Shed a tear of loss and pride.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

Forwarded, with thanks, fromCharlie MacNeil.

 

Every American should read this.

 

 

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, 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 !"

 

 

 

 

 

IT WOULD BE NICE (GREAT!) TO SEE the message spread if more would pass it

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

Corps...

 

 

Often Tested, Always Faithful, Brothers Forever.

[The Original Lumpy Gritz]

I ain't got the words

Deepest respects from the father of a combat aircrew Marine(C/chief, HMM-165 "White Knights").

LG

[Gunner Gatlin, SASS 10274L]

 

 

(what is posted by Forty Rod)

 

GG ~

[Blackwater 53393]

Thanks Forty!

 

I'm passing it on.

[Deadeye Doug Dalton SASS#65449L]

 

Thank You Forty Rod

 

I copied your post into an e-mail and sent it to those in my address book.

I added the following post script at the bottom:

 

***************************************************************

 

I could barely see to compose and send this e-mail. Tears ran from my eyes, continously as I did so.

 

GOD BLESS All who have served, are serving, and will serve the cause of FREEDOM.

 

Doug

[Apache Hawk 60642]

I have copyed it and e-mailed it to all I know. :FlagAm:

 

Thanks Forty Rod !

[Pack Saddle Slim, SASS #73122]

Thanks, Forty, for posting. Awesome. Gee, what can you say after reading something like that?

[Utah Bob #35998]

[Sergeant Smokepole #29248L]

Semper Fi!

[Whiskey Rick, SASS#84292]

Even makes an old ARMY guy proud of the marines!!

 

Whew! glad I'm in my office alone right now.

[Big50]

[Charlie Harley, #14153]

Well done!