AMERICANS AS MARINES PRIOR TO 1775

By
R.W. Gaines
GySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952-72
All Rights Reserved
SEE ALSO: CLICK-HERE!!!!!

Americans As Marines prior To 1775
We know a lot about U. S. Marine Corps history since 1775, and even Marines prior to that. French sailors, for instance, had been trained and organized in 1622 to fight on shore, it was not until 1664 that a true corps of Marines was formed. This was "The Duke of York and Albany's Maritime Regiment of Foot." decreed by an order of King Charles II.'

Even prior to the above examples, it could be said that there were Marines-"Marines are as old as the war at sea...',,,enlist Marines, twenty to a ship, from men between 20 and 30, and archers.
(Extract from Athenian decree of June, 480 B.C., full text in NewYork Times, 5 June 960.).'" And there were others.

The first American Marines, however, were four colonial battalions raised in 1740 to fight the Spanish. This force of 3,000 later became known as "Gooch's Marines" Between 1740 and the outbreak of the American Revolution, British Marines had regularly served in North America . Marines had come to have a well-established place in the naval scheme of things, and every fighting ship had a Marine detachment.

Even before Congress had created the Continental marines, George Washington had already formed a squadron of his own , including soldiers detailed as Marines. Eight colonies--Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland,
Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia had their own Marines as adjunct to state navies. All but Maryland's were in being prior to Congress' forming of the Continental Marines.
(See Col R.D. Heinl, Jr.'s Soldiers Of The Sea, 1962, US Naval institute)

So, we have much informtion as to the history of American Marines in the period leading up to the founding of the Continental Marines in 1775. There is, however, one little area of information that has been bothering me for some time now.

It seems to me that I recall having read somewhere that Americans had been routinely recruited, shanghaied, or pressed into service, etc. for the British Navy and Marines prior to, and, perhaps, even after 1775. This would not be hard to believe; America was indeed a British colony and Americans had long considered themselves British subjects loyal to the Crown. In fact, our own Navy and Marines were patterned after the British model.

I have not been able to find the specific writing from which I recall an author having dealt with the subject of Americans in the British Navy and Marines. I have, however, found a few references to this, and related information, on the Internet. The following is from those references.

It can be readily seen that although the following reference on British Navy Recruiting is for a specific period of the 18th century, it is likely a general summary of the situation as it existed for a long time, which included the paying of a bounty to volunteers, shanghaiing, being pressed into service, etc.


The following rreference From-Here!"
England's sailors, while the life line for the small island nation were notorious for being the dregs of English society. At the time of war, there was always a shortage of trained sailors. These trained men were important because untrained men could be used to pull ropes and manhandle guns, but only a trained seaman could work as a "topman". It took skill to work 30 to 40 feet off the deck hanging on the swinging rigging.

The British, in peace, did not maintain a large navy; so when war came there was a continued need to increase. The following table shows the number of seamen and marines serving in the English Navy;
1793, 45,000; 1794, 85,000; 1797, 120,000; 1800, 130,000

Only about half of the seamen were even English. A large number of Irish, Scots and blacks from the West Indies and the Americas served in the Navy. The English navy had no prejudice where their seamen came from, what language they spoke or what country they owed their allegiance to. They all served as a "Jolly Tar".

The Press
The "press" was the center of the Royal Navy's recruiting process. One third of the crew of a ship at the start of a cruise needed to be trained sailors. These men came from recruiting ( a few), taking crews off merchant men and from the "press".

The press was the Impress Service. Originally, the word was Imprest; meaning money paid in advance for State or government service. This evolved over the years to become impress or just press. The press gang goes back in English history to at least the 11th century, if not before.

The Impress Service sent out press gangs of 8 to 12 men, with an officer, to locate anyone between 18 and 55 with sea experience, and try to convince them to join the navy. Very few could be persuaded, so they were forced (pressed) into Navy service. Knocked unconscious, threatened with sword, pistol and musket, plied with alcohol were some of the different techniques used to secure crews for the King's ships.

When a press gang found a volunteer, they were offered the "King's Shilling", a bounty for joining. Some men would join, get the bounty, then escape to do it all over again. Others would find a shilling slipped in their pocket and find someone saying that they had taken the King's Shilling and therefore were under contract to serve in the military. Others would find a shilling at the bottom of their tankard of ale and, since they were in procession of the King's shilling, they were in the military. This led some landlord's to use glass bottom tankards.

It was widely believed that one sailor from a merchant ship was worth 3 men secured from the press gang from ships. Men aboard merchant ships, except officers and apprentices were available as long as the ships had enough men to navigate the ship. Some seamen were exempt, having "tickets" that exempted them from the press. Those were seamen who had spent less than 2 years at sea. These "tickets" were like gold, for a sailor on a merchant ship could make 4 times the money as a sailor in the navy. The pay for a merchant sailor went from a guinea and 27s before the war to 40s and 3 pounds per month during the war.

Some smart captains found ways to gain protected seamen from passing merchant ships and get rid of trouble makers and malcontents. They would board a merchant ship at sea and press the best topmen then replace them with the worst men they had on their war ships. As long as the Navy replaced the men, it was legal.

Another source for sailors after the war started was to press men who were prisoners returning after being exchanged with the French. Needless to say that these men just released from a French goal did not enjoy being sent to English prison hulks (old ships without masts or sails, sitting in harbor).

After pressing seamen into service the Royal Navy preferred to get them away from shore where there was less chance of a rescue attempt or legal action freeing a pressed man. So tenders were used, being moored in the area where press gangs operated, to store the pressed men until there were enough to warrant moving them to a receiving ship. These receiving ships were usually old man-of-wars in too poor shape to go to sea. Then the men would be sent to ships having vacancies.

Within a year of the war starting the navy still couldn't get enough men to man its ships, so parliament passed the Quota Acts. This Quota Act required that each county produce a quota of men, depending on its population and the number of ports it had. At first the counties offered a bounty of £5. This soon doubled and tripled within a year as men became harder to find. Next the counties went to the justices of the peace who would reduce sentences of men in jail so they could "volunteer" for the navy, or offer criminals at their trial an option of jail or the navy. The smart ones would take jail because a press man was in until the war was over with no leave or visits to the shore. The war lasted 22 years.

There were also times when the urgent need of men for the war was not met by the standard recruiting practices. At these times, such as in 1803, permission was given to press from "protections". The press gangs would grab almost any male, regardless of occupation, and take them to their base of operations. There they would sort through them and take anyone connected with the sea regardless whether they had "protections" or not. They would release those they didn't want.

Volunteers
There were some men who earnestly volunteered, not for the bounties or because they were forced but because they wanted to be there. Sometimes they would follow a particular officer.

Others would be landsmen and boys who wanted the life of adventure and fortune (prize money). The landsmen were adults who had never been to sea before. It took approximately 2 years to turn a landsman into a sailor. Landsmen were used a great deal since there was ample supply. But landsmen were not particularly liked by either the officers or sailors even though they were necessary.

One organization that aided in the recruitment of landsmen and boys was the Marine Society, formed in 1756. They recruited the poor and destitute, giving them a minimum of training and sea clothes, and provided 22,973 landsmen and boys to the Navy.

As far as boys went, 500 to 600 were sent by the Marine Society each year. These boys, usually from the street served as cabin boys and powder monkeys.

One captain who never seemed to want for volunteers was Lord Captain Cochrane. After his capture of 3 Spanish treasure ships containing £250,000 of treasure, his advertising circular allowed him to pick and choose those people he used to man his ship.

It is often said that the Royal Navy emptied the jails and goals of the prisoners. This is not true. Hardened criminals were not sought or welcome in the navy. Those that were welcomed were those convicted of minor offences, smugglers, debtors, victims of the prison system itself and those who were convicted of public nuisance offences, such as public urination and drunkenness. The unemployed were also fair game.

Foreigners
Many foreigners volunteered for service in the Royal Navy, but others were pressed. Americans made up the largest segment of foreign serving seamen, followed by Scandinavians, Italians, and Africans. There were even French seamen, both Royalist and Revolutionaries, who preferred the life at sea over a life in a prison hulk. One reason so many volunteered was that with the war so many of the ports had their trade cut.

In fact it could be said that the pressing of foreign sailors brought about the War of 1812. By a law passed in 1740, foreigners could not be pressed. But due to the shortage of manpower, the Admiralty found lots of ways around this law. If a foreigner served more than 2 years on a British merchantman he could then be pressed. If he married a British citizen then he became a British citizen by naturalization.

There was also the disagreement with the United States over what made a citizen. The British held that anyone, born a British subject, was always a British subject. That meant that everyone over 23 in the U.S. were British subjects. Where as the United States was willing to claim just about anyone as a citizen, all it took was serving on an American ship for 2 years.

To protect their citizens, the US issued a piece of paper called a "Protection". A sample of this document read:

I, John Keefe, a public notary in and for the State of New York.... do hereby certify that Daniel Robertson, mariner ... personally appeared before me, and being duly sworn according to the law, deposed that he is a citizen of the United States of America and a native of the State of Delaware, five feet ten and a half inches high and aged about twenty four years, and I do further certify that the said Daniel Robertson being a citizen of the United States of America and liable to be called in service of his country is to be respected accordingly at all times by sea and land.

Now all this may seem reasonable except that Daniel Robertson could hit every Notary in the area and then sell them to British seamen for a good amount of money. Also anyone could walk into a notary and get a Protection just by saying they were a citizen. Then there was the vagueness of the description. With only height and apparent age being listed on the Protection, it could apply to 20% of a ships crew. Because of this, the British objected and allowed their officers to use their own discretion.

The British version of the protection was much more detailed giving not only height and age, but also complexion, hair colour and place of birth. The protections were also issued by the government and signed by the First Lord of the Admiralty and two or more Lords of the Admiralty and the secretary.

Protections were not used only by foreigners, also harvesters, who traveled from town to town picking crops, fisherman, pilots from the Trinity House and ferrymen/boatmen.

Return to Index "

My conclusion then is that indeed Americans did serve in the British Navy and Marines, both prior to and subsequent to 1775.

In addition The following related information is provided.

History Of The Continental Marines
Royal Navy History-Napoleonic Era
Early Amphibious Warfare
The Marines--Where We Came From...
The Marines
Royal Marines 1812
Privateers and Mariners-Revolutionary War
~~~~~~~~~~
This is...
Gunny G's...
GLOBE and ANCHOR
Marines Sites & Forums
By R.W. "Dick" Gaines
GySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952-72
Semper Fidelis
~~~~~~~~~~

LAST FLAG OVER MOUNT SURIBACHI, IWO JIMA!

1968, LAST AMERICAN FLAG OVER SURIBACHI

BUCKLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- Marine Cpl. Kevin Ennet and Senior Airmen Michael Skaggs and John Stacy fold an American flag after flying it on the flagpole here. In 1968, the flag was lowered on Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima for the last time as the island returned to the Japanese government. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Jim Randall) | High-res version of this photo
Last American flag on Iwo Jima flies over Buckley
by Airman Chris Smith
460th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
~~~~~

04/02/03 - BUCKLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. (AFPN) -- In 1968, Old Glory was lowered on the island of Iwo Jima for the last time as the island returned to the Japanese government.

A flag had flown day and night on Mount Suribachi since U.S. Marines famously raised on there during the battle for Iwo Jima.

On March 27, that last flag flew here as part of a ceremony commemorating the 58th anniversary of the battle in 1945.

Buckley is the first Air Force base to fly the Iwo Jima flag. The flag has previously flown above Puerto Rico and 20 state capitols and recently was raised above the Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Santa Fe, N.M., and Fort Logan National Cemetery in Denver. Retired Senior Master Sgt. Paul Bockman, a member of the Black Pearl Veterans of Iwo Jima, provided the flag on behalf of the organization. The group has 266 members who are dedicated to flying the Iwo Jima flag in as many places as possible, including over all 50 state capitols.

Bockman, who served in the Air Force from 1952 to 1972, arrived on Iwo Jima in 1958 for a one-year tour. He was a communications maintenance technician in charge of the control tower. He said it is important this flag is flown as much as possible so everyone remembers its "historical importance" and the story behind it.

"You sort of bond to the place with all the historical background," he said. "I thought, my God, I'm standing here where Lord knows how many of my people died."

The Battle of Iwo Jima is forever preserved in the minds of Americans because of the prize-winning Joe Rosenthal photograph of Marines hoisting the American flag atop Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945.

Iwo Jima was the first native soil in the Japanese empire invaded by Americans in World War II. During the 36-day assault, nearly 7,000 Americans were killed in action. More than 25,000 Americans were wounded. Virtually all of the 22,000 Japanese soldiers involved in the battle were killed.

Twenty-seven Medals of Honor were awarded to sailors and Marines in the battle, more than in any other battle in American history.

"Raising the last flag to fly over the island of Iwo Jima reminds us of the high price those who serve our country pay in its defense," said Chief Master Sgt. Dave Seaman, 460th Air Base Wing command chief. "It also ties this generation of warriors with those who've served previously."
http://www.af.mil/news/Apr2003/40203486.shtml.

---

Flag Raising On Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima at 1020 on the morning of 23 February, 1945.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
R.W. "Dick" Gaines
GySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952-72

Gunny G's GLOBE and ANCHOR Sites & Forums
http://www.angelfire.com/ca/dickg/sites.html
GyG's Old Salt Marines Tavern~Interactive~
http://www.network54.com/Forum/135069
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Posted - 02/21/2004 : 1:55:58 PM
Note:
The above articles are no longer available on the 'Net--a Google srearch will bring up the above, however clicking on the URL produces only a 404 error--try clicking on the google "CACHE" button to see the above, then you can only cut n paste, as that url won't work when attempting to post url here.
Dick

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~
This is...
Gunny G's...
GLOBE and ANCHOR
Marines Sites & Forums
By R.W. "Dick" Gaines
GySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952-72
Semper Fidelis
~~~~~~~~~~

A MARINE SPEAKS ON THE OLD AMERICA

Entire United States Expatriates

Fred Left Behind



Monday, February 2, 2004

Mail arrives, telling me that by going to Mexico I have sold out, fled, abandoned the United States. I’m a coward, some of my correspondents say, and a traitor, just like Lord Haw Haw, Kim Philby, Jane Fonda. I’m probably a devotee of Quisling. (Actually I’ve never quizzled in my life.)

(OK, OK, I’m sorry.)

Anyway, they’re upset, which is irrational. They think that just because I went to Mexico, I left the US. They don’t understand. I didn’t leave the United States. It left me. It was a bait-and-switch operation. I signed on to one country, and they slipped another in under me. I want my money back.

In the country where I grew up, if you found a naked intruder in your daughter’s bedroom with a Bowie knife and a hard-on, you shot him and arranged to have the rugs cleaned. The sheriff wasn’t greatly interested and the country prosecutor didn’t see anything to prosecute. The scum floating on the gene pool wasn’t a protected species. It wasn’t the driving engine of the culture. It was just scum.

Today you would be charged with the use of excessive force. The cadaver’s family would sue. They would end up with your house unless they just ran you broke with legal bills. The outcome would depend on the racial make-up of you, the intruder, and the jury. Your daughter would be married with grandchildren before the courts reached any conclusion.

Think I’m exaggerating? When I used to have the police beat for the Washington Times in the Yankee capital, the cops told me, dead serious, that if I ever shot an intruder, I should shoot him again to make sure: You can’t afford to have two stories, they said, especially if he’s black which, in Washington, was a foregone conclusion. They’ll hang you, said the cops.

In the country I grew up in, you got on an airplane by walking up these funny little steps with wheels on them. Then you sat down. That’s all you did. I know, I know: You don’t believe this. It’s true. You just walked on. Further, the stewardesses were not merely civil but—so help me—friendly. Flying was actually enjoyable. The seats were big enough that you didn’t sit with your knees beside your ears and your feet in your pockets.

Now, getting aboard is like going into max security at some ghastly penitentiary. I once flew a bit around the old Soviet Union, as distinct from the new one, on a junket. Security was less oppressive, though the food was marginally worse unless you liked green chicken. The service was just as sullen.

Maybe that’s what I miss most about the Old Country. People were courteous. They could afford to be because everyone else was too. It’s hard to be pleasant when the odds are even that the next person you deal with will be an ill-mannered lout who knows he can get away with it.

I think people were courteous also because they lived in an agreeable country and were pretty happy with things. The new country seems angry—quietly so, not sure what to do about it, but looking for someone to hit.

Yet further still, in the old country they didn’t have these funny little Japanese cars with itsy-bitsy four-bangers. Nope. They had great virile monsters thirty feet long with eight huge cylinders like buckets. A dog could have slept in them. Sure, those rocket-barges were probably ridiculous and left a trail of parts that fell off because quality control wasn’t that great, but they were real cars. They embodied a spirit I liked. Today cars seem to be designed with transvestites in mind.

The Old Country the music was vibrant, vigorous, much of it springing from the great black bluesmen of Mississippi and then Chicago, some of it from the mountains and the jazz dens of the big cities. In the music of the new country, the whites whine and the blacks grunt angrily. From Tampa Red to rap is a long way down.

In the country I signed on to, things worked on the principle of individual responsibility. If you robbed a bank, which people generally didn’t, everyone figured you did it because you decided to, and you went to jail and everyone was satisfied, except you, which was the idea. Most people knew how to behave, and did. It saved a lot on police departments and you could walk around at night.

In the new country of course everything is somebody else’s fault, unless you are a white male, in which case everything is your fault. Never mind that if it weren’t for white males everybody else would be living on low-hanging fruit and saying “ugga-wugga” because they couldn’t figure out how to make a hemi-head big-block to crash into things with. Or figure out how to make anything else.

In the old country, the government was pretty much benign or actually useful. It built roads and largely left you alone. The public schools were not great but neither were they terrible. People ran their own lives. The federal government tended to be somewhere else, which was a splendid place for it, and you mostly didn’t notice.

In the country that is now where America used to be, the government is the cause of most major problems instead of a solution, however inefficient, to a fair number of them. The government keeps you from educating your children, holds standards down, prevents you from hiring the best people you can find to work in your business. It won’t allow local jurisdictions to control crime, prevents localities from enforcing such moral standards as they see fit, virtually illegalizes the religion, of most of the population, and generally won’t permit people to live as they like.

Now, I used to be fond of the United States. Granted, I wasn’t much of a patriot. The word nowadays seems to mean one who doesn’t so much love his country as to dislike other people’s. I figured live and let live. A lot of other countries struck me as fine places. But America was my favorite. It just suited me. I liked the people in their wild variety and the countryside and the music and the brash independence. It wasn’t perfect. Still, given the sorry baseline for comportment in human agglomerations, it was about as good as you could get.

I’m still fond of the United States. I just can’t find it.

~~~~~~~~~~
This is...
Gunny G's...
GLOBE and ANCHOR
Marines Sites & Forums
By R.W. "Dick" Gaines
GySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952-72
Semper Fidelis
~~~~~~~~~~

OUR FLAG IN IRAQ

This site was taken from information previously posted at my GyG's "Old Salt Marines Tavern--Interactive" forum on March 27, 2003. This was in regard to the short-lived flag raising in Iraq of our colors by United States Marines. As reported in the news at that time, the flag was quickly ordered taken down by U.S. military authority there. There was a certain amount of brouhaha in news articles as to the U.S. being too sensitive to public opinion and political correctness, etc., but policy has been and remains not to raise our flag in foreign lands such as the Iraq situation. Marines, however, have a long and proud history of raising our colors in foreign lands all over the world, in battles which they have spilled their blood and paid with their lives to do so.

Indeed, Marines have raised our colors dating back to the beginning of the Corps in 1775! To name just a few: Fortress Derna, North Africa, 24 April, 1805; The Palacio, Mexico City, 13 September, 1847; Shuri Castle, Okinawa, 28 May 1945; The Citadel, Hue City, Vietnam, 19 February 1968, etc.

Many Marine flag raisings, in modern times, have been photographed as was the Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima Flag Raising; earlier flag raisings have been depicted in artwork, etc.

But, alas, times are changing.

In contrast...

"After winning a pitched battle with entrenched, well-armed Iraqi forces at the port of Umm Qasr, U.S. Marines briefly raised the American flag over the port to symbolize a hard-won victory. Traditionally, Marines are the "first in," and in many battles they have had the well-earned honor of raising the U.S. flag over territory taken from the enemy — most famously at Iwo Jima’s Mt. Suribachi. But according to a Reuters dispatch from Umm Qasr, shortly after raising our flag in triumph, "Marines returned and removed the Stars and Stripes. No reason was given for the decision, but Washington has consistently stressed that invading U.S. forces want to liberate Iraq, not occupy it."

"According to the March 20th International Herald Tribune, U.S. troops poised at the Kuwait-Iraq border were forbidden to display "regimental, state or even the American flag.... Officials say the flag could give the citizens of Iraq the wrong idea about the convoys of artillery, ammunition and soldiers. They are not, these officials say, an army of conquest, intent on claiming Iraqi land or treasure for the United States, but a liberation force. They are concerned that streams of American flags would be seen as provocative.'"
Ref http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2003/04-21-2003/vo19no08_flag.htm

The following is from the book, A Fellowship Of Valor, by Col Joseph H. Alexander, USMC
Ret, 1997, Harper Collins, we learn the following regarding the flag
raising in Seoul, Korea on 27 Spetember, 1950...
"...Leathernecks (Pfc Leguire shown--see photo bottom this page) raised the American flag over the
U.S. Embassy with a great cheer. It felt so good they repeated the
process at the French--and many other--embassies."

"An envious Army officer from Almond's staff chided Chesty Puller: 'Ever
since that flag-raising picture on Iwo Jima got published, I'm convinced
you Marines would rather carry a flag into battle than a weapon.' Puller
regarded the man icily, 'Not a bad idea,' he growled, 'a man with a flag
in his pack and the desire to run it up on an enemy position isn't
likely to bug out!'"

Then, on 19 January, 2004, to return specifically to the subject of Our Flag In Iraq, the following response was posted to my GyG's forum (see above).

"My flag in Iraq
by paul (no login)

The Marine Flag that everyone saw raised in Umm Qasr belongs to me, I aqquired it when I was a pfc. I was a Cpl and just got out a couple of months ago. I was a team ldr with Fox company 3rd plt, 2/1; we were with the 15th meu in Iraq and were the main effort in the assault on Umm Qasr. One of our drivers raised the flags but the usmc flag is mine and the us flag is my friend john's. I am thinking of either selling it or putting it in a museum, it is signed by my whole company plus recon and sniper attachments and the journalist who took the famous picture that is on your website. If you know anyone who is interested in purchasing it or putting it in a museum please contact me at Paul_ballenger@hotmail.com

Posted on Jan 19, 2004, 5:05 PM
from IP address 207.144.238.104"
~~~~~
I then exchanged e-mail with Paul Ballenger regarding this, and the following (also posted to the forum) is the content of that exchange..

"From: "R.W.GAINES"
To: Paul_ballenger@hotmail.com
Subject: Your Post to GyG's forum...
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 05:19:21 -0800 (PST)

Paul:
Thank you for posting to
GyG's...--appreciated!

As you probably know, the Internet has more than its share of idiots posing as Marines and posting false information to bulletin boards, etc. My feeling regarding your post is that it is authentic. Others however, are apt to be more skeptical on all things and there will be doubters...

I have forwarded your post to a friend--a retired gunnery sergeant--who is involved with the Marine Corps Legacy Museum--hopefully, you will be hearing from him soon. I have also forwarded your post around to my e-mail list and other forums
for all to see.

The one question on everyone's mind will be, why would you consider selling the flag?
Would like to hear back from you on this, and if I can be of any assistance to you, let me
know.
Semper Fidelis, Marine!
Thanks!
Dick Gaines"
~~~~~
And, Paul responded as follows...

-- paul ballenger
wrote:
From: "paul ballenger"

To: gyg1345@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: flag
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 16:48:12 -0800

Mr Gaines
Thankyou for answering my posting, enclosed is a picture( I am 3rd from left) of some of my friends and I enjoying a beer at the Umm Qasr visitors terminal on the 3rd night
of the war. We found the beer along with some liqour in the UN compound at the port facility, we figured they wouldn't need it anymore. As far as selling the flag to be
honest I could certainly use the money. As a Marine in the infantry for 4 years I have a lifetime of stories and great memories as well as unbelievable friends. Unfortunately one does not make a lot of money and it makes things tough when you try to transition back to civvy street. I am starting a new job fairly soon but I want to buy a house as soon as possible.

I wouldn't mind putting it in a museum if not for a while so others could enjoy it. I thought about putting it in the Parris Island museum as I live very close to Parris Island but they seem to focus on recruit life and not on the combat of the divisions so maybe somewhere else. If you know of people who are interested in either by all
means they can email me. I will be joining the Marine Corps League within the next two weeks and may ask for some guidance fom them.

In the meantime if people wish to ask me any questions as to my legitamacy as to being a Marine or my being in Umm Qasr I would be glad to, as well as furnish umerous pics that I collected off of everyone in my co as well as the journalists that were embedded with us.

Thanks again for your email
Paul Ballenger~~~~~

"Ref message...

There it is. If anyone viewing this has up-to-date information regarding Paul Ballenger and his battle color, etc., feel free to e-mail me.
Photo:
Pfc Leguire raising Old Glory, US Embassy, Seoul, Korea, September 27, 1950


Semper Fidelis
Dick Gaines
~~~~~~~~~~

A MARINE'S JOURNAL, PART 4

A MARINE'S JOURNAL
Liberation Day
Part 4 of a frontline account of Iraq's liberation.
(Back To PART 1)

BY BRIAN TAYLOR
Friday, February 13, 2004 12:01 a.m.

(Editor's note: Mr. Taylor joined the Marine Corps Reserves in 1996 and was called up for service in February 2002. His enlistment expired in November 2003. He kept this journal while deployed with Fox Company, Second Battalion, 23rd Marines in Kuwait and Iraq. Comments in italics were added after his return to clarify and expand his account and to define military terminology for the benefit of civilian readers. Four-digit numbers followed by "Z" are time codes in Greenwich Mean Time; codes of the format "38RQU 29141756" are 8-digit MGRS grid coordinates indicating his location at the time. This is the fourth of five parts; click to read Part 1, Part 2 or Part 3.)

9 Apr 03 0354Z

Spent the night on the roof of some house in the Al Mathana neighborhood of Baghdad. We stopped our foot patrol around 1300Z yesterday afternoon and began looking for a building to stay in. My team was on the third floor of a shell of a structure when the fight began. I stood up and looked out the window across an intersection and a dirt field to the northwest.

I monitored radio traffic on the individual squad radio between Sgt. Ewert, First squad's leader, and Cpl. Houschouer, one of his team leaders. The sergeant was irate because it wasn't immediately obvious to Houschouer how to control a large five-way intersection with only four Marines. I thought to myself that it wasn't at all obvious to me either.

I saw a man step out from behind the southwest corner of an Iraqi security compound. He was 180 meters away and looked like an unarmed civilian, although the sun made him just a silhouette. Then he fired a RPG, which streaked into the Marines standing near the intersection. Cpl. Scott Lee and Lance Cpl. Roger Anderson, members of my own squad, were hit and sustained minor head and arm wounds, a miracle since it hit right by them.

I began firing 5.56mm rifle rounds and 203 grenades at the man. The machine guns began. He did the strangest arms-flying-in-air jig when he realized he was being shot at. He ducked behind the wall and machine guns followed. I lobbed 203s over the wall, and they landed with great clapping noise.

Iraqi fighters began firing from within the compound itself. Capt. Schoenfeld had forbidden us from entering and clearing that place just a few minutes earlier.

The highway between the Iraqis and us was the "limit of advance," so we could go no farther. Staff Sgt. Ivers had presented Capt. Schoenfeld with some alternatives to establishing an entry control point (ECP). First we could clear the small compound, a dicey maneuver given the open avenue between it and us. Second, we could pull back a block and choose better defensive positions for the night. Both were rejected in favor of doing nothing to make our present tactical situation better.

Marines were ordered to set up another ECP at the intersection and begin controlling traffic. I believe this was the result of operational habit after doing ECP ops for days on end. Standing in the road and controlling traffic is a very bad idea if you don't control the immediate terrain, particularly in an urban environment.

Cpl. Vidaña, our company radio operator, took a round through the head. It passed through, we are told, but somehow he is living.

I later learned details of Cpl. Jesus Vidaña's injury. A bullet pierced his Kevlar helmet. He was initially presumed dead, but then showed life signs. He was evacuated to a battalion aid station. The gravity of his injury was obvious, but there was no neurosurgeon nearby to treat him. Additionally, air transport to a suitable facility was unavailable. CNN's medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon, was covering medical operations at the same facility to which Cpl. Vidaña had been taken. After stating that Cpl. Vidaña would not survive the night without surgery, he requested and received permission to perform the operation himself.

I've since seen Dr. Gupta on CNN. He states that he performed five operations during his time as a journalist in Iraq. A CNN reporter saved Cpl. Vidaña's life. Amazing.

First Squad displaced from their positions on the northeast corner of the intersection facing the near compound so mortars could shell it. They hit an apartment building 400 meters beyond. It burned and the mortars were ordered to quit.

Then two cars zoomed into the intersection and were destroyed by machine-gun fire. The machine-gun section began shooting every car that came within 300 meters. One car smashed through a sandbag bunker left by Iraqis on the southeast corner of the intersection sending Marines diving clear. Machine guns peppered the car. It was a taxi with a family in it. Soon there were six or so shot-up hulks with dead and wounded. Marines on the streets organized a rescue effort to save those we now recognized as innocents. A group of eight or so Marines ran across about 150 meters of open ground and began herding people back when they all came under AK fire from the compound. We (those of us in upper windows, or forward positions on the street) successfully returned and suppressed that fire. Then as the rescue party returned with howling wounded civilians, we shouted "Tabeeb!" (doctor) out the window and pointed to the corpsmen's position.

More RPGs came whizzing in and across our position from the much larger intelligence complex on the southwest corner of the intersection. By now battalion snipers were on the roof of the building I was in, and a machine-gun team had found my floor and was up and running. It was beginning to get dark.

We began to take fire from the mosque behind us and to the south, and from side streets. I left the building with my fire team and we consolidated in a side street with Second Squad and a few Marines from Third Platoon. We sheltered there and watched rooflines and windows like hawks. A couple of bursts of AK-47 fire flew by, but that was all.

For all the shooting I had done, and all the spectacle I had witnessed from the windows on the third story, I was suddenly aware of the comparative calamity of life on the street compared to life on the third story of my building. Where I felt I had seen more enemy activity and had a freer time returning fire, Marines who spent the first two hours on the street were certainly exposed to very much more hazard. In the weeks that followed this produced an irrational guilt in me.

My journal also omits the aerial bombardment of the larger compound on the southwest corner of the intersection. The compound actually sat 150 meters or so west of the road and behind an open dirt field. The fighting had nearly died as it became dark and we got the word that an air strike was incoming. Lance Cpl. Garrard, Cpl. Siggard, Cpl. Christensen and I were standing with our backs against the steel rolling overhead door of someone's small shop. We heard the terrific, screeching, decelerating noise of an unseen F-18 followed by two enormous concussive blasts in the heart of the compound 400 to 500 meters away. The shockwave of the 1,000-pound bombs moved through the buildings and our bodies. It pushed the air out of my lungs and caused the door to buck outward pushing us away from the building.

Iraqis fighters in those Republican Guard compounds had already been silenced before the arrival of the planes. The Marines were dealing with threats from the neighborhood all around them. But the blasts, or nightfall, seemed to discourage very much more fighting.

Later we learned that air support had been requested early that afternoon, but the only planes on station were equipped with 2,000-pound bombs. They returned to base, rearmed with 1,000-pound bombs, and delivered their ordnance several hours late. I reflected that getting air support four hours late is a lot like getting no air support at all.

During the fighting I remember four RPG impacts from three directions. Other Marines said the could recall six or more, but I always suspected they were compounding the number by duplicating each other's accounts.

By now it was dark. We kicked in some doors and found some flat rooftops for the whole company. We stood a fifty percent watch staring down the streets with NVGs (night vision goggles) and SAWs (squad automatic weapons). We decided that vehicles that got too close would get two or three tracer warning shots from an M16 and then a burst of SAW fire to stop them, but none came after dark. It is generally considered that Iraqi fighters don't operate at night, or at least elect not to operate against us at night.

When the morning came an artillery barrage began to reduce the compound. Then tanks began pounding it. I don't know if there was any return firing anymore. Golf Company swept through and cleared the buildings with apparent ease.

10 Apr 0250Z

We spent the night in the captured/shattered intelligence compound. The building I am in is a barracks of sorts. I swept the glass out of the demolished kitchen and slept like a log on the floor.

Yesterday we patrolled on foot some 800 meters down a main street into the city to set up another ECP at a main intersection. We began taking fire from a security tower to the southeast. Second Squad began to maneuver against it, but the RCT's (regimental combat team's) Sgt. Maj. Leal said 7th Marines were somewhere over there and we should leave it to them. Fine. We left.

I was surprised to see the sergeant major in our area. He was just watching Marines on the sidewalk. After we started taking sporadic fire, potshots really, we took cover and Sgt. McMullen began organizing our movement. We were preparing to move when the sergeant major strolled up and waved us off. He wasn't taking cover. He was just slowly ambling down the sidewalk saying hello to Marines.

When we entered the compound where we slept last night, I found a supply room and liberated a bag of Iraqi Army socks. We sorted through the mountains of weapons left behind. These people could have fired RPGs at us all night if we had not scrambled so hard to suppress them. There were RPK machine guns (a 7.62mm Soviet light machine gun), hundreds of AK-47s, stacks of RPG rounds and launchers, and all manner of supplies and equipment.

We cleaned ourselves and sat in the shade sharing stories and details of the previous day's fight. The battle had a completely different face to those who were on the street corner, or in the buildings like me, or on a side street.

We marveled that our conflict had made the BBC and MSNBC, and had been reported as the largest ground conflict in the battle for Baghdad. Yesterday the news also reported that Baghdad has been secured. We hope it is true and that April 9 will be remembered as Iraqi Liberation Day.

After my homecoming one of the most frequent questions I initially received was, "Did you see Saddam's statue get pulled down?" That did occur on April 9, but I didn't see or hear about it until I got home. Another common question was, "Did you see Saddam's palaces?" I tell people that the statues and palaces were in the swanky quarter of town, which the Army assigned to itself.

I did not time our engagement two days ago, but the company says it lasted four hours. Second Platoon was the only element engaged that long. Third fought for about 90 minutes. First showed up later.

I don't know how I felt confident enough about the actions of other platoons to time their involvement. I only knew when I first saw members of those groups, not when they first joined the fighting. First Platoon had a running battle for several blocks in which Cpl. Vidaña was injured. Third Platoon rapidly reinforced Second (my platoon), but I didn't see them where I was until later. That doesn't mean they weren't on the street level fighting earlier, which in fact they were. Second Platoon became critically low of ammunition. Without Third's help, Second Platoon would have run been hard pressed to mount a sufficiently strong counterattack.

By the time the battle on April 8 ended, 12 Fox Marines had been wounded. Vidaña received the worst injuries. Several received concussions from being shot in the head. Their helmets absorbed the rounds and kept the Marines alive. A larger number were wounded by rocket blasts or RPG fragments. And a few had taken nasty falls while running through buildings.

It is now known that the Iraqis forced those civilians into their vehicles under threat of death and ordered them to speed into our positions. One of them was a dentist who speaks English. He explained it all. Some of the cars were driven by Iraqis in uniform but filled with civilians, Palestinians civilians reportedly. One such vehicle was a four-door Nissan truck, tan, that shot past our forward line into our depth at about 50 miles an hour. I shot about 10 rounds into the cab with about eight other Marines. The vehicle slammed into a power pole without having braked, the driver already dead. He was the only occupant in that vehicle.

In fact, the civilian vehicles shot that day could be grouped into three categories. The first were vehicles driven by Iraqi fighters at Marine targets, with or without civilian hostages onboard. Second, there were vehicles driven by civilians who were compelled by threats against their hostage families to do the same. One survivor indicated this. And third, there were civilians who innocently drove themselves into the crossfire.

"Caught in the crossfire" is the euphemism I have most frequently applied to that third category of victims, but it is misleading. It suggests we were shooting at something else. Those vehicles were targeted because they were believed to be threats. At the height of the suicide attacks there was no way to positively discriminate between attackers in cars and innocents in cars. The rules of engagement obliged us to positively identify targets. The only caveat was that nothing in the rules could be construed to curtail our ability to defend ourselves, which we did. My worst recollections of the war are connected to the people in those cars.

This is the unconventional war Saddam promised--losing tactics designed to raise the PR costs of U.S. efforts.

11 Apr 03 1052Z--United Nations Compound

This morning we left the intelligence compound where we spent two nights and a day. We moved about two kilometers to the U.N. compound to provide security to the battalion, which is now headquartered here. On the backside of the complex is the Iraqi Ministry of Tourism, some looted buildings that allow us to observe our sectors north and west. We found here foam mattresses, plastic furniture and U.N. rations. We have a hose outside from which we can supply water for the washing of bodies and clothing. We are living large.

I think the facility we stayed in behind the U.N. Headquarters building was a U.N. hosting facility. Calling it the Ministry of Tourism was a joke that only I missed.

Fox relieved Echo at this security detail, and they told us that the compound takes occasional sniper fire from the north, but we haven't received any today. We are currently manning a couple of machine-gun posts on the roof but otherwise sleeping and eating French humanitarian rations. Menu No. 2 includes a thick bar of chocolate. The label proclaims in contains a minimum of 43% cocoa. The French are manic about chocolate, its bureaucratic definition and regulation. I recall they once tangled with the Hershey people in an effort to disallow the Hershey bar from being called chocolate.

On Tuesday the 8th, the day of our engagement here, we patrolled on foot for a few kilometers through town. We walked through residential and commercial streets. Crowds of people came out to see us. They were curious and happy. The areas were closely packed with two-story buildings on narrow streets.

I talked to several men who spoke a little English. I asked them where the men with weapons were hiding and if they could point out the houses of Saddam's men. One man named Moustafe was typical. He said that his neighborhood was clean but that we should be concerned about bad men who shoot at us from passing cars. Indeed the first RPG shots at our vehicles--one ripped the canvas off one of our 7-ton trucks, and another destroyed a CAAT (combined anti-armor team) vehicle--came from a passing yellow Volkswagen Passat. I later stopped and searched a yellow Passat at gunpoint before realizing that they were all over and belonged to the local cab company. Moustafe said he and his fellows (he had about 12 men with him) were all my friends. I asked him what he thought about Saddam Hussein. The men agreed that they were glad to be rid of him. I indicated that Saddam had most likely been blown to bits. They disagreed and said he had fled to Syria. It is one thing to be grateful for U.S. intervention, but perhaps another to accept that the U.S. had rubbed out his own sovereign leader. Fled to Syria is fine.

Of course, Moustafe and I were both wrong about Saddam the despot. He was neither in Syria nor blown to bits, as we had hoped. But I think the reaction in the Middle East to Saddam's eventual ignominious capture supports my speculation about Moustafe's thinking.

About searching the Passat: I severely scared three male occupants in that vehicle. As it rounded a nearby corner into view I charged at it with my rifle up and ordered everyone out. Then I made a turning key gesture and had the driver open the trunk--empty. I scanned the cabin, which was also empty. About the time I was finishing I saw another one and realized my mistake. All I can say is that urban operations are very difficult.

We moved on. While stopped in front of someone's house, I noticed a family looking at me and commenting on something. They had a scared but curious four-year-old boy. I moved across to them and gestured to his parents for permission to give the boy a Tootsie Roll. The father said "OK" and smiled. I took my ID case out and showed them the pictures of Jane and Keith with their shining blond hair. The father beamed and seized my hand. He kissed the pictures and gestured to heaven. Mother came out and took the pictures inside to show the other women and children who all gathered inside the house. I had just given, or had taken from me, my wallet with my military ID, $80 in U.S. currency and the pictures of my family to strangers, who took it inside. When I looked apprehensive the man laughed at me. The wallet came back complete. Smiles all around.

In another neighborhood we halted to listen to the sounds of First Platoon engaged two blocks away. Unknown to us they were taking heavy RPG fire. I assumed the explosions were our rockets being fired, not inbound RPGs. A gate opened and a girl Jane's age and a boy Keith's age came out. She herded her brother about, in the same way Jane would do Keith, while they delivered rose blossoms to Marines kneeling or prone. HM2 (Hospital Corpsman Second Class) Tony Parks got three for some reason. The children's parents stood in their courtyard smiling and waving.

We moved on again and within an hour were committed to battle.

12 Apr 03 38SMB 50568847 (U.N. Compound)

Yesterday I stood watch on the roof of this place for two hours between 1400 and 1600Z. I stared north at the highway and watched for trouble. I watched a squad from Echo Company on a westbound foot patrol. I was staring right at them when a blast occurred right in the middle of their tactical column. The Marine closest fell, rose again, hopped a few steps away and then went down. There was no sign of a nearby enemy and there had been no familiar screech of RPGs. It didn't look like a mortar blast. It was a landmine.

I radioed it in with a direction and a distance from my post. I used my GPS to project the grid of the incident and radioed that in too. Two civilians nearby threw up white flags and were detained but released. A few minutes went by while we watched from our roof and tried to get info about who, how bad, etc. A CAAT Humvee appeared with a .50-caliber rifle and provided security for the Humvee ambulance and the seven-ton that appeared. They carted off the wounded man and the foot patrol continued. The patrol moved northwest away from the road.

Last night we learned that the injured Marine had picked up the mine and handled it. It detonated when he tossed it down. Stupid. The extent of his injuries is still unknown to us.

I stood watch again from 2230 to 0015Z. A quiet watch. Afterward I went into the U.N. building and used the phones to call home. I talked to Shari, who cried a little. She told me about the kids. According to Keith, he is no longer my "Little Guy," John is. John is now "Little Guy." Keith is the "Big Guy," as I used to be, and Keith says to John, "You're the Little Guy, I'm the Big Guy, but there is this other Big Guy, but he's huge!" So I'm the Huge Guy. I miss that boy.

Jane cried a little too. She is very tender. I received a letter from Shari yesterday and she reports that Jane said, "My heart misses Daddy so much my tummy hurts." I know a little about how she feels.

I tried to call home two days ago but I couldn't raise Shari. I did connect with Dad though. I told him the story about nabbing that general at my checkpoint. This morning I took a shower for the first time since leaving Camp Coyote. There are showers in this building, but no running water. I filled a steel bucket of cold water from a basin outside and took it into a questionable shower stall. I used a plastic pitcher, a bar of Lava soap (the official soap of Nascar) and a sponge to clean away nearly a month of impacted grime. The occasional wet-wipe has not been sufficient, but the cold shower was a delight. I put on clean underwear, shook the dust off my uniform, and I feel great.

The current rumor has it that we will be leaving this compound around noon today for the barracks we left two days ago. Then in two days we will begin moving back to Kuwait. Units will "leapfrog" or "bound" back, securing the route for each other as they go. But rumors are what they are, and word continually changes.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/btaylor/?id=110004677

(Feb. 23: Part 5--Mission Accomplished)
Go To: A Marine's Journal, Part 5 (parts 1-5)

Copyright © 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.



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This is...
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GLOBE and ANCHOR
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By R.W. "Dick" Gaines
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1952-72
Semper Fidelis
~~~~~~~~~~

GENERALS AND THE PRESIDENCY

February 13, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Beware Generals Bearing a Grudge
By JEAN EDWARD SMITH

HUNTINGTON, W.Va.

In pulling out of the Democratic presidential race, Gen. Wesley Clark ended what was once a promising quest to join the long line of men who converted battlefield prominence into political victory. The military is one of the traditional springboards to the White House: 12 former generals have been president, six of them career military men (only lawyers have done better). Yet no general has ascended to the Oval Office for half a century.

So is the demise of the Clark campaign another sign that in the urban, affluent, white-collar America of today the armed forces no longer hold enough respect to sell their best and brightest to the electorate? Probably not. Wesley Clark was never an heir to the tradition of Andrew Jackson and Ulysses S. Grant. Rather, his military career and personality fit neatly into a different military category: generals who became political also-rans.

First, consider the qualities of the six career generals who won the White House. They were national icons swept into office on a tide of popular enthusiasm. George Washington was a unanimous choice of the Electoral College. Andrew Jackson, victor at New Orleans, led the crusade for democratic reform. William Henry Harrison won enduring fame at the Battle of Tippecanoe, as did Zachary Taylor at Buena Vista. Grant and Dwight Eisenhower led citizen armies to victory in the two greatest wars the nation has faced. In each case, the office sought the man, not vice versa.

Yet, surprisingly, these men shared a gift for managing men quietly. Their warm personalities cast a glow over their subordinates. They took their jobs seriously, but not themselves. Eisenhower, Taylor and Grant were ordinary men who did extraordinary jobs. They commanded unobtrusively, did not posture for the press or pronounce on matters of public policy. All were highly intelligent but resisted putting their intelligence on display. Their military dispatches were crisply written in unadorned English. And if given orders they disagreed with, they complied without complaint.

Taylor, "Old Rough and Ready," rarely wore a uniform. Grant was most at ease in the blouse of a private soldier. The Ike jacket of World War II was designed for comfort, not ceremony. All three identified with the citizen-soldiers they led, and each was adored by the armies they commanded. They worked easily with their superiors and their skill at human relations transferred readily from war to politics.

By contrast, famous generals who lost the presidency — including Winfield Scott, John C. Frémont, George McClellan, Winfield Scott Hancock, Leonard Wood and Douglas MacArthur — ran to prove themselves right. All had clashed with their civilian superiors, and their campaigns imploded for the same reasons that led to those clashes: assertions of intellectual superiority, moral certitude and the lack of a common touch. They were men who made a point of standing apart. They possessed messianic confidence in the correctness of every position they adopted, and had difficulty adjusting to views contrary to their own. To put it simply: they took themselves very seriously.

Temperament tells the difference. The also-rans were singular achievers. MacArthur finished first in his class at West Point, McClellan second. MacArthur and Leonard Wood won the Medal of Honor. Frémont mapped the Oregon Trail. Scott, a major general at 27, was the Army's general in chief for two decades. (Only Hancock seems in temperament more like those who won the presidency — thus it is not surprising that he came closest to getting the job, losing to James A. Garfield by 7,000 votes in 1880.)

Each of the also-rans shared the distinction of having been relieved of his command or placed on the shelf by higher authority. Winfield Scott, after capturing Mexico City and subduing the Mexican army, was summarily relieved by President James Polk in 1848; he suffered a crushing electoral defeat at the hands of Franklin Pierce four years later. Frémont was not only relieved of his command, but court-martialed and convicted for insubordination and mutiny in 1848 (Polk granted him clemency). He became the Republican nominee for president in 1856, losing to James Buchanan.

After Lincoln removed McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac, the "Young Napoleon" became an outspoken critic of Lincoln's conduct of the war and ran against the president in 1864. Winfield Scott Hancock was relieved by Grant as military governor of Louisiana for being too lax in enforcing Reconstruction.

Leonard Wood charged up San Juan Hill with Theodore Roosevelt in the Spanish-American War and was appointed Army chief of staff in 1910. Wood wore out his welcome at the Wilson White House and was not reappointed when his term expired, and was forced to spend World War I at a training camp in the United States. He led the first eight ballots at the 1920 Republican convention before delegates broke for Warren G. Harding. Douglas MacArthur was of course relieved by President Harry S. Truman for insubordination during the Korean War and returned to give a triumphal speech to a joint session of Congress. He entered several Republican primaries in the 1952 race, but found little resonance for his candidacy.

MacArthur, McClellan and Winfield Scott in particular were great soldiers. But their school of command rested on charisma. Their dispatches were cast in heroic prose, designed with an eye to future historians. Scott, "Old Fuss and Feathers," wore all the uniform the law allowed. McClellan and MacArthur always dressed for the occasion. All three insisted on ultimate command; this can be a valuable military virtue, but it is scarcely a skill transferable to the political arena.

Wesley Clark has more than a little in common with those whose political ambitions met frustration. A Rhodes Scholar who led his class at West Point, he was not a team player. He wore his ambition on his sleeve. He fought heroically in Vietnam but was made to sit out the Persian Gulf war at a training command in California. The leadership passed him over for duty with the joint staff in Washington, and he was not the Army's first choice to take over military command of NATO in the 1990's. Famously, he was relieved of his NATO command by President Bill Clinton after he clashed repeatedly with his military and civilian superiors.

During the campaign, comments by his former colleagues cemented this picture. Gen. Hugh Shelton, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, questioned General Clark's character and integrity. Former Defense Secretary William Cohen reportedly said he believed selecting General Clark for the NATO job was one of the worst decisions he ever made. Even Gen. John Shalikashvili, who as chairman of the Joint Chiefs was General Clark's most powerful supporter in the military, acknowledged that he "lacked the warmth and humanity that truly great commanders need."

On the campaign trail, General Clark remained tightly wound, pitting his drive and intellect against the system. The same question that dogged him during his military career continued to arise: Does Wes Clark have a goal other than Wes Clark? I was most struck when he told The New Yorker that he became a Democrat because Karl Rove, the Bush White House adviser, never returned his calls. It is easy to imagine George McClellan saying something similar.


Jean Edward Smith, a professor at Marshall University and author of "Grant," is writing a biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt.



Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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1952-72
Semper Fidelis
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AN OLD SET OF MARINE DRESS BLUES...

Newsday.com

One Set of Dress Blues, Two Marines
Ed Lowe





February 22, 2004

Joseph P. Cope, 66, of Wantagh, grew up in a neighborhood called the Baisley Park section of Queens, near what then was Idlewild Airport. It later expanded exponentially and was renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport.

A freshly minted graduate of the High School of Graphic Arts in Manhattan, Cope enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1955. He was 17. Other friends and acquaintances from the neighborhood had served in the Marine Corps, among them Owen South, now 72, a retired schoolteacher who lives in Schenectady.

South had served in the 1st Marine Division from 1949 until 1953, much of his tour spent in the Korean War. "He was a forward observer at the Chosin Reservoir," Cope said. "They took a lot of casualties. Theirs was the first big battle where the Chinese came into it."

Last year, in an interview with the capital region's Sunday Gazette newspaper, South recalled the Nov. 27, 1950, battle over "Hill 1240," a mountain to the north of Yudam-ni, where the Marines were outnumbered 5-to-1.

"Our first platoon got halfway up that hill," South was quoted as saying, "and there were at least 1,000 Chinese dug in on the ridge. They [the Marines] got kind of massacred. We all got our wounded out, we got a lot of the dead, and we went back to our position," the Gazette story reads. "Right behind us there was a whole regiment of artillery. We could not let that fall into the hands of the enemy." They had to continue fighting, he said.

Eventually surrounded, the company of 200 men fought all night. The newspaper story continues: "When a platoon from the 5th Marines arrived to relieve, only 16 Marines were still able to fight."

South returned to Queens and married a sister of Joe Cope's close friend Ed Visser, who had enlisted in the Navy. In 1956, having heard that Cope planned to finish his active duty and remain in the Marine Corps Reserves for as long as he could, South gave his Marine issue Dress Blue uniform to Cope.

"In the mid-1950s," Cope recalled, "the Marine Corps only issued dress uniforms to ship detachments, recruiters, embassy guards and special units. You could buy a set, and all Marines always wanted a set, but they were expensive. They could cost a month's pay or more.

"I served weekends once a month at Floyd Bennett Field," said Cope, "over on Flatbush Avenue by the naval base. Actually, when it got hot, during Vietnam, we were flying every week, because we originally thought we were going to get called up, but we didn't."

Cope retired from the reserves in 1983, as a first sergeant. Meanwhile, having started out as a Local 157 carpenter's union member, he eventually became a construction superintendent "for one of the largest finishers of interiors in the city of New York," he said, proudly. "We worked on everything from the World Trade Center to the Jacob Javits Center.

"During my years in the reserves," he said, I got quite a lot of use out of Owen's dress blues, since I stayed so long. There always were color guards, Toys for Tots parties, the annual Marine Corps Birthday Ball every November, some funerals, of course, and many parades and ceremonies over the years."

Cope finally retired from his job in 2001 after 42 years. His wife, Angela, needled him to jettison some of the clutter he had accumulated in the storage room upstairs, things he never would use again, like the military paraphernalia.

Cope reviewed the uniform items in his closet. "One was a summer service tan, a staff NCO uniform," he said, "no longer used by the Corps. We used to call them 'tropical' uniforms. They're now obsolete. So, I donated it to a uniform display they were setting up at the 1st Marine Corps District Headquarters in Garden City. The other was a set of Marine, herringbone dungarees that are in demand by collectors. I gave them to a friend in the Sunrise Detachment of the Marine Corps League in Massapequa.

"Then, I came across the old dress blues. In 1966, the Marine Corps had come out with a new, gabardine dress blue uniform, and since Owen's was getting to be a tight fit on me, I bought a new set. But somehow, I could never bring myself to throw his out. One time, I even removed all the brass buttons to get it ready for discard, but I still didn't throw it out. In the back of my mind, it was a connection with my younger years, and a time when the world was a much calmer place to live in.

"'Now,' I thought to myself, 'it would be a kick to return them to Owen after all these years and let him determine what should be done,'" Cope said.

Cope had no notion where he might find Owen South, but he knew that Ed Visser still lived in Roslyn, though he, too, had retired from his job with the Transit Authority. They had not seen each other in 10 years. Cope called Visser to find out if South was still alive, and, if so, where he lived. Visser, having sold his house, was in the process of packing to move to Pennsylvania. He said it was amazing that Cope should be calling about Owen, because Owen had just undergone a triple bypass surgery. He told Cope that South lived in Schenectady and gave him South's address. Now, Cope was stunned. His son, Kevin, was a family practice doctor in Broadalbin, not 20 miles from where South lived.

Cope procured a new set of buttons for the old uniform, had them sewn on and had the uniform dry-cleaned, then packed it carefully and sent it Owen South, without any warning.

"He called me right away, when he received it," Cope said. "He couldn't believe his eyes. When he checked inside the coat, there was his name stamped in the right sleeve, where he had put it when he got it 50 years earlier. He said what a terrific lift it had given him. When he tried it on, it fit perfectly. We were on the phone almost an hour, and we've talked pretty often since then and exchanged letters.

"In August, he surprised me," Cope said. "He sent me a copy of the July 27 Schenectady newspaper with a picture of him on the front page in his dress blue uniform. They were paying tribute to the local veterans who had fought in Korea, for the 50th anniversary of the truce signing, with stories of each of their war experiences. Since then, he's told me that getting the uniform back, that old 'Marine Spirit' had awakened in him so much that he has even joined the local Marine Corp League detachment where he lives. Once a Marine, always a Marine."

Illustration by Janet Hamlin

Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/columnists/ny-lflowe3678788feb22,0,4770582.column?coll=ny-li-columnists
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CAMP TARAWA, 1943

Waimea community embodies proud history
Submitted by: MCB Hawaii
Story Identification Number: 200421317592
Story by Sarah Fry



WAIMEA, Hawaii(February 13, 2004) -- When Pearl Harbor was bombed in December of 1941, about 400 residents lived in the Big Island community of Waimea -- now known as "Kamuela" -- most of them employee families of the huge Parker Ranch, and a few related businesses. The community was diverse, including Hawaiians, Chinese, Filipinos and, by a significant majority, Japanese.

Waimea residents and cowboys -- known in Hawaii as "paniolos" -- quickly came together to organize 24-hour watches against further Japanese attack. The Hawaii National Guard, then the U.S. Army, set up an encampment at the edge of town on Parker Ranch.

Within months, thousands of American service men were fighting in the Pacific. After the bloody Battle of Tarawa in November 1943, remnants of the 2nd Marine Division arrived in Hawaii. Their wounded were unloaded at Pearl Harbor and taken to the Naval hospital at Aiea -- now the Marine Forces Pacific headquarters building at Camp H. M. Smith. The battle-scarred survivors who did not need hospitalization were taken to the Big Island of Hawaii to recover and rebuild the division.

Of the Marines shipped to Hilo, some were moved by truck, but most were loaded into open rail cars to travel the 65 miles to Waimea on a narrow-gauge line usually used to transport sugar cane. Fog and mist shrouded the passage and winds chilled the ragged division. A few division members were landed on the beach, 16 miles from Waimea by landing ship tanks, or LSTs.

The Marines' new camp was located in a saddle between Hawaii's two volcanoes, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, which towered in the distance. Ever-breezy Waimea was not the "island paradise" many of the men had expected.

The Marines were battle-weary and cold, still wearing the uniforms in which they had fought and sailed back in across the Pacific. Many were sick with malaria. Though their morale sank as they surveyed their new "home," before they could rest they would need to resurrect what they would come to call "Camp Tarawa." The good news was that a detachment of Navy Seabees arrived to help.

Parker Ranch owner Richard Smart had leased 40,000 acres to the Marine Corps for $1 a year. When 2nd Marine Division arrived, he moved out of his home, Puu Opelo, so it could become division headquarters. The Waimea school and hotel were converted to hospitals. Parker Hall became the local United Service Organizations.

Women took in washing. Families invited Marines into their homes on weekends for home-cooked meals. When Marines received "free" time, they joined forces with townspeople to play against outsiders, held boxing matches and basketball games.

The Marines sorely needed blankets and warm clothing items. Most personal gear had been lost in the battle. Entrepreneurs showed up to sell everything from newspapers to hot dogs.

As 2nd Marine Division began to recover and to retrain in earnest, it made major changes in the community. The Marines dammed the Waimea River miles upstream and piped water down to the town. They ran electricity throughout the area, replacing kerosene as the fuel for lights. They also built an icehouse, where they made ice cream for the troops and local children.

The division practiced amphibious landings, air cover and amphibious tank operations in preparation for its next battle assignment, at Saipan, then Tinian and, for the 8th Marine Regiment, Okinawa. When 2nd Marine Division left Waimea for Saipan, artillery units of "V" Amphibious Corps continued to train on the mountain ranges.
A few weeks later, trucks rumbled into town bearing the newly formed 5th Marine Division, just arrived from Camp Pendleton, Calif. These Marines donned new gear and equipment and seemed younger and more willing to laugh than the battle-hardened troops now on their way to the Marshall Islands.

The 5th Marine Division trained, in part, by assaulting two volcanic formations on Parker Ranch. Lava ash slowed the Marines' progress as they fought their way up the steep slopes, but many knew that their hard work at Camp Tarawa was in preparation for the coming assault on Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi in the Volcano Islands.

The Marines introduced rodeo to Hawaii, where cattle raising and horse breaking had a long history as a business, not a sport. Parker Ranch provided horses, steers and calves for the rodeo, and a huge barbecue for the participants and onlookers to enjoy.

On Christmas Day 1944, the division mounted out for landing rehearsals at Maalea Bay, then headed for Iwo Jima. Those not killed or seriously wounded returned to Camp Tarawa in April 1945, and began to rebuild for the invasion of the Japanese home islands.

When the war ended, the 5th Marine Division was sent to Japan for occupation duty, and the Army took over Camp Tarawa, auctioning off equipment and structures.
In 1984, the Waimea Civic Club erected a monument outside Waimea, along Mamalahoa Highway, to remember the one-time home to two Marine Divisions.
-30-

Photos included with story:
The Camp Tarawa Memorial honors the heroic Marines and Sailors of the 5th Marine Division, who trained at Camp Tarawa in preparation for the Feb. 19, 1945, assault on the island of Iwo Jima during World War II. Photo by: Courtesy of the Pacific War Memorial Association
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/main5/DD28BF19556CA2C685256E39007E4121?opendocument
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/main5/DD28BF19556CA2C685256E39007E4121?opendocument


Text version of story is attached below:

WaimeaHistory.txt



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This is...
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By R.W. "Dick" Gaines
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Semper Fidelis
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A MARINE'S JOURNAL, PART 3

A MARINE'S JOURNAL
The March to Baghdad
A MARINE'S JOURNAL. PART 3
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Back To PART 1, Here!

Part 3 of a frontline account of Iraq's liberation.
BY BRIAN TAYLOR
Monday, February 9, 2004 12:01 a.m.

(Editor's note: Mr. Taylor joined the Marine Corps Reserves in 1996 and was called up for service in February 2002. His enlistment expired in November 2003. He kept this journal while deployed with Fox Company, Second Battalion, 23rd Marines in Kuwait and Iraq. Comments in italics were added after his return to clarify and expand his account and to define military terminology for the benefit of civilian readers. Four-digit numbers followed by "Z" are time codes in Greenwich Mean Time; codes of the format "38RQU 29141756" are 8-digit MGRS grid coordinates indicating his location at the time. This is the second of five parts; click to read Part 1 or Part 2.)

30 Mar 03, 0470Z, 38RNA 90442992

Yesterday afternoon the whole battalion moved into town. Echo Company secured the bridge so Fox could push through and secure a block of sixteen houses. There were four rows of homes and Second Platoon secured rows one and three. We kicked in doors and scared some people pretty badly. But local intelligence sources had indicated that this neighborhood housed most of this town's Baath officials. I found and escorted out a guy who turned out to be the third-highest-ranking party official found in southern Iraq. At least that's what they told me.

These things aren't hard distinctions to make. You pick the guy who looks at you with hate not fear, and you have your man. Baath Party officials also live better, are better fed, better educated, better dressed. And it all shows. Still, it gave me no joy to see women and children pried out of their homes so we could conduct our search. One black-robed woman was so old that I wondered she could move down the alley at all. Another fellow stood about 6-foot-4, thin and bearded, in a white robe and a gray sport coat. He was a worn-out old fellow. He communicated by gesture and shout that he had no ties with Saddam, and said in English, "I love you, and you!" I was alone in the room with him. I had my rifle at the ready and told him "In baht ih!" (lie down), which he did. From the floor he pointed up at me and said, "You No. 1!" With my free hand I gestured back at him with my index finger, "I love you too. You're No. 1 in my book." I was smiling by then. He came back with another "You No. 1!" I said the same thing back to him, and it went back and forth for a moment.

We escorted all the women and children out of that house, then my new fan. We did some damage to door frames kicking in locked doors. Garrard shot a lock off. But when the searching was done, all but those few who were taken away were free to filter through us back to their homes. It was strange passing among them after such an invasion, but they seemed happy and grateful. A couple of men approached me and somehow indicated their gratitude, or pretended to. I believe by their gestures they were happy to be rid of Baath Party overlords and hopeful to be shut of Saddam.

We rolled through town and dug in on the other side.

1 Apr 03

We've moved back to the east side of town. We're approximately where we were on 28 Mar. The other day members of the Army's 65th Engineers came around with a backhoe and dug Garrard and me a deluxe position not 1,200 meters from here, so we knew a move was coming. We get whipsawed about every time we move. They put us down and tell us to "dig here." Then some busy beaver decides we should move again and start digging all over again 20 meters away. Stupid.

The usual rationale for this was that one of our officers liked the look of the ground better "over there." But it was all the same flat, muddy bog.

And Capt. Schoenfeld is making himself look positively ridiculous. He rages about garbage on the roadside (there is a lot of MRE trash strewn about, to be sure). He demands to know whose it is. Convoy vehicles come and go all day and throw their garbage out their windows. It could be anyone's. He has us form up on line and police call. Then he howls that we're all bunched up, "Spread out, you're still in combat, you know." I have to wonder which is the case, do we line up and pick up trash, or are we in combat?

The complaining tone of the April 1 entries reflects the frustration we felt at being stopped for days at a time in the same place. The concept of the invasion as explained to us was a "race to Baghdad," a race we felt we could lose only by standing still. Also, as we had outrun our supply lines, we were living on one meal a day and feeling the effects. I reserved these complaints for my journal.

We were to secure this road junction for a month. The Army requested a 30-day "operational pause" so it could catch up its lagging "log trains." But the Marine Corps balked at the idea of giving away the initiative by standing still for a month, and told the Army that there will be no monthlong pauses. Five to seven days until the log trains are caught up, then the RCTs (Regimental Combat Teams) will be maneuvering toward Baghdad and wherever else the Republican Guard is to be found.

2 April 03

Today we had a memorial service for Staff Sgt. Cawley. A flag was erected on the roadside near where he died and a rifle upended on the point of its bayonet in the ground with his helmet on its butt. Cpls. Giles, Christensen, Carpenter and Lee sang "Abide With Me Tis Eventide." The chaplain spoke. We sang "Rock of Ages." Staff Sgt. Ivers said a few words about his best friend. There was a 21-gun salute. Taps.

Two days ago the Mormon contingent gathered for a worship service. We sang the songs of the faith:

Why should we mourn, or think our lot is hard?
Tis not so, all is right.
Why should we think to earn a great reward,
If we now shun the fight?
Gird up your loins, fresh courage take,
Our God will never us forsake.
And soon we'll have this tale to tell,
All is well, all is well.

I said to Garrard last night, "Garrard, I am a happy person, even here." And we agreed that cold nights, long watches, occasional combat operations don't make fundamentally happy people unhappy. In fact, adversity underscores true happiness.

About James E. Cawley's memorial service: It was a brief, dusty, manly affair, a ceremony for a fallen warrior. It was the kind of service that men who die of old age or sickness wish they could have.

We're still defending the same junction on Route 7. We move our position once or twice a day to keep the enemy from getting us zeroed in with artillery. I don't believe they have that capability here or are that organized. But we move and dig, move and dig.

5 Apr 03, 38SNB 44260785

We are a couple miles east of An Numiniyah. Two days ago we left our position on Route 7 and sped most of the way to Al Kut. Reportedly, this was a ruse de guerre designed to draw a Republican Guard division out of Kut to engage our "soft" unarmored battalion. And reportedly it worked. When we closed within 10 kilometers of Al Kut our convoy turned around and sped back the way it came. Any Iraqi forces that moved out of Kut to engage us were destroyed from the air. Maneuver warfare.

We cut over to Highway 8 and surged up to Numiniyah to seize a bridge there. When we arrived the bridge had already been taken and secured. A few smoldering T-62s, trucks, and antiair pieces were all that remained of the "light resistance" we had been promised.

We moved into a schoolyard in the city and occupied the abandoned schoolhouse for the night. But before an hour passed someone realized we might be vulnerable to attack there, so we left.

Now we are blocking the road between Kut and Baghdad to prevent Iraqi reinforcements from getting to the capital. Last night my team manned the wire-and-sandbag gate on the road. We stopped and searched every person who came through. One lone Iraqi man, short and plump, tried to drive around our Arabic stop sign and our sandbags. We yelled "Qif! Qif!" (Stop! Stop!) and waved our arms, but he kept coming. Three Marines were killed yesterday at a similar gate (not Marines in our group, but elsewhere). I ordered Garrard to fire. He let four rounds burp out of his SAW (squad automatic weapon). All the rusty radiator fluid immediately fell out of the man's truck and a very startled Iraqi popped out. I surged forward over the barricade with my rifle ready. I seized the man by the shirt and yelled at him, "Do you have any [expletive deleted] idea how close you came to getting yourself killed?" I said other things too, but the immediate attitude was one of intense relief that we had not killed another motorist. The company staff seemed delighted too, but all the thanks go to Garrard who knew he could disable a truck with one burst.

When I gave the order for John to shoot, I intended that he kill that man before he could get any closer. The reasoning was that anyone who ignored our signs, our roadblock and our verbal warnings was probably an attacker. We could not afford to let people just drive up on us. But John said, "I'm going for the tires." He instantly changed his mind about the tires and put four rounds into the radiator in a group the size of an orange. Our training urges us to shoot to kill, but John used some judgment instead and saved a man's life.

This man's only crime, it turned out, was stupidity, which shouldn't be a capital offense. The commanding officer came running up, listened to the story, and was pleased that we had stopped the vehicle without killing an innocent. No one was happier about it than I was, though. We searched the truck and found nothing but empty chicken crates. In spite of his protests about the engine, we convinced the man to drive his truck out of the way. He made it 200 meters beyond our area and then the engine seized. I watched him walk away.

RCT 1 is scheduled to move through here today en route to Baghdad. When they pass, we expect to follow to Baghdad.

6 Apr 03 0234Z 38SNB 89344663

We bivouacked by the road last night in some town 60 kilometers from Baghdad. There were several spectacular explosions five or six kilometers north of here during the night, slow billowing fiery explosions that spewed fire and sparks into the dark. And, of course, we heard the sound of artillery bombardment.

U.S. Forces can be detected by GPS satellite tracking rolling around freely in Baghdad. Although we have no reports of hard fighting in the city, Saddam has promised to make Baghdad our graveyard. The main effect of that rhetoric is to impel a stream of refugees out of the city along this road.

At our check post near Numiniyah yesterday, hundreds of people streamed through, many of them young men no doubt fleeing their posts. I captured an Iraqi general on his way north when he tried to pass through our checkpoint in civilian clothes. I found an FN Hi-Power 9mm pistol under his seat bearing the stamp of the Iraqi Army. It was inscribed with the words, "A gift of our grateful leader, Saddam" in Arabic of course. A translator from the HET team (Human Exploitation Team) gave us the translation.

When I first spotted the pistol under the driver's seat I called out, "I've got a gun!" Lance Cpl. Jeremy Walker, Second Platoon's resident martial-arts pro, put the general on the deck with an expertly applied arm-bar takedown. Walker then proceeded to immobilize him by manipulating his arms and wrists into uncomfortable knots behind his back. The man cried out loud as Walker escorted him with a standing wrist manipulation all the way back to the command post. The S2 found papers on him compelling Baath forces in the north to continue the fight.

The general told Capt. Robertson, the S2 or battalion intelligence chief, that he was not in the military, that he was, in fact, a farmer. Capt. Roberston, a reservist, is himself a farmer. He has coarse, powerful farmer's hands. He seized the already shaken Iraqi by the wrist and raised the man's hand to his face yelling, "These are not farmer's hands!" And then showing his own bear paws, "These are farmer's hands!" Capt. Robertson reported to me that the man broke down and wept again.

Garrard pushed his white Nissan truck off the road into the mud. He had aimed for the small pond beyond the mud flat beside the road, but it bogged down. Later in the afternoon, feeling large, I gave the truck to a couple of southbound teenage pedestrians, the key still being in the switch. But they couldn't get it out of the mud without the aid of 10 other passersby. Twelve young Iraqis pushed it out of the mud. They all cheered and piled in the back as it sped off, each one suddenly feeling he had a 1/12th interest in the general's truck.

I gave the truck away because it was a nuisance and potential hazard. Every pedestrian who walked by stopped and petitioned for it. I said no to the first few hundred, but I eventually wanted it gone.

At the gate on the north side of our position Broberg seized an Iraqi major. The man had his uniform with him and was foolish enough to attempt to conceal an AK-47 as well.

We only spent two days screening refugees and searching vehicles at that position. It was a busy time. It was the time when we had the most direct contact with Iraqis. For the most part they were cooperative and friendly. We had fun talking to people and practicing our meager Arabic. Fox Company generated some important intelligence from the seizures we made. We were relieved there by a company from a recon battalion. It was galling to them to be relieving a company of infantry reservists at an ECP operation (entry control point; the roadblock/checkpoint operations we regularly conducted during the invasion). They said, "We're Recon. This is not what we do." First Sgt. Lopez pointed out that we had had some intelligence successes, and that intelligence was the point of recon. For some reason this didn't soothe their feelings.

0902Z 38SMBB 62597705

We are stopped 21 kilometers south of Baghdad. We are shuffling the convoy and linking up with Fifth Marines for the move north.

Col. Dowdy, the regimental commander of RCT 1, was reportedly relieved yesterday. This journal recalls my frustration with our pace through southern Iraq. Evidently I wasn't alone. He was relieved for going too slow.

Yesterday the temperature was 102 degrees, way too hot to be wearing a MOPP suit. It's equally hot today, so on my own authority I shed my coat. I dug my hygiene kit out of my pack and had a roadside shave. I bathed my head with a sponge to dissolve the film of dirt I earn by riding the tailgate everyday. Marines can wash or not wash, but I see it as an excuse to rub water on my head and cool off.

MOPP stands for Mission Oriented Protective Posture, a particularly tortured-sounding military acronym describing the nuclear, biological and chemical threat level. MOPP suits are charcoal-lined chemical-protective overgarments. They are about as comfortable as a layer of thick denim. The upshot is that a MOPP suit can save your life if you are exposed to chemical or biological weapons in gas, powder or liquid form. They can even protect a body from some nuclear contaminants.

RCT 1 is assigned to secure Saddam City, a sector of Baghdad on the north side of town. It is said to be a slum. Let us get there and do it before we dehydrate.

7 Apr 03 0433Z 38SMB 65638514

We occupied some rich Iraqi's house last night. We're guarding a massive enemy ammo dump, and the house offers the best observation on several avenues of approach. The owner complained and left asking that we not pillage the place, a reasonable request. But while clearing the house, Cpl. Hall (First Platoon) was menaced by one of the canine inhabitants. Hall shot the dog at a two-meter range and sprayed blood all over. Hall was pretty upset by this. When the owner heard about it an hour later he was upset too.

Second Platoon dug in around the structure while machine guns set up on top.

When we woke this morning the word was passed to go to MOPP level zero--take off the stifling chemical suit and don cammies again. We feel great. I shifted to clean underwear as well and burned the old. I washed my body as well as I could with wet-wipes and a degree of civilization was restored.

Marines are gossiping about what the change to MOPP zero could mean. Has there been a surrender? Or is a cease-fire imminent? Have all commanders with authority to release chemical weapons been neutralized? To be sure, the U.S. has not ceased firing on Baghdad. The thunder of bombardment continues. Artillery units must be the busiest killers on the ground. All day and night the bang of the cannons and the clapping boom of their distant impacts can be heard.

This ammo dump we guard is reportedly filled with 10,000 armor-piercing artillery shells sold to Iraq by France. The damnable French and their haughty Old World contempt for American leadership in this war. Their objection was not one of conscience, but of complicity.

I don't know how anyone really knew those munitions were French. Maybe they had French markings, but I didn't see them myself. It was just rumor.

EOD (Explosives Ordnance Disposal) is supposed to blow this whole place to hell later today. Many more dogs will die.

0809Z--ECP ops today. We are denying access to the city to all traffic: vehicles and pedestrians. The refugees approach us and we search them and send them south, east or west. These people are poor and thin. They almost uniformly carry a pack of cigarettes, a lighter and a wad of cash--probably their net worth. Sometimes when searching vehicles we'll find bags of cash best measured by the gallon, as in, "I found a four-gallon bag of cash on this one!" Response: "No weapons? Then let him go." We guess their currency is of little value. Most of the Iraqis I search are surprised when I inspect their money and then return it all. I believe they are used to being shaken down.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/btaylor/?id=110004644

(Friday: Part 4--Liberation Day.)
To PART 4, HERE!!!!!

Copyright © 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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This is...
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By R.W. "Dick" Gaines
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1952-72
Semper Fidelis
~~~~~~~~~~

"...TWO-FISTED, TELL-IT-LIKE-IT-IS MARINE..."

Jacksonville Daily News
http://www.jdnews.com
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Granite-jawed Marine stood his ground on WMD
February 12, 2004
DAVID H. HACKWORTH
KING FEATURES

Like it or not, Maj. Scott Ritter had it right all along.

Most of the rest of us, from the president to his key advisers, such as Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, Wolfowitz and Tenet, to the majority of Congress and to most of the talking heads - including the pre-Iraq War NBC analyst David Kay, who reported WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) behind every Iraqi sand dune - blew it big-time when it came down to the awesome arsenal that Saddam had supposedly squirreled away.

Ritter, the United Nations' chief weapons inspector in Iraq until 1998, took us all on - virtually alone, against incredible odds - stating, "Iraq is not a threat to the U.S." and begging the American people to take charge and not "sit back and allow your government to go to war against Iraq ... [without all] the facts on the table to back this war up."

As per his reputation on training fields and battlefields, this granite-jawed former Marine stood his ground and never flinched. He reminds me of another two-fisted, tell-it-like-it-is Marine, Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, the recipient of two Medals of Honor, who was almost drummed out of the Marine Corps twice: Once in the 1930s for calling Benito Mussolini a "fascist," and once again a few years later when he rattled the military-industrial complex by daring to declare that "War is a racket."

Ritter, too, took serious punishment from his critics - and instead of doing proper due diligence or asking hard questions, the media quickly piled on. It was not Fox's finest hour when that network gleefully painted him as a 21st-century Benedict Arnold - not that he had many primetime advocates anywhere else. Even CNN's usually evenhanded Paula Zahn said to Ritter six months before America unleashed its miscalculated military solution on Iraq, "People out there are accusing you of drinking Saddam Hussein's Kool-Aid."

Eighteen months later, Ritter has not only survived the relentless ridicule and all the scurrilous attempts at character assassination, he's clearly been vindicated. And by one David Kay, who dismissed Ritter's prewar analysis with: "Either he lied to you then or he's lying to you now. ... He's gone completely the other way. I cannot explain it on the basis of known facts."

Ritter doesn't come close to buying Kay's present-day convenient conclusion - now spun into a pre 2004-election pass-the-buck revisionist chant - that our $30 billion-a-year spook op goofed. Ritter says, "It's the old story of people going-along-to-get-along who put their careers ahead of their country."

Ritter doesn't let President Bush off the hook, either: "He should rightly be held accountable for what increasingly appears to be deliberately misleading statements made by him and members of his administration regarding the threat posed by Iraq's WMD." I asked Ritter if he felt totally exonerated. "I would feel a lot better if there were a way to reverse the hands of time," he told me, "so that people would have paid more attention to what I said in the past, and we didn't find ourselves caught up in this ongoing tragedy."

What a shame that the president and his platoon of let's-get-Saddam neocons, Congress and the CIA's Tenet didn't listen to the man-in-the-know when he cautioned: "U.S. and Iraqi casualties will be significant. ... We can't go to war based on ignorance."

But go to war we did. And now we've filled more than 530 body bags, medevaced thousands of soldiers, caused thousands more to be psychologically scarred, created tens of thousands of Iraqi casualties and stuck ourselves dead center in an ever-deepening tar pit.

For sure, people in high places need truth-tellers like Ritter to keep them straight. Had Bush talked to Ritter before opting for pre-emptive war, Bush might have been convinced to rearrange his options, and we might not be in this mess.

Evaluating intelligence calls for an open mind and sound judgment. Both were AWOL in our political leadership because of a preconceived agenda or an attack of yellow belly-itis that interfered with standing tall.

In either case, it's time for a reckoning.

My recommendation: Put Ritter on the WMD intelligence probe. We can count on him to tell us the straight skinny, just as he tried to during the fevered, frenzied days of the dance to war.
Source...

David Hackworth is a syndicated columnist and former Army colonel who offers advice, analysis and opinion on national issues and political affairs.
Source...
© 2004 by Freedom ENC Communications. All rights reserved. Content may not be reproduced without written permission from FENC Communications. For questions or comments about this site please email webmaster@enctoday.com.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~
This is...
Gunny G's...
GLOBE and ANCHOR
Marines Sites & Forums
By R.W. "Dick" Gaines
GySgt USMC (Ret.)
1952-72
Semper Fidelis
~~~~~~~~~~