These Marines Deserve Remembering (I do not care if this is a re-post)

[Groesbeck Hurricane]

I am posting someone else's article from a Military Newspaper:


The Last Six Seconds

On Nov 13, 2010, Lt. Gen. John Kelly, USMC, gave a speech to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis, Mo. This was four days after his son, Lt. Robert Kelly, USMC, was killed by an IED while on his 3rd combat tour. During his speech, Gen. Kelly spoke about the dedication and valor of our young men and women who step forward each and every day to protect us.

During the speech, he never mentioned the loss of his own son. He closed the speech with the moving account of the last six seconds of the lives of two young Marines who died with rifles blazing to protect their brother Marines.

He told the story about the kind of people they are, about the quality of steel in their backs, about the kind of dedication they bring to our country while they serve in uniform and forever after as veterans.

Two years ago when Gen. Kelly was the Commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 “The Walking Dead,” and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi. One battalion was in the closing days of its deployment going home very soon, the other just starting its seven‐month combat tour. Two Marines, Cpl. Jonathan Yale and Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines. The same broken down ramshackle building was also home to 100 Iraqi police.

Yale was a dirt poor mixed‐race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter,
and a mother and sister who lived with him and whom he supported. He did
this on a yearly salary of less than 23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was
a middle class white kid from Long Island. They were from two completely
different worlds. Had they not joined the Marines they would never have met
each other, or understood the multiple America’s exist simultaneously depending
on one’s race, education level, economic status and where you might have
been born. But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible
of Marine training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or
closer, than if they were born of the same women.

The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leader said “let no
unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass.” They then relived two other Marines
on watch and took up their post at the entry control point of Joint Security
Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, Al Anbar, Iraq.

A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley way - perhaps 60‐70 yards in length, and sped its way through the serpentine of concrete jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically. Twenty‐four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck’s engine came to rest two hundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped. Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds of explosives. Two died, and because these two young infantrymen didn’t have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers‐in‐arms.

When I read the situation report something about this struck me as different. We expect Marines regardless of rank or MOS to stand their ground and do their duty, and even die in the process, if that is what the mission takes. But this just seemed different. The regimental commander returned, but reported that there were no American witnesses to the event, just Iraqi police.

I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to a half‐dozen Iraqi police all of whom told the same story. Choking past the emotion one police officer said, “Sir, no sane man would have stood there and done what they did. They saved us all.”

What we didn’t know at the time, and only learned a couple of days later was that one of our security cameras, damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. It happened exactly as the Iraqis had described it. It took exactly six seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it detonated.

You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives-exactly no time to talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the sergeant told them do.

It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim and open up. By this time the truck was halfway through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines’ weapons firing non‐stop at the truck’s windshield exploding into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart as the truck is trying to get past them to kill their brothers - American and Iraqi‐bedded down in the barracks totally unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground.

If they had been aware, they would have known they were safe because two Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide bomber. In all the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back or shifted their weight.

The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God. Six seconds. Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight - for you.

[Joeaksa]

Thank God men like this are on our side. Semper Fi

[Jim727]

Very, very humbling.

Thanks for posting, David.

[drcoastline]

Wow, very sobeing and moving speach.

[Danimal16]

I served under General Kelly at that time. I did not know that he lost his son. HE is a Great American and a Great Human Being. Marines are a unique breed. To serve with them is an honor. To serve all those young Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines who stand their posts, who do it willingly, with full knowledge of the danger, that is hard to describe, they are exceptional.

[azasadny]

The 7 1/2 years I served with the USMC as a Corpsman were some of the best (and worst) times I've ever had. They say, "no better friend, no worse enemy than the USMC" and I believe that!

[rcecale]

Semper fi, Marines...and Corpsmen, too!!!

Randy

[kimlangley7]

I am a retired Army man... but damn... I love the Marines.... the Army and Marines have this on-going banter... but deep inside they respect each other.. .. but Marines - they are different than the Army.... you tell a Marine to do something >> and watch out --- come hell or high water - he WILL get it done... they just won't quit.... they don't know how to quit.... it's just.. being a Marine... God Bless them.... Semper Fi...

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by kimlangley7

I am a retired Army man... but damn... I love the Marines.... the Army and Marines have this on-going banter... but deep inside they respect each other.. .. but Marines - they are different than the Army.... you tell a Marine to do something >> and watch out --- come hell or high water - he WILL get it done... they just won't quit.... they don't know how to quit.... it's just.. being a Marine... God Bless them.... Semper Fi...

Totally agree and I am former Army as well.

Kinda like this:

[rcecale]

Kim,

Re: The banter between the Army and Marines: I think Charlie Daniels described it best when he sang, "We may have done a little bit of fightin' amongst ourselves, but those outsiders best just leave us alone!"

Joe...YOU, my friend, are a mess!!! LOL

Randy

[fanaudical]

Thanks for posting that...

[widgeon13]

Speechless...........