Monday, December 13, 2010

We Get Letters

Subject: FW: USMC

On Nov 13, 2010 Lt General John Kelly, USMC gave a speech to the
 Semper Fi Society of St. Louis, MO. This was 4 days after his son, Lt
 Robert Kelly, USMC was killed by an IED while on his 3rd Combat tour.
 During his speech, General Kelly spoke about the dedication and valor of the
 young men and women who step forward each and every day to protect us.
 During the speech, he never mentioned the loss of his own son. He closed
 the speech with the moving account of the last 6 seconds in the lives of 2
 young Marines who died with rifles blazing to protect their brother Marines.


"I will leave you with a story about the kind of people they
 are about the quality of the steel in their backs, about the kind of
 dedication they bring to our country while they serve in uniform and forever
 after as veterans.

Two years ago when I was the Commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces,
 in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 "The
 Walking Dead," and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi. One battalion in the
 closing days of their deployment going home very soon, the other just
 starting its seven-month combat tour. Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale
 and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one
 from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate
 of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines. The
 same broken down ramshackle building was also home to 100 Iraqi police,   also
 my men and our allies in the fight against the terrorists in Ramadi, a city
 until recently the most dangerous city on earth and owned by Al Qaeda.

Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and
 daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as
 well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the
 other hand, was a middle class white kid from Long Island. They were from
 two completely different worlds. Had they not joined the Marines they would
 never have met each other, or understood that multiple America's exist
 simultaneously depending on one's race, education level, economic status,
 and where you might have been born. But they were Marines, combat Marines,
forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond
 they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same
 woman.

The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leader I am
 sure went something like: "Okay you two clowns, stand this post and let no
 unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass." "You clear?" I am also sure Yale
 and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in unison something like:

"Yes Sergeant," with just enough attitude that made the point
 without saying the words, "No kidding sweetheart, we know what we're doing."
 They then relieved two other Marines on watch and took up their post at the
 entry control point of Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia section
 of Ramadi, Al Anbar, Iraq.

 A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley
 way-perhaps 60-70 yards in length-and sped its way through the serpentine f
concrete jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically. Twenty-four brick  masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away  collapsed. The truck's engine came to rest two hundred yards away knocking
most of a house down before it stopped. Our explosive experts reckoned the
blast was made of 2,000 pounds of explosives. Two died, and because these
two young infantrymen didn't have it in their DNA to run from danger, they
saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers-in-arms.

 When I read the situation report about the incident a few hours
after it happened I called the regimental commander for details as something
about this struck me as different. Marines dying or being seriously wounded
is commonplace in combat. We expect Marines regardless of rank or MOS to
stand their ground and do their duty, and even die in the process, if that
is what the mission takes. But this just seemed different. The regimental
commander had just returned from the site and he agreed, but reported that
there were no American witnesses to the event-just Iraqi police. I figured
if there was any chance of finding out what actually happened and then to
decorate the two Marines to acknowledge their bravery, I'd have to do it as
a combat award that requires two eye-witnesses and we figured the
bureaucrats back in Washington would never buy Iraqi statements. If it had
any chance at all, it had to come under the signature of a general officer.

 I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to a
half-dozen Iraqi police all of whom told the same story. The blue truck
turned down into the alley and immediately sped up as it made its way
through the serpentine. They all said, "We knew immediately what was going
on as soon as the two Marines began firing." The Iraqi police then related
that some of them also fired, and then to a man, ran for safety just prior
to the explosion. All survived. Many were injured.some seriously. One of
the Iraqis elaborated and with tears welling up said, "They'd run like any
normal man would to save his life." "What he didn't know until then," he
said, "and what he learned that very instant, was that Marines are not
normal." Choking past the emotion he said, "Sir, in the name of God no sane
man would have stood there and done what they did." "No sane man."

 "They saved us all."

 What we didn't know at the time, and only learned a couple of days
later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and Haerter for
posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras, damaged
initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. It happened
exactly as the Iraqis had described it. It took exactly six seconds from
when the truck entered the alley until it detonated.

You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting
myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two Marines
to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the
truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly no time to
talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough
time to take half an instant and think about what the sergeant told them to
do only a few minutes before: ".let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles
pass." The two Marines had about five seconds left to live.

It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons,
take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was half-way through the
barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording shows a
number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering
like the normal and rational men they were-some running right past the
Marines.

 They had three seconds left to live.

 For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines' weapons
firing non-stop.the truck's windshield exploding into shards of glass as
their rounds take it apart and tore in to the body of the SOB who is trying
to get past them to kill their brothers-American and Iraqi-bedded down in
the barracks totally unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment
depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground. If they had been
aware, they would have known they were safe, because two Marines stood
between them and a crazed suicide bomber. The recording shows the truck
careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of the
instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and
by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even started to step
aside. They never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread
shoulder width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they
could work their weapons. They had only one second left to live.

 The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to
their God.

 Six seconds. Not enough time to think about their families, their
country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than
enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty, into eternity.
That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight-for
you.

 We Marines believe that God gave America the greatest gift he could
bestow to man while he lived on this earth-freedom. We also believe he gave
us another gift nearly as precious-our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast
Guardsmen, and Marines-to safeguard that gift and guarantee no force on this
earth can ever steal it away. It has been my distinct honor to have been
with you here today. Rest assured our America, this experiment in democracy
started over two centuries ago, will forever remain the "land of the free
and home of the brave" so long as we never run out of tough young Americans
who are willing to look beyond their own self-interest and comfortable
lives, and go into the darkest and most dangerous places on earth to hunt
down, and kill, those who would do us harm.

 God Bless America, and..SEMPER FIDELIS!"

Presented as I received it. With the only change being my deletion of the email address from whence it came. During my service as your Marine, I lost count of instances like this. Way too many to quantify, but the memory of each will be with me forever.

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