“The reason you got this award is because you gave all of us hope that the counterinsurgency strategy would work,” Marine Commandant James Amos told a small group of officers from the brigade after the ceremony. The brigade, which comprised almost 11,000 Marines and sailors, suffered 90 fatalities and hundreds of severe injuries during its year-long deployment.Īlthough some senior military officers have questioned the decision to send the brigade to Helmand province instead of neighboring Kandahar province, which is more populous and strategically significant, the Marines used their time in Helmand to demonstrate how counterinsurgency tactics - employing military resources to protect civilians from insurgents - could beat back the Taliban. The following February, the brigade assaulted the Taliban stronghold of Marja, which led to months of arduous combat. Helicopter-borne assault since the Vietnam War in the summer of 2009. Larry Nicholson, the brigade conducted the largest The Presidential Unit Citation recognizes group valor equivalent to individual action that would merit the Navy Cross or the Army’s Distinguished Service Cross. “You made 58,000 square miles of battle space - that’s 10,000 square miles larger than North Carolina - a more stable and secure place in the world. The brigade “brought the fight to the heart of the insurgency,” Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said in announcing the award. Troops of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, who engaged in pitched fighting along the Helmand River Valley, are the first conventional forces in the nearly 11-year-long Afghan war to be awarded the Presidential Unit Citation.
Marines that evicted Taliban insurgents from a broad swath of southern Afghanistan received the nation’s highest collective military honor at a ceremony here Friday. "They took a bloodied nose and gave it back a thousand fold.CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. Booker had been the senior enlisted Marine in the battalion. Jim Booker, added in an email from Afghanistan where he is now deployed. "They're not there to feel sorry for themselves," Sgt. Paul Kennedy, who had been the battalion commander at the time, said in an email read at the memorial that that the Marines "were not victims of this fight." Marines and soldiers would continue fighting in Ramadi for several years, but in several days of aggressive fighting by Marines Ramadi had been saved from falling into the hands of insurgents.īrig. In a four-day period the battalion had killed 250 insurgents, according to the Marine Corps.īy the end of the battalion's tour in September 2004 they had lost 33 Marines and a sailor. "We ridiculed them and antagonized them and begged them to come out and fight," Weiler said. On the third day, the Marines went around with megaphones, challenging the insurgents to come out and fight.
"The next day we ended up killing a hefty number of bad guys," Weiler said. They fought back hard against the insurgents after the initial April 6 attack, refusing to give an inch. Washington had yet to realize the size of the insurgency it was facing. forces in Iraq and turning security responsibility over to Iraqis. Years later American reinforcements would flood into Ramadi and tribal leaders would join the Americans in opposing al-Qaeda militants.īut back in 2004 the Pentagon still planned on reducing U.S.
Only now is the significance of the city coming into historical focus, thanks to veterans who have kept the memories alive. But it was among the most violent cities in Iraq and played a critical role in ultimately turning the tide against the insurgency. Ramadi never dominated the headlines like Baghdad or Fallujah, a nearby city in western Iraq. Marines from the battalion had been getting together informally for years but this was the first formal gathering, which started as an idea from some families whose sons were killed in battle there. Many wives and parents heard many stories for the first time, as veterans began opening up about their experiences. Hundreds of veterans of the battalion as well as families of the fallen gathered Sunday to reunite and reminisce. Under clear blue skies this past weekend the veterans of the battalion, called the Magnificent Bastards, gathered at Camp Pendleton in California to mark the 10th anniversary of the battle and the battalion's seven-month deployment. By the time the dust settled 12 Marines had been killed in action that day, a devastating loss for a single infantry battalion. Marines fought with insurgents throughout the city in running gun battles that day. Robert Weiler, who was a company commander with the battalion in 2004. "We we're going there to improve the quality of life," said Lt. On April 6 those plans were cast aside when insurgents launched deadly attacks on the Marines throughout the city. The men of 2 nd Battalion, 4 th Marines arrived in Ramadi in 2004 prepared to support the economy and government of a critical Sunni city in western Iraq.