Posted on 05/14/2005 4:50:20 PM PDT by smoothsailing
"Please moderate your language. My kids peruse these boards."
I offer my humble appology and will try to remember your request. I see what reply I really should not have said what I did. I guess the moment got the best of me.
I am sorry.
Plt. meant Platoon, a group comprising four squads, about forty men.
That's only the KIAs, there were "many more wounded". But the evalution of the marksmanship kinda depends on how many there were to begin with.
Many of the terrorist casualties would have been inflicted by artillery and other support weapons, including the bombs of Marine Air, Navy Air and Air Force. Rockets and missles from those and from Army and Marine air assets.
It really sucks when the only air assets over the battlefield belong to the other side.
I don't know where you get your information, but there was no "crossfire" incident. My brothers died from enemy fire and from a roadside explosion. We lost a lot of good Marines who we already miss and we will continue the mission in their honor. Even by your numbers if these "six fallen heros" had not died there would have been more than one Marine killed. Also, the Washington Post's Ellen Knickmeyer wrote a bogus article. Don't believe a word of it.
"I don't know where you get your information, but there was no "crossfire" incident. My brothers died from enemy fire and from a roadside explosion. We lost a lot of good Marines who we already miss and we will continue the mission in their honor. Even by your numbers if these "six fallen heros" had not died there would have been more than one Marine killed. Also, the Washington Post's Ellen Knickmeyer wrote a bogus article. Don't believe a word of it."
Marine. Thank you for serving. I assume you are under the 2DIV in Al Anbar at this point. I retract the statement regarding the "cross-fire", based on follow up info I got from some more reliable sites that indicated supposedly six Marines in 3/2 where KIAed when their Humvee I believe went over a IED. I was going from post to posted articles dealing with the operation during that week and obviously did not post later after known that those Marines in that particular squad became Angels because of a mine or IED.
Thank you for responding on this matter. To much info coming in to quick. And I was trying to support in that thread the fact that our Marines where not failing in any way.........in my response to one of our members who made it sound like the kill ration was not good enough. One Marine or soldiered KIAed is to high, so my comments where to indicate even though we may have lost 9 Marines, that it was foolish to believe our Marines did not complete a succesfull operation. I hope this explaination is a satisfactory answer to your repy to me.
Thank you for the correction, that I should have went back and reposted once I knew there was no cross fire incident.
Uncle to LCpl Steve H&Q S-2 2nd LAR, at Camp Korean Village.
Semper Fi to you Marine.
I know you were not speaking badly of them. There was a lot of bad intel being put out there and I wanted to make it clear there were no crossfire incidents. The majority of kia were from my plt., but 3/2 also made a costly sacrifice. I saw the post about marksmanship training in bootcamp. What that person has to realize is that a town is one of the worst places to fight. We came up against armor piercing rounds coming through the floor. 125 is no small number, especially in that situation. Of course there were wounded bad guys etc. It,s hard to rack up a body count when they run and hide. May the Lord keep your nephew safe.
Bump for later
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