Fw: Semper Fi ~ The Last Six Seconds

["Don Greenlaw" <dgreenlaw@cox.net>]

Forwarded.

Semper fi,
Don Greenlaw
----- Original Message ----- 
From: JOHN DUNN
To: Undisclosed-Recipient@yahoo.com
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 12:15 PM
Subject: Fw: Semper Fi ~ The Last Six Seconds


I hope no one minds re-reading General Jack Kelly's speech.
Semper Fi
jd


   Subject: FW: Semper Fi ~ The Last Six Seconds











     THERE IS NO WAY I WOULD DELETE THIS WITHOUT PASSING IT ON!!!!



                   On Nov 13, 2010, Lt General 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, General Kelly spoke about the 
dedication and valor of our young men and women who step forward each and 
every day to protect us. He never mentioned the loss of his own son.   He 
closed the speech with the moving account of the last six seconds in the 
lives of two young Marines who died with rifles blazing to protect their 
brother Marines.

                   "I will leave you with a story about the kind of people 
they are, about the quality of the 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 I was the Commander of all U.S. and 
Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry 
battalions, 1/9 "The Walking Dead," and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi.

                   One battalion in the closing days of their deployment 
going home very soon, the other just starting its seven-month combat tour. 
Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal 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, also my men and our allies in the fight against the 
terrorists in Ramadi, a city until recently the most dangerous city on earth 
and owned by Al Qaeda.

                   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 as well.  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 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 woman.

                   The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad 
leader I am sure went something like, "Okay you two clowns, stand this post 
and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass.  You clear?"

                   I am also sure Yale and Haerter then 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 
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 about the incident a 
few hours after it happened I called the regimental commander for details as 
something about this struck me as different.  Marines dying or being 
seriously wounded is commonplace in combat.  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.  I figured 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 as a combat award that requires two 
eye-witnesses and we figured the bureaucrats back in Washingtonwould 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.  The blue 
truck turned down into the alley and immediately sped up as it made its way 
through the serpentine.  They all said, "We knew immediately what was going 
on as soon as the two Marines began firing."

                   The Iraqi police then 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," he said, "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."  "No sane man."  "They saved us all."

                   What we didn't know at the time, and only learned a 
couple of days later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and 
Haerter for posthumous Navy Crosses, 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. 
Putting myself in their heads I supposed 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.  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 to do only a few minutes before, "Let no unauthorized personnel or 
vehicles pass."  The two Marines had about five seconds left to live.

                   It took maybe another two seconds for them to present 
their weapons, take aim, and open up.  By this time the truck was half-way 
through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time.  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.  They had three seconds left to live.

                   For about two seconds more, the recording shows the 
Marines' weapons firing non-stop the truck's windshield exploding into 
shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore in to the body of the 
( I deleted) who 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. 
The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of 
the two Marines.  In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter 
never hesitated.  By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped 
back.  They never even started to step aside.  They never even shifted their 
weight.  With their feet spread shoulder width apart, they leaned into the 
danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons.  They had only one 
second left to live.

                   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.

                   We Marines believe that God gave America the greatest 
gift he could bestow to man while he lived on this earth - freedom.  We also 
believe he gave us another gift nearly as precious - our soldiers, sailors, 
airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines - to safeguard that gift and guarantee 
no force on this earth can ever steal it away.

                   It has been my distinct honor to have been with you here 
today.  Rest assured our America , this experiment in democracy started over 
two centuries ago, will forever remain the "land of the free and home of the 
brave" so long as we never run out of tough young Americans who are willing 
to look beyond their own self-interest and comfortable lives, and go into 
the darkest and most dangerous places on earth to hunt down, and kill, those 
who would do us harm.

                   IT WOULD BE NICE (GREAT!) TO SEE the message spread if 
more would pass it on.

                   God Bless America,

                   God Bless our military ,
                   God Bless the United States Marine Corps...
                   Semper Fidelis Often Tested, Always Faithful, Brothers 
Forever.




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