For Memorial Day . . .
Excerpt from speech by Lt Gen John Kelly on November 13, 2010:
(Corporals Jordan and Yale)
[O]n April 22, 2008, 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, the other just starting its seven-month
combat tour. Two Marines, Cpl. Jonathan Yale and Lance Cpl. Jordan
Haerter, 22 and 20 respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming
the watch at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift
barracks housing 50 Marines.
The same ramshackle building was also home to 100 Iraqi police, our
allies in the fight against terrorists in Ramadi – known at the time as
the most dangerous city on earth, and owned by al-Qaeda.
Yale was a dirt-poor mixed-race kid from Virginia, with a wife, a
mother and a sister, who all lived with him and 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 that multiple Americas exist
simultaneously, depending on one’s race, ethnicity, religious
affiliation, education level, economic status, or where you might have
been born. But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same
crucible, and because of this bond they were brothers as close – or
closer – than if they were born of the same woman. The mission orders
they received from their sergeant squad leader, I’m sure, went something
like this: “OK, take charge of this post and let no unauthorized
personnel or vehicles pass. You clear?” I’m also sure Yale and Haerter
rolled their eyes and said, in unison, something like, “Yes, sergeant,”
with just enough attitude that made the point, without saying the words,
“No kidding, sweetheart. We know what we’re doing.” They then relieved
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 alleyway –
perhaps 60 to 70 yards in length – and sped its way through the
serpentine concrete Jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where
the two were posted and detonated, killing them both. Twenty-four brick
masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away
collapsed. The truck’s engine came to rest 200 yards away, knocking down
most of a house down before it stopped. Our explosive experts reckoned
the blast was caused by 2,000 pounds of explosive.
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 a few hours after it happened, I
called the regimental commander for details. 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 had just returned from the site, and he
agreed, but reported that there were no American witnesses to the event –
just Iraqi police. If there was any chance of finding out what actually
happened, and then to decorate the two Marines to acknowledge their
bravery, I’d have to do it, because a combat award requires two
eyewitnesses, and we figured the bureaucrats back in Washington would
never buy Iraqi statements. If it had any chance at all, it had to come
under the signature of a general officer. I traveled to Ramadi the next
day and spoke individually to a half-dozen Iraqi police, all of whom
told the same story. They all said, “We knew immediately what was going
on as soon as the two Marines began firing.” The Iraqi police related
that some of them also fired, and then, to a man, ran for safety just
prior to the explosion. All survived. Many were injured, some seriously.
One of the Iraqis elaborated, and with tears welling up, said,
“They’d run like any normal man would to save his life. ”What he didn’t
know until then, and what he learned that very instant, was that Marines
are not normal. Choking past the emotion, he said, “Sir, in the name of
God, 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 after I submitted
both Yale and Haerter for posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our
security cameras recorded some of the attack. It happened exactly as the
Iraqis 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. I suppose it took about a second for the two
Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going
on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. 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 to do only a few minutes before: “Let no unauthorized
personnel or vehicles pass.” 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.
Here the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had
fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they
were, some running right past the Marines, who had three seconds left to
live. For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines
firing their weapons nonstop. The truck’s windshield explodes into
shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tear into the body of
the son of a bitch trying to get past them to kill their brothers –
American and Iraqi – bedded down in the barracks, totally unaware that
their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing
their ground. Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by
the recording, they never stepped back. They never even shifted their
weight. With their feet spread shoulder-width apart, they leaned into
the danger, firing as fast as they could. They had only one second left
to live, and I think they knew. 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.
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