Author Dan Lamothe

Dan Lamothe

I'm a senior writer with Marine Corps Times, covering ground warfare, manpower, weapons acquisition and other beats. I embedded in Afghanistan in spring 2010, and plan to return at least once in 2011.

Medal of Honor recipient Staff Sgt. Ty Carter overcame painful past as Marine

By Dan Lamothe on August 26, 2013 Afghanistan, Awards, Medal of Honor

Army Staff Sgt. Ty Carter received the Medal of Honor this afternoon, a fitting tribute to a man who repeatedly braved enemy fire in Afghanistan while defending Combat Outpost Keating from a fierce Taliban attack in 2009. Before serving in the Army, however, Carter served as a Marine — and overcame a significant family tragedy. According to Carter’s hometown newspaper in Spokane, Wash., the newest Medal of Honor recipient’s brother was killed by a drunken friend playing with a shotgun at a party in 2000. Carter was a 20-year-old Marine serving in Okinawa, Japan, at the time: The brothers grew…

Marine to retire from ‘President’s Own’ band with 23 years as master gunnery sergeant

By Dan Lamothe on August 20, 2013 Marines, Washington

It was a different time in 1974, when Master Gunnery Sgt. D. Michael Ressler joined the Marine Corps. President Richard Nixon was about to resign, Commandant Gen. Robert Cushman had recently overseen the Corps’ withdrawal from Vietnam, and Hank Aaron had just become baseball’s all-time home run king. Thirty-nine years later, Ressler will leave the Corps this month with more time on active-duty than any other enlisted Marine. A member of the “President’s Own” U.S. Marine Band, he will be honored in a retirement ceremony at Marine Barracks Washington on Friday, and officially retire Aug. 31. He served under 11…

How long will Regional Command-Southwest in Afghanistan survive?

By Dan Lamothe on August 14, 2013 Afghanistan, General officers, I MEF, III MEF, Infantry

Month by month, it increasingly looks like it could be a matter of time before the two-star Marine headquarters in southwestern Afghanistan ceases to exist. Regional Command-Southwest, as it is known, was established in 2010 as the U.S. rapidly expanded military operations in Afghanistan, surging thousands of troops there. The Marine Corps was among the first involved in that surge, seeing its footprint grow in Helmand province from about 11,000 in 2009 to 20,000 the following summer. Maj. Gen. Richard Mills took command that spring of the newly formed RC-Southwest, which split off from the neighboring two star-headquarters in Kandahar…

Viral video: Hornets infuriated by EOD explosion in Afghanistan

By Dan Lamothe on August 13, 2013 Afghanistan, Animals

Traveling in Kajaki, Afghanistan, last year, I learned that we’d be spending a couple nights in a small mud compound with Marines… and a nest or oriental hornets. The insects looked monstrous — they can grow to more than two inches long — but there were no incidents worth mentioning. A video recorded in 2007 suggests that hornets in Afghanistan aren’t always so harmless, however. It went viral online today, after being posted to Reddit, Gawker and other sites: [HTML1] Anybody else feel like they need some long sleeves? Clearly, these bugs aren’t fans of controlled detonations like Marines. The…

Dakota Meyer asks: Why can’t the U.S. bring my intrepreter home?

By Dan Lamothe on August 13, 2013 Afghanistan, Awards, Ganjgal, Medal of Honor

With a deadly firefight raging, five men hopped into a Humvee and rode toward a small mountainside village in Afghanistan looking for a four-man team of U.S. forces that had gone missing in combat. The possibility that all five men wouldn’t make it out of the village of Ganjgal, in Kunar province, was high. Already, multiple Afghan troops the Americans were training had been cut down by machine-gun fire in a fierce ambush that was launched about dawn on Sept. 8, 2009. U.S. Army officers at nearby Forward Operating Base Joyce had declined to send air support in a timely…

Obama highlights sacrifice, heroism of Marine couple at Camp Pendleton

By Dan Lamothe on August 8, 2013 Afghanistan, MARSOC, Special operations, Wounded warriors

Midway through his speech Wednesday at Camp Pendleton, Calif., President Obama shifted from talking about military policy to highlight the sacrifice of a Marine wounded warrior and his wife, both of whom continue to serve in the Marine Corps. Capts. Matthew and Camille Lampert, were asked to stand after Obama briefly described their last few years. Lampert was a special operator in Afghanistan when an improvised explosive device took both of his legs, Obama said. He survived that 2010 attack, and set out on a grueling recovery so he could get back to his team. “So Matt endured excruciating rehab,…

White House botches Marine Corps ‘Oorah’ in transcript of Obama speech

By Dan Lamothe on August 7, 2013 Afghanistan, Camp Pendleton

UPDATE, Aug. 8, 8 p.m.: The White House has fixed the transcript online. See it here. ————————— President Obama addressed a crowd of about 3,000 Marines, sailors and military family members at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and the speech went off without any major hitches. There was no major gaffe, for example, like mistakenly saying Army Sgt. 1st Class Jared Monti was alive to receive his Medal of Honor. In fact, the president’s speech was short on details, but hit on a lot of meat-and-potato issues. He correctly named Marjah, Sangin and Now Zad as districts in which Marines have faced…

Gen. Joseph Dunford, Afghanistan war commander, profiled by Boston Globe

By Dan Lamothe on August 6, 2013 Afghanistan, General officers

Gen. Joseph Dunford has a father who fought in Korea as a Marine, loves his hometown Boston Red Sox and was lured to join the Marine Corps after seeing a recruiting poster at college. Those are among the details published in a new Boston Globe story about the Marine general who leads the war in Afghanistan. Dunford, a Boston native, was profiled by the newspaper on Sunday, and met with a Globe reporter in Kabul. The story is short on details about the war, but highlights the general’s rise from South Boston to four-star general. He played a fair amount…

New light shed on Marines’ role in repelling attack on Forward Operating Base Shir Ghazi

By Dan Lamothe on August 2, 2013 Afghanistan, Awards, Musa Qala

Lance Cpl. Joel Murray was aboard Forward Operating Base Shir Ghazi in Afghanistan on May 13 when a truck laden with explosives detonated outside. Three Georgian soldiers were mortally wounded, and several other Georgians and U.S. Marines sustained injuries. Murray, an engineer equipment operator with Combat Logistics Regiment 2, quickly rushed to the site of the blast, Marine officials said. Insurgents were attempting to penetrate the security perimeter of the base, in Helmand province’s Musa Qala district. Murray killed an enemy fighter, and then applied a tourniquet to a Georgian soldier who had sustained a life-threatening leg injury, according to…

Marines planning for 4,400 troops in Helmand province in 2014

By Dan Lamothe on July 31, 2013 Afghanistan, Infantry, Washington

Marine commanders are planning to draw down to about 4,400 service members in southwestern Afghanistan by early 2014, as the U.S. continues to shrink its footprint across the country. That’s one of the takeaways of this new Marine Corps Times story, which was published in our print edition this week. It outlines the way the Corps continues to reshape its force in Helmand province, where tens of thousands of Marines have deployed and tangled with the Taliban since 2008. Marine officials released the proposed troop number for Helmand province to me for the story, while acknowledging it is subject to…

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