Before Capt. Christopher Ashinhurst was selected for the Leftwich Trophy, honoring the Marines’ top ground forces captain, he was awarded a Bronze Star with combat valor device for heroism leading his company during a grueling five-day battle against insurgents, and later rallying to the aid of coalition troops at Combat Outpost Shir Ghazay following a suicide car bombing that left seven Georgian soldiers dead. The commander of Delta Company, 1st Tanks Battalion, Ashinhurst proved calm under fire, assessing casualties and directing Marines even after being hit on the head with a wooden divider after a blast destroyed his company office.…
Browsing: Afghanistan
Maj. Fred Galvin, who led the first Marine Corps Special Operations Command unit to ever deploy to Afghanistan and was later the subject of an investigation into a controversial firefight that got his unit booted from the country, will write the foreword for “Level Zero Heroes,” the book’s author recently told Marine Corps Times. Penned by former Staff Sgt. Michael Golembesky and set for release this fall, Level Zero Heroes will follow the story of Golembesky’s unit, Marine Special Operations Team 8222, which fought an entrenched insurgency for seven months in 2009 and 2010 out of Forward Operating Base Todd…
This post is from our friends at Navy Times. You can check out the full story in Monday’s issue of Marine Corps Times. His squad had come under heavy fire – and was likely to face it again. On June 22, 2012, Hospitalman Zackery Penner had risked life and limb to rush to care for a Marine shot during an patrol in Afghanistan with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines. The Marine died due to the severity of his wound, a toll that hung heavy on the company. On June 23, the squad was helping Afghan soldiers clear a compound when they…
The love story between Kimmy Kirkwood and her fallen Marine boyfriend, Sgt. Will Stacey, will forever be preserved in a Facebook tribute of the two showing how their lives became intertwined on social media in honor of website’s 10th birthday. While most users saw their timelines filled with “a look back” videos over the past few days, 10 people were selected for a bigger project Facebook launched to highlight how people come together through social media. It’s called called “Ten Stories,” and was launched on Tuesday. Kirkwood and Stacey’s Facebook story starts when the young couple reconnected a few years after high school in…
A Harvard professor is suggesting that bad behavior in the war-zone could be prevented if just one person in the unit stepped forward to say, “Marines don’t do that.” Michael Wheeler, professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, posted a piece to his LinkedIn profile examining how someone’s decision-making can be changed in a matter of seconds. He cited the case of British Royal Marine Sgt. Alexander Blackman, who was recently sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty for killing an insurgent at close-range during a 2011 patrol in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. The act was captured on helmet cameras worn by…
Appearing before members of Britain’s Parliament on Tuesday, a top British general disputed assertions that his forces are to blame for the security failures that led to last year’s deadly Taliban attack on a coalition airfield in southwestern Afghanistan. Lt. Gen. David Capewell, who oversees the planning for British military operations abroad, told lawmakers that even though the Brits were in charge of security for Camp Bastion at the time of the attack, they are not responsible for the deaths of two Marines gunned down after 15 insurgents breached the base perimeter in September 2012. His testimony before Parliament’s Defence…
A recent story by combat correspondent Cpl. Paul Peterson, offers a look into ongoing operations on the eve of the Afghanistan drawdown. The majority of U.S. and allied troops are slated to leave the country in 2014, but Marines in southern Afghanistan continue to engage in intense, hours-long firefights even as the Corps prepares to begin shipping men and equipment home. A few recent command shifts have taken place preceding the pull out including the handover of 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing forward to Col. Scott Jensen from Brig. Gen. Gary Thomas. But, those on patrol continue to take regular contact.…
A new commander is taking charge of Marine air operations in Afghanistan. Col. Scott Jensen took command of 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing (FWD) from Brig. Gen Gary Thomas, Dec. 9 during a ceremony aboard Camp Leatherneck in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Jensen, who was the unit’s assistant wing commander, will run operations through February when 3rd MAW will take over in preparation for the final withdrawal of U.S. forces next year. As operations are curtailed and Afghan forces assume more responsibility for local security, Marine units like 3rd MAW are adapting their command structures. “Over the past several months, significant gains…
A sergeant in the British Royal Marines was found guilty of murdering an insurgent during a court-martial on Friday, after helmet camera footage of him emerged showing him shooting the man in the chest at close-range. The man, identified only as marine A, faces a life in prison after being found guilty of murder, the Guardian reported. He and two other Royal Marines were on trial for their actions during a Sept. 2011 patrol in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. Royal Marine A was accused of dragging an insurgent who was hit in a helicopter attack to the side of a field…
A fallen Marine’s brother is making a film to collect people’s memories of him in order to tell his life story to others so that he will never be forgotten. [HTML1] Sgt. Dan Patron was an explosive ordnance disposal technician who died during a 2011 deployment to Helmand province in Afghanistan. He was assigned to 8th Engineer Support Battalion, out of Camp Lejeune, N.C. He was 26-years-old. Patron’s older brother, Matthew, is a filmmaker. While he grew up alongside Patron, he recognized that once he joined the Corps, he had other brothers in his life. He decided to tell the story…
