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Kaneohe Marines in
Iraq hold service
for fallen comrades
Some troops shed tears as
heartwarming stories are told
about the eight Marines killed
by a car bomb last week
NEAR FALLUJAH, IRAQ » As a significant new offensive to invade Fallujah looms, U.S. Marines seeking closure over recent casualties held a memorial service Wednesday for eight comrades killed in a suicide bombing over the weekend.
Holding back tears, and at times letting them flow, Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion 3rd Marines based at Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe gathered in a rudimentary dining hall to remember fallen colleagues.
Mixing the sacred and profane, Marines told heartwarming and heart-breaking stories about young grunts and husbands, sons and fathers, whose lives were stopped short while they were still being built.
As U.S. and Iraqi forces gear up for an expected invasion of Fallujah that they hope will crush a spreading insurgency, survivors vowed to leave their grief behind and get back to the battlefield.
"I want to get back out -- they all want to go," says Staff Sgt. Jason Benedict of West Milford, N.J., whose wounded left hand is bandaged. He was in the troop carrier hit by the bomber. "They don't want their brothers going out without them.
"It was an eye opener -- a tough lesson learned," says Benedict, holding his injured hand. "The day after, I was full of rage at the Iraqi people. I got that out of there. (These Marines) know that fighting with revenge in mind will cause more problems. We've talked a lot about that."
While some 150 Marines sat silently, trying to keep their emotions in check by steady sniffing, one officer said that "hate consumes, and hate will not let us focus -- focus like a laser on our enemy."
The Marines were remembered individually -- often as fun-loving, family-loving, God-fearing, and rule-breaking model Marines -- by those who knew them best on their squads and their platoons.
But thoughts of revenge still bubbled up for one marine remembering Lance Cpl. Michael Scarborough from Washington, Ga. "I know, where he is now, he'd want us to burn Fallujah down for what (they) did to him, and that's exactly what's going to happen," the Marine vowed.
The service is part of a healing process aimed at letting out Marines' grief while controlling the reaction and drawing focus back to the battlefield, says U.S. Navy Capt. Bill Nash, a marine division psychiatrist from Cardiff, Calif.
"They are supporting each other, healing each other, and trying to figure out how in the world (they will) go back out there and take the same risks, knowing that this can happen," says Nash, who has been meeting with small groups from Bravo Company.
"One of several tools that warriors use to do the work they do, is denial -- that's the No. 1 primary defense," he says. "But once that denial is blown away -- literally -- by something like this, it's harder to get back out."
"The nature of the conflict over here is such that it increases their stress load enormously," says Nash, ticking off the variables. "To be in a passive, defensive position; to not know who the enemy is; to know that the people you are shaking hands with during the day, and giving candy to their children, are going to be the same one who mortar you at night."
"The changing rules of engagement; the lack of clarity of the mission; political issues back home -- all of those add to the stress level," he continues. "I reinforce the basics: We are professionals, and this is our job -- but once we're here, we're fighting for each other, to protect each other, so that as many as possible can go home well and alive."
With guns slung over their shoulders, standing uneasily at podium made by an olive-drab mosquito net draped over a table, Marines put an emotive human face on comrades whom they often refer to only by rank and last name.
A few wept, or buried their faces in their uniforms. They spoke of brotherhood melded by combat and the stress of Iraq, and pranks during past deployments together.
Sgt. Kelley Courtney of Macon, Ga., who was assigned to the III Marine Expeditionary Force's 3rd Intelligence Battalion in Okinawa, Japan, "left behind a wife, Cindy, a 1-year-old daughter and a younger son, all of whom he loved very much," said one marine.
Lance Cpl. Andrew Riedel, who lived in Northglen, Colo., had a "(military) bearing," and protected his younger sister by scaring away potential suitors, an image that brought some laughter. He had, said a friend, "a certain arrogance, which you want in a machine-gunner."
Cpl. Christopher Lapka, of Peoria, Ariz., was "gracefully clumsy" and couldn't bear to remain in college while other soldiers fought. He had a love for video games, not a love for the Marine Corps, and "wanted to be better than himself."
Others killed in the attack were Lance Cpl. Jeremy D. Bow, 20, of Lemoore, Calif.; Lance Cpl. Travis A. Fox, 25, of Cowpens, S.C.; Lance Cpl. John T. Byrd II, 23, of Fairview, W.Va.; and Pfc. John Lukac, 19, of Las Vegas.
Quotes from the Bible were read, including one from Ecclesiastes: "A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time for war, and a time for peace."
One officer also quoted Teddy Roosevelt: "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly -- who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause."
Byrd exhibited those devotions. When he came to Iraq, his wife Jessica was pregnant, Marines said, adding that "the day he was married, he was the happiest man on earth."
"John didn't know how to dance, so I decided to teach him a few steps," said one friend, prompting laughs. "I had to drag him out there on the dance floor, but he got the hang of it."
"Now he's in a better place, a place where there is no fear. He's in peace with the Lord," the Marine said. "He kept telling me: 'I just want to see my child,'" another Marine added, about Byrd's son, due in February. "He wasn't scared of dying. The only thing he feared was that his child would be without a father."
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Deadly day shows
learning curve rising
Isle Marines' deaths are
evidence of growth in
the insurgent threat
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq » The white Suburban with the bullet-riddled windshield looked suspicious, half-hidden just off the road, as the U.S. Marine convoy passed by on Saturday.
But it was the killer's look that shocked Capt. Jer Garcia.
"I looked him right in the eyes -- and when he looked down at his steering wheel, I knew something (was coming)," the company commander recalled. In just seven seconds, Garcia had reached for his handset and had radioed a warning to the convoy.
But it was already too late. The Suburban pulled into the convoy, and the driver detonated the suicide car bomb next to a troop carrier truck, causing eight deaths, seven of whom were from Marine Corps Base Hawaii at Kaneohe. Another Marine was killed elsewhere in Iraq, making Saturday the deadliest day for U.S. forces since May.
"The next thing I know, I saw the explosion," says Garcia, from Honolulu. "The Suburban was gone, and my Marines were incinerated."
The casualties show how the learning curve for U.S. forces in Iraq continues to rise, even as they struggle to prevent a spreading insurgency from spiraling further out of control.
But it also comes as U.S. Marine and Army elements prepare for a possible all-out offensive against the insurgent nerve center of Fallujah that commanders hope will stanch the insurgency. Two months of almost-nightly airstrikes in the city gave way Saturday to a probing ground operation southeast of the city, where Marines sparked a three-hour firefight and gained a measure of their opponents.
By comparison, the Marines' next operation "will be more complex, more dangerous, and it will last longer," Lt. Col. Michael Ramos, a battalion commander, told his staff Sunday at the after-action briefing. "We don't know when it's coming; we know it's coming soon. ... Rest your Marines, and get them ready for the fight."
That advice echoes the tough talk of senior U.S. commanders and Iraqi officials. On Sunday, Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, said that while he still held out hope for a negotiated solution, "our patience is running thin."
Officials are making it clear that any Fallujah offensive will not be called off, like the attempt last April that was stopped before it could finish.
"If we're told to go ... it's going to be decisive," Brig. Gen. Dennis Hejlik, the deputy commanding general of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in charge of western Iraq, said over the weekend. "We're going to go in there, and we're going to whack them."
In mid-October, about 1,000 Kaneohe Marines with the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment were assigned to the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is now near Fallujah.
Concerns remain about whether even a complete defeat of insurgents in Fallujah can stop the insurgency that has weakened security across Iraq to the point that it undermines the possibility of elections slated for January.
A key target is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda-linked Jordanian militant, who has claimed responsibility for numerous explosive attacks and the killing of hostages.
"Just because you chop off Zarqawi, the head, doesn't mean you are going to stop (the insurgency)," says Maj. James West, a senior 1st Marine Expeditionary Force intelligence officer. "You've got to stop the motivation for why people are coming in to fight."
That message is not lost on the combat regiments gearing up for war around Fallujah. Sunday, Marine platoons practiced urban warfare tactics among some gutted buildings.
"You have to learn fast in this environment," says Ramos, from Dallas. "The enemy is willing to sacrifice lives. They are willing to martyr themselves for what they believe is an important cause. ... The rules of war don't apply for them.
"Obviously, (Marines) are going to be frustrated, they are going to show emotion, when they lose their friends, when they lose their fellow Marines," says Ramos, of the company struck by the suicide bomb.
Indeed, in the course of the briefing described earlier, when the focus turned to compensation paid to Iraqis for civilian damage, one angry officer asked whether that should be a priority when "there are people out there who want to kill us," and so many Marine families are mourning their dead.
"You aim the violence at the people who deserve the violence, not civilians," Ramos told him.
"We're only going to win this fight if we target terrorists, and reinforce and help the common, decent people," Ramos said later. "The majority of Iraqis are common, decent people -- they want the same things that we do: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
But that is tough for some Marines to accept after the suicide bomb.
Garcia says his biggest challenge will be funneling the emotions of his Marines after Saturday's deaths.
"As a commander, it's my job to make sure that anger doesn't turn into hatred and is focused instead on the task at hand," says Garcia. "If we turn to hatred, then we are no different from them."
www.mcbh.usmc.mil
