Two amazing items– or possibly not, if you know The Corps– out of Afghanistan.
The first, out of Golf Company 2/7, is about LCpl Brady Gustafson, all of 21 years old:
“Sorry, guys, I can’t keep going.”
Those were the words of Lance Cpl. Brady A. Gustafson to the Marines in his vehicle as he was pulled away from his smoking machine gun minutes after his platoon was ambushed July 21, 2008, by withering enemy fire in Shewan, Afghanistan.
Nobody blamed Gustafson, 21, an infantryman with 2nd Platoon, Company G, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, for not being able to continue the fight, since the opening volley on the Marine mounted patrol included a rocket-propelled grenade that pierced the shell of the mine-resistant armor-protected vehicle in which Gustafson was manning the turret gun.
That RPG severed Gustafson’s right leg, and yet he had the presence of mind to locate the enemy positions and place well-aimed machine gun fire on them, providing cover fire for the Marines in his platoon.
Read the whole thing. Good work, young man; when you walk into a room, general officers ought to get on their feet. And since he’s 21, someone needs to buy that man a beer. Or two.
Next, meet Cpl Sean Conroy:
On the ground, far from the generals in Kabul and the policy makers in Washington, the hour-by-hour conduct of the war rests in part in the deeds of men this young, who have been given latitude to lead as their training and instincts guide them.
Each day they organize and walk Afghan Army patrols in the valley below, some of the most dangerous acreage in the world. Each night they participate in radio meetings with the American posts along the ridges, exchanging plans and intelligence, and plotting the counterinsurgency effort in the ancient villages below.
In Corporal Conroy’s war, two Marines train Afghans in weapons, tactics, first aid, hygiene and leadership. They keep the firebase supplied with ammunition, water, batteries and food. They defecate in a rusting barrel and urinate in a tube that slopes off a roof and drains into the air. Fly strips surround them. They have no running water; their sleeping bunker stinks of filthy clothes and sweat.
Go read that too.
The Corps always emphasizes the importance of initiative at the NCO level, ande yet we seem afraid to implement policies to allow it at.
There are thousands of Cpl Conroys in the Corps, waiting for their zero-defect officers and SNCOs to give them the space to make things happen.
Good for them both-where is THEIR movie