Gen. Joe Dunford, the new commandant of the Marine Corps, is featured in a video message celebrating the service’s 239th birthday. Dunford issued the message celebrating Marines’ Nov. 10 birthday the day after a passage of command ceremony during which he became the Corps’ 36th commandant. This year’s message includes interviews with Marines from some of the Corps’ most brutal battles, from Pfc. John Lahm, who fought in the Battle of Peleliu during World War II, to Sgt. Maj. Bradley Kasal, who earned a Navy Cross for his role in the Battle of Fallujah in Iraq. The Corps’ newest Medal of…
Browsing: Fallujah
A Marine veteran who earned the Navy Cross for actions in Iraq but later refused it, filed a complaint with the federal government alleging treatment by a ranger at a national park in California could result in the loss of his leg, which was damaged when he stepped on an IED. Dominic Esquibel, who served with 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, was awarded the nation’s second highest valor award for braving enemy machine gunfire three times to save two fellow Marines during Operation Phantom Fury. Esquibel declined the Navy Cross. Seven years later, he stepped on an explosive device in Afghanistan, which tore…
Celebrity firearms trainer Travis Haley, who served in Iraq with 2nd Force Reconnaissance Battalion and returned to the country as a Blackwater contractor protecting ambassador Paul Bremer, recently released a riveting first-hand account of a battle in Najaf that occurred ten years ago today. Haley gained notoriety for a viral YouTube video of him engaging members of the Mahdi Army from a rooftop just days after four Blackwater contractors were killed and hung from a bridge in Fallujah. The infamous killings of the four contractors eventually precipitated Operation Phantom Fury — the Marine Corps’ most pitched battle of the Iraq…
The Marine Corps is looking into several photographs posted on an entertainment gossip website on Wednesday that appear to show Marines burning Iraqi corpses. TMZ posted eight of 41 photos they were told were taken in Fallujah in 2004. They show what appear to be Marines pouring fluid onto corpses and burning them. One photo shows a Marine appearing to go through a corpse’s pockets and another posing next to a skull on the ground. The remaining 33 photos were too gruesome to post, TMZ reported. Marine Corps Times obtained copies of the published photos from TMZ. Our staff reviewed…
MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. – Officer candidates will now be training and running on trails named for some of the hardest battles fought by Marines during the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Col. Kris Stillings, commanding officer at Officer Candidates School, led a ceremony today here at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va. He stood with officer candidates lined up in formation at the newly named intersection of Fallujah and Kunar trails. Sangin Trail, the third to be named, runs slightly to the north. “These trails, just like the other trails we have here … these names mean something,”…
Smoke the donkey, beloved Marine mascot and wounded warrior therapy animal passed away last night of natural causes, according to his Facebook page. After a harrowing, years-long journey that took him from the desert of Iraq to Nebraska via Kurdistan, Turkey, Germany and the glitz and glamor of New York, Smoke the Donkey has moved on to greener pastures. He was first adopted by the Marines of 1st Combat Logistics Battalion out of Camp Pendleton, Calif., in 2008 as a moral booster after they found him wandering injured at Camp Taqaddum near Fallujah, Iraq. A sergeant caught him roaming the…
The decision to award the prestigious Presidential Unit Citation to 28,000 personnel who served under Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010 has led to a basic question from other Marines: Why not us? Marines, veterans and their family members are questioning online why troops who served in heavy combat in Iraq and Afghanistan outside the MEB’s deployment haven’t received a PUC, which is considered the unit-level equivalent to the Navy Cross. The only other PUC awarded to a Marine unit since 9/11 went to I Marine Expeditionary Force (Reinforced), for actions during and immediately after the initial invasion of…
California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter continues to feverishly pursue the Medal of Honor for fallen Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta, who scooped a grenade under his body to save other Marines in Fallujah, Iraq on Nov. 15, 2004, according to Marines who saw him do it. He was awarded the Navy Cross – even though the Marine Corps recommended him for the Medal of Honor – after the Defense Department convened its own panel which concluded the evidence for the nation’s highest award for combat valor was not sufficient. Peralta’s family rejected the Navy Cross. Hunter has doggedly pursued the higher…
