When "ABNORMAL" Is A Compliment

Common Sense Commentary.......   
They are not normal...they're Marines.


The Last Six Seconds"..SEMPER FI
Take a few minutes to read this and thank the young men
who are preserving our freedom...

"The Last Six Seconds of two Marines"

>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 22 ND 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, U S
>Customs and Border Patrol, 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 !"

Semper Fi, God Bless America and God Bless
the United States Marine Corps...

Often Tested, Always Faithful, Brothers

I have but one comment ... AMEN !...

Rayburn Blair USMC  "The Chosin Few Survivors"