Jason. William. Aaron. Carlos.
These are the names of some of the heroes from one day during the battle for Fallujah; April 26, 2004. Regular guys; some of whom are so young the term “man” would be a bit premature if you didn’t know what they’d done. Guys with families and dreams and a belief in the power of something bigger than us all.
Jason is a corpsman. He was 21 at the time, and as bullets hit literally inches from his head, he provided medical care to the wounded.
“Everyone said Doc [Jason] Duty was faster than bullets that day.”
Aaron was also 21, and is receiving high honors, posthumously.
After the initial barrage, Austin, a machine gunner, evacuated the wounded and then rallied the Marines to counter-attack.
“We’ve got to get back on the roof and get on that gun,” Austin, from Sunray, Tex., is reported to have said, referring to a Marine machine gun.
The Marines returned fire, but as Austin started to throw a grenade, he was hit several times in the chest by machine gun fire.
Although mortally wounded, Austin threw his grenade, which hit the enemy and halted their attack.
Carlos was with Aaron, and also distinguished himself:
Ignoring his serious injuries . . . Gomez-Perez, in direct exposure to enemy fire, continued to throw grenades and fire four magazines from his M-16 rifle. Still under fire and with his injured arm, he and another Marine gave CPR (to [Aaron]Austin) and continued to fire on the enemy…
William dealt with the reporters on top of everything else, which should almost be something deserving of a medal on its own.
During the encounter, journalists often asked [William] Skiles, 43, of San Juan Capistrano, for information for their reports about the fighting, but he thought they were missing something. “I kept thinking: What about valor? Why weren’t any of the reporters interested in the valor of our Marines?
“All anyone wants to write about is our dead and wounded,” he said, thumbing through military papers that included nominations for Silver and Bronze stars.
You need to read this entire article. it’s long, but it’s worth every single word. There should be more of this type of thing published. Our soldiers and Marines are heroes.
Here’s to Echo Company, Fox Company, and all the other Marines that fought at Fallujah. Semper Fi!
Hat Tip: Blackfive, who has seven other parts to this story. Read them all. Via GOPBloggers.
April 9th, 2005 Posted by Kit Jarrell General, Kudos, Military 5 comments
copied from Euphoric Reality
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I guess If I’da stopped he’d a died then too. But I wasn’t letting him go.... quote from Doc Duty
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