Marines conduct census in Akashat

Sgt. Jesse Ramirez, who is the platoon sergeant for Green Platoon, Company H, 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, Regimental Combat Team 5, plays with a little boy who lives in the town of Akashat, Iraq, March 9. Marines have noticed a significant difference in the attitude of the community of Akashat from when they first arrived. The Marines recently conducted a census in Akashat to get general information on the residents and to deter insurgent activity.



March 15, 2008; Submitted on: 03/19/2008 09:34:42 AM ; Story ID#: 200831993442

By Lance Cpl. Paul M. Torres, 1st Marine Division


AKASHAT, Iraq (March 15, 2008) -- One of the insurgents’ most formidable weapons is their ability to hide among the people they oppress.

Collecting information has always been important to the war on terror. This is why Marines with Hotel Company, 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, Regimental Combat Team 5, conducted a census in the town of Akashat, Iraq, March 9.

“The census is us just getting information, and it helps us build a relationship with the community,” said Sgt. Manuel A. Callejasrodas, 26, from Lynbrook N.Y., who is the platoon commander for Green Platoon, Company H.”

Marines with Green Platoon have been patrolling the town of Akashat block by block, talking to the residents of each house.

The man of the house is asked to provide basic information on the residents who live there.

“The census will give us a general idea about where people work, how many people live in each house and what it is they do,” said Callejasrodas. “Plus it gives us better eyes-on within the community.”

Marines with Company H first took command of Akashat and the surrounding areas from the Army at the beginning of March.

“The information will let us know if any possible insurgents try to stay in one of the houses, we will know if someone doesn’t belong there,” said Sgt. Jesse Ramirez, 22, from Modesto, Calif., who is the platoon sergeant for Green Platoon, Company H.

The community of Akashat has not always been friendly to Marines on patrol.

“When we first rolled through the city, the (children) would throw rocks at us,” said Callejasrodas. “The people were very intimidated at first, but the atmosphere has changed a lot.”

The smallest things often make the biggest differences, and for the Marines in Company H, it has been their connection with the children.

“An older man in the city stopped us and told us that as we got in good with the (children), we will get the families to like us, and it is working,” said Ramirez. “It feels good to see that we are making a difference, and you can tell their attitude has changed,” said Ramirez.

While conducting the census, children would often come out of their houses and shake the hands of the Marines with smiles on their faces.

“If you show them respect, they will respect you, so we give (the community) updates on what we are trying to do for them in the town,” said Ramirez.
Source

Email from Jennifer Griffin in Iraq!

Click here to read Jennifer's email to Greta Van Susteren. In the email she talks about Gunnery Sergeant William Gibson from Pryor, Oklahoma. He is a true hero! Gunny, you make us proud!

MV-22 Osprey in Iraq

AL ASAD, Iraq (Feb. 14, 2008) – Sergeant Zachary Hoag, an MV-22 crew chief with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263, mans the 240D medium machine gun while ensuring a safe landing on the flight line here Feb. 14. As of January 2008, the tiltrotor squadron has conducted more than 1,400 missions across the Al Anbar Province.
U.S. Marine Photo by: Lance Cpl. Jessica N. Aranda



Photo by: Lance Cpl. Jessica Aranda
Photo ID: 2008220298
Submitting Unit: 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing
Photo Date:02/14/2008

Iraqi interpreters afforded new life

“Bruce,” an Iraqi interpreter, practices a grammar question in an Arabic to English dictionary to better his English skills. Bruce has worked for the Coalition Forces for 12 months now and he plans on putting in an immigration package so he can immigrate to the U.S. with his sister and mother. He also has plans of continuing his education in the U.S. and joining the Marine Corps. Once an interpreter has worked for 12 months with Coalition Forces, they can submit an immigration package that will allow them to move to the U.S. Photo by: Lance Cpl. Shawn Coolman


Feb. 6, 2008; Submitted on: 02/18/2008 08:12:21 AM ; Story ID#: 200821881221

By Lance Cpl. Shawn Coolman, 1st Marine Division




HADITHA CITY, Iraq (Feb. 6, 2008) -- The prospect for a better life awaits the men and women serving as interpreters in Iraq.

Iraqis who serve as interpreters for Coalition Forces have an opportunity to submit their immigration package and possibly become U.S. citizens.

“This is an incentive for their loyal and faithful service for serving us in our mission,” said Capt. Manuel F. Munoz, 42, the unit linguist manager for 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marines, who is from New York City.

To be considered, a minimum of 12 months of service is required in aiding the Coalition Forces.

An immigration package is then compiled and consists of letters of recommendations, security and background checks and any additional letters which describe the actions of the individual.

After an interpreter submits a package to the proper chain of command, the package is then sent up to the regimental commander and commanding general of Multi National Force West, said Munoz.

“The package is then sent to the American Embassy in Rome for special immigration status for the interpreter,” added Munoz.

Approximately six months after the package is submitted, an interview with the interpreter is arranged to discuss if his/her access to the U.S. will be granted, said “Hector,” an Iraq interpreter who is submitting his package this month.

Reasons why English speaking Iraqis want to become interpreters are extensive: a better life, a good job and security are just a few.

“It’s a good job,” said Hector, who has aided the Coalition forces for 12 months. “I studied to be an interpreter; I got a bachelors degree in English Literature from a Baghdad university.

Although, there are no guarantees that the interpreters’ packages will be approved, the command observes and creates their own recommendations for their package.

“We look at it like this; would the U.S. benefit by having these people there,” said Munoz. “Some of these interpreters are college educated, and our intent is to pick the very best.”

When an interpreter arrives in the U.S., they will have to file for a green card to work while their citizenship is finalized.

“They have to create liaisons when they get there (America); their intent is to hit the ground running,” said Munoz. “Their future is wide opene for them, and they can do whatever they want to in the U.S.”
Source

McCain's Marine son returns from Iraq

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who almost always refuses to speak on the campaign trail about his son serving in the military, got a rousing reception Wednesday when he told a private gathering of House Republican congressman that his son Jimmy — whose Marine unit had been deployed to Iraq — had arrived home safely.

According to three GOP sources present at the closed meeting of the House Republican Conference, the Arizona senator said that when his son first arrived in the country, he reported seeing IEDs everywhere — but when he recently left, some seven months later, Iraq had become so safe he was handing out soccer balls.

According to the sources present, the congressmen greeted the news with standing ovations.

Source

For unit, third time in Fallujah is a charm

Marines buoyed by gains since 2004, 2006 tours
By Geoff Ziezulewicz, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Tuesday, February 12, 2008


FALLUJAH, Iraq — Marine Sgt. Matthew Keenan’s third trip to this city was unnerving at first. But it had nothing to do with enemy contact.

“We were coming into Fallujah, and there were lights,” said Keenan, 24. “That was crazy.”

You’ll have to excuse Keenan for being bowled over by such an innocuous circumstance. Keenan was in Fallujah before, when the only light came from fires and Marines in combat: He was here in 2004 during the Battle of Fallujah. And in 2006, when the enemy’s tactics had evolved.

Some men of 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines have seen the city at its lowest point and are witnesses now as Fallujah tentatively makes its way forward.

“I pretty much have a house here,” joked Sgt. Sergio Mucino, on his third deployment to Fallujah and fourth overall in Iraq.

Despite lingering issues involving electricity and water, Marines said the city’s peace outbreak is a vindication for those who have been here before.

Mucino said he’s not sure yet if the city’s progress was worth the lives of his lost comrades — a close personal friend in particular — and the sacrifices Marines have made.

“I want to say yes, but who knows where it’ll go from here,” he said. “From what I saw until now, it’s seriously progressing.”

‘There were insurgents everywhere’
Sgt. Leodir Santos, now on his third Fallujah deployment with 3-5, headed to the city in the late summer of 2004 knowing a fight was brewing.

“We knew something big was going to happen,” he said. “We didn’t know what.”

Stationed at Camp Baharia outside the city, Santos was not in Fallujah for the first part of that battle in November, but he knew it was close.

“Twenty-four seven, they had incoming inside the FOB, always,” he said. “Same thing for outgoing. You could hear planes blazing away inside the city.”

One night, a round struck right outside his tent.

He had always wanted frontline action, he said, “but not at 3 o’clock in the morning.”

Meanwhile, Mucino was pushing through the city with Lima Company.

The residents had been told to evacuate before Marines went in, and Mucino said he remembers that there would be streets with nothing at all, but insurgents would swarm on other thoroughfares.

Before the fight, Santos remembers the exodus of city residents clamoring to get out before the Marines invaded.

“It was like Godzilla,” he said, “people moving away and all the traffic backed up.”

“There were insurgents everywhere,” Keenan said. “And the mentality was to rid the city of them.”

On the tail end of the initial city fighting, Santos took part in a “mini-push” that targeted a stubborn area in the northeast of the city.

“Every room was either sprayed with M-16s or had a flash-bang or grenade thrown inside,” he said, adding that freezing nights were spent trying to sleep on rooftops. Guys were sleeping in the sweat-drenched clothes they had spent the day fighting in.

“Any time we’d find a house with any kind of weapons we’d burn the house down,” he said.

The city was empty for the rest of 2004. Santos said he remembers seeing huge packs of wild dogs and that’s about it.

Mucino, Keenan and Santos finished their deployment by the spring of 2005. But before they left, the people of Fallujah were allowed to return in January.

“I had never seen the city with the population in it,” Mucino said. “We thought, ‘Oh man, how are they going to react? Their houses are demolished.’”

Roads become perilous
In early 2006, the 3-5 Marines returned to the city. Their peril now lay in the roads they traveled.

“It was nothing but IEDs (improvised explosive devices),” Mucino said. “There was an IED pretty much every day. It was pretty much a faceless enemy.”

Regardless of where they were in and around Fallujah, Santos, Mucino and Keenan all said that roadside bombs plagued that second deployment.

“You’re not necessarily face to face with the bad guys,” said Keenan, who spent his deployment largely at a base just across from the city. “It was pretty monotonous the whole time. The same thing over and over and over again.”

The frustration of not being able to secure 800 meters of road between Camp Fallujah and Camp Taqqadum was infuriating during that second deployment, Santos said. He remembers between 25 and 30 vehicles being blown up.

“There was no way the IEDs should have been there,” he said.

In the fall of 2006, the men went home again.

Mucino is at a loss to remember exactly when he got back, only that he made it home in time for his birthday, around the end of September.

Talking to people
Now Keenan, Santos and Mucino are in Fallujah again, here with Lima Company until May. And again, things changed while they were gone.

“We still haven’t got shot at or hit by an IED,” Santos said. “It’s like there’s something missing. It’s not the same Iraq anymore.”

Before, training involved urban warfare. This time around, their training involved talking to people.

“I knew coming over here was going to be a little bit different,” Santos said. “We started picking up trash inside the city. We didn’t do any of that during our first deployment.”

Santos said he has no problem with the change in orders.

“First deployment, if you tell me to kill somebody, I’ll put two shots in the head,” he said. “Now if you tell me to give some kids candy, there you go.”

Keenan said he’s heartened to see Fallujah take steps forward.

“For the guys who were in the [2004] push, to see the city and how it’s changed, it’s awesome,” he said. “It shows us that what we did actually worked.”

Ever mindful of the past, Santos said Marines must keep making progress in Fallujah, to honor the fallen and to bring eventual closure to the mission here.

“If we don’t accomplish what we came to do, all those sacrifices will be wasted,” Santos said. “All that work, for what?”
Source

MV-22 ‘Osprey’ brings new capabilities to the sandbox

Mechanics from Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 work on the rotor blades of the aircraft, Jan. 15. The Marines ensure the rotors are properly secured during a routine maintenance inspection. Since October 2007, the MV-22 has had an average readiness rate of 68%. The MV-22 has one of the highest rated comparative performance records for a new rotary wing/tilt-rotor aircraft in the history of Marine Corps aviation. The range and depth of aviation supply parts is the latent limitation for high availability rates.




Jan. 23, 2008; Submitted on: 01/23/2008 06:24:16 AM ; Story ID#: 200812362416
By - II MAW (FWD) PAO, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing (FWD)



AL ASAD, Iraq (Jan. 23, 2008) -- The Marines of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 arrived at Al Asad to support air operations in the Al Anbar province on Oct. 4, 2007.

The ‘Thunder Chickens' took over the entire range of combat medium lift assault support missions in support of Multi-National Forces – West from Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 363 to include battlefield circulation, raid and Aeroscout operations, helicopter/tiltrotor governance,Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel alert and casualty evacuation alert, flying everywhere within MNF-West throughout the battlefield from Baghdad to Al Qaim providing an operational capability over distance and time that has effectively collapsed the battlespace. The squadron has completed more than 2,000 ASRs in the first 3 months of the deployment, keeping approximately 8,000 personnel off dangerous roadways and accruing approximately 2,000 flight hours. They have accomplished every mission and met every schedule while maintaining an average mission capable availability rate of 68.1%.

The New River based MV-22 squadron has experienced a higher operational tempo while deployed, with the squadron completing missions and accumulating flight hours at a sustained rate well in excess of anything they've done before.

“The area of operations has, in a number of ways, highlighted the performance of the aircraft,” said Lt. Col. Paul Rock, VMM-263’s commanding officer. “Our area of operations is large and the aircraft's speed and range has been much-appreciated by many of the folks the squadron has supported. In addition, the precision navigation and situational awareness systems in the aircraft have enhanced our ability to perform such tasks as desert landings in brownout conditions.”

In brownout conditions, the MV-22’s unique hover coupled capability significantly increases the safety of troops in the execution of combat missions enabling the Ground Combat Element to be safely and precisely inserted on the desired combat coordinates. No other helicopter or aircraft in the inventory has this unique operational capability and safety enhancement. It reduces and mitigates risk while significantly increasing both Ground Combat Element and aircraft survivability.

Cpl. Bob Cowan, a crew chief with VMM-263, believes the aircraft has performed better than expected. The normal wear and tear of the desert hasn’t been as harsh on the bird as was originally expected.

“The aircraft has performed better than expected,” said Cpl. Daniel Stratman, a ‘263 crew chief. “We haven’t had to replace any major parts like prop boxes or anything; the main problem out here is getting the parts for this aircraft. We can fix just about anything, the only thing that slows us down is getting the parts.”

As a new aircraft, the supporting logistics system is new and this deployment provides valuable maintenance and logistics lessons learned that will enhance support of the aircraft in the future.

The squadron, which was the Marine Corps’ first Tiltrotor squadron, has been training for this deployment since they stood up in March of 2006. Aside from the normal pre-deployment and Desert Talon training, the unit has completed two deployment-for-training operations to practice landings in brown out conditions and they also completed training with infantry Marines practicing inserting troops during raids and other ground operations.

“We had some snags at the beginning, but we’ve learned from our mistakes,” said Cowan, a Cookeville, Tenn. native. “We’ve done the training back in the rear, but performing the missions out here is different, so we’ve ironed out the wrinkles.”

The Marines of the squadron have kept their heads held high throughout the deployment and have done well at keeping the ‘Osprey’ mission ready.

“Our Marines are doing great; it’s incredible to watch them work,” said Sgt. Maj. Robert VanOostrom, the unit’s sergeant major. “The weather is getting worse everyday … but they have to ensure a certain amount of aircraft are prepared to fly every day. The amount of time and energy they put in every day to make sure the aircraft fly, is incredible.”

Almost every service member has heard of the new aircraft, but most Marines haven’t even seen the aircraft fly, not to mention fly in it. Now, many service members are getting their first flight in the Corps’ faster, farther traveling and heavier lifting aircraft.

“In North Carolina you see the ‘Osprey’ flying every single day and it’s just another aviation platform. ,” said VanOostrom. “It’s ironic to see the individual Marine who gets on the airplane for the first time and sees what it can do and says ‘This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.’”

The ‘Thunder Chickens’ have transitioned from a trained squadron to an experienced combat squadron that has completed every tasking and succeeded in maintaining the deployed operations tempo. VMM-263 has flown 5 Aeroscout missions, 1 raid, more than 1400 combat sorties and maintained an average mission capable readiness rate of 68.1% during their current deployment to Operation Iraqi Freedom 06-08.
Source

Military: 75% of Baghdad areas now secure

By Jim Michaels - USA Today
Posted : Friday Jan 18, 2008 9:38:59 EST

About 75 percent of Baghdad's neighborhoods are now secure, a dramatic increase from 8 percent a year ago, when President Bush ordered more troops to the capital, U.S. military figures show.

The military classifies 356 of Baghdad's 474 neighborhoods in the "control" or "retain" category of its four-tier security rating system, meaning enemy activity in those areas has been mostly eliminated and normal economic activity is resuming.

The data given by the military to USA Today provide one of the clearest snapshots yet of how security has improved in Baghdad since roughly 30,000 additional American troops arrived in Iraq last year.

U.S. commanders caution that the gains are still fragile, but at the moment U.S. and Iraqi forces "basically own the streets," said Army Col. Ricky Gibbs, a brigade commander in southern Baghdad.

The fight to control Baghdad is the centerpiece of the counterinsurgency strategy launched a year ago by Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. The plan, popularly known as the "surge," seeks to reduce sectarian and other violence by moving troops off large bases and into dangerous neighborhoods to protect civilians.

The 310 neighborhoods in the "control" category are secure but depend on U.S. and Iraqi military forces to maintain the peace. The 46 areas in the "retain" category have reached a level where Iraqi police and security forces can maintain order, a more permanent fix. The remaining areas have fewer security forces based there, though they are not necessarily violent.

In February 2007, when additional U.S. forces began arriving, only 37 Baghdad neighborhoods were in the "control" and "retain" categories.

The drop in violence in Baghdad and elsewhere helped avert a religious civil war, said retired Marine Col. Thomas Hammes, an author.

Risks remain. Iraq's government has been slow to restore basic services such as electricity and water in some areas.

"In areas that are in 'control' status, the complaint is not security," Gibbs said. "The complaint is essential services."

The military is wary of handing over security responsibility too quickly to Iraqi forces.

"There are concerns we'll pull out of here too fast just because we have such great gains," Gibbs said by phone from Iraq.

The Iraqi government has also failed to take full advantage of the improved security by passing major laws, such as a plan to share oil revenues, that could ease tensions between Sunnis and Shiites.

Meanwhile, U.S. troop levels are scheduled to start coming down again by the middle of this year. Although weakened and pushed out of Iraq's major cities, al-Qaida remains focused on trying to dominate the capital, said Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq.

"Their long-term sights are still set on Baghdad," he said.
Source

The Toughest Fight in Anbar Province

Military.com | By Christian Lowe | January 11, 2008

KARMAH, Iraq - It's a new kind of fight these Marines weren't exactly counting on. And it might be the toughest one they've had to endure in this war-ravaged country.
After preparing to confront one of the most deadly insurgencies America has ever faced, and steeped in the legend of Marine aggressiveness in the counterterrorist fight, the leathernecks of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines are fighting a pitched battle against boredom.

With violence across the province dropping precipitously over most of the past year, Marines who were girding for a brawl on this latest rotation have had to dial back their warrior ways for a softer approach.

Though their thoughts are tinged with disappointment, many are nevertheless practical about the new reality.

"There's not much going on this time around," said Cpl. Ken Dickerson, 1st squad leader with Lima Company, 3/3's 3rd Platoon. "But at least we're not losing anybody."

The two years preceding this Hawaii-based battalion's August deployment were some of the most violent for U.S. forces in its nearly five year occupation of Iraq. But since the surge of 30,000 troops launched in early 2007, violent incidents in Anbar have dropped to levels unthinkable just a year ago.

According to officials with II Marine Expeditionary Force, there were about 170 "significant events" in Fallujah, about five miles from here, during the first week of January 2007. That includes firefights, IED attacks, mine explosions and roadside bombs that were discovered, but that did not detonate.

By the last week of December, the number of "sigevents," as they're called here, in Fallujah dropped to less than 20.

In Ramadi, the capitol of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province and a troubled hot spot for years, incidents dropped from 198 in one week of February 2007, to three by the last week of the year.

II MEF officials attribute this massive shift to a population fed up with al Qaeda in Iraq's terrorist tactics and rejuvenated tribal governance that cast its lot with American efforts to bolster the national government.

Whatever the reason for the reduction in violence, Marines in the field have switched from rifles to paint brushes and from bullets to handshakes.

For some of leathernecks here on their first deployment, it's a bit of a let-down. One Marine in 3rd platoon who's a veteran of the fierce Fallujah fight in November of 2004 said it's been tough to keep his Marines motivated after regaling them with stories of that epic battle. They came here to fight, he said, and instead they're patrolling streets teeming with people, devoid of enemy activity.

In fact, Lima Company hasn't fired a single shot in anger since early October, its commander, Capt. Quintin Jones, said.

And that's just fine with him. As local police take greater control of their towns and local citizens help keep al Qaeda malcontents from detonating bombs in their markets, the Marines here are left with little to do but reconstruction and institution building - an overall mission that has one every Marine can appreciate.

"It might be a little boring here now," said Lance Cpl. Parker Winnett, a radio operator with 3rd Platoon's 1st squad. "But at least I'll come home alive."

V-22 Osprey in Iraq

There has been so much negative talk about the Osprey in the past few years. Well, guess what? The first Marine Corps Osprey squadron to go to Iraq is kicking butt and I don't hear a peep about it. I've been looking for any news about them now that they are accomplishing their missions and there's next to nothing. Typical.

This little bit on Fox News is the only thing I found.

When we boarded the Osprey I sat down next to the colonel and got strapped in, but before we lifted off one of the crew members came up to me and told me to unbuckle and follow him towards the front. He showed me a jump seat attached to the open door of the cockpit, handed me a helmet and gave me a quick brief on how to strap myself in, then pointed me toward the front where I stepped in between the pilots. It had been a long few days, so I still didn't realize what was happening.

I said hello to the flight team and shook their hands and turned around to see the door closed behind me. That's when I realized I would have a front row seat for one of the coolest rides most people will never see.

The Osprey's dash has four big display screens, including color GPS maps and an infrared video display. I'm no pilot so I didn't recognize most of the other gauges, switches, readouts and gadgets, but suffice it to say there's a lot going on up there. I did manage to pick out the digital altimeter and speed in yellow lights and watched the numbers climb as we did, lifting off and heading almost immediately nose up into the clouds, angled steeply to roughly 10,000 feet at an air speed of 240 knots, 280 ground speed with the tail wind (more than 300 mph, according to the pilots). The Osprey can fly up to 25,000 feet but passengers would need oxygen. Instead, my crew rode with the others in back with the rear ramp open. The pilots warned me if people didn't hang on to their stuff it would fall out for sure.

When we leveled off I was able to talk to the guys over headsets about the differences between these 22s and the 53s they usually fly.

They raved about the Osprey's performance capabilities (I think the word "awesome" was used more than once) and said the cockpit gauges were comparable in some ways to a fighter jet. They were thrilled to fly them, they told me, they believed in the birds' future and weren't worried about the lack of a forward-facing weapon.

"That's being looked at now," the Major in charge of the helicopter-borne assault force told me on the ground. "But we have plenty of backup systems. When we go in, we go in strong," he said. They're using the Ospreys for missions involving reconnaissance, interdiction and disruption. "We're just beginning to explore what it can do."

No Pendleton war deaths this holiday season

By William M. Welch - USA Today
Posted : Thursday Jan 3, 2008 6:55:06 EST

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — For almost two years, this Marine base in Southern California has had fighters fall every month in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The fallen are remembered in memorial services here every time a unit returns from fighting abroad. But this holiday season, Camp Pendleton Marines were spared the ultimate sacrifice.

No Marines based here died in fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan in November or December — the first time a month has gone by without a death since March 2006, according to the Defense Department casualty figures analyzed by USA Today.

“I look at it as good news,” says Staff Sgt. Johnathan Turner, 33, of Atlanta, a veteran of three tours of duty in Iraq. “It means things are getting better over there.”

Pendleton has suffered some of the military’s highest casualty figures in the Iraq war, and there hadn’t been consecutive death-free months for Pendleton’s troops since early 2004.

The decline in casualties is reflected as well in the experience of Marines based at Camp Lejeune near Jacksonville, N.C., where December was the third consecutive month without an Iraq fatality, according to the figures.

October was the first death-free month for Lejeune Marines since June 2004.

The declines coincide with reports of progress in securing the country during the fifth year of the war in Iraq and follow the increase in troop levels, or “surge” as the Pentagon and Bush administration labeled it.

Marines say they see improvement in Iraq security.

“Every time I went, I’ve seen progress. ... It’s always changing,” said Sgt. Justin Imbeau, 23, of Tulsa, Okla., who has spent 28 months in Iraq over three deployments, including the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The news of a break in casualties was tempered by loss for some Marines as the war grinds on.

Sgt. Seth Martin, 24, who returned from Iraq in October, said Marines think about casualties in terms of the faces of friends and fellow fighters, not statistics.

“It’s not so much the numbers as who I know,” says Martin of Corcoran, Calif. “Late in August, a buddy of mine passed away, and another is still in the hospital. While you are there, it doesn’t really hit home until somebody you know gets hit.”

Progress hasn’t lessened the strain on families back home, these Marines say. They try not to dwell on the risks or casualties when they talk to loved ones.

“Nothing long and drawn out — just quick and to the point,” said Turner, describing conversations with family members. He also cited the death of close friends serving in Iraq.

Imbeau, Martin and Turner are part of the 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion at Pendleton.

Imbeau took shrapnel from a 155mm artillery round while he was on foot patrol in Iraq. The incident left him with a broken jaw and nose and a perforated eardrum. He spent a month recovering and returned to his fighting position without leaving the country.

“Once it happens to you, you realize how quickly and easily it can happen,” Imbeau says of the injury. He has a wife and 6-year-old daughter.

He says he was most heartened by seeing Iraqis vote in elections — a scene that made him feel that he and his fellow Marines had made a difference in the lives of the local population. He says Marines don’t think about political debate at home over the war.

“I never have sat down and questioned why I’m there,” he said. “I never doubted why we are here. I saw my mission, went and done it, and when it’s over I come home.”

Pendleton has had 335 Marines die in Iraq since the war started, including 37 killed in 2007. That compares with 49 deaths in 2006; 39 deaths in 2005, 178 deaths in 2004, and 32 deaths in 2003, according to the Pentagon’s figures.
Source

Marine helps bridge gap between Arabic, American cultures

Dec. 27, 2007; Submitted on: 12/27/2007 08:56:35 AM ; Story ID#: 2007122785635
By Cpl. Andrew Kalwitz, 2nd Marine Logistics Group

KABANI, Iraq (Dec. 19, 2007) – A young Iraqi girl holds the hand of a Marine from Battery K, 1st Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment while he talks with some of the people here. The relationship with the Marines and the people of the village has enabled coordination for a new water treatment facility.



AL TAQADDUM, Iraq (Dec. 27, 2007) -- They have their differences. In fact, they often don’t even speak the same language. But U.S. service members share one thing with the Iraqi people; they have the same goal – security and stability for Al Anbar province, Iraq.

This empowers their relationship. This and Marines like Staff Sgt. Robert Sanders, the operations chief for Battery K, 1st Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment.

He developed an understanding of Arab culture during his upbringing in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Though born at Fort Benning, Ga., his father’s discharge from the Army after Vietnam led to a job as an oil field worker, which kept the family on the move.

Now Sanders’ own travels have taken him back to a familiar culture, but with his new extended family; his fellow Marines.

“Staff Sgt. Sanders is our bid for success in the villages,” said 1st Lt. Matthew Thompson, the executive officer for the battery. “He has found his niche in working with the Iraqis. He can communicate with the Iraqis without an interpreter and they can communicate with him.”

Thompson, a Presho, S.D., native, credits Sanders with helping to gain rapport with the nearby village of Kabani. In addition to the battery’s plans to build a new water treatment plant, a rebuilt school now stands as a testament to the coordination between the Marines and the people of the village.

Sanders has put his cultural and linguistic skills to use for the military before. He lived among the Iraqi people for seven months at the East Fallujah Iraqi Compound during his 2004 deployment.

He supervised civilian contractors there and grew comfortable with the Iraqi people and their lifestyle, even getting used to the food and water to the point where returning to his old eating habits upset his stomach when he returned to the States. Things were different then, he said. This was before thousands in Al Anbar province turned against the insurgency to cooperate with coalition forces in what came to be known as the “Anbar Awakening.”

“I remember sitting at Fallujah and you could sit up on a Hesco barrier and you could watch car bombs exploding in the distance,” said Sanders. “Every night, we’d sit out there on the Hescos and smoke cigars and you could watch tracers shoot across the sky. You don’t hear that anymore.”

Bonding with the people, he said, was a major part of the solution. With regard to the importance of these relationships, Sanders has held classes to further his Marines’ understanding of the Arabic language and culture.

“It definitely makes our job a lot easier,” said Lance Cpl. Hunter Leger, a fire team leader with the battery. “We’ve been able to handle things without having to call someone up.”

Leger, a Lake Charles, La., native, said he and his colleagues are knowledgeable enough to work the entry control points without the help of an interpreter. As one of Sanders’ Marines at their home station of Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, Calif., he said he’s developed a respect for the staff sergeant’s professionalism. It seems many of the local Iraqis have done the same.

When the battery sends Marines to Kabani to coordinate with the muqtar, or mayor, he first asks them ‘where is Abu Iskander?’ in reference to Sanders, the father of Alexander.

As Sanders has with many of the village’s people, he has developed a friendship with the muqtar, who jokes that the Marine could win over enough popularity in the town to beat him out for his position in the next election.

“The people like him too much,” Muqtar Ismail Mohmood Hamad said. “They come in from time to time to see what’s going on and he always likes to help the people.”

Care Pack Update

Here's an email I got from my son. We sent him quite a few of our care packages to share with his unit and others and he's already started getting them. We also have a big box on the way to his unit (and more to some other units) full of Starbucks coffee and coffee grinders.

Hey,
All the guys love the packages. One guy especially told me that he hasn't gotten any mail out here this time or the last time he was here except for 1 Red Cross message. He really liked the package and said he would write a thank you letter to the Lubbock Marine Parents. Thanks from everyone.
Steven

Attached is a pic with Cpl Corey from Texas with the package he got.

RCT-2: Enemy incidents down 75 percent

By Kimberly Johnson - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Nov 7, 2007 16:04:13 EST

Marines have seen a 75 percent plunge in “enemy incidents” since the beginning of the year, Regimental Combat Team 2 commander Col. Stacy Clardy said Monday.

RCT-2’s area of operations in western Iraq, which encompasses 30,000 square miles of Anbar province, was once considered some of the toughest ground in the battle-torn country. But since January, Marines have tracked the return of urban activities, such as open markets, banks and municipal governments, the commander told reporters via teleconference from Iraq.

The development is “a significant crippling of the al-Qaida in Iraq and the Sunni insurgent capability, and a real opportunity for progress,” said Clardy, who credits the presence of more than 4,000 Iraqi soldiers in the area of operations.

“The [Iraqi] army brigades have grown 200 percent in the last seven months with the support of the sheiks and are now responsible for their own security areas and missions across the province, but particularly around the urban areas,” he said.

The Iraqi police force has grown 40 percent, to 5,200 officers, he said.
Source

Some very good news! My son is serving with RCT2 and says he wishes they were having a little more excitement. Boring and quiet sound great if you ask me!

Don't they make you proud?

This is such a cute video. I'm so proud of our troops and how they handle themselves. My son has told me that the Iraqi children have come to expect soldiers and Marines to always have candy or presents and swarm the humvees pointing to their mouths every time the troops go through a town.

These Marines personify ‘Semper Fidelis’

Marine Brotherhood

As I stood in line to grill my sandwich, I watched a young corporal preparing two meals to-go. There was nothing really special about the meals . . . except this.

It was obvious to me that this Marine was carefully selecting different things for each tray. One was for him, the other was for his buddy who stood guard at the gate.

He carefully selected meat and cheese, meticulously grilled and wrapped them, then chose sides. I was moved by the obvious care with which the Marine made lunch for his buddy.

But the bond between these Marines goes far beyond chow time.

The International Zone has its own Marines who stand guard to keep the area safe. There are about 50 of them, and they live in the basement of the Presidential Palace. I sat down with a few of them, a team of four, to get a taste of what it means to be one of them. And I learned this: the Marine Corps is a family.

The men I spoke with are all between ages 19 and 23, and all single, though the one from Rhode Island has a girlfriend. When the topic of girlfriends rises, the other three give him a hard time, something he’s obviously accustomed to by now.

I can tell these four guys are close. They are all part of a group of five who are on the same guard schedule. When I indicate my assumption that this must be why they are so close, one of them replies, “Ma’am, if anyone of the 50 Marines down here walked into a dark room, I could sniff and tell you who it is.”

These men don’t just share a job . . . they are brothers.

There was something about these four that reminded me of that bad joke that John Kerry tried to cover up a few months ago — the one about young people who don’t study hard enough ending up in Iraq.

Let me say this. I have never met more impressive, intelligent, respectful, honorable, funny, handsome men in my life. These young men are the best America has to offer. They are not washouts, dropouts or losers. And, while their peers are back home beer-bonging at a frat party, these young men are on the rise as leaders.

They keep their living quarters cleaner than my grandmother’s house and they bear the burden of ensuring safekeeping of the people who live in the Green Zone.

These men make me proud to be American.

And while the four I met utter not a word of complaint — aside from the fact that they need more beef jerky — they are making sacrifices. I try to get them to talk about these sacrifices, and they really won’t have it.

They talk about their fellow Marines who are fighting in more dangerous areas, under fire daily. They feel guilty because they are in a relatively safe place. But they know their time will come.

Today they protect their fellow Americans — the people who live and work at the embassy in Baghdad.

But they look forward to that day when they can take their turn protecting Iraqis from the bloodshed that has driven a stake into the heart of Iraq.

It is a timeless honor to sacrifice for our countrymen, but I wonder how many of us are so eager to live a life of sacrifice for people not our own, for people of a foreign land.

When I direct the conversation to thoughts of home, I get a reaction I’m not expecting. Talk of family is usually the one thing that gets people talking about sacrifice. Missing home and loved ones is maybe the hardest part of the tour of duty.

These four love their families, and they talk about the things they look forward to about home: barbecue on the beach, sleeping late and letting mom wait on them, the food (this came from the Italian boy, of course), and girls.

But they all agree on something that shocks me. When they go home on leave, they can’t wait to get back to their brothers. When they are home, they call back to the unit, missing their fellow Marines.

My small mind fails to comprehend how a group of young men can bond so seamlessly — more tightly than many siblings. These men would die for each other in a heartbeat. I pray not one of them is forced to make such a noble choice. But I have no doubt each one of them would happily lay down his life for his friend.

These men are Marines. They are family.

This article appeared in the October 23rd eddition of the Plainview Daily Herald written by a young woman named Terah Kay who is currently in Iraq. Terah is a graduate of Abilene Christian University and received her juris doctorate from the Texas Tech University School of Law last May.

This column is the latest in her series. I encourage you to read the rest. They are all excellent.
Terah Kay: Just below bananas 09-06-2007

Terah Kay column: Angry words demoralizing 10-07-2007

Terah Kay column: Tea time in the ladies’ room 10-04-2007

Terah Kay column: America’s defenders making tremendous sacrifices 09-18-2007

Terah Kay column: Reality of Fear 09-17-2007

Terah Kay Column: Going for a ride in the Red Zone 09-16-2007

Terah Kay: Duck and cover 09-11-2007

Terah Kay column: Observing Ramadan can keep you free 10-11-2007

Iraq troop deaths drop sharply in October

By Steven R. Hurst - The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Oct 24, 2007 7:06:51 EDT

BAGHDAD — October is on course to record the second consecutive decline in U.S. military and Iraqi civilian deaths and Americans commanders say they know why: the U.S. troop increase and an Iraqi groundswell against al-Qaida and Shiite militia extremists.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch points to what the military calls “Concerned Citizens” — both Shiites and Sunnis who have joined the American fight. He says he’s signed up 20,000 of them in the last four months.

“I’ve never been more optimistic than I am right now with the progress we’ve made in Iraq. The only people who are going to win this counterinsurgency project are the people of Iraq. We’ve said that all along. And now they’re coming forward in masses,” Lynch said in a recent interview at a U.S. base deep in hostile territory south of Baghdad. Outgoing artillery thundered as he spoke.

Lynch, who commands the 3rd Infantry Division and once served as the military spokesman in Baghdad, is a tireless cheerleader of the American effort in Iraq. But the death toll over the past two months appears to reinforce his optimism. The question is, of course: Will it last?

As of Tuesday, the Pentagon has reported 28 U.S. military deaths. At the current pace, the monthly total will be about 37 or 38. That would be the lowest total since 31 in March 2006 and the second lowest monthly toll stretching back to February 2004, when 20 soldiers died.

In September, 65 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq.

Part of the trend can be seen in a volatile and violent band of lush agricultural land on Baghdad’s southern border.

The commander of the battle zone — Lt. Col. Val Keaveny, 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry (Airborne) — said his unit has lost only one soldier in the past four months despite intensified operations against both Shiite and Sunni extremists, including powerful al-Qaida in Iraq cells.

Keaveny attributes the startling decline to a decrease in attacks by militants who are being rounded up in big numbers on information provided by the citizen force — which has literally doubled the number of eyes and ears available to the military.

The efforts to recruit local partners began taking shape earlier this year in the western province of Anbar, which had become the virtual heartland for Sunni insurgents and al-Qaida bands. The early successes in Anbar led to similar alliances in other parts of Iraq.

“People are fed up with fear, intimidation and being brutalized. Once they hit that tipping point, they’re fed up, they come to realized we truly do provide them better hope for the future. What we’re seeing now is the beginning of a snowball,” said Keaveny, whose forces operate out of Forward Operating Base Kalsu, about 35 miles south of Baghdad.

While U.S. death figures appear to be in sharp decline, the number of Iraqi civilians and security forces show a less dramatic drop. And any significant attack — by insurgents or civilians caught in the crossfire — could quickly wipe out the downward trend.

The current pace of civilian deaths would put October at less than 900. The figure last month was 1,023 and for August, 1,956, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press from government reports, hospitals and police. Other tallies differ and some have given higher civilian death tolls.

While the decline in deaths is notable, it is only one of many measures of potential progress in Iraq, said Anthony Cordesman, a former Pentagon analyst now with the private Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Cordesman said a more balanced picture needs to include factors such as wounded civilians and soldiers and the number of people fleeing their homes. The U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday that between 1,000 and 2,000 Iraqis still leave their homes each day for safer havens in the country or in neighboring nations. “It’s just been going up slowly,” said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokeswoman Astrid van Genderen Stort in Geneva.

“The numbers we’re dealing with here are only major acts of violence, the number of times people are killed,” said Cordesman. “This is certainly progress ... but it has to be put in perspective.”

Lynch’s mission also shows the slow pace of reclaiming areas from militants. His troops and their new local allies must work town by town, village by village.

Sunni Sheik Emad Ghurtani is among those helping.

“Honestly, I’m not going to hide this from you,” Ghurtani told Lynch as the two stood talking at a newly established tribal check point near Haswa, a village just north of the Kalsu base.

“There is some al-Qaida here in this area. But, God willing, we will get rid of them. ... The citizens are coming out. They’re not afraid any more,” the tall and handsome tribal leader said. Three scruffy young men watched, AK47s slung over their shoulders, in the sandbag bunker at the check point.

Lynch, hatless on the balmy autumn day, answered in staccato sentences.

“What we really need is information. You know where al-Qaida is. You know who they are. You have to tell us. We can use all our capabilities to take out the enemy. But you have to tell us where they are, because you know. You’ve got our total support.”

The sheik, who made Lynch promise to return for lunch one day, responded with striking eloquence.

“Because of what the American forces have accomplished, instead of us moving step by step we’re going to start running toward the enemy. ... Instead of walking, we’re going to start running now. We just need the weapons and ammunition,” Ghurtani said.

The guard force at the checkpoint changed during the conversation. Three young men barely out of their teens, ancient Kalashnikovs in hand, strolled town the dirt road that led back into Ghurtani territory. Their U.S.-provided uniforms are a vest with a reflective orange band akin to what road crews wear in the U.S.

Ghurtani complained they hadn’t been paid the $100 a month the Americans had promised.

“If I get some of the money they need I can get them shoes, some vests and some ammunition. If they can find me cheap weapons, we can start getting these men ready. God willing in the next few days,” the sheik said.

Most heartening, Lynch said, was the checkpoint just across the road and over an irrigation canal. It was run by Shiites.

Lynch said the checkpoints on opposite sides of the road highlighted a kind of reconciliation by necessity: not fighting each other but protecting themselves from a common enemy.

“The have to be convinced that we’re not leaving. That’s the issue. If they were to think we’re leaving we’d have also sorts of trouble,” Lynch said, clambering over a makeshift earthen bridge across the canal.

The local Shiite sheik wasn’t at the checkpoint.

He was in a hospital recovering from injuries in a car crash. Two ragtag fellows in their 20s stood up from their sandbag bunker and told Lynch they needed money to buy weapons. “Al-Qaida has all kinds of weapons. We just have these old rifles,” one of them said pointing to his dilapidated Kalashnikov.

“OK. We just continue to work together to get you the money so you can buy better weapons, better ammunition, uniforms. Improve your checkpoint. We just have to work together,” Lynch said, spinning on his heel and marching back to his nine-Humvee convoy.

On to Haswa, down a road known for Iranian-made roadside bombs, a Kiowa gunship clattered protectively above. Back at division headquarters, public affairs officers were hammering out more press statements about how Concerned Citizens were leading soldiers to militant weapons caches and turning in extremist fighters.
Source

Troops unite to save soldier knifed in head

Courtesy of Lt. Col. (Dr.) Richard Teff / Army An X-ray revealed that the knife entered just below Powers' helmet, above his cheekbone. It also penetrated his cavernous sinus, where a bundle of veins supplied blood to his brain's right side.

By Patrick Winn - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Oct 22, 2007 9:13:35 EDT

It felt like a nasty sucker punch. Yet when he strained his eyes to the hard right, there was something that didn’t belong: the pewter-colored contour of a knife handle jutting from his skull.

Sgt. Dan Powers, stabbed in the head by an insurgent on the streets of East Baghdad, triggered a modern miracle of military medicine, logistics, technology and air power.

Multimedia
See Sgt. Powers’ surgery


His survival relied on the Army’s top vascular neurosurgeon guiding Iraq-based U.S. military physicians via laptop, the Air Force’s third nonstop medical evacuation from Central Command to America, and the best physicians Bethesda National Naval Medical Center in Maryland could offer.

It required extraordinary hustle from a string of ground medics, air medics, C-17 pilots, jet refuel technicians and more. Not an hour after the attack, Powers, a squad leader with the Army’s 118th Military Police Company, was draped in sheets on a medical gurney bound for Balad Air Force Base, about 30 minutes away by helicopter.

Someone pressed a phone to his left ear so he could promise his wife, in a panic worlds away, that everything would be fine. He would soon drench a surgeon’s hands in blood, narrowly surviving as a medical team opened his skull to extract 4 inches of blade from his brain.

These are the staggering measures that allowed Powers to keep his promise and his life.

The attack
East Baghdad is a crumbling maze. Narrow lanes form stucco canyons that block out sunlight. A grimy film seems to blacken every surface: the facades, cobbled footpaths and street urchins’ faces. Lines of sight end at each bend in the street, and the windows overhead look down like hundreds of eyes.

“It’s just very slummy, with all these twisty alleyways,” said Powers, now 39. “It’s a nightmare to patrol.”

A 12-year Army vet on his second deployment to East Baghdad, Powers spent his days training local police and trying to keep peace in a fortified cityscape. Soldiers in his 13-man squad would cruise the city’s oldest quarter with Iraqi officers conducting street-level investigations and responding to gunfire or explosions.

Nothing was different July 3 — at least not at first.

Powers was dispatched from Forward Operating Base Shield to a stretch of bomb-charred road. Explosive ordnance disposal personnel were already huddled over a blast site near Beirut Square on one of the district’s wider thoroughfares. The explosion seemed minor — no flaming vehicles, at least — so Powers and a team leader, Sgt. Michael Riley, were mostly concerned with warding off pedestrians.

Powers was walking away from the cordoned area when it hit him — a near-knockout blow that felt like a “clothesline tackle,” he said. But Powers stayed on his feet, spun around and slammed his raven-haired assailant to the asphalt, prodding the skinny Iraqi man’s face with his M4 barrel. Riley, his squad mate, pounced and detained the assailant.

“I remember being pretty pissed off,” Powers recalled to Air Force Times. Adrenaline throbbed in his veins and blood soaked his shoulder. A medic, Spc. Ryan Webb with the 118th Military Police, was tugging at his arm, demanding that he “sit down, calm down and leave the knife in.”

The knife? What knife?

“They said, ‘You’re stabbed’ and ... I remember seeing the handle,” Powers said. “There was no pain because the brain has no pain sensory nerves. It was all surface, like someone punched me in the head.”

Powers stayed conscious as soldiers carried him to a Humvee, sped to Forward Operating Base Shield and, after medics bandaged his head in clumps of cottony gauze, shuttled the sergeant to Baghdad’s Green Zone.

Stabbings of American military personnel in Iraq or Afghanistan are extremely rare, outnumbered by drownings, strokes, cancer, drug overdoses and electrocutions. According to Defense Department casualty reports, Powers is only the second service member stabbed while supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The hospital
They spoke through the roaring chukka-chukka of rotating chopper blades.

Moments before medics slid Powers into a helicopter en route to Balad, his wife, Trudy, was patched through on a cell phone. A soldier held it to Powers’ face as his gurney rolled across the Green Zone helipad.

“I was adamant they put him on the phone to prove he was alive,” Trudy Powers said. “He sounded like his regular old self. ‘I’ll be all right, hon. I’ll be all right.’”

Powers soon arrived at the Balad hospital, a cutting-edge facility rivaling many American treatment centers. One of Iraq’s few military neurosurgeons, Army Lt. Col. (Dr.) Richard Teff, remembers Powers lying supine on a gurney, wide awake and speaking. Medical personnel crowded his stretcher, asking questions and filming his answers.

“His head was wrapped up with big, bulky bandages,” Teff said, “like the people transporting him were afraid the knife would get bumped or dislodge.”

It was less than two hours since the attack.

Balad’s head and neck team was accustomed to gory head wounds, skulls split by bullets and IED-borne shrapnel. But Powers’ injury “had to be the most amazing thing anyone in the room had ever seen,” Teff said. An X-ray revealed that the knife entered just below Powers’ helmet, above his cheekbone, “skating right along the base of the cavity we call the temporal fossa, where the temporal lobe of your brain lives,” Teff said. It also penetrated his cavernous sinus, where a bundle of veins supply blood to the brain’s right side.

After Powers was shaved and anesthetized, Teff and fellow neurosurgeon Army Maj. (Dr.) John Martin peeled back Powers’ scalp, skull and meninges — a pinkish layer coating the brain’s surface. Steel barbs resembling fish hooks held back walls of tissue the color of raw pork.

Teff and Martin hit a crossroads. They could riskily retract the brain to isolate and clamp the artery in his cavernous sinus. Or Teff could cross his fingers and pull.

“Any time you have a penetrating stab to the head,” he said, “the biggest concern is what’s going to happen when you pull [the knife] out.”

Teff pulled.

“He started bleeding like crazy, enough to make everyone in the room worry he might die,” Teff said.

The doctors scrambled to find the nicked carotid artery. Plastic air hoses sucked out pint after pint of hot blood. Finally, they clamped the artery and relief washed over the medical team as the bleeding stopped. Though Powers had lost about 2 liters of blood — roughly two-fifths of his body’s total volume — the most dangerous part of the operation was over.

Through personnel at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Teff relayed details and photos of Powers’ surgery to Lt. Col. Rocco Armonda, one the Army’s most skilled vascular neurosurgeons. There was no precedent for Powers’ condition in Iraq, and the head and neck team needed guidance.

Contacted in his vehicle, Armonda pulled over in Washington traffic, reviewed the images on his laptop and shot back a response: Close the guy up and get him to Bethesda. Now.

Evacuation
Capt. Corbett Bufton, an aircraft commander with the Charleston-based “Red 7” aircrew, was incredulous at first. Awaiting takeoff from Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, his airmen had expected to carry two Stryker anti-tank missile carriers to another airfield within Central Command — a job typical of their intratheater transportation role.

But the operations center was telling him to change planes, directing him toward a different C-17 Globemaster, one with a plus-sized fuel tank. Red 7, the center said, would be picking up a severely injured soldier from Balad to fly him nonstop to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., just outside Washington.

“Our initial reaction was, ‘I don’t believe you,’” Bufton said. “Nobody goes to Andrews Air Force Base from Balad.”

Once the disbelief faded, Bufton sent a few guys to the barracks to scoop up extra clothes.

“It looked like we’d be gone for a couple days,” he said.

After landing at Balad, the loadmaster, Staff Sgt. Matthew Nemeth, began readying the aircraft for a medical evacuation. They briefed him on the details: one guy with a knife in his head, another soldier with a gunshot wound to the neck added at the last minute. A seven-person medical crew expected to board soon. Keep down the turbulence and restrict the cabin pressure to 4,000 feet.

“I’ve never seen it that low before,” Bufton said. “That restricted our flight ops to about 26,000 feet, which unfortunately keeps us down in the weather.” At the time, thunderstorms blanketed the skies of eastern Europe along the flight path.

Bufton, with augmenting air refueling pilot Lt. Col. Jesse Strickland and pilots Capt. Justin Herbst and Capt. Scot Frechette, kept the C-17’s engine idling as the Air Force medical crew rolled Powers, the other wounded soldier and 7,000 pounds of lifesaving equipment up the ramp.

On the ground, a diplomatic clearance shop was frantically clearing their flight through roughly a dozen countries: Iraq, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany, Holland, England and others.

Once airborne, Red 7’s pilots steered the hulking C-17 around turbulent rain clouds as medical personnel tended to Powers in the naked, metallic cabin. Tubes and wiring snaked the floor. Near the British Isles, a KC-135 Stratotanker leaving RAF Mildenhall joined Red 7’s jet for a mid-Atlantic refueling.

Over the Atlantic, it was Independence Day.

And as the C-17 rushed westward ahead of the rising sun, Nemeth helped the medical crew tack American flags on the walls and catwalk.

The C-17 touched down lightly at Andrews after a 13-hour flight. Powers and the other soldier were hurried to Bethesda. And members of Red 7, suffering in Iraq’s convection oven heat when they began their shift, stepped off the C-17 into D.C.’s balmy summer. The next morning, they flew into Dover Air Force Base, Del., picked up 17 pallets of cargo and headed back to Qatar.

“I’ve probably done two or three dozen medevacs in my career,” Nemeth said. “This one is probably the most significant, the most profound.”

More surgery
At Bethesda, a neurosurgical team guided by Armonda coiled Powers’ carotid artery and performed a cranioplasty on his dented skull. Trudy Powers met frequently with the surgeons, insisting each time on the raw truth.

“Don’t think I can’t handle it,” she told them.

Initially, they feared Powers, still in critical condition, could wake up with severe paralysis, brain damage and lost eyesight. But when the soldier surfaced after four comatose days, a battery of tests proved the stabbing had not robbed his intelligence or memory. Only his balance was badly skewed.

“It was like a dream because of all the stuff they had me on,” Powers said. “A face came in and said, ‘Do you know where you are?’ I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ It was the best place I could possibly be. The president goes there, all the chiefs and Congress.”

Powers was released from Bethesda just a month later and allowed to return to his house roughly 30 miles from Fort Bragg, N.C. After months of physical therapy, physicians now believe his coordination is largely restored. Pending the success of a follow-up skull repair in January, Powers hopes to rejoin his unit as a squad leader before May.

“Certainly there have been bigger injuries, uglier, more devastating injuries,” Teff said. “What makes this unique is how huge the knife was, how well neurologically he’s doing and the drama involved in getting him back.”

Back at Fort Bragg
The package’s return address read “BALAD AIR BASE, IRAQ.” Trudy Powers, standing with her husband in their home, was tearful, trembling and mortified by the contents she expected to find inside.

Out plopped a hunk of stainless steel resembling a flea market dagger.

“I didn’t need to see that,” she said.

Army judge advocate general prosecutors later asked if they could have it. Powers didn’t mind. Iraqi prosecutors wanted to present the 9-inch blade as evidence during his attacker’s trial in Baghdad, which admitted Powers’ testimony via teleconference. He’s unsure of the man’s fate, though he was told the Iraqis planned to “lengthen his neck a little bit.”

Powers acknowledges that his survival tale, circulating within the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command, is “the stuff they make movies out of.” But the soldier in him bristles at the notoriety — or the suggestion that he’s some kind of hero.

In his version of the story, the Army, Navy and Air Force moved the world to save one man’s life.

And he’s just some guy who got stabbed in the brain.

Related reading:
Another survivor’s story: “No way I’m going to let this guy die”
Source

Another Day to Serve the Corps

Please read CavMom's post Another Day to Serve the Corps. It's an email shared with her by a LtCol serving in Hit, Iraq.

Live RPG removed from soldier

This is a truly amazing story. Be sure and watch the video too. You will definitely need tissues. I am awed by how heroic these soldiers are. We are a blessed nation to have them in our service.

A fellow soldier was impaled by a live RPG. For medics and a helicopter crew, there was only one choice
By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Sep 22, 2007 7:42:09 EDT

Spc. Channing Moss should be dead by all accounts. And those who saved his life did so knowing they might have died with him.

Watch the video
March 16, 2006. Southeastern Afghanistan. A fierce ambush and bloody firefight. It was over in a flash and Moss was left on the verge of death.

He was impaled through the abdomen with a rocket-propelled grenade, and an aluminum rod with one tail fin protruded from the left side of his torso.

His fellow soldiers worried: Could he blow up and take them with him? For all anyone knew, the answer was yes.

Still, over the course of the next couple of hours, his buddies, a helicopter crew and a medical team would risk their own lives to save his.

“Moss is an African-American and he’s gone to white. He’s in total shock from the loss of blood. But at the time, I really didn’t think about it. I knew [the RPG] was there but I thought, if we didn’t do it, if we didn’t get him out of there, he was going to die,” said flight medic Sgt. John Collier, 29, then a specialist.

“It was an extremely unusual set of events. He should have died three times that day,” said Maj. John Oh, 759th Forward Surgical Team general surgeon.

The 36-year-old’s surgical skill and command of his own nerves would be put to the ultimate test as, wearing helmet and body armor, he would operate to extract the ordnance from Moss’s booby-trapped body. One wrong move risked the lives of the patient, his own and those of the other members of the medical team.

He said the payoff was worth the gamble.

“For a soldier to be struck by an RPG and be flown and have surgery and survive it’s unheard of,” said Oh. “It was a pretty remarkable experience.”

Infantryman to ‘Rocket Man’
Three months after the attack, Moss attended the birth of his second daughter, Ariana.

He expects to be discharged from the Army on medical disability by October. In the meantime, the soft-spoken Georgia native attends formation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., on weekday mornings and meets with his case worker to schedule whatever medical appointments remain, including at least one more abdominal surgery.

He and his wife, Lorena, live near the hospital with their daughters, baby Ariana and her 3-year-old sister, Yulianna.

Moss is missing about two-thirds of his intestines, part of his pelvic bone and needs more repair to his left hip. A member of the staff at Walter Reed calls him “Rocket Man.”

But the infantryman, who joined the Army to help give his family a better life, said he knows he’s alive because of his fellow soldiers.

“I don’t think there has been a day in the last year and a half that I haven’t thought about them, that I haven’t prayed for them. They saved my life,” said Moss, 24, whose slender 135-pound frame belies the hearty young man who went to war 55 pounds heavier.

“I knew it was love of country and brothers in arms. I hope God watches over them if they get deployed.”

Ambush from the ridgeline
The day Moss was struck down, his unit, 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, had been in country barely a month.

The Alpha Company platoon set out from Forward Operating Base Tillman around 8 a.m. for a meeting with tribal leaders in the village of Srah Kandah in Paktika province near the Pakistan border.

It was the platoon’s first patrol in country.

Moss, then a private first class, was manning a Mark 19 machine gun in the turret of his up-armored Humvee, the last in a patrol of five U.S. vehicles and one pickup carrying about nine Afghans.

One Afghan would die in the ambush that wounded Moss, his squad leader and another Afghan soldier who lost a hand.

The ambush came after a quiet hour of patrol in remote terrain.

“All of a sudden, I hear this explosion. Then I hear this ‘ping, ping, ping’ hitting the humvee,” Moss recalled.

Attackers unleashed “a large volume of RPG fire and small-arms fire,” said the platoon leader, Capt. Billy Mariani, who was a first lieutenant then.

“the attack came from a ridgeline to our right,” Mariani, 27, said. The shooters, he estimated, were only about 700 meters from the Pakistan border.

Mariani’s machine gunner laid suppressing fire on the ridgeline while his mortar section shelled the fighters’ positions. A hail of bullets and RPGs ripped toward them from behind hills and crags to the right. All the vehicles took rounds; the Afghan pickup was destroyed.

Moss was turning his machine gun turret to return fire when the first of three RPG rounds to strike his vehicle exploded on the truck commander’s door.

The second and third rounds struck the front of the vehicle; one smashed through the windshield, slicing the truck commander across the face before burrowing into Moss as he sat in the gunner’s sling.

“I turned to the driver and yelled at him to get out of the kill zone,” said Staff Sgt. Eric Wynn, 31, the truck commander. “That’s when we got hit again.”

The RPG might have exploded and killed them all, he said, had it not lodged in Moss’s body.

‘Hold on, hold on’The projectile bored into Moss’s left hip at a downward angle, tearing through his lower abdomen and pulling with it some of the fabric from his uniform and his black web belt. The tip of the device stopped just short of breaking through the skin on Moss’s upper right thigh.

Wynn, with the tip of his nose sheared off and his torn upper lip hanging loosely, radioed his lieutenant and told him through a bloody gurgle of words that Moss had a tail fin sticking out of his body.

Platoon medic Sgt. Jared Angell, Moss’s best friend, pulled his buddy behind the passenger seat and used every piece of gauze and bandage he had.

“Luckily, his belt was there because it kept the RPG from going all the way through,” said Angell, 24, who was a specialist at the time.

While Spc. Andrew Vernon took Moss’s place on the gunner’s sling and driver Spc. Matthew Savoie maneuvered the vehicle into a safe position, Angell wrapped the gauze around the RPG’s tail to stabilize the protruding device and control Moss’ bleeding.

With gunfire still within earshot and barely five months out of basic training, Moss lay bleeding on the dusty ground far from home, waiting for the crew of the 159th Medical Company that would save his life for the second time that day.

“I didn’t really know what was in me. I could just hear my sergeant saying, ‘Hold on, hold on,’” Moss recalled. “I didn’t think that bird was ever going to come.”

What Angell remembers from that wait on the landing zone was Moss’s pleas for help.

“The screaming, his screams,” Angell said, his voice trailing off.

“I tried to keep him calm and needed to stabilize him so [the RPG round] wouldn’t move any further. He was very combative — you can imagine how uncomfortable he was. I told him, ‘If you fight with me, I’ll fight with you,’” Angell said. “I knew that with the things I did, I was going to buy him enough time to get to surgery.”

Help from above
As the medical team lifted off in its Black Hawk helicopter from Forward Operating Base Salerno for the 10-minute flight to the battle scene, all they knew was that there were urgent casualties and that the area was hot.

“I told my crew to lock and load because we didn’t know what was going on,” said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Jorge Correa, 33, then a chief warrant officer 2.

As the bird neared the evacuation site, the crew saw heavy smoke and a burning truck, and soldiers were “running back and forth.”

One pair of soldiers was getting ready to fire a mortar and stopped when they saw the helicopter, Correa said.

Correa and his co-pilot, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jeremy Smith, 30, a warrant officer 1 at the time, landed the Black Hawk on a roadway a few meters away from a chugging plume of purple smoke that marked the landing zone. On touchdown, Collier jumped out and sped toward the wounded.

“When Collier came back to the aircraft, he told me immediately” about the RPG, said Correa, who delivered the news of Moss’s condition to his crew and asked if they were comfortable with the mission.

“They said, ‘yeah, we gotta get this guy to the hospital.’ At the moment, everyone was focused on the mission,” Correa said. “I know we risked our lives to save Pfc. Moss, but there was no hesitation.”

Wounded and dangerous
Moss was on a litter on the helicopter’s floor; other wounded soldiers were positioned on the floor and in seats. Correa and Smith pushed the helicopter’s speed to its limits.

Correa had previously flown medical evacuation missions in Iraq with the 30th Medical Brigade. For Smith, a former Bradley vehicle mechanic who went warrant, it was his first combat zone mission as a helicopter pilot.

“I didn’t really think about it until a couple of days later,” he said. “It was like, ‘wow, we had live ordnance on the helicopter.’”

Staff Sgt. Christian Roberts, the crew chief and veteran of medical evacuation flights in Iraq, said concerns for personal safety took a back seat to saving Moss.

“At the time, we weren’t thinking, ‘This helicopter could blow up,’” said Roberts, 33. “We were thinking, ‘This young soldier’s going to die and we need to get him some help.’”

“I never saw anybody with live ordnance in them,” he said. “I’ve seen decapitations, amputations, gunshot wounds to the head. I never thought I’d be flying along with a patient who had something in him that could blow up in your face.”

‘Everybody get out!’
Moss was nearly dead as the Black Hawk landed at the battalion aid station at Orgun-E, about 20 miles from the site of the ambush.

Collier signaled wildly over the roar of the helicopter’s engines to alert the aid-station staff that this was no ordinary patient.

Oh recalled that it wasn’t apparent just how delicate the situation was until they began cutting away Moss’s combat uniform and unraveling all the gauze bandages.

When he saw the tail fin of the RPG round, he yelled, “everybody get out!”

“I had never even seen an RPG before, but I figured anything with a rod and fins on it had to be a rocket of some kind.”

Oh asked for volunteers to stay in the operating room and help him save Moss’s life. Several soldiers raised their hands.

Oh and his volunteers strapped on body armor and helmets. They called in a two-man team from the 759th Ordnance Company (Explosive Ordnance Disposal).

Protocol, as far as Oh knew, dictated that someone in Moss’s condition be placed in a sandbagged bunker and listed as “expectant,” which means he would be expected to die because nothing could be done for him.

But Oh believed something could be done for the wounded soldier before him.

He “was still talking to me,” Oh recalled. He choked back tears as he explained: “When he comes in like that, there’s no way you can give up at that point.”

After the EOD team arrived, Oh warned the volunteers one last time that the surgery could cost everyone their lives.

The operating room crew prepped Moss for surgery.

Nerves-of-steel surgery
Still conscious, Moss assumed the worst.

“I didn’t know they had put anesthesia in my IV. I was blacking out and I thought I was dying. I thought they were just going to leave me,” Moss said.

X-rays revealed that while the detonator was still attached to the device, the warhead and fuse, the parts that would have created the largest explosion, were not there.

Still, EOD technician Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Brown and his partner, Spc. Emmanual Christian, warned the medical team that the detonator was sensitive to electric current and could explode, causing its own brand of damage.

“Once I found out we didn’t have the warhead, I wasn’t worried about blowing up the aid station or about people getting fragged. But it would have taken the surgeons’ fingers off and ruined their careers,” said Brown.

As an EOD technician, he had worked in places like Bosnia salvaging cadavers in mass graves, some with live ordnance still in their bodies. But Moss presented “a very rare situation,” he said.

“I was like, ‘Holy s---’ — these are the kinds of stories you hear about from old wars,” he said. “Most human beings we deal with are dead already.”

The team decided the device would have to be removed by pulling it through in the direction it had traveled. Moss would be opened up so the extent of damage to his abdomen — and the path of the projectile — could be assessed.

The damage was extensive. Moss’s intestines had been shredded, his pelvic bone crushed and he had lost a lot of blood. However, no major organs had been disturbed.

The medical team members contemplated the options and decided that first they would have to eliminate the tail fin.

Brown began sawing off the tail fin, which protruded just above Moss’s left hip. Brown said he needed to remain calm and steady, but there were moments when the situation was frightening, when everyone in the room was “wide-eyed, staring at each other.”

Using his scalpel for the most delicate incision of his life, Oh took the next step and cut the skin on Moss’s right thigh where the tip of the device came to rest. Then, as if delivering a ticking baby time bomb, Brown gently and steadily eased the blood-covered metal tube from Moss’s body.

“OK, there’s the belt buckle. It’s coming. Keep feeding it — you feed it and I’ll hold it,” Brown told the surgeons who coaxed the cylinder from Moss’s open abdominal cavity as Brown, crouched down to the level of the gurney, slowly pulled it out toward his own chest.

Moss’s belt clung to the tube as the rocket fully and finally came free.

Brown cradled the ordnance and rushed outside and then into a sandbag bunker.

Inside, breathing sighs of relief, the medical team patched up what remained of Moss’s lower abdomen so he could be airlifted.

Moss had been saved by his fellow soldiers for the third time that day.

After disposing of the RPG round, the intensity of what he had just done left Brown weak.

“I sat down. I lost control of my legs for a minute and I just lost it. Just talking about it right now ...,” Brown said during an interview after returning to the U.S.

Oh, who is currently in Baghdad working with the 28th Combat Support Hospital, said the event changed his life. He credits the bravery, training and skill of his team members for getting them all through the ordeal. But he knows how quickly things could have gone south that day.

“In the end,” Oh said, “it’s better to be lucky than good.”

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