Good Morning GailA
SOMETHING THAT DIDN'T MAKE THE NEWS
Maybe you'd like to hear about something other than idiot
Reservists and naked Iraqis.
Maybe you'd like to hear about a real American, somebody who
honored the uniform he wears.
Meet Brian Chontosh.
Churchville-Chili Central School class of 1991. Proud
graduate of
the Rochester Institute of Technology. Husband and about-to-be father.
First
lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps.
And a genuine hero.
The secretary of the Navy said so yesterday.
At 29 Palms in California Brian Chontosh was presented with
the
Navy Cross, the second highest award for combat bravery the United
States
can bestow.
That's a big deal.
But you won't see it on the network news tonight, and all you
read
in Brian's hometown newspaper was two paragraphs of nothing. Instead,
it was
more blather about some mental defective MPs who acted like animals.
The odd fact about the American media in this war is that
it's not
covering the American military. The most plugged-in nation in the world
is
receiving virtually no true information about what its warriors are
doing.
Oh, sure, there's a body count. We know how many Americans
have
fallen. And we see those same casket pictures day in and day out. And
we're
almost on a first-name basis with the pukes who abused the Iraqi
prisoners.
And we know all about improvised explosive devices and how we lost
Fallujah
and what Arab public-opinion polls say about us and how the world hates
us.
We get a non-stop feed of gloom and doom.
But we don't hear about the heroes.
The incredibly brave GIs who honorably do their duty. The ones
our
grandparents would have carried on their shoulders down Fifth Avenue.
The ones we completely ignore.
Like Brian Chontosh.
It was a year ago on the march into Baghdad. Brian Chontosh
was a
platoon leader rolling up Highway 1 in a humvee.
When all hell broke loose. Ambush city.
The young Marines were being cut to ribbons. Mortars, machine
guns,
rocket propelled grenades. And the kid out of Churchville was in
charge. It
was do or die and it was up to him.
So he moved to the side of his column, looking for a way to
lead
his men to safety. As he tried to poke a hole through the Iraqi line
his
humvee came under direct enemy machine gun fire.
It was fish in a barrel and the Marines were the fish.
And Brian Chontosh gave the order to attack. He told his
driver to
floor the humvee directly at the machine gun emplacement that was
firing at
them. And he had the guy on top with the .50 cal unload on them.
Within moments there were Iraqis slumped across the machine
gun
and Chontosh was still advancing, ordering his driver now to take the
humvee
directly into the Iraqi trench that was attacking his Marines. Over
into the
battlement the humvee went and out the door Brian Chontosh bailed,
carrying
an M16 and a Beretta and 228 years of Marine Corps pride.
And he ran down the trench.
With its mortars and riflemen, machineguns and grenadiers.
And he killed them all.
He fought with the M16 until he was out of ammo. Then he
fought
with the Beretta until it was out of ammo. Then he picked up a dead
man's
AK47 and fought with that until it was out of ammo. Then he picked up
another dead man's AK47 and fought with that until it was out of ammo.
At one point he even fired a discarded Iraqi RPG into an
enemy
cluster, sending attackers flying with its grenade explosion.
When he was done Brian Chontosh had cleared 200 yards of
entrenched Iraqis from his platoon's flank. He had killed more than 20
and
wounded at least as many more.
But that's probably not how he would tell it.
He would probably merely say that his Marines were in
trouble, and
he got them out of trouble. Hoo-ah, and drive on
"By his outstanding display of decisive leadership, unlimited
courage in the face of heavy enemy fire, and utmost devotion to duty,
1st
Lt. Chontosh reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest
traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service."
That's what the citation says.
And that's what nobody will hear.
That's what doesn't seem to be making the evening news.
Accounts
of American valor are dismissed by the press as propaganda, yet
accounts of
American difficulties are heralded as objectivity. It makes you wonder
if
the role of the media is to inform, or to depress - to report or to
deride.
To tell the truth, or to feed us lies.
But I guess it doesn't matter.
We're going to turn out all right.
As long as men like Brian Chontosh wear our uniform.
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