Marines' 3rd combat tour pushes limits of endurance

[Barrett808]

Marines' 3rd combat tour pushes limits of endurance
Gregg Zoroya
USA TODAY
July 30, 2005

RAMADI, Iraq - The day the Marines crossed into Iraq, Cpl. James Welter Jr. killed his first man. During his second combat tour, he earned a commendation for leadership skills and coolness under fire, but he brought a nightmare home. Now, with six weeks left in his third fighting tour, his goal is simple.
He hopes to survive.

Welter - Jimmy to his friends - is among about 150 veterans of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment here who have fought in Iraq three times since the war began in March 2003. Each trip, they have endured some of the harshest combat.

They were there for four months at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, at the tip of the invasion spear. In the summer of 2004, during a second tour that lasted 4½ months, they fought in the streets of Fallujah after insurgents there killed four American contractors, burned and mutilated their bodies and strung two of the corpses from a bridge.

Now, for seven months this year, the Marines are here in Ramadi, the capital of the insurgency and a city thick with roadside bombs. Snipers lie in wait, and at the exits of installations, huge warning signs, some inscribed with a skull and crossbones, read: "Complacency Kills!" The battalion has lost more men in Ramadi than anywhere else: 12 Marines and a Navy corpsman killed in action. Their 13 portraits hang on a wall in battalion headquarters - a grim reminder of what awaits outside the gate.

(more)

http://www.thedesertsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050730/NEWS11/507300325

[HereSince1628]

1. Think WWII and enlisted for the duration...

The military CAN adjust to perpetual operations, not withstanding that the greater the exposure to danger the greater the risk of injury or death and saying nothing about how very disruptive Iraq has turned out for guard and reserve members.

[starroute]

2. U.S. forces in WWII were in ground operations less than 3 years

As nearly as I can tell from checking online, the first US ground offensive in the Pacific was Guadalcanal in August 1942, then nothing further until 1943.

In Europe, the first U.S. ground involvement was in the invasion of North Africa in November 1942, followed by the invasion of Sicily in July 1943 and sustained fighting in Europe pretty consistently thereafter.

So unless I'm missing something, it doesn't look like any U.S. forces were in an uninterrupted combat situation for more than 2 1/2 years -- and we've alrealy been in Iraq for almost that long.

There are other differences, of course, between being in combat and being the target of an insurgency, and thosde have to make the Iraq situation even more corrosive.

[TahitiNut]

5. That's right. And the "combat experience" was even more limited.

The most intensely fought war was Viet Nam. The average combat arms soldier experienced over 200 days of direct combat during a one-year tour of duty in Viet Nam, while it was something less than 50 days during WW2.

Iraq isn't a war. It's literally a "police action" (creating a "police state") dealing with the occupation of a country and suppression of extreme civil unrest. There's no organized, uniformed opposing military force -- no "enemy" force. There's no "enemy" Air Force. There's no "enemy" Navy. There's no "enemy" nation. It's even worse than martial law ... since the U.S. military isn't even subject to the civil laws and processes of the occupied nation.

[phusion]

3. Caught up with a friend last night...

He's in Marine Reserves and was in Fallujah last November during the major assault. Just got back in town about a month ago.

He's not sure if he has to go back yet.

He came back unscathed, but he doesn't talk as much as he used to. I think he's still trying to adjust...

[Rebellious Republican]

9. Maybe he is feeling something like this........

The following is from a corpsman ("Doc") in Beirut who wishes to remain anonymous:

I was thinking...The way Ive learned to deal with Beruit is through my poetry. I've been told by friends that I should get them published, however the poems are my pain on paper... things I couldn't share with strangers. Now as I sit thinking about it all, I think Id like to share it with my brothers who were there. Is there a place on your board for this type of expression?


Coming Home

Change will come,
Change is here.
Love fades out,
Then reappears.
Now my water has turned
to wine and these
thoughts I have I now claim
as mine..
I'm coming home.

Change has been,
change will be,
time will tell,
Then time will ease.

My curtain has been drawn
and my heart can go to where
my heart does belong
I'm going home.

And I will have to be braver now,
than I have ever been.
And I will have to be stronger now,
Than I ever was before.
And I will have to be more loyal now,
Than I have ever been.

A warriors heart will never change...
Only its direction..
Only its focus.
I could see the man
I was yet to become..
And the man that was not to be..

But only with the eyes
of the man who
is.
Some things are better
left unsaid,

But they turn me inside
out,
And I can barely speak
of them,
Their only recourse,
Is to visit me...While I sleep.

I'd give anything to silence those sounds...
the crying out,
the screams,
the choppers,
I hear it as if its happening
now..

Today I woke to the sound of a chopper in flight__
and I was back,
in Beruit again.
All the sounds mixed in...
Then I heard a man crying for his mother
and I started my day
sobbing.

I wonder if he ever made it home to his mother.
I sometimes wonder if anybody got home..
Anybody?
Am I alone?

I saw J.P today hitchhiking...
(Like he ever would have!)
(was he going home?)
Yet there he was, for a fraction of a second..
(asking?)
No smile, no frown, no recognition..
no eye contact.
(like a stranger, which he was)
I wonder if he knew I did all I could?
(I wonder if I did?)

I was like a god...
I could do anything.
I could keep a man alive...
(Or so I thought.)
I was the corpsman...
I had to.
And now...
What compares?

The only ones for who the war is over,
are those who died fighting it.
For the rest of us it will always be,
just a nightmare away.

A man should live everyday,
as if it were a preflight check.
He has to ask himself every morning
"am I ready for liftoff?"
And if not...
Find the strength to go
anyway.

How can another know...?
The storys, untold by me?
How could another understand...?
The chaos? The terror?
The destruction of ourselves?
I should not have had to be there.
I should not be the one to explain...
I am the one who is owed an explaination...
And that will never happen.

http://www.beirut-memorial.org/theatre/docpoems.html

[phusion]

10. Very nice...

Thank you.

[Rebellious Republican]

15. Your welcome, I thought the same the first time I saw it.

I hope your friend finds peace.
From the struggles that I am sure he must be wrestling with deep down inside himself.

[Pystoff]

4. Maximum effecient time in combat

240hrs of comabt is the peak after that a soldier is no longer useful. And infact he becomes a danger to himself and others.

[teryang]

6. Many of these soldiers will be a threat to others at home

...due to psychiatric instability when they return. One of our Iraq veterans (USMC) just got 30 years for attempted murder on four people he didn't even know when he got drunk one night. Just picked out a home broke in and started stabbing people.

[bluestateguy]

7. This is completely wrong

If I supported this war I would be outraged that there is no sense of shared sacrifice here. OK, these men enlisted, but 3 tours? For a war of choice that really did not have to be fought? I could understand 3 tours if this was a war of national survival, but it is not. It angers me that these men are being sent back to that clusterfuck of a war zone over and over again, while privileged frat boys stay at home and casually go about their lives as if the war does not exist and it is a million miles away.

[gratuitous]

8. Bush just shrugs

They're all just pieces in a game of Risk. R&R? Training? Supply lines? Logistics? We don't need any of that! Just roll the dice again. Come on sixes!

[meganmonkey]

11. No one should EVER have to do that

:cry:

It just boggles my mind how our government is ABUSING the men and women who volunteer to protect our country (not, mind you, to occupy a sovereign nation). And they're all getting fucked since "Support Our Troops" ribbons don't really help them.

[DELUSIONAL]

12. I doubt these people are even considered human by the bushies gang

Somehow the bush crime family thinks of anyone beneath them as a number on a piece of paper.

I remember all the returning Vietnam Vets when I was in college -- we learned never to walk up quietly behind a Vet and touch him. These guys were wounded gentle souls -- and this was after only ONE tour of duty.

As far as I know there is no decompression sessions for retiring military. There is no special transition to the civilian life -- when I questioned the reason for simply dumping the former military into the civilian world without any counseling or preparation -- I was told that this would take the edge off their military training -- and who knew if they would be needed again.

Once a soldier/sailor/marine/air man -- always one?

How much are we going to bet that they Vet Administration hasn't budgeted funds for treating the psychological wounds?

My father entered the Navy right after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and retired in the late 60s from the Navy. He went through a very rough post military withdrawal phase. He lied to join the Navy as a teenager and suddenly he found himself in the civilian world.

I just wonder how many Timothy McVeighs are being created in Iraq and Afghanistan?? Some of the returning Vets are going to be thrill seeking junkies -- among many war induced psychopathology.

This war brought to us by the Chickenhawks who had better things to do than go to Vietnam. Yet they think nothing of sending young men and women (and old Vietnam Vets) repeatedly back to the killing zones.

If there is a hell -- I hope that they bastards who started these wars find themselves in HELL.

[DeaconBlues]

13. No problem

I am sure there are plenty of patriotic Young Republicans who are eager to replace these brave men and women. Err....Hello? Hello?

[noamnety]

16. They at least got a mention

" ... their counterparts (in the U.S.) are running around getting pissed off because they were unable to register for Psych 303 and they have to start their senior year. These guys are running around worried about being supplied with .50-caliber ammo and not getting shot tomorrow."

That should go on some Yellow Elephant literature.

[stanwyck]

14. My son is on his second tour

USMC. I read this article yesterday. One of the few really honest reports about what our troops are faced with on a daily basis.
I really wish all the gung-ho types would take a minute to read about how glorious war is. It's not movies starring John Wayne or Sylvester Stallone.
My son is supposed to return to the states in late September. I hope he doesn't face a third tour but with recruitment down in the Marines and the Army, a third tour could happen.
Meanwhile, the chickenhawks remain clueless. Absolutely clueless.