5 posts tagged “darkhorse”
A team from NBC News recently embedded with us to obtain footage of Fallujah and the turnaround that has taken place with the people and the way of life. This segment aired last night and the possibility exists of another piece next week. The Marines of the "Darkhorse Battalion" hosted the crew and provided them a tour of the City of Mosques...
FALLUJAH, Iraq—Fallujah citizens gathered in large numbers to kick off the “Fallujah Cup” soccer tournament here
recently.
Soccer, a favorite sport among Iraqis, was chosen as the first organized sporting event the city would embrace as a result of improved security in the area.
“This is kind of a microcosm of everything that is going well right here in Fallujah, and this is a culminating event,” said 2nd Lt. Gregory Collins, the platoon commander of 2nd Platoon, Company K, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 6.
Collins initiated the request to bring the community together through the sport. He helped facilitate the organization of the tournament and helped obtain uniforms that were donated to the participating teams.
The amateur league welcomed soccer players of all ages to try out for the teams. Soccer players throughout the city signed up and were organized into 21 teams to compete. Each team represented one of the 10 districts of Fallujah.
The event began with an opening ceremony presenting all 21 teams to the field and an exhibition of Fallujah’s tae kwon do martial arts program.
Competition began with two of the best teams facing off for an entertaining game opener.
More than 70 invitations were handed out to special guests for seating in the VIP tent for the event. Among those invited were commanding officers and Marines with 3rd Bn.,5th Marines. Also invited were the city mayor, police chiefs and the sheiks, muktars and Imams from the surrounding areas.
“They wanted us here just to be able to see how well things are progressing here in Fallujah,” said Collins. “They’re very proud of everything they’ve accomplished because of the security increase. Everything that is going on is all built through the Iraqi police and through the local leadership taking hold of the city.”
Preparations for the tournament began with local contractors who brought in heavy equipment to remove all extra rubble to clear the fields and locals were paid to help rid the fields of the trash.
A town hall meeting was held a week prior to the event to bring the teams together to collect official rosters and coordinate on the FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) rules the tournament would follow.
For the remainder of the month, the 21 teams will play it out for the championship of Fallujah.
There are already plans to add a 12-20 youth soccer league. Volleyball, handball and bicycle tournaments are also hopeful additions to the range of sports events for the city.
Marines stopped and knocked at a courtyard gate in Fallujah's Andaloos district. A little girl answered the door with an anxious look on her face.
“Is the man of the house in?” asked Sgt. Ysac M. Perez, a squad leader with Company K, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 6.
As if on cue, a little seven-year-old boy appeared and owned up to the title. The Marines greeted him with smiles and laughter. This scenario is not unusual, however, said Perez.
“This is actually pretty common while the father is gone,” said Perez, a Whittier, Calif., native. “He was considered the man of the house since his dad was gone, which trips me out because back in the States, a seven year old wouldn’t even be allowed to answer the door, and here he is, the one in charge.”
The days of kicking in doors and forcibly searching buildings and homes are long over for the Marines in the city of Fallujah as it transitions bac
k to a peaceful community. Instead, Marines knock at the doors and greet the people with a professional and sociable demeanor with cultural courtesies in mind. It is a job many of these Marines never imagined they would be tasked with in a city known for its history as a violent epicenter of Anbar Province.
Perez and his Marines with 4th platoon, Co. K, patrolled their neighborhood and gathered census information to develop a clearer insight into the area, its people and their concerns.
Along the way, during the patrol, Perez chose the upscale home to stop and visit. He wanted to speak with the
residents to check on how things were going, as a friendly neighbor would do.
The boy said his father was away at prayer and the mother was out tending to daily errands. For Perez this was a sign the family felt secure enough to attend local mosques and shop in a now-bustling market place.
Perez asked the boy for permission for his Marines to go to the rooftop to overlook the area from above. The boy took a look around at the Marines and their weapons, and with a smile, decided to allow them in.
As the Marines slowly walked through, they subtly scanned the rooms as an informal search while they made their way to the rooftop. Perez ensured his Marines were careful not to encroach on the family’s privacy.
“My Marines know what rooms not to go into and stay out of, like the prayer rooms with mats and the rooms the females are in,” Perez said.
Perez, having children of his own, wondered what the Iraqi children hope for in the future.
“Personally, I like to try to see what their outlook is toward us and what their dreams are compared to the children in America, who dream of being crazy things like rock stars and all,” Perez said. “From what I have got so far, they aim pretty high. A lot of them want to be doctors, physicians and engineers. Some of them may get the chance.”
When Perez asked the child how big the family was, and all the children’s ages, he came to the realization the family had been growing at a rate of roughly one child every year.
As the Marines started to descend the three-story house to leave, the father returned home from prayer.
When asked if he minded the Marines being there, he responded by saying they were more than welcome to be in his house. He thanked the Marines for being there and commented on how well the Iraqi Police are coming along.
To the Marines’ cultural interest, the father kept up two families. At the household the Marines were currently visiting, he had a wife and seven children. In his other household in a neighborhood not far away, he had his second wife, four children, mother and mother-in-law. He supported the family by selling fish in the market.
“He seemed like a real upkept guy,” Perez said. “He was a very family-oriented man. He didn’t care about what was going on in the outside world. All he worried about was his own family.”
What was unique about this man to Perez was the man was wealthy by Fallujah standards, yet remained more focused on the smaller issues within his family than trying to have any influence on the developing world around him.
“Fallujah is very good. I don’t worry about the poverty. I don’t care about the war and insurgents. I care about providing food and shelter for my family,” the man told Perez.
During the fighting for the city, the man said he had left the city, but had not traveled far to live in a small town outside of Fallujah. He returned home and found his property had been damaged. Two of his bedrooms had been completely burned.
He didn’t know who was responsible, and did not seem interested in finding out. Since his return, the highways had become safe enough for commercial trucks to travel from Baghdad to deliver his fish to the market. The man made enough money from his business to go on with his life and make the necessary repairs to his homes with his own money.
For the man it was a normal visit. He said he speaks with the Marines frequently and continually understands more about what is going on. His only complaint was about the unreliable power sources in the city. He said he rather see money be spent on correcting the power failure problems than anything else. The Marines reassured him the problem was being worked on.
It was a brief visit for the Marines with a family they will now know a little better. The Marines will continue communicating with the locals, getting to know them better and, ultimately, ensuring the people’s safety and their own through the means of pleasant, everyday interactions.
Staff Sgt. Charles M. Evers, a platoon sergeant with 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 6, was awarded the Silver Star Medal during an evening ceremony here, Nov. 23, by Gen. James T. Conway, the 34th commandant of the Marine Corps.
Evers, a native of Lewiston, Idaho, was presented the award for his actions against insurgents during Operation Iraqi Freedom while serving as platoon commander with third platoon, Company I, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 5, I Marine Expeditionary Force Forward during June, 2006.
On June 8, 2006, Evers’ platoon endured a four-day assault on their observation post when enemy forces attempted to close in on his Marines from three different directions. Due to Evers’ combat leadership, the Marines held their position and defeated the attacks.
With disregard to his own safety, Evers valiantly maneuvered through enemy machine gun and small arm fire to assess enemy positions and direct his platoon’s fire.
The fighting positions constructed under Evers’ leadership and supervision protected his Marines’ lives while holding up against a barrage of rocket propelled grenades, thousands of small arm fire rounds and a vehicle borne improvised explosion device detonation.
Evers’ decisive actions to coordinate fire superiority with his platoon and employ air support and tank fire overwhelmed his enemy allowing his Marines victory.
Conway pinned the medal on Evers with a smile, a firm handshake and applauding the warrior’s achievement.
Evers’ gave a few short words about his accomplishment.
“I was just doing my job,” said Evers. “I’m proud of my Marines. I led them and they did their job.”
The Silver Star is the nation’s third-highest award, after the Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross, respectively.
We recently spent a few days with Marines with third platoon, Lima Company, 3rd Bn., 5th Marine Regiment, in the heart of Fallujah. It's one of the cruel tricks of history that those who are making it don't know they are at the time. The same holds true for these guys. To say that what they're doing is amazing would be to criminally understate the facts.
Anyone familiar with the Combined Action Platoons of the Vietnam War will understand what's going on here. These Marines live, work, sleep, eat and bathe in the same neighborhoods they are helping to stabilize. In doing so, they're no longer driving in from a forward operating base, or FOB, outside the city and conducting patrols. Instead, they wake up in the morning, plan a patrol, then walk out into the neighborhood and greet the men and women sweeping their sidewalks or tending their shops. They're literally swarmed with children wanting a high five or a piece of chocolate. They visit schools, markets and local infrastructure projects to see how things are going. There are no interrogations or mean faces, just a neighborly walk through their district to check on the locals who sometimes know them by name.
Unexpected results abound here. One is the wave of illness that recently spread through third platoon's home. Marked by violent nausea, cramps and fatigue, the whatever-it-was virus didn't slow the Marines down. They kept up their pace of patrols and never took a time out because of a sore tummy. The spread of the illness was contained by the attention of the platoon corpsmen to hygiene, and not a single Marine left the platoon's position to head back to company to get some rest. They all stayed to continue doing their jobs.
Another thing was kind of shocking to us on our visit. Every morning we awoke to two unusual things: the smell of eggs cooking and the sounds of babies crying. The smells came from the makeshift kitchen the Marines had assembled in their home out of a couple of hotplates, where they were cooking up eggs purchased from local markets. The crying came from homes where locals live not 10 feet from their doorstep. While this certainly wouldn't be unusual back in the States, it made our ears perk up to realize that we were living so closely with our neighbors we could hear them carrying out the routines of their daily lives.
It is said that familiarity in a combat zone breeds complacency, and this is certainly true here. But according to Lance
"It's hard to hit the right level of alertness. When I first got here I was looking at every trashpile, every danger area, every place where, if the locals weren't on our side, they could kill us. But I had to tone it down before I shot someone. On the other side of that you don't want to get too complacent," he said.
Parra is on his second tour here.
To our eyes during our very brief visit, they still maintained a high level of alertness and an adherence to security protocols drilled into them during pre-deployment training. But they displayed a high level of maturity in that they continued to maintain their own safety while keeping a low profile amongst the people who had lived here their whole lives.
It's simply amazing what these young men are doing. They're living on military rations and fatty, junky muffins but still try to maintain a basic level of fitness. They're showering with city water, which is essentially coming straight out of the Euphrates. Bathroom breaks are conducted in tents and tubes, and laundry is done in a bucket with a scrub brush with whatever soap they can find. It is a very, very spartan existence, but these warriors are holding themselves to the standard the American people hold them to. They are honorable; they are respectful but firm; cautious but friendly; young but filled with a worldly maturity that indicates they know exactly what the stakes are here.
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