MARINE FORCES RESERVE, New Orleans -- The leathernecks of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment returned to their home training center in Glenville, N.Y. on April 10 after a successful 7-month deployment to Iraq’s western Al Anbar Province.
Since that time, most of the Reserve Marines have demobilized and returned to their civilian lives and careers, trading in flak vests and desert cammies for business suits and campus casual.
As the Marines of Fox Company prepare to face another challenging environment on a winter deployment with NATO forces in Norway for Operation Cold Response in February 2010, here’s a look back at their days in Iraq’s Al Anbar desert in December 2008.
Fox Patrols Around the Lion’s Gate
AL ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq -- On a blustery winter afternoon, Reserve Marines and Sailors from Company F, 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment set out for a security patrol of the base’s outer perimeter Dec. 11, 2008.
The name of their base, “Al Asad,” translates to “The Lion” in English.
This is one of the Coalition Forces’ largest logistical hubs in Iraq. The security of the base is therefore vital to the Coalition Forces’ current operational overwatch posture, as they mentor and provide support to Iraqi Security Forces.
The reservists from Company F arrived in-country with 2/25 in early September, 2008. When a large portion of the battalion moved west to conduct operations from Camp Korean Village near the Syrian and Jordanian borders, Fox and other elements of the battalion remained at Al Asad to fulfill the critical role of base security.
To provide defense in depth, Company F’s 4th Platoon was assigned to external security. They spent their deployment patrolling, day and night, the hundreds of miles of barren desert surrounding the base.
Petty Officer 3rd Class John McClure, a company corpsman, went out on more than 50 of these patrols. A 24-year-old native of Jonesville, La., this was McClure’s fourth tour in Iraq, and he remarked on the improvement in the security situation he witnessed between 2004 and 2008.
“There wasn’t a day that went by when you didn’t get mortars, rockets or small arms fire,” said McClure. “Now, there’s… just nothing. Only empty desert.”
The patrol’s first stop Dec. 11 was at a Bedouin shepherd camp some miles outside the base. The Marines, while conducting census operations, interviewed the tribe’s leader, Fallah Humak, who has been camped there with his wives and children for the past 30 days.
Parked out front of his tent was Humak’s aging pick-up truck, his family’s only source of transportation. With a large plastic tank on the back, the truck was also their only source of potable water.
Due to a scheduling error, the Marines had no Arabic interpreter. They therefore put their Arabic training into practice in the course of interviewing Humak and sharing a cup of chai tea with him on the floor of his tent.
The patrol loaded back up to continue their trek through the desert. The only sign of other human life was an occasional helicopter from the base flying overhead.
After several hours, the Marines and sailors arrived at a checkpoint where another Bedouin camp had been sighted several days earlier by aerial observation. The transient tribesmen had apparently moved on, leaving only tire tracks and an empty fire pit as evidence of their occupation.
In the last hour before sunset, the patrol set up an observation post. The gunners manned the turrets and scanned the desert for activity, while the rest of the troops took a short chow and coffee break as the temperature quickly plummeted into the 40’s.
Cpl. Ellsworth Bucey III, a 24-year-old team leader and real estate salesman from Albany, N.Y., fired up his camping stove to boil water for the coffee.
Ellsworth, who deployed to Iraq in 2006 as a volunteer with 1st Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, said that this experience was “like night and day” compared to his first tour, which “was much more kinetic.”
“It’s good to see the country take a turn for the better,” said Ellsworth, who explained that the only interaction he’s had with Iraqis this time has been chance encounters with farmers, shepherds and people traveling through the desert from small remote villages to get water from the stream beds which fill up after a rain storm.
After nightfall, the vehicles continued on their circuitous route, winding through the berms and rock piles and negotiating the treacherous slopes of the dry stream beds.
Cpl. Scott Sayre, the 28-year-old patrol leader in the front vehicle, suddenly ordered the patrol to halt. One of the Humvees had snapped an axle.
The Marines circled the wagons and called back to base, about 30 kilometers away, for a wrecker to come out with the quick reactionary force to tow the Humvee.
“We do our best to prep the vehicles, but some things are just out of our control,” said Sayre. “It seems like you always have the most problems when you are furthest away from base.”
This was Sayre’s first overseas deployment, and he explained that his mission was much different than what he’d anticipated after training all summer at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif.
“I always expected to be in a city, doing counter-insurgency operations,” said Sayre. “I didn’t think I’d be somewhere so desolate with no population but sheep herders and a few villages here and there.”
Sayre, who graduated from State University of New York in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, joined the Corps the following year, foregoing the option to attend officer’s candidacy school in order to serve in the reserves and stay close to his family. He is a now a stone mason in his civilian career, helping his father with the family business.
“Most active duty guys don’t realize the level of commitment required of reservists,” explained Sayre. “After working in our regular jobs all week, we drive to the drill center, train hard all weekend, and then go back to our regular jobs or to school on Monday. And then there are the overseas deployments…. It definitely requires a certain level of commitment.”
As the patrol waited in the moonlight with temperatures dipping down into the low 30’s, the troops remained alert, scanning the flat terrain and discussing their plans for vacation after returning home from deployment in the spring.
Some would go to the Caribbean, others intended to see Europe. Sayre said he had three weddings to attend when he got home. But that was months away, and the Marines’ stomachs were growling. With each passing hour they calculated the waning likelihood of making it back in time for late-night chow at the dining facility.
The sound of the 7-ton wrecker cutting through the cold night wind was music to the Marines’ ears. The battalion’s motor transport crew had finally arrived.
Led by Sgt. Jose L. Salas of Motor Transport Platoon, Headquarters and Service Company, 2/25, the Marine transport crew hooked the defunct vehicle up to the wrecker, which Salas gave the moniker, “seven tons of fun.”
The convoy crawled through the shrouded surface of dirt, rocks and craters, changing course when necessary to avoid a dangerous slope. They finally arrived at The Lion’s gate just after midnight, cold and exhausted.
Even though the Marines and sailors of Company F didn’t find the counter-insurgency battle they expected in Iraq, they conducted a worthwhile mission as guardians of one of the most strategically important American strongholds in the Global War on Terror.