MILITARY: Corpsmen say they're making a difference

By MARK WALKER - Staff Writer

Editor's Note: Reporter Mark Walker is traveling through the Middle East with Camp Pendleton's Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland.

FORWARD OPERATING BASE DELERAM, Afghanistan ---- Roden Quibuyen, a Navy medic with two young children in Murrieta, Calif., has spent the last five months treating wounded Marines.

He's also been providing medical care to the Afghan people, whom the military says must reject the Taliban if the ongoing war is going to be successful.

Neither is an easy task.

"The Marines are just young guys," Quibuyen said Saturday at this austere outpost in Afghanistan's Helmand province. "They looked like little kids before we left for here. Not anymore. They’ve been through a lot."

Quibuyen is among dozens of U.S. Navy medical corpsmen working alongside Marines fighting the insurgency in this desert and mountainous region of southern Afghanistan.

When the married father of two children with another on the way isn't treating Marines, he spends much of his time caring for local villagers, who greet him with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

"Some are receptive," he said. "Some say, 'Don't come here because the Taliban will hurt us if they see us working with you.' "

Quibuyen said he gave medicine to one family and learned a few days later that the Taliban had been watching.

"They came and beat up the man and took the medicine," he said. "The people want us here, but they're scared. That’s what we're up against."

The U.S. doctrine for fighting an insurgency calls for placing troops among the local population, providing it with security as well economic development and health care.

That trifecta has been part of the mission of 3,400 Marines sent here in April, a force now being replaced by a smaller contingent that includes a helicopter squadron from Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.

One of Quibuyen's counterparts, Corpsman Louie Bismonte of Lemoore, Calif., also has been part of the military’s "hearts and minds" campaign.

"I think that's what we're here for,” he said. "The American people need to know we're not here wasting money ---- we're doing the right thing."

The Marines' work in the Helmand Province over the last nine months has centered on driving the Taliban and criminal gangs out of the villages, work that Bismonte said troops from NATO coalition countries are reluctant to do.

"They just sit inside their bases," he said shortly after breakfast at the compound nicknamed Hotel Del. "The Marines are doing stuff the British and others haven't ---- killing the enemy and winning hearts."

Bismonte has worked at forward operating bases throughout the province, treating Afghan National Army and police forces as well as local residents and injured troops.

Camp Pendleton's Maj. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, in the region with other Marine brass to visit the troops and get updates from commanders, told the two medics and about 60 other troops gathered in the morning chill that they were paving the way for success in Afghanistan ---- and possibly more Marine forces.

"It's safe to say the Marine Corps will be moving more in the direction of Afghanistan," said Waldhauser, commander of the 1st Marine Division. "What we asked you to do when you came here was a unique challenge and you have risen to it."

Marine Corps leaders for months have said they believe their focus should shift from Iraq to Afghanistan, where there is more fighting.

About 25,000 Marines in Iraq serve in the once-volatile Anbar province. The Sunni-dominated population in that region began turning away from al-Qaida about 18 months ago, a success story in the two wars the U.S. is fighting in the Middle East.

Many young enlisted Marines now serving in Iraq have not experienced any large-scale or daily fighting, prompting calls to their commanders to redeploy them to Afghanistan.

Quibuyen echoed that sentiment, saying the 20 men killed during his unit's Afghanistan eight-month deployment can only be honored by continuing the fight.

"If we stop or slow down now, we just lost their lives for no reason," he said.

Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.

Ellie