Yesterday we talked about the speech General Kelly gave to explain what happens to a Marine when he is killed and what a casualty officer has to do. (See General Kelly's story brought tears to my eyes.) General Kelly has had experience with death. The print edition of the Wall Street Journal had a "Notable and Quotable" column with an excerpt of a speech he gave in 2010 to commemorate two fallen Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter. Found at another site, here's an excerpt from Everybody should read General John Kelly's speech about two Marines in the path of a truck bomb:
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. ...
A truck loaded with explosives barged through the barricade. The Marines stood their ground and started firing their weapons. The Iraqi police officer who were supposed to help ran away to save their own lives. Security cameras captured some of the attack. And here's Kelly describing what the recording showed:
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 son-of-a-bitch 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 know 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.
Holy cow! I'm speechless. Little wonder that military institutions are held in such high esteem.
(If above link doesn't work, maybe this one will: A must read eulogy by General Kelly, just 4 days after his son was killed in action.)
------
1:18 PM 10/23/2017
Comments