10 November 2009

The 229th Marine Corps Birthday, Five Years Later.

The following is an excerpt from Bing West's book, "No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah".  As you will recall, Casey was a part of 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines (1/3) from 2002-2006.  This story makes me beam with pride and was carried around the battalion, long before Bing West got wind of it or decided to write his piece on it.

Although I love this part of "No True Glory", West's book on Fallujah was more of a book about 3/1, which was rather dismaying to the three other major units of Marines who participated equally in that fight.  Nevertheless, this excerpt articulates the pride that we felt as spouses of these Marines of 1/3 during this time.
 
"The city's on fire..."
By dusk on November 10, Battalion 1/3 had seized the Mujahereen Mosque north of Fran and halted to observe the Marine Corps birthday, an annual ritual observed at thousands of balls around the world. In a formal service steeped in tradition, Sergeant Major Michael Berg had the army psyops Humvees play the Marine Corps hymn over their loudspeakers while he cut a slice of pound cake from an MRE and presented it to the youngest Marine. As he did so, insurgents fired a brace of RPGs.

"Shut those bastards up!" Berg yelled.

Over two hundred rifles and machine guns blazed away for several seconds.

"Cease fire!" Berg yelled.

The battlefield went silent.

"That's more like it," Berg said. "Continue with the ceremony."

No comments:

Post a Comment

Tell me about you, and your thoughts about my words.
No hate, please. IP addresses are logged.