Tracks of the StoneBear Copyright MMXV ALL Rights reserved
ROF= Ring of fire journey
This article was written by Nephew Dave for several publications and is posted here to honor ALL of those Echo 2/6 Marines,... for their courage, for their sacrifice, for their loss - ALL of us Marines hurt with you -, for their honor, for their fellow Marines.
*****************
Copyright Major Dave Pinion, USMC MMVIII ALL rights reserved
Echo Company, 2d Battalion 6th Marines, 2006
Sgt. Grit:
I sure hope this fits within the parameters of the news letter. I have left all the 'forwarding' info so as not to create an 'attribution' issue.
Lord I wish the past 43 years had not passed so quickly.
This story is about some of the finest men I've had the distinct honor of knowing and serving with. They are what I consider to be one of the best infantry units in the Marine Corps, Echo Company, 2d Battalion 6th Marines. I was fortunate enough to be the commander of this unit from 2004 through 2006 and deployed twice in that brief time to Iraq and Afghanistan. My story today focuses mainly on events while deployed to Fallujah, Iraq, in the winter of 2005 /2006.
We lived in the maintenance bay of the Fallujah train station, located on the north side of the city. Our area of responsibility was the northwestern part of the city which included the slums, the open air markets and the bridge over the Euphrates River made famous by 4 unfortunate Blackwater employees, and a rural stretch of countryside that boarded the Euphrates known as Azragia. The majority of the city's population, including some of its most dangerous streets, were in our sector. All of which was patrolled almost exclusively on foot. There was no better way to know your area and the people in it than a foot mobile security patrol.
We chose the call sign "Bounty Hunter" for the Iraq mission. In Afghanistan, the Marines adopted the company call sign "Infidels" as a direct result of the beheadings that Al Qaeda was doing at the time. If those guys considered themselves "holy warriors," by beheading helpless non-combatants begging for their lives, we stood for the exact opposite and wanted to make sure we were counted among their enemies. However, once in Iraq, we worked too closely with the Iraqi Army and Police and didn't have the time to explain to each new organization why we chose such an inflammatory call sign, even though when explained it to the Iraqis, it made sense to them. In the end, the call sign "Bounty Hunter" was the choice of the company, narrowly beating out the call signs "Rick James" and "Raider."
The Company First Sergeant is the senior enlisted advisor to the company commander, ours was First Sergeant Zickefoose. He came up through the ranks as a sniper and was a Silver Star recipient from the first gulf war. He was an amazing Marine who led by example in all things and really held the company together. In October he had the foresight to write to an organization called Operation Santa, which sends Christmas presents to servicemen overseas. All through the months of November and December boxes filled with wrapped Christmas presents slowly arrived addressed to the 1stSgt. The unopened boxes were kept out of sight from the Marines in a storage container until Christmas Eve. That night, after our evening meal, the 1stSgt, company radio operators and I unloaded each box and went down the list of names of everyone in the company to ensure each Marine had a couple of presents to open on Christmas morning. We stayed up most of the night completing this task and even put up a 5 foot tall artificial Christmas tree that was sent from home. By morning, we had the tree decorated and all the presents scattered around it for everyone to see. At 0700, everyone in the company was called into the chow hall for a company meeting unbeknownst to them the presents that awaited. The 1stSgt and I spoke to the surprised Marines for a few brief minutes, wished everyone a Merry Christmas and began to serve breakfast while the platoon sergeants handed out presents with Santa hat on their heads. The presents weren't much, mainly decks of playing cards, socks, candy, a few board games, stuff like that. But just the surprise of opening a wrapped present on Christmas morning in the Spartan conditions of a forward operating base was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Presents and hot chow were even taken to the Marines on watch and to our observation posts in the city. That evening, we cancelled our patrols, had a special Christmas meal of roast beef, turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, green beans, corn, and even chocolate cake for desert. We even let the Marines smoke cigars and cigarettes in the chow hall while we watched the only Christmas movie anyone could get their hands on... Elf with Will Ferrell. It was a good day, and we needed a good day.....
I sure hope this fits within the parameters of the news letter. I have left all the 'forwarding' info so as not to create an 'attribution' issue.
Lord I wish the past 43 years had not passed so quickly.
This story is about some of the finest men I've had the distinct honor of knowing and serving with. They are what I consider to be one of the best infantry units in the Marine Corps, Echo Company, 2d Battalion 6th Marines. I was fortunate enough to be the commander of this unit from 2004 through 2006 and deployed twice in that brief time to Iraq and Afghanistan. My story today focuses mainly on events while deployed to Fallujah, Iraq, in the winter of 2005 /2006.
We lived in the maintenance bay of the Fallujah train station, located on the north side of the city. Our area of responsibility was the northwestern part of the city which included the slums, the open air markets and the bridge over the Euphrates River made famous by 4 unfortunate Blackwater employees, and a rural stretch of countryside that boarded the Euphrates known as Azragia. The majority of the city's population, including some of its most dangerous streets, were in our sector. All of which was patrolled almost exclusively on foot. There was no better way to know your area and the people in it than a foot mobile security patrol.
We chose the call sign "Bounty Hunter" for the Iraq mission. In Afghanistan, the Marines adopted the company call sign "Infidels" as a direct result of the beheadings that Al Qaeda was doing at the time. If those guys considered themselves "holy warriors," by beheading helpless non-combatants begging for their lives, we stood for the exact opposite and wanted to make sure we were counted among their enemies. However, once in Iraq, we worked too closely with the Iraqi Army and Police and didn't have the time to explain to each new organization why we chose such an inflammatory call sign, even though when explained it to the Iraqis, it made sense to them. In the end, the call sign "Bounty Hunter" was the choice of the company, narrowly beating out the call signs "Rick James" and "Raider."
The Company First Sergeant is the senior enlisted advisor to the company commander, ours was First Sergeant Zickefoose. He came up through the ranks as a sniper and was a Silver Star recipient from the first gulf war. He was an amazing Marine who led by example in all things and really held the company together. In October he had the foresight to write to an organization called Operation Santa, which sends Christmas presents to servicemen overseas. All through the months of November and December boxes filled with wrapped Christmas presents slowly arrived addressed to the 1stSgt. The unopened boxes were kept out of sight from the Marines in a storage container until Christmas Eve. That night, after our evening meal, the 1stSgt, company radio operators and I unloaded each box and went down the list of names of everyone in the company to ensure each Marine had a couple of presents to open on Christmas morning. We stayed up most of the night completing this task and even put up a 5 foot tall artificial Christmas tree that was sent from home. By morning, we had the tree decorated and all the presents scattered around it for everyone to see. At 0700, everyone in the company was called into the chow hall for a company meeting unbeknownst to them the presents that awaited. The 1stSgt and I spoke to the surprised Marines for a few brief minutes, wished everyone a Merry Christmas and began to serve breakfast while the platoon sergeants handed out presents with Santa hat on their heads. The presents weren't much, mainly decks of playing cards, socks, candy, a few board games, stuff like that. But just the surprise of opening a wrapped present on Christmas morning in the Spartan conditions of a forward operating base was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Presents and hot chow were even taken to the Marines on watch and to our observation posts in the city. That evening, we cancelled our patrols, had a special Christmas meal of roast beef, turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, green beans, corn, and even chocolate cake for desert. We even let the Marines smoke cigars and cigarettes in the chow hall while we watched the only Christmas movie anyone could get their hands on... Elf with Will Ferrell. It was a good day, and we needed a good day.....
About a month earlier, we lost one of the best Marines in the company to an enemy sniper; Corporal Joshua Snyder was killed on 30 November 2005. Up until that point, IEDs, grenades, RPGs, and small arms ambushes were just nuisances to us. They were a concern to our patrols, but largely ineffective. Accurate sniper fire was the only thing the insurgents found that could effect us. The Marines set aside a Christmas present with Corporal Snyder's name on it. At that point we were still optimistic that we could finish our deployment with minimal casualties. That attitude would soon change.
On a night patrol in the city, late one night in early January 2006, PFC Kyle Brown kept seeing something following him from the rooftops. There was curfew in the city at night, so there was absolutely no movement that was not friendly forces moving around. He later told his fire team leader that he wasn't sure if he was imagining it or not, but what he described scared the daylights out of him. He thought he saw a winged creature following him from rooftop to rooftop jumping 30 or more feet at a time. He said he could see it with his night vision goggles and with his naked eye but no one else on the patrol reported seeing such a thing. He wanted to shoot at it, but wouldn't be able to accurately say what he was shooting at. The closest thing he could think of was something out of the movies like "The Mothman Prophecies." He spoke with the battalion Chaplin and began talking to the most religious kid in the company, Corporal Felipe Barbosa. Corporal Barbosa was a devout Christian, and could often be found reading his bible when others were watching movies or playing with their personal play stations. After several conversations with Corporal Barbosa, PFC Brown who was previously unreligious, converted to Christianity and was saved. But in the following days he still seemed distant and distracted like he couldn't get what he'd seen out of his mind. We never found out what that was or if he was imagining it.
I woke up on morning of January 7th with the radio watch in our command post yelling "QRF, QRF" which meant for the quick reaction force to get ready. We always had a platoon of Marines on standby with gear staged and manifested to leave at a moments notice. As I was putting my gear on, the radio watch stuck his head in my room and said that one of our patrols was ambushed and had two killed in action and one wounded in action. I rushed into the command post as the quick reaction force was assembling. I tried to make radio contact with the patrol to pin point their exact location and let our higher headquarters know what was happening, but was unable to reach the patrol and could hear the firefight growing in intensity outside. The QRF was ready in minutes and we zoomed out the gate and through the narrow and winding city streets towards the sound of the guns. It was about 6:30 in the morning, it had just rained and there were hardly any civilians in the street yet.
The patrol in the firefight was made of two squads on foot, with 10 men in each. They moved along independent routes a few blocks from each other, using a technique called satellite patrolling. If one squad got in trouble, the other would always be in a nearby position to assist.
In this case, one squad had been ambushed by a group of insurgents using sniper fire and automatic weapons, which put it in a very difficult position. The squad not caught in the ambush was quickly able to maneuver behind the insurgents and force them to withdraw. The whole ambush lasted about 5 minutes.
The Marines caught in the ambush had moved into nearby houses to treat the wounded as best they could. When the QRF and I rolled up on the scene, the streets looked liked they'd been hosed down with blood. The squad caught in the ambush was clearly distraught and very much freaked out by trying in vain to save the lives of their best friends.
The squad leader quickly relayed to me that a sniper shot one of his Marines, Corporal Brett Lundstrom who immediately collapsed in the street. Without hesitating, the platoon Corpsman, Doc Engles rushed in the open to try and treat him. He too was hit. The bullet went into his upper chest through his side and hit his arm on the way out. He ran for cover on the opposite side of the street from his squad and rested behind a parked car. When the Doc saw Marines about to rush across the street to his aid, he motioned for them to stop, that he would run back across the street to them to prevent them from needlessly exposing themselves. He made it about halfway before he collapsed from his own wounds. The squad threw smoke grenades and returned fire to cover the attempt to pull their wounded friends out of the street. The enemy then opened a heavy volume of fire into the smoke, which struck and killed PFC Jariad Jacobs instantly. At this point, the insurgents were forced to withdraw by the platoon's maneuvering squad. That's about the time the QRF and I then rolled up on the scene. While coughing up blood, Doc Engles had given directions on how to best treat the other wounded Marines before he went into shock himself. Looking at his face, I thought he was dead when they carried him out of the building. The wounded where quickly loaded onto trucks and driven off to Fallujah Surgical hospital known as "Charlie Surg" and an immediate search was set out for the insurgents. All available assets in the city were called in to include helicopter gunships and mounted platoons in Hummvees. The entire area of several city blocks was cordoned off and a house by house search followed.
The helicopter gunships overhead gave the direction and distance of two military aged males running south from our position. As the Marines pursued the fleeing insurgents south, a report came over the radio of a Marine down in the rear of the company formation. The command vehicle quickly turned around and rushed to the scene and saw an M-16 lying in the street and a several Marines taking cover behind a small corrugated aluminum kiosk on the south east side of a large 4 way intersection. The newly saved PFC Brown had been seriously wounded by enemy fire and needed an urgent medevac. We positioned the command vehicle as best we could to provide protection to the Marines coming under increasingly heavy fire. As it turns out, when the Marines crossed the intersection headed south, two rocket propelled grenades were fired at vehicles at the cordon, and sniper and automatic weapons fire began to engage the rear of our formation from the buildings on the north side of the road. Just like a scene out of a movie, First Sergeant Zickefoose exited the command vehicle under a hail of bullets and calmly signaled to all available Marines in the area what buildings the insurgents were firing from. This may seem obvious for the listener, but the echoes and shadows in an urban environment make target identification very difficult.
Thanks to the First Sergeant's efforts, the buildings occupied by the insurgents began to disappear in a wall of smoke from impacts of the Marines' suppressive fires just as the medevac vehicles arrived.
The medevac vehicles that carried the last group of wounded Marines to the hospital were just blocks away and in route back to our position when they were called for. Despite all the firing by the enemy, PFC Brown was the only man hit, and he was quickly loaded on in a Hummvee and off to the hospital. But as the vehicle departed it was struck several times by enemy fire and disabled. Aware of the dire circumstances, the vehicle commander, Staff Sergeant Bridges, commandeered a passing Iraqi Police truck in order to expedite the trip to the hospital. The Marines left the shot up Hummvee at an U.S. Checkpoint and quickly loaded everyone into the police vehicle. The Iraqi Police truck was nothing more than a Nissan pick up with armor bolted on the sides of the bed, to better protect those riding in the back. It was both faster and more maneuverable than the Hummvees, but being mistaken for insurgents and shot by friendlies was now a significant possibility. To prevent potential fratricide, one of the Marines in the back, Lance Corporal Delillo, contacted the Battalion Watch Officer to advise him that an Iraqi Police truck was now being used to evacuate an injured Marine, and hoped like h&ll the word would make it to the guards at the front gate before the speeding police vehicle came into range. Simultaneously, Lance Corporal Delillo also assisted the Corpsman, Doc Routson, by applying hand pressure on PFC Brown's jugular vain while a tracheotomy was performed. The Marines later recalled that standing in the back of a speeding Iraqi police truck waving to the guards as they approached the gate was the scariest things they did during their tour. Thanks to their teamwork and quick thin king , the word did get passed to the gate guards about the unorthodox medevac vehicle and they arrived at the hospital without further incident. Sadly, PFC Brown's wounds were too great to overcome and he died upon arrival.
Back to the firefight...Once the medevac was on its way to the hospital, 1stSgt Zickefoose quickly coordinated with me and led the squad that was pinned down in an assault on the buildings occupied by the insurgents. His quick thin king and decisiveness in the face of sniper and machine gun fire forced the enemy to withdraw and prevented them from inflicting further casualties on the company from a position of advantage.
As the enemy withdrew, we pursued them through the city for the next several hours, clearing all houses in the area of any remaining insurgents. As the fighting moved from house to house, 1stSgt Zickefoose remained with the lead squad and constantly exposed himself to enemy fire in order to protect the Marines around him. As a direct result of his stellar combat leadership, there was not a single Marine or civilian casualty during the remainder of the fighting despite receiving small arms and rocket propelled grenade fire for the rest of the afternoon. At the end of the day, 23 insurgents were detained and sent to the regimental detention facility for further processing.
We held a memorial service for our fallen comrades a few days later. It's the best way for the Marines to begin putting closure on the loss of some of their closest friends. After eulogies have been said for their fallen brothers by commanders and friends, the roll is called. Names of some of Marines in the company are called and they all answer present. Then the name of the fallen is called three times, each time with more emphasis to make sure he's not present. "Corporal Snyder. Corporal Joshua Snyder. Corporal Joshua D. Snyder." Taps is played after the 3rd calling of the name, while the command salutes the rifle, boots and helmet memorial. All the talent in Hollywood cannot capture the emotion and drama at this moment. I've seen tears stream down the faces of some of the toughest men I know. PFC Brown was eulogized by Corporal Barbosa, the Marine who led him to Christ. Sadly, three weeks later, Corporal Barbosa was himself killed in a tragic vehicle accident. It's almost as if, his work in this world was complete after leading PFC Brown to salvation and he was called home to the Lord.
The rest of the story in a nutshell, we didn't have another combat casualty after the morning of 7 January. EVERYDAY for the next 3 1/2 months, the Marines still had to put on their gear and patrol the same streets and walk among the same people that took the lives of their friends on 7 January. They didn't always enjoy it, but they got the job done. By the end of their tour, Echo Company Marines had captured or killed more known insurgents than just about the rest of the battalion combined. The incredible resilience and professionalism of the Echo Company Marines never ceased to amaze me.
We later learned that the sniper that stung us so badly that January morning was firing from a modified vehicle much like the DC sniper in 2002 and we adapted our techniques to deny him any additional opportunities. And much to our chagrin, we never caught or killed him. He was killed however, on the outskirts of Fallujah by an adjacent unit. It would have been nice for us to get him, but in the end, I'm just glad he's dead.
The great majority of the Marines I had the honor to serve with in Echo Company got out of the Marine Corps in the months after getting back. I still run into a few on active duty here and there, and it's always good to see them. Doc Engles recovered fully and greeted us on the tarmac when we got home.
Before handing over the command of the company to the new guy, I tried to leave everyone with what little wisdom I've gained from our experience together in Iraq . "In the end," I said, "Your life is not about you. You're in the middle of it, but believe it or not, your life is about everyone else around you and how you choose to influence them with the short time you have. How will you be remembered? Have you helped out a brother lately? Even if you don't want to be remembered, what did you do to contribute to the common good? Remember Josh Snyder, Jeriad Jacobs, Kyle Brown, Felipe Barbosa, and Brett Lundstrom, who left their futures on the intersections of Henry and Fran, Cathy and George and Cathy and Frank streets, and tell everyone how they selflessly gave their lives for you, and for each other." They are all my heroes.
The best example of selflessness in the company was Sgt Joshua Frazier, who ran out under fire on the morning of 7 January to drag PFC Brown to safety. He volunteered to return to Iraq for a third tour to when he was killed by a sniper, 6 February 2007.
I closed with part of a speech stolen from a past Marine Commandant called the Eagle and the Wolf. "Inside me, inside each of us there is a battle going on every day between the eagle and the wolf. The eagle represents everything you ever hope to accomplish in your life... love, wealth, happiness, success, accomplishment, power, and fulfillment. The wolf represents your accuser, the little voice inside your head that constantly tells you you're not good enough. You can't make it, you're not smart enough. You don't belong here, they'll never accept you. You're not good looking enough. In the end, who wins this battle? ....the one you feed."
Semper Fi
Major Dave Pinion
Executive Officer
Marine Combat Training Battalion
"Be professional. Be polite, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet."
USMC Rules for Gunfighting #21 On a night patrol in the city, late one night in early January 2006, PFC Kyle Brown kept seeing something following him from the rooftops. There was curfew in the city at night, so there was absolutely no movement that was not friendly forces moving around. He later told his fire team leader that he wasn't sure if he was imagining it or not, but what he described scared the daylights out of him. He thought he saw a winged creature following him from rooftop to rooftop jumping 30 or more feet at a time. He said he could see it with his night vision goggles and with his naked eye but no one else on the patrol reported seeing such a thing. He wanted to shoot at it, but wouldn't be able to accurately say what he was shooting at. The closest thing he could think of was something out of the movies like "The Mothman Prophecies." He spoke with the battalion Chaplin and began talking to the most religious kid in the company, Corporal Felipe Barbosa. Corporal Barbosa was a devout Christian, and could often be found reading his bible when others were watching movies or playing with their personal play stations. After several conversations with Corporal Barbosa, PFC Brown who was previously unreligious, converted to Christianity and was saved. But in the following days he still seemed distant and distracted like he couldn't get what he'd seen out of his mind. We never found out what that was or if he was imagining it.
I woke up on morning of January 7th with the radio watch in our command post yelling "QRF, QRF" which meant for the quick reaction force to get ready. We always had a platoon of Marines on standby with gear staged and manifested to leave at a moments notice. As I was putting my gear on, the radio watch stuck his head in my room and said that one of our patrols was ambushed and had two killed in action and one wounded in action. I rushed into the command post as the quick reaction force was assembling. I tried to make radio contact with the patrol to pin point their exact location and let our higher headquarters know what was happening, but was unable to reach the patrol and could hear the firefight growing in intensity outside. The QRF was ready in minutes and we zoomed out the gate and through the narrow and winding city streets towards the sound of the guns. It was about 6:30 in the morning, it had just rained and there were hardly any civilians in the street yet.
The patrol in the firefight was made of two squads on foot, with 10 men in each. They moved along independent routes a few blocks from each other, using a technique called satellite patrolling. If one squad got in trouble, the other would always be in a nearby position to assist.
In this case, one squad had been ambushed by a group of insurgents using sniper fire and automatic weapons, which put it in a very difficult position. The squad not caught in the ambush was quickly able to maneuver behind the insurgents and force them to withdraw. The whole ambush lasted about 5 minutes.
The Marines caught in the ambush had moved into nearby houses to treat the wounded as best they could. When the QRF and I rolled up on the scene, the streets looked liked they'd been hosed down with blood. The squad caught in the ambush was clearly distraught and very much freaked out by trying in vain to save the lives of their best friends.
The squad leader quickly relayed to me that a sniper shot one of his Marines, Corporal Brett Lundstrom who immediately collapsed in the street. Without hesitating, the platoon Corpsman, Doc Engles rushed in the open to try and treat him. He too was hit. The bullet went into his upper chest through his side and hit his arm on the way out. He ran for cover on the opposite side of the street from his squad and rested behind a parked car. When the Doc saw Marines about to rush across the street to his aid, he motioned for them to stop, that he would run back across the street to them to prevent them from needlessly exposing themselves. He made it about halfway before he collapsed from his own wounds. The squad threw smoke grenades and returned fire to cover the attempt to pull their wounded friends out of the street. The enemy then opened a heavy volume of fire into the smoke, which struck and killed PFC Jariad Jacobs instantly. At this point, the insurgents were forced to withdraw by the platoon's maneuvering squad. That's about the time the QRF and I then rolled up on the scene. While coughing up blood, Doc Engles had given directions on how to best treat the other wounded Marines before he went into shock himself. Looking at his face, I thought he was dead when they carried him out of the building. The wounded where quickly loaded onto trucks and driven off to Fallujah Surgical hospital known as "Charlie Surg" and an immediate search was set out for the insurgents. All available assets in the city were called in to include helicopter gunships and mounted platoons in Hummvees. The entire area of several city blocks was cordoned off and a house by house search followed.
The helicopter gunships overhead gave the direction and distance of two military aged males running south from our position. As the Marines pursued the fleeing insurgents south, a report came over the radio of a Marine down in the rear of the company formation. The command vehicle quickly turned around and rushed to the scene and saw an M-16 lying in the street and a several Marines taking cover behind a small corrugated aluminum kiosk on the south east side of a large 4 way intersection. The newly saved PFC Brown had been seriously wounded by enemy fire and needed an urgent medevac. We positioned the command vehicle as best we could to provide protection to the Marines coming under increasingly heavy fire. As it turns out, when the Marines crossed the intersection headed south, two rocket propelled grenades were fired at vehicles at the cordon, and sniper and automatic weapons fire began to engage the rear of our formation from the buildings on the north side of the road. Just like a scene out of a movie, First Sergeant Zickefoose exited the command vehicle under a hail of bullets and calmly signaled to all available Marines in the area what buildings the insurgents were firing from. This may seem obvious for the listener, but the echoes and shadows in an urban environment make target identification very difficult.
Thanks to the First Sergeant's efforts, the buildings occupied by the insurgents began to disappear in a wall of smoke from impacts of the Marines' suppressive fires just as the medevac vehicles arrived.
The medevac vehicles that carried the last group of wounded Marines to the hospital were just blocks away and in route back to our position when they were called for. Despite all the firing by the enemy, PFC Brown was the only man hit, and he was quickly loaded on in a Hummvee and off to the hospital. But as the vehicle departed it was struck several times by enemy fire and disabled. Aware of the dire circumstances, the vehicle commander, Staff Sergeant Bridges, commandeered a passing Iraqi Police truck in order to expedite the trip to the hospital. The Marines left the shot up Hummvee at an U.S. Checkpoint and quickly loaded everyone into the police vehicle. The Iraqi Police truck was nothing more than a Nissan pick up with armor bolted on the sides of the bed, to better protect those riding in the back. It was both faster and more maneuverable than the Hummvees, but being mistaken for insurgents and shot by friendlies was now a significant possibility. To prevent potential fratricide, one of the Marines in the back, Lance Corporal Delillo, contacted the Battalion Watch Officer to advise him that an Iraqi Police truck was now being used to evacuate an injured Marine, and hoped like h&ll the word would make it to the guards at the front gate before the speeding police vehicle came into range. Simultaneously, Lance Corporal Delillo also assisted the Corpsman, Doc Routson, by applying hand pressure on PFC Brown's jugular vain while a tracheotomy was performed. The Marines later recalled that standing in the back of a speeding Iraqi police truck waving to the guards as they approached the gate was the scariest things they did during their tour. Thanks to their teamwork and quick thin king , the word did get passed to the gate guards about the unorthodox medevac vehicle and they arrived at the hospital without further incident. Sadly, PFC Brown's wounds were too great to overcome and he died upon arrival.
Back to the firefight...Once the medevac was on its way to the hospital, 1stSgt Zickefoose quickly coordinated with me and led the squad that was pinned down in an assault on the buildings occupied by the insurgents. His quick thin king and decisiveness in the face of sniper and machine gun fire forced the enemy to withdraw and prevented them from inflicting further casualties on the company from a position of advantage.
As the enemy withdrew, we pursued them through the city for the next several hours, clearing all houses in the area of any remaining insurgents. As the fighting moved from house to house, 1stSgt Zickefoose remained with the lead squad and constantly exposed himself to enemy fire in order to protect the Marines around him. As a direct result of his stellar combat leadership, there was not a single Marine or civilian casualty during the remainder of the fighting despite receiving small arms and rocket propelled grenade fire for the rest of the afternoon. At the end of the day, 23 insurgents were detained and sent to the regimental detention facility for further processing.
We held a memorial service for our fallen comrades a few days later. It's the best way for the Marines to begin putting closure on the loss of some of their closest friends. After eulogies have been said for their fallen brothers by commanders and friends, the roll is called. Names of some of Marines in the company are called and they all answer present. Then the name of the fallen is called three times, each time with more emphasis to make sure he's not present. "Corporal Snyder. Corporal Joshua Snyder. Corporal Joshua D. Snyder." Taps is played after the 3rd calling of the name, while the command salutes the rifle, boots and helmet memorial. All the talent in Hollywood cannot capture the emotion and drama at this moment. I've seen tears stream down the faces of some of the toughest men I know. PFC Brown was eulogized by Corporal Barbosa, the Marine who led him to Christ. Sadly, three weeks later, Corporal Barbosa was himself killed in a tragic vehicle accident. It's almost as if, his work in this world was complete after leading PFC Brown to salvation and he was called home to the Lord.
The rest of the story in a nutshell, we didn't have another combat casualty after the morning of 7 January. EVERYDAY for the next 3 1/2 months, the Marines still had to put on their gear and patrol the same streets and walk among the same people that took the lives of their friends on 7 January. They didn't always enjoy it, but they got the job done. By the end of their tour, Echo Company Marines had captured or killed more known insurgents than just about the rest of the battalion combined. The incredible resilience and professionalism of the Echo Company Marines never ceased to amaze me.
We later learned that the sniper that stung us so badly that January morning was firing from a modified vehicle much like the DC sniper in 2002 and we adapted our techniques to deny him any additional opportunities. And much to our chagrin, we never caught or killed him. He was killed however, on the outskirts of Fallujah by an adjacent unit. It would have been nice for us to get him, but in the end, I'm just glad he's dead.
The great majority of the Marines I had the honor to serve with in Echo Company got out of the Marine Corps in the months after getting back. I still run into a few on active duty here and there, and it's always good to see them. Doc Engles recovered fully and greeted us on the tarmac when we got home.
Before handing over the command of the company to the new guy, I tried to leave everyone with what little wisdom I've gained from our experience together in Iraq . "In the end," I said, "Your life is not about you. You're in the middle of it, but believe it or not, your life is about everyone else around you and how you choose to influence them with the short time you have. How will you be remembered? Have you helped out a brother lately? Even if you don't want to be remembered, what did you do to contribute to the common good? Remember Josh Snyder, Jeriad Jacobs, Kyle Brown, Felipe Barbosa, and Brett Lundstrom, who left their futures on the intersections of Henry and Fran, Cathy and George and Cathy and Frank streets, and tell everyone how they selflessly gave their lives for you, and for each other." They are all my heroes.
The best example of selflessness in the company was Sgt Joshua Frazier, who ran out under fire on the morning of 7 January to drag PFC Brown to safety. He volunteered to return to Iraq for a third tour to when he was killed by a sniper, 6 February 2007.
I closed with part of a speech stolen from a past Marine Commandant called the Eagle and the Wolf. "Inside me, inside each of us there is a battle going on every day between the eagle and the wolf. The eagle represents everything you ever hope to accomplish in your life... love, wealth, happiness, success, accomplishment, power, and fulfillment. The wolf represents your accuser, the little voice inside your head that constantly tells you you're not good enough. You can't make it, you're not smart enough. You don't belong here, they'll never accept you. You're not good looking enough. In the end, who wins this battle? ....the one you feed."
Semper Fi
Major Dave Pinion
Executive Officer
Marine Combat Training Battalion
"Be professional. Be polite, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet."
