War hit home a year ago today
Looking back at Marines of 3/25
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Grant Segall
Plain Dealer Reporter
Leaders say we're fighting a war in Iraq so we don't have to fight one at home.
The war hit Ohio hard a year ago when an already battered Marine battalion from Brook Park took its worst and last losses. The working-class suburb suddenly inspired worldwide sympathy and debate.
On Aug. 1, 2005, 6 Marines in a sniper team from the battalion's Weapons Company based in Akron, were caught and killed in seconds on an open plateau. The same day, a seventh battalion member fell to a suicide bomb.
Two days later, 14 Marines with the battalion's Lima Company from Columbus were killed by a roadside bomb.
All told, the reservists of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment, 4th Marine Division fought about 1,200 strong for seven months in violent Anbar province and lost 48 members -- or nearly 2 percent of all U.S. combatants killed in Iraq so far.
Some Marines and their families suspected that Iraqi allies had betrayed the snipers. But relatives and officers briefed on a classified investigation heard otherwise.
Among other things, they say two officers had changed details of the mission without clearance. Col. Lionel B. Urquhart, who led the 3/25 in Iraq, says those officers will never send troops into battle again.
Urquhart says the bloodied battalion still fulfilled its mission, catching insurgents, seizing weapons, rebuilding communities and boosting Iraqi turnout at the polls.
The war also lingers on our side of the ocean, in the homes of the living and the dead.
Boskovitch
Coullard
Deyarmin
Graham
Lyons
Montgomery
Rock
My friends.
Looking back at Marines of 3/25
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Grant Segall
Plain Dealer Reporter
Leaders say we're fighting a war in Iraq so we don't have to fight one at home.
The war hit Ohio hard a year ago when an already battered Marine battalion from Brook Park took its worst and last losses. The working-class suburb suddenly inspired worldwide sympathy and debate.
On Aug. 1, 2005, 6 Marines in a sniper team from the battalion's Weapons Company based in Akron, were caught and killed in seconds on an open plateau. The same day, a seventh battalion member fell to a suicide bomb.
Two days later, 14 Marines with the battalion's Lima Company from Columbus were killed by a roadside bomb.
All told, the reservists of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment, 4th Marine Division fought about 1,200 strong for seven months in violent Anbar province and lost 48 members -- or nearly 2 percent of all U.S. combatants killed in Iraq so far.
Some Marines and their families suspected that Iraqi allies had betrayed the snipers. But relatives and officers briefed on a classified investigation heard otherwise.
Among other things, they say two officers had changed details of the mission without clearance. Col. Lionel B. Urquhart, who led the 3/25 in Iraq, says those officers will never send troops into battle again.
Urquhart says the bloodied battalion still fulfilled its mission, catching insurgents, seizing weapons, rebuilding communities and boosting Iraqi turnout at the polls.
The war also lingers on our side of the ocean, in the homes of the living and the dead.
Boskovitch
Coullard
Deyarmin
Graham
Lyons
Montgomery
Rock
My friends.
This will be in my mind all day.