Third Way Dispatch

(This arrived at Third Way as a letter from Sean dated 4/13/2006)

Fallujah, Iraq

The last few days have been physically draining. Between running to the rooftops of apartment buildings in pursuit of snipers and conducting long foot patrols in the mid-day heat, being a Marine in Fallujah is a weight-loss program with guaranteed results!

(This arrived at Third Way as a letter from Sean dated 4/6/2006)

Fallujah, Iraq

We’ve been in Fallujah for about a week now. Our work rotation has kept us extremely busy. We rotate between patrolling and conducting operations, standing ready as a quick reaction force, manning observation posts throughout the city, and standing guard post at our FOB. A couple of days ago we conducted a raid on the house of a suspected, big-time weapons smuggler. The raid went off without incident and the suspected gun-runner is now in the custody of the Iraqi authorities. This morning we saw some small arms fire in front of our observation post overlooking one of the main entry points to the city. We all jumped up and reinforced those standing watch but the gunmen ran off quickly after firing a few potshots.

(Note: This arrived at Third Way as a letter from Sean dated 4/02/06)

Fallujah, Iraq

Last night we arrived at our forward operating base (FOB) in the center of the city of Fallujah. After two days at Camp Victory in Kuwait, we were flown in a C-130 to a large air base about 20 miles outside of Fallujah. After another two days at the air base, we convoyed through the city of Fallujah to another base just outside of Fallujah at Baharia. Finally, after another two days at Baharia, we convoyed into the heart of the city to occupy our FOB.

(Note: This arrived at Third Way as a letter from Sean dated 3-26-06)

Camp Victory, Kuwait

We are at Camp Victory in Kuwait. We arrived in Kuwait City at 0300 after a twenty-hour flight that included layovers in Bangor, ME and Shannon, Ireland. The flight was pleasant. We were seen off at Twenty-nine Palms by a team of “Official Huggers” (mostly mothers and wives with their own family members deployed overseas). At Bangor, there was also a group of greeters—mostly veterans of the Korean and Vietnam Wars.

In Bangor, we were allowed to make a free phone call, so I woke my wife up at 4:00 AM (Philly time) to say goodbye. Despite being post-call (she’s a first-year family medicine resident), she wasn’t even that mad.

We have just returned from 28 days straight in the field. Taking that first shower after getting back to the rear has never been so heavenly!

This last stint in the field was the culminating phase of our four-month pre-deployment workup. Now that we have finished our training, we are preparing to embark very shortly for Iraq to begin our seven-month tour.

Our destination in Iraq is no longer confidential, so I can share that at this point. Reporters were embedded with us during our last phase of training and articles have now been published about both our training and our mission. We are headed to Fallujah, where we will be responsible simultaneously for training Iraqi soldiers and conducting counterinsurgency operations.

This last week, we received the best training I have ever received in the Marine Corps. We went to a large movie set where there was a mock Iraqi village set up. There were Iraqi-American actors who were playing roles as civilians and insurgents. There were even mock IED explosions and amputee actors who lost their (fake) limbs when they were caught close to the explosions. We practiced urban patrolling and urban raids in this fully interactive environment, sometimes using blanks and sometimes using simulation rounds. Simulation rounds are like paint ball rounds on steroids. They are 9mm rounds that can be fired out of our actual, issued weapons, but that mark you like a paintball when you’ve been hit.