Posted on 11/17/2005 2:04:08 PM PST by Dubya
CAMP PENDLETON ---- Two Marines were killed in a bombing in the small Iraqi town of Ubaydi on Monday. Another fell in small-arms fire the same day.
And at least five more Marines whose names have not been released died in a blast as they rushed a house in the same town Wednesday.
Among the confirmed casualties from Camp Pendleton was Maj. Ray Mendoza Jr., 37, of Columbus, Ohio, Echo Company commander for the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment.
Eight Marines in all, at least three of them from Camp Pendleton, have been killed this week in fresh fighting in Ubaydi. The town is the latest of a string of settlements along the Euphrates River near the Syrian border that U.S. Marines have attacked since Nov. 5 in an offensive they call Operation Steel Curtain.
Mendoza, who was on his third tour in Iraq, and Lance Cpl. Christopher M. McCrackin, 20, of Liverpool, Texas, were both killed by an improvised bomb Monday as the Marines began their push on Ubaydi.
Cpl. John Longoria, 21, of Nixon, Texas, from the same battalion, died Monday of wounds from small-arms fire, according to a military statement released Wednesday morning.
Their families could not be reached Wednesday.
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the five Marines killed Wednesday were also from Camp Pendleton. The military would not confirm that report.
The 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, is the main ground force of Pendleton's 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which departed San Diego last summer and arrived in Iraq in mid-October.
In Fallujah last year, Mendoza, a former Ohio State wrestler and then Marine captain, led the battalion's Headquarters Company. The unit did everything from guarding a camp and detention center outside the city to ferrying ammunition and supplies to Marines in the city in dangerous convoys that often came under attack by ambushes and bombs.
Contact staff writer Darrin Mortenson at (760) 740-5442 or dmortenson@nctimes.com.
PLEASE maintain support for our troops in harm's way by defending their mission to those who just don't, or won't understand.
God BLESS these brave souls!
I feel exactly the same as you. We must all do what ever we can to support our troops and our president.
Thanks to everyone who stands behind our troops and their mission.
They were killed by IED's
Flown to Bagdad, could not be saved
I thank them with all my heart and grieve with their families. May God, bless us all.
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