Charlie Company says goodbye to FOB Hit

The Brownsville Herald ^ | 3/20/05 | Sgt. Ben Christensen

[SwinneySwitch]

Marine Reserve unit prepares for return home; welcomes replacements

HIT, Iraq, March 20, 2005 — Charlie Company no longer occupies one of the most mortared outposts in Iraq.

Our days at Forward Operations Base (FOB) Hit — pronounced “fob heat” — are over. The last of the company reached Al Asad airbase, our staging area for our flight out early on Tuesday.

Later Tuesday we turned in all but 60 of our 210-round combat load of bullets and it was a good feeling.

During Operation River Blitz I had more than 800 rounds for my rifle, though a mostly cowed enemy ensured I didn’t need more than 30.

Our replacements are also reservists, based in Ohio, and it feels like a few days ago that we were replacing Echo Company, 2nd Battalion 7th Marines. Our transition with Echo, however, wasn’t nearly as exciting for us as Kilo 3/25 had.

The day before second platoon left the base, we were giving our replacements orientation classes to familiarize them with the sentry posts, entry control point, the perimeter and even the route by foot into the city of Hit itself.

Up on the posts, where groups of about eight replacements gathered to listen to familiarization briefings, the Marines were reportedly bored — sighing, not asking questions and looking generally unconcerned.

I was checking my e-mail, off post for the while, when a louder-than-usual boom rattled my eyeballs. I thought the enemy had finally landed a lucky 82mm mortar round on top of the building. Standard procedure calls for the Marines to run to their quarters, don flak jackets and helmets and get accountability to ensure no one is wounded and left alone.

No sooner had I emerged from my quarters with my gear than the ambulance went rushing off toward our entry control point, and I saw Marines tending two litters where a foot patrol had been entering the base across the civilian highway.

I realized at that point that a vehicle-borne suicide bomber had blown his booby-trapped vehicle up adjacent to the incoming patrol, and went cold with the fear that we’d lost more comrades. Surely no one would have survived such a blast at close proximity.

I swore again and again and felt horribly helpless. News began filtering in as the ambulance took the two casualties, an officer in the replacement company and one of first platoon’s Marines, to the forward aid station. Both were given the status of “routine” medical evacuations, and I knew that they were alright. I thanked God — it was amazing that they’d survived at all.

Moments after the suicide bomber killed himself and wounded the Marines, we took two mortar rounds — one that detonated about 200 feet in the air and the other hitting out back. It was a coordinated attack that ended thankfully with no casualties except the suicide bomber.

I went to the road with First Sgt. Hoover, our company first sergeant, who wanted to assess the situation. There we were met with a grisly sight.

There simply wasn’t much left of the vehicle, except the engine block, stamped with “Honda,” lying about 30 meters from the still-smoking crater in the asphalt.

“Nothing left of the guy, is there?” I asked Sgt. Gonzalez, one of the squad leaders in first platoon, and a veteran of Afghanistan.

“Sure, his foot’s right there and his head’s over on the other side, lying in the ditch.”

And so they were.

The terrorists love to say “Allahu akbar” before they die, which means “God is greatest.”

Given the amazing fact that two Marines had survived such a blast within a few meters of the vehicle, I would have to concur.

We wished the replacements well as we left, and they probably heard more sardonic greetings of “Welcome to FOB Hit” that day more than they wanted to.

[SwinneySwitch]

Charlie Company is coming home. Detachment Company C 1st Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment based in Harlingen, has been on the front lines in the War on Terror since being called up in June 2004. The Marine Reserve unit, based in Houston, includes more than 80 Rio Grande Valley residents. One of them is Sgt. Ben Christensen, a Laguna Vista resident who was a Brownsville Herald sportswriter a decade ago. Christensen has sent dispatches from the front lines since October, and today discusses the unit’s deactivation. Charlie Company is scheduled to return this month to 29 Palms, Calif., to demobilize, and from there the Marines will return home in April or May.

[jolie560]

This is what I hate to hear--our soldiers, stationary in a fixed base, while the enemy is free to roam around and look for weaknesses before they attck.

Sitting ducks, anyone?

[rageaholic]

Man that's Honda quality. Car blew up and only killed the terrorist driving it.