Awards

Silver Star recipient takes command of 1/4

By Gidget Fuentes on September 7, 2012 Awards, Infantry, Leadership, Marines

The Marines of 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, welcomed a new boss in Maj. Christopher J. Bronzi during a Sept. 6 ceremony at Camp Pendleton’s Camp Horno. Bronzi, 39, of Poughquag, N.Y., deployed to Afghanistan and served as operations officer with 1st Marine Regiment and Regimental Combat Team 1. A 1996 U.S. Naval Academy graduate, he received the Silver Star for his actions leading his men in battle over two days of heavy fighting in Iraq’s volatile Sunni Triangle in April 2004. Bronzi, then a captain, was commanding Golf Company, 2/4, through the intense deadly battles with insurgents April 6-7 in…

Behind the Cover: In new book, Dakota Meyer unloads

By Dan Lamothe on August 13, 2012 Afghanistan, Awards, Behind the Cover, Ganjgal, Medal of Honor

Last week, I reported for Marine Corps Times that Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer acknowledges in his new book that he attempted to kill himself in 2010, one year after surviving the battle that led to him receiving the nation’s top valor award. The story generated a wide range of reaction from readers. Some blasted me for writing a story specifically about Meyer’s struggles, even though he chose to speak about it freely in an interview and disclosed the suicide attempt in his forthcoming book, “Into the Fire: A Firsthand Account of the Most Extraordinary Battle in the Afghan War.” Others praised…

Behind the Cover: Jobs after the Marine Corps

By Dan Lamothe on July 30, 2012 Awards, Behind the Cover, Drawdown, Washington

The job market is struggling, just as the Marine Corps undergoes a drawdown of forces that will reduce the size of the service from 202,100 Marines in 2010 to 182,100 by fall 2016. What’s a Marine to do, then? This week’s Marine Corps Times cover story explores the options that are on the table in a new transition assistance program the White House and Defense Department have planned for all troops leaving military service. It has similarities to a program the Corps rolled out earlier this year, but there are definitely differences, too. Marine and Pentagon officials are now in…

Marine hero Dakota Meyer’s book set for September release

By Dan Lamothe on July 16, 2012 Awards, Ganjgal, Medal of Honor, Pop culture

Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer’s new book is scheduled to be released in September, three years after the devastating battle that led to his heroic actions. “Into the Fire: A Firsthand Account of the Most Extraordinary Battle in the Afghan War” will be available Sept. 25, according to its listing on Amazon.com. The 272-page book is written by Meyer and Bing West, a Marine veteran who has authored several best-selling works. It will be published by Random House, which also has it listed on its website. The cover image of the book shows Meyer in Afghanistan in 2009, wearing…

Marines release gritty photo of bleeding Silver Star recipient

By Dan Lamothe on July 14, 2012 Afghanistan, Awards, Infantry, Marjah

Friday morning, I interviewed Lance Cpl. Jeffrey Cole, the Marine Corps’ newest Silver Star recipient. He received the award Tuesday at Camp Lejeune, N.C., for heroism in Marjah, Afghanistan, on Aug. 17, 2010. Cole’s actions speak for themselves. As a machine gunner with 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines, he took an M240B machine gun from a fellow Marine who was wounded, abandoning cover to engage insurgents who were less than 100 meters away. He was eventually shot twice in the arm, leaving him gushing blood from his brachial artery. The Marine Corps released its account of the firefight here, and my…

Wounded warrior Marine promoted, 19 months after grenade blast

By Dan Lamothe on July 3, 2012 Afghanistan, Awards, Infantry, Marjah, Wounded warriors

It was Nov. 21, 2010, when Lance Cpls. Kyle Carpenter and Nick Eufrazio were rocked with a grenade blast that changed both of their lives. Nineteen months later, Carpenter’s miraculous recovery continues. Profiled in a Marine Corps Times cover story I wrote late last year, he has continued to heal slowly from life threatening injuries. The blast mangled his jaw, destroyed one of his eyes and most of his teeth and caused severe trauma to his right arm, which had severe tissue damage and more than 30 fractures. Carpenter has been strikingly open about his recovery since, launching a Facebook…

Soldier gets Distinguished Service Cross for heroism with Marines

By Dan Lamothe on July 2, 2012 Afghanistan, Awards, Infantry, Marjah

Combat operations are rarely as simple as Marines serving exclusively with Marines, or soldiers serving exclusively with soldiers. There’s no better recent example of this than Army Staff Sgt. Corey Calkins, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for heroism serving alongside Marines. On Feb. 18, 2010, Calkins was serving in Marjah, Afghanistan, a Taliban stronghold that had been assaulted by Marine forces only days before. As part of a dismounted reconnaissance patrol consisting of U.S. soldiers, Marines and Afghan National Security Forces, Calkins led an attack on a platoon-sized group of insurgents in fortified positions in the bazaar near…

Marines ask: Why not more Presidential Unit Citations?

By Dan Lamothe on June 25, 2012 Afghanistan, Awards, Infantry, Washington

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…

Maj. Gen. Larry Nicholson on MEB-Afghanistan’s Presidential Unit Citation

By Dan Lamothe on June 25, 2012 Afghanistan, Awards, Infantry

Last week, I broke a story reporting that some 28,000 personnel will be authorized to wear the Presidential Unit Citation ribbon for serving under Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010. It’s prestigious, unit-level recognition of the sacrifices that thousands of Marines made as the U.S. ramped up the war in Afghanistan more than two years ago. Today, Maj. Gen. Larry Nicholson weighed in on the honor. He commanded the MEB as a one-star commander, and is back in Afghanistan now serving as the operations officer for the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command based in Kabul. Nicholson had the…

Sgt. Rafael Peralta’s Medal of Honor case shifts again

By Dan Lamothe on June 22, 2012 Awards, Infantry, Iraq, Medal of Honor, Washington

Sgt. Rafael Peralta’s case for the Medal of Honor has shifted again, according to a congressman who has pressed the Pentagon to review new evidence that he says shows the Marine chose to smother a grenade to save his buddies in Iraq. Peralta, 25, died Nov. 15, 2004, in Fallujah. He was awarded the Navy Cross in 2008 for disregarding his own personal safety while already mortally wounded, pulling the grenade to his body, “absorbing the brunt of the blast and shielding fellow Marines only feet away,” according to his award citation. Despite the extraordinary heroism, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates…

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