War Stories (52 page)

What is truly unfortunate is that those hearing this pessimistic rhetoric are the radical terrorists who are emboldened by it. But also listening are the young American fighting men we are with, and it's disheartening to those who are able to see the news—either on our little satellite transceiver or on television monitors in some of the larger mess halls and recreation facilities around the country.

Before arriving here, the Marines we are with spent months in predeployment training at Camp Pendleton in California. They had permitted us to cover their specialized training for operating in and around civilian populations—and now we rejoined them to document how they put the tactics, techniques and procedures they mastered
into practice. Lt. Col. Paul Kennedy, the battalion commander, in an on-camera interview, described the fighting as “tough.”

This week during a prime-time White House news conference, President Bush used the same word to describe the recent fighting in Ramadi and Fallujah. It
is
tough—war always is. During my first forty hours on the ground this time, anti-Iraqi forces haven't stopped shooting at the Marines, making it more difficult to get around.

But it's also evident that the troops we're with—from the 1st Marine Division out of Camp Pendleton, California, and the Army's 1st Brigade from Fort Riley, Kansas—are indeed “performing brilliantly,” as the president said in his remarks. But the troops we interview express it somewhat differently. “The fighting has been intense, but we've been kicking butt everywhere we go,” said a Marine sergeant when we put him on the air.

Lt. Col. Kennedy makes it clear that he knows his mission. He tells his company commanders to “hunt down” the terrorists who are infiltrating the provincial capital and reminds them that their enemy “can't stand up to a Marine unit in a gunfight. They aren't as well trained, lack fire discipline, and aren't in shape. If you have to . . . send out invitations. Watch out for the IEDs and when they show themselves, shoot straight. Use only the force you need to eliminate the threat. Avoid civilian casualties and keep your comms up. And remember the Division motto: ‘No greater friend—no worse enemy.' Let them figure out which one they want you to be.”

Shortly after arriving in Ramadi, his young Marines had suffered six killed and eighteen wounded. But this morning's firefight produces four enemy dead, nine detainees, and sixteen weapons captured—and two wounded Marines. Among the enemy dead and captured were foreign terrorists and a handful of local Baathist loyalists.

One of those detained in the operation was a young Iraqi who had been wounded in an earlier engagement with U.S. troops. He had
been treated in a hospital and was recuperating in the home of a “friend” when U.S. Marines, with the cooperation of Iraqis in the neighborhood, knocked on the door and took him into custody.

“One more terrorist off the street and one less bad guy who, later on, could have injured a Marine, sailor, or soldier,” was how the squad leader put it.

Many of these Marines and Navy medical corpsmen are on a second tour in Iraq. More than a few were only home for five or six months before they turned around, put on their flak jackets and helmets, and returned to Iraq. I asked one, a Marine corporal who had enlisted the day after the September 11, 2001, attacks, why he had volunteered to come back. His answer: “Because we have a job to do that we didn't finish the first time. In this war on terror, you don't want to play any more ‘home games.' We need to play ‘on the road'—and beat them here.” Unfortunately, these aren't sentiments anyone is likely to see in the mainstream media.

   
OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #46

      
1st Marine Division

      
Ramadi, Iraq

      
Friday, 23 April 2004

      
1400 Hours Local

The Marines here in Ramadi are continuing a 200-year-old tradition in the United States Marine Corps—fighting terrorists. The Corps' history of such confrontations dates back to 1804, when Marine 1st Lt. Presley O'Bannon led his men to defeat the Barbary Pirates.

During an early morning ceremony, 1st Lt. David Dobb was among twenty U.S. Marines who received the Purple Heart for wounds sustained in recent combat. Since arriving “in-country,” 116 Marines in this battalion have received the Purple Heart, and yet over
seventy of them have decided to stay in Iraq rather than return home, even though, by consequence of their wounds, they can do so.

I asked 1st Lt. Dobb, who sustained injuries to his hand, why so many of these young men decided to stick it out even though they'd been hurt. “This is what these Marines signed up to do,” he told me, “and we're going to see this mission through until the job's done the way it is supposed to be.”

Sergeant Kenneth Conde, a squad leader with the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, was leading his unit in a nighttime raid this week when insurgents tried to ambush his platoon. In the intense gunfight that ensued, Conde was hit in the shoulder. His corpsman quickly treated him and he stayed in the fight. By the time it was over, they had killed six terrorists and collected a pile of enemy weapons and ordnance. Conde's grievous wounds were a free ticket home, yet he decided to stay with the battalion. I asked him why. “There's no other choice for a sergeant in the Marine Corps,” Conde explained. “You have to lead your Marines.”

It's this kind of courage that makes me wonder what some in our media are thinking. A few weeks ago, Andy Rooney, a syndicated newspaper columnist and commentator for CBS News's
60 Minutes
, wrote a column titled, “Our Soldiers in Iraq Aren't Heroes.” Rooney is part of a team of “journalists” at CBS News who have gone out of their way to protest U.S. policies in Iraq and the War on Terror.

Rooney, who to my knowledge hasn't been to Iraq, wrote, “You can be sure our soldiers in Iraq are not all brave heroes gladly risking their lives for us sitting comfortably back here at home.”

Not heroes, Andy? Meet Lance Cpl. Conyers, a member of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines. On 6 April, Conyers was on patrol with his squad when they were ambushed. “I was out in front at an unlucky moment and took a round to the chest,” Conyers told me, “then one ricocheted off the light pole next to me and hit me in
the leg.” The corpsman rushed to Conyers's side and treated him, and Conyers stayed in the fight.

In his column, Rooney insists that our troops “want to come home,” and says if he had the chance to interrogate our guys in uniform to prove his point, he'd ask them, “If you could have a medal or a trip home, which would you take?”

Which do you think Conyers chose, Andy? The bullet Conyers took in the chest was fired from an AK-47. It struck inches from his heart and could have killed him. But because of the plate of armor he was wearing—armor that critics claim either doesn't exist, or if it did, it wouldn't work—Conyers is alive. The wound Conyers received to his leg, a “through and through” wound, was his ticket home. But did Conyers take it? Of course not. Of the wound, he told me, “That won't keep me down.” He said he owes it to his squad to “continue on and fight.”

Lance Cpl. Conyers is just one of hundreds of Marines and soldiers who, while fighting to defend the American public and liberate the Iraqi people, have been shot, hit, wounded, and treated, only to stay on the battlefield with their units instead of going home. These are remarkable young Americans.

Rooney complains in his column, “We don't learn much about what our soldiers in Iraq are thinking or doing.” Well, Andy, now you know—they're fighting heroically. Want to know more?

They go on patrol—wearing twenty-five-pound flak jackets and six-pound helmets. They carry another thirty to forty pounds of weapons and ammunition. On longer missions they carry up to seventy pounds on their backs. By day, they're America's diplomats—canvassing neighborhoods to befriend the local Iraqis, conducting intelligence operations, and bringing supplies and gifts to Iraqi families and children. By night, they use the intelligence they gather from Iraqis who want the terrorists out of their neighborhoods and conduct raids to root them out of their hiding places.

And they're having a great deal of success. Second Lt. Tim Mayer told me, “When we first got here, things were a little challenging. But every day, the situation seems to get a little better. We're getting weapons and IEDs turned in by the local people, and they are happier that we are here.”

A lot of the Marines who are here now were also here for the first semester of the war. Many, including those in Conyers's unit, which was in Okinawa this time last year, have been away from home and their families for the better part of eighteen months over the last two years. Their motivation and morale remain high. But to Andy Rooney, these courageous young Americans “are victims, not heroes.”

   
OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #47