Submitted by: Lady E
"The Last Six Seconds"
One can hardly conceive of the enormous grief held quietly within
General Kelly as he spoke.
On Nov 13, 2010, Lt General John Kelly , USMC, gave a speech to the
Semper Fi Society of St. Louis , MO. This was four days after his son,
Lt Robert Kelly , USMC, was killed by an IED while on his 3rd Combat
tour. During his speech, General Kelly spoke about the dedication
and valor of our young men and women who step forward each and
every day to protect us.
During the speech, he never mentioned the loss of his own son. He
closed the speech with the moving account of the last six seconds in
the lives of two young Marines who died with rifles blazing to protect
their brother Marines.
"I will leave you with a story about the kind of people they are,
about the quality of the steel in their backs, about the kind of
dedication they bring to our country while they serve in uniform and
forever after as veterans. Two years ago when I was the Commander
of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine
infantry battalions, 1/9 "The Walking Dead," and 2/8 were switching out in
Ramadi. One battalion in the closing days of their deployment going
home very soon, the other just starting its seven-month combat tour. Two
Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter,
22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were
assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost
that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines. The same
broken down ramshackle building was also home to 100 Iraqi police,
also my men and our allies in the fight against the terrorists in
Ramadi, a city until recently the most dangerous city on earth and
owned by Al Qaeda.
Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and
daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and whom he
supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000.
Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle class white kid from Long
Island. They were from two completely different worlds. Had they
not joined the Marines they would never have met each other, or
understood that multiple America's exist simultaneously depending
on one's race, education level, economic status, and where you might
have been born. But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in
the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond they
were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same
woman.
The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leader I
am sure went something like, "Okay you two clowns, stand this post
and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass. You clear?"
I am also sure Yale and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in
unison something like, "Yes Sergeant," with just enough attitude
that made the point without saying the words, "No kidding
'sweetheart', we know what we're doing." They then relieved two
other Marines on watch and took up their post at the entry control
point of Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of
Ramadi, Al Anbar, Iraq.
A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley
way - perhaps 60-70 yards in length, and sped its way through the
serpentine of concrete jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of
where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both
catastrophically. Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged
or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck's engine
came to rest two hundred yards away knocking most of a house
down before it stopped. Our explosive experts reckoned the blast
was made of 2,000 pounds of explosives. Two died, and because
these two young infantrymen didn't have it in their DNA to run from
danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers-in-arms.
When I read the situation report about the incident a few hours after
it happened I called the regimental commander for details as
something about this struck me as different. Marines dying or being
seriously wounded is commonplace in combat. We expect Marines
regardless of rank or MOS to stand their ground and do their duty,
and even die in the process, if that is what the mission takes. But
this just seemed different. The regimental commander had just
returned from the site and he agreed, but reported that there were
no American witnesses to the event - just Iraqi police. I figured if
there was any chance of finding out what actually happened and
then to decorate the two Marines to acknowledge their bravery, I'd
have to do it as a combat award that requires two eye-witnesses
and we figured the bureaucrats back in Washington would never buy
Iraqi statements. If it had any chance at all, it had to come under
the signature of a general officer.
I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to a
half-dozen Iraqi police all of whom told the same story. The blue
truck turned down into the alley and immediately sped up as it made
its way through the serpentine. They all said, "We knew immediately
what was going on as soon as the two Marines began firing." The
Iraqi police then related that some of them also fired, and then to a
man, ran for safety just prior to the explosion. All survived. Many were
injured, some seriously. One of the Iraqis elaborated and with tears
welling up said, "They'd run like any normal man would to save his
life." "What he didn't know until then," he said, "And what he learned
that very instant, was that Marines are not normal." Choking past
the emotion he said, "Sir, in the name of God no sane man would
have stood there and done what they did." "No sane man." "They
saved us all."
What we didn't know at the time, and only learned a couple of days
later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and Haerter
for posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras,
damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. It
happened exactly as the Iraqis had described it. It took exactly six
seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it detonated.
You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting
myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two
Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was
going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the
alley. Exactly no time to talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what
they should do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think
about what the sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before,
"Let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass." The two Marines
had about five seconds left to live.
It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons,
take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was half-way through the
barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording shows a
number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering
like the normal and rational men they were - some running right past the
Marines. They had three seconds left to live.
For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines' weapons
firing non-stop the truck's windshield exploding into shards of glass as
their rounds take it apart and tore in to the body of the ( I deleted)
who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers - American and
Iraqi-bedded down in the barracks totally unaware of the fact that their
lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their
ground.
If they had been aware, they would have known they were safe because
two Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide bomber. The
recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of
the two Marines. In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter
never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped
back. They never even started to step aside. They never even shifted
their weight. With their feet spread shoulder width apart, they leaned
into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons. They had
only one second left to live.
The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to
their God. Six seconds. Not enough time to think about their
families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths,
but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their
duty into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all
over the world tonight - for you.
We Marines believe that God gave America the greatest gift he could
bestow to man while he lived on this earth - freedom. We also believe
he gave us another gift nearly as precious - our soldiers, sailors,
airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines - to safeguard that gift and
guarantee no force on this earth can ever steal it away.
It has been my distinct honor to have been with you here today. Rest
assured our America , this experiment in democracy started over
two centuries ago, will forever remain the "land of the free and home
of the brave" so long as we never run out of tough young Americans
who are willing to look beyond their own self-interest and
comfortable lives, and go into the darkest and most dangerous
places on earth to hunt down, and kill, those who would do us harm.
God Bless America , and SEMPER FIDELIS !"
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