of our 120mm mortars, so we were able to keep them safe. The people in those towns really liked us,” he said. “The people in villages further out – not so much.” To keep on good relations with the local villagers, the Marines performed improvement projects in the villages. “We did a lot for neighboring communities,” he said. “We installed solar-powered street lamps in one village and dug an irrigation ditch on both sides of a bazaar – the local market.” Bonifay and his fellow Marines also helped distribute backpacks donated by a NATO organization to local schoolchildren. “The kids were great, I really enjoyed interacting with them,” he said. “Although I thought it was a little weird that only the boys were allowed to go to school.” If any girls received education, it was of an informal variety because of the Taliban. “The Taliban had burned down their school in the past for teaching girls,” he said. The weather was another thing to which Bonifay had to adjust. “The weather is a series of extremes. It was either really cold or really hot,” he said. “The cold was miserable. It got up to 130 degrees during the day, but I’m from down here, so I could deal with the heat. When it got so hot during the day, the nights were frigid enough that snow stuck to the ground in the surrounding mountains.” He said a typical day in the life of a Marine deployed in Afghanistan is fairly mundane. “You wake up and do your patrols, whether they’re mounted or dismounted patrols. Then you come back to camp and go to bed,” he said. “Then you do it all again the next day.” The deployment may have been mundane day-to-day, but it wasn’t without its dangers. “We were involved in several firefights where the Afghan fighters attacked us and the U.S. flag,” he said. “We were lucky nobody was killed, but I did have one of my team members injured with some torn ligaments from one of the skirmishes.” Bonifay is a Corporal in Kilo Company, Second Platoon, Eighth Division of the Third Marines Battalion. While in Afghanistan, he was team leader of a five-man patrol team. Being home for the Fourth of July makes him think about fellow military personnel who are either still in Afghanistan, or won’t experience another Fourth of July with their friends and families. Bonifay said he plans to share his holiday with his father Larry, and his stepmother Terri along with various other friends and relatives. “Being home for the Fourth is great. It makes you feel good about what you and your buddies are doing. I was over there defending our rights to carry on living our lives over here,” he said. “It’s also hard because you know you have buddies that won’t come back to be here on any more Fourths of July.” Pictured: Marine Corporal Edward Bonifay of Gulf Shores with one of the children near his deployment base in southern Afghanistan.
Ellie