A battle few outside the Marine Corps had ever heard of was recognized yesterday when four Marines and a sailor received prestigious medals at Camp Pendleton. The Corps awarded one Navy Cross and four Silver Stars for valor shown during a firefight between Camp Pendleton troops and insurgents in Iraq. The Navy Cross is the second-highest honor for heroism, while the Silver Star ranks one notch below it. Five Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment died in the Nov. 16, 2005, battle, and 11 others were wounded. Eighteen insurgents were killed during the fight.
"I thought it was totally one of the most heroic acts of bravery that I've ever witnessed or been a part of," said Col. Robert Oltman, the unit's battalion commander at the time and now a staff officer at the Pentagon. "It was nothing short of amazing."
The battalion had arrived in Iraq a month earlier and had seen little combat before Operation Steel Curtain, a U.S.-Iraqi campaign to root out insurgents operating in the Euphrates River Valley. On that November day, insurgents ambushed the Marines in New Ubaydi by creating a killing zone around what Marine commanders called Building 6, or what the rank and file referred to as "the death house."
Former Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Jesse Hickey recalled seeing bullets hitting all around him as Marines ran for cover. As the first corpsman to reach the ambush site, he raced to rescue wounded men. Under normal circumstances, the Marines would have pulled back and called in air power to destroy the building. But with wounded Marines in the house, that wasn't an option.
Hickey treated and evacuated several Marines, even though shrapnel hit parts of his body and he could no longer use one of his arms. "I remember being scared, but I was scared of not being able to help those guys," Hickey said yesterday. "I never thought about what might happen to me, only of failing my Marines. When I think back about it, I wish I could've done more."
Also working to save Marines and kill the enemy during the battle were Gunnery Sgt. Robert Homer, Lance Cpl. Joshua Mooi, Cpl. Javier Alvarez and 2nd Lt. Donald McGlothlin. At one point, Alvarez snatched an insurgent's grenade that landed in the middle of some Marines. It exploded, blowing his hand off, but he kept fighting.
Hickey, Homer and Alvarez received the Silver Star during yesterday's medals ceremony. The Silver Star for McGlothlin, who died in the battle, was awarded posthumously. The Marine Corps bestowed the Navy Cross on Mooi, who is credited with making six trips into the ambush zone to rescue Marines or fight the insurgents. Mooi left the house only after bullets destroyed his M-16 rifle.
Hundreds of Marines assembled on a hilltop for the awards program.
"The medal itself, it's one of those symbols that feels like it should take a lot of weight off. . . . It puts some things to rest," Mooi said. "But I think at the same time, it puts a lot of weight back on because now I have something that other Marines are supposed to look up to and aspire to."
An emotional moment came when McGlothlin's parents accepted his Silver Star. Donald McGlothlin said his son overcame childhood respiratory problems to graduate first in his class at the Marine Corps' officer basic school. "He was the honor grad in his class and could have had any job he wanted," his father recalled. "He said: 'Dad, I want to be an infantry officer. There's never been a Marine commandant who hasn't been an infantry officer.' He always knew how to make me smile."
Of the surviving medal recipients, only Homer is still in the service. He is an instructor at Camp Pendleton's School of Infantry.
God bless each and every one