ShareThisBy JAY PRICE
Monday, November 13, 2006
It was 9 a.m., and the start of another day of Lt. Col. Todd Desgrosseilliers' hands-on approach to counterinsurgency.
Most go well, at least by the perilous standards for Marines operating in Anbar province, the heart of Iraq's Sunni Muslim insurgency. Wednesday, however, would not.
By the end of the day, one Marine would lie wounded and bloody, shot through the face by a sniper's bullet. Another would be startled by a near-miss that struck the goggles atop his helmet.
Attention has been focused in recent weeks on U.S. patrols in Baghdad, where U.S. and Iraqi soldiers are trying to seize control of neighborhoods from Sunni insurgents and Shiite Muslim militiamen responsible for dozens of deaths daily.
But fighting hasn't slowed in Anbar, where most U.S. casualties in the war have occurred, and commanders here have acknowledged they don't have enough troops to beat the insurgents with sheer force.
So Desgrosseilliers, the lean, soft-spoken commander of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, from Camp Lejeune, N.C., is hoping to persuade the enemy to quit.
"I want them to stop fighting," he said. "We fight their strategy, we don't fight them."
That makes it crucial to avoid hurting innocent civilians, and the men in Desgrosseilliers' battalion are counseled not to return fire _ no matter how bad _ unless they're certain of their target.
"It takes a lot of individual courage on the part of these Marines," Desgrosseilliers said. "But if we do that, if we show the locals that we are willing to put ourselves at risk for their security, they will respect us."
Since it arrived in July, the 3rd Battalion has lost eight Marines, a translator and two other U.S. troops working with it. Most casualties came in a monthlong stretch when the Marines were on an offensive, which meant that the chances of any one Marine in the unit getting killed that month were about 1 in 100.
Desgrosseilliers' personal detachment of 15 Marines, known as the battalion jump team, began Wednesday with a briefing from its fast-talking platoon commander, Lt. Jon Mueller, 29, of Denver. Then, the Marines strapped body armor over their fire-resistant jumpsuits, pulled on Kevlar helmets and flame-resistant gloves and climbed into their armored Humvees.
The mission was typical: Drive west from Camp Habbaniyah toward Ramadi, checking in with several of the 15 small Marine outposts scattered along a stretch of road between Fallujah and Ramadi. The Marines' goal is to build a string of outposts all the way to Ramadi so that stretches of road now closed to civilians can reopen, Desgrosseilliers said. Then they'll hand over the area to Iraqi forces.
At the first stop, in the town of Khaladiya, the Iraqi captain in charge took Desgrosseilliers behind the outpost and showed him bullet holes in the walls and impact craters in several bulletproof windows. Next stop: a bridge where the Marine outpost is attacked nearly every day.
On the way to the third stop, a burly Marine traveling with the jump team but wasn't a member of it reminded a reporter to keep moving when outside the Humvee. The patrol was in an area where a sniper had been active, he said.
Two minutes later, when the patrol stopped so Desgrosseilliers could check in with a team of Marines with tanks, the Marine stepped from his Humvee and walked toward the tanks. The snap of a shot rang out from about 150 yards away in the direction of a mosque, houses and shops.
The bullet hit just under the left side of the Marine's jaw and passed through his mouth, knocking out teeth and exiting through his right cheek. He fell to the pavement and a pool of blood began spreading around his head.
The shooting continued.
Cpl. Mario Huerta, 22, of Dallas, was outside his Humvee when he heard the first shot and looked back. A bullet whirred just above him, then another smacked into the goggles on his Kevlar helmet, rocking his head and denting the goggles but not hurting him.
Desgrosseilliers, who earned a Silver Star two years ago in Fallujah, turned when he heard the initial shot. He saw that the burly Marine was down and sprinted nearly 100 yards, ignoring the bullets zipping past his head.
Desgrosseilliers was the first to get to the wounded Marine, whose name can't be divulged under military press rules, and he rolled him onto his back. He was joined by Navy corpsman George Grant, 25, of New York, as shots zipped past their heads.
Desgrosseilliers ordered the Humvees into a circle to block the shots. Then he and Grant ran a breathing tube up the wounded man's nose so he wouldn't drown in his own blood.
The closest field hospital was about four miles back, down a road where improvised bombs are common. Desgrosseilliers' Humvee took the lead, its siren blaring to clear the road.
Within eight minutes, the jump team slid to a stop in front of the surgical unit at an air base near Camp Habbaniyah. Desgrosseilliers joined several jump-team Marines and orderlies in carrying the wounded man inside on a stretcher.
After a few minutes, Grant came out, blood all over his jumpsuit, and sat on the ground, wordless.
A doctor told Grant the Marine likely would live, that he'd been stabilized and would be flown to a larger hospital.
In camp, Desgrosseilliers said he was proud of his men for being so disciplined.
"The insurgency is trying to get us off our message by getting us to return fire and maybe kill some innocent people," he said. "But it's just not going to work."
