My Men are My Heroes (12 page)

“All I could make out was ‘get in the car, we've been robbed,'” Kasal says.

Perry peeled out in pursuit, rapidly filling Kasal in at the same time. “He said that while he was in the barbershop sitting in the chair a guy came in, pulled out a .45 handgun, and asked for all the money in the cash register—about $110 or $115. The robber put the money in his pocket and took off on foot. Staff Sergeant Perry jumped out of the chair, jumped into his car, and came back and got me.”

No sooner had Perry finished his tale than Kasal spied the robber at the end of an alley.

“Before the car stopped I had jumped out the door and was running after the guy. He pulled the gun so I disarmed him, threw the gun on the ground, and tackled him. Then I grabbed the guy and held him there in a choke hold. By then the police had been called and they showed up, cuffed the guy, and picked up the weapon.”

The good citizens of St. Cloud were grateful and so was the Marine Corps. “The City Council, the Chief of Police, and everybody else gave us a bunch of awards and plaques,” Kasal says. “The Marine Corps gave us the Navy Commendation Medal for conspicuous gallantry. The newspaper showed up out there right after it happened and took a picture of me giving a statement to the police.”

Kasal says he and Perry just did what anyone would do. “That was our barber he was robbing,” Kasal says. “I liked the barber. He was a nice guy.”

After three long, hard years, a promotion to Gunnery Sergeant, and a Navy Achievement Medal for being the Recruiting Station NCOIC of the Year, Kasal finally got his wish and left the role of recruiter behind him, thinking it was gone for good. It had been a tough duty but one he was ultimately proud of.

After another tour with 1/4 as a gunnery sergeant and another round of deployments in the western Pacific, Kasal was promoted to First Sergeant and transferred to 3d Battalion, 1st Marines—the Thundering Third. Kasal was appointed First Sergeant of Kilo Co., one of four companies in the battalion. He was the junior first sergeant in the battalion and had a lot to learn in a short time. No sooner had he settled in when the battalion headed into harm's way.

The one thing Kasal had going for him at Kilo was his time being a Grunt. Many first sergeants reporting to infantry companies are not Grunts. In the Marine Corps a first sergeant is a military occupational specialty (MOS) as well as a rank. First sergeants are expected to be capable of overseeing any Marine unit with a fine hand.

Kilo was sent to Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, Africa. It was a desolate, primitive place of mud huts, plywood shacks, gravel roads, shale, and scrub. In addition: “Djibouti is right on the equator and hot as hell,” Kasal says. “Temperatures can peg daytime highs of 130 to 145 degrees.” The people looked poor, hungry, and tired. They dressed in a variety of fashions from flowing robes that suggested traditional garb to mismatched shirts and pants and tennis shoes. A few drove battered trucks and utility vehicles but most walked or rode camels or burros.

Djibouti is the home of the 13th Demi-Brigade of the French Foreign Legion (13e DBLE), the legendary mercenary force charged with keeping the peace in the remote reaches of French-patrolled Africa. When Kilo arrived the Legionnaires were their hosts. Kilo was there to practice the black arts of raiding with various Special Operation units stationed there—U.S. Army Special Forces teams, the Army Rangers, and the Delta Force—all supersecret elite “operators.”

This three-month mission was secret, the training was hard, and the Marines were dead serious. Operations included infantry training that focused on maneuver, urban fighting, combined arms exercises exploiting joint infantry, armor, artillery exercises, as well as combat assaults of several kinds. “We practiced raids on air bases, [body] snatches, stuff like that. The land was arid, dead, and empty, perfect for preparing for a Mideast war,” Kasal says. “We were training for Operation Enduring Freedom, basically to hunt and kill terrorists.”

“While we were down here two of our companies, Lima and India, were up in Kuwait training, doing exercises, and supporting Operation Enduring Freedom in the Middle East. And that is when the incident at Failaka Island and First Sergeant Ruff occurred,” Kasal says. “The second war in Iraq started there.”

In October 2001 the U.S. and Iraq were still pretending to talk in the United Nations. At the same time U.S. Army and Marine Corps combat units were training in Kuwait for the prospect of war in Iraq. Failaka Island was a designated military training area in Kuwait.

In better times it had been a quiet island of fishing villages. Between the two Iraqi wars its population had been evicted so Kuwaiti, Coalition, and American troops could train in an environment that allowed for both amphibious and land warfare exercises.

The exercise began simply enough. India and Lima companies went ashore on Failaka Island on October 7, 2001, for several days of training exercises.

The senior NCO on the island was First Sergeant Timothy Ruff, at the time the first sergeant of Lima Co. He had 24 years service. Lima was his first infantry company. A short and powerful man
with a quiet voice, he has a careful disposition. One enlisted Marine says Ruff is “so strong he had muscles in his shit.” Kasal describes Ruff as a by-the-book Marine, a mentor, and one of the finest Marines he ever served with.

Also at Failaka was Ruff's good friend and fellow First Sergeant Wayne A. Hertz, who at the time was the company Gunnery Sergeant for Lima Co. Hertz is a brawny, full-of-life Marine with more than 20 years of infantry savvy who loves his craft. (He was stationed with Kasal at Camp Pendleton after Kasal was wounded and helped him recover.)

“Those two are about as good as they get,” Kasal says of his fellow Marines.

“Our guard was still up from 9/11 when we went to Failaka Island,” Hertz says. “We had been training in the desert for two weeks. Our companies had been rotating for two weeks at Failaka Island and two weeks in the desert. We took buses out of the desert and then we took ferryboats to Failaka.

“There had just been an incident in Kuwait with alleged terrorists, so we made sure we took some security ammo with us. All the officers and some of the staff NCOs had loaded 9 mils [9mm Beretta pistols], and we had Marines on sentry duty with live rounds—a magazine of 30 rounds of 5.56mm for each sentry's M16A2.

“As I remember there was only supposed to be some caretakers and a few shop owners on the island. We saw some young men driving around in a small white truck scoping us out when we were setting up, but we weren't expecting trouble. I thought they were probably just curious about Marines.”

Hertz remembers seeing the same two Kuwaiti males a second time. “On the night of the seventh I wasn't feeling so good, so I went to the portable toilet to do my business. It was almost dark, but I noticed two guys near the road around our area. They
began watching us from real close. It was somebody right across the street.”

The next morning the training schedule resumed as planned. The nocturnal visitors were forgotten, Hertz says.

“Two platoons ate their meals ready to eat [MREs], packed up water, and went into town to train. One of the platoons we kept back. That platoon had turned in their live ammo and was unarmed. They couldn't defend themselves.”

Suddenly shots rang out. Hertz was mystified. There was not supposed to be any firing around the encampment, he says.

“Not more than maybe five minutes later, about 75 meters from our position where there was a road, I hear some shots. They were popping. Somebody was shooting a lot. I know the shots are coming from the right.”

Ruff says he wondered: “Why are the other platoons training in this area? It is a residential area. I was going to find out about it.”

Hertz immediately got mad. He wanted to know what knucklehead was shooting so close to Marines.

“I was kind of pissed off,” he says. “The shots got louder. It was two different gunmen. I recognized that they weren't blanks. From the corner of my eye I noticed a small white pickup truck.

“I said, ‘These guys are shooting!' At the same time I was going for my pistol.”

Ruff drew his sidearm and began firing at the terrorists as bullets were burning through the tent they were standing in.

“It drew fire onto us,” Hertz says. “I still think they were shocked that we were armed. All I had was my 9 mil; at the time it seemed like bringing a knife to a gunfight. I started shooting as well and so did at least one of the sentries. I started seeing our rounds striking the vehicle. We started to bound and cover. I could see the Marine sentry from 3d Platoon with his M16A2 firing. He ultimately disabled that vehicle. At the time, it was
driving slowly by with both alleged terrorists firing at Marines. It rolled to a stop. Our rounds were hitting, cutting through like butter. The two guys inside were still shooting with their AKs.

“Before the truck started moving by the tent we were all thinking the same thing: There is no fucking way we are going to die in that tent. I remember that well before they finished shooting we had 75 or 80 cases of soda being shot up. I saw it out of the corner of my eye. I was thinking, ‘those bastards!' Shooting up our soda was really pissing me off. We had ice locked on and everybody was looking forward to a cold soda. There was powdered Gatorade all over the place.”

Ruff and the other armed Marines mounted an attack. They formed a line and assaulted the truck, Hertz says.

“We continued to put rounds in the vehicle. First Sergeant Ruff called out he was going to take the passenger. I was going to take the driver. One terrorist started crawling out of the vehicle on the passenger side—he was full of holes. While First Sergeant Ruff fired a couple of more rounds into him I opened the door to the driver's side, but Ruff was too close so I could not engage. We dragged the driver out of the vehicle, and then I heard the most chilling words you ever want to hear out of a Marine: ‘Corpsman up!' You know it wasn't for some Marine needing Motrin.”

His worst fear was quickly realized: Two Marines had been shot. One of the officers summoned Hertz to help.

“I ran over to Corporal Antonio Sledd; he was wounded the worst. He was white and pale, hit all over the place. Marines can be as tough as woodpecker lips, and I thought he was going to live,” Hertz recalls bitterly.

Within 10 minutes an Army medevac helicopter flew in for Sledd and Lance Corporal George Simpson, who was shot in the arm. He wasn't as serious, but he was hurting, Hertz says.

Ruff still calls the confrontation the “worst day of my life.” He adds, “I am still not really sure why they did it. I just know Marines
started taking fire and went to cover. They were blasting and blasting; Marines were taking cover and then returning fire. They do it because of their training, the core values they are instilled with by their recruiter and their drill instructors.”

Despite the quick arrival of the Army rescue helicopter time was running out for Corporal Sledd. Hertz was with him until the chopper took off.

“‘You're a Marine, motherfucker,'” Hertz told him. “He squeezed my hand as hard as any healthy Marine could do. They flew him to the hospital in Kuwait City,” Hertz says. “Later we heard Corporal Sledd had died.”

The next day U.S. Central Command issued a brief description of the encounter that was carried by the major wire services. Defense officials said the Marines were attacked while participating in an urban warfare exercise on Failaka Island.

The U.S. Navy confirmed that Corporal Antonio J. Sledd, 20, of Hillsborough, Florida, died from wounds received in action, and Lance Corporal George R. Simpson, 21, of Dayton, Ohio, was wounded in a firefight while participating in an urban warfare exercise.

The first shots of the second Iraqi war had been fired and nobody at home could hear them. The 3/1 Marines knew that they were going to be revisiting Iraq. Other Marines were already fighting in Afghanistan and it was only a matter of time before the inflammatory rhetoric from the antagonists ignited the fuse that would send the Marines into battle. Since 9/11 the preceding year the Marines had been praying for war—anxious but hungry for a fight.

Kasal was First Sergeant of Kilo Co., 3d Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment when Operation Iraqi Freedom kicked off on March 20, 2003. Kilo Co. was a 246-man rifle company—then as now a potent killing machine. The Marines who filled 3/1's ranks had no idea their battalion would soon make headlines around the world. An Nasiriyah, Al Kut, al-Anbar province, Fallujah, and Haditha—now known for infamous battles—were then simply names of obscure places very few Marines had heard of.