Posted on 08/14/2006 4:46:01 PM PDT by SandRat
HUSAYBA — Cpl. Jamie L. Emerson is one lucky 'Bastard.'
The 22-year-old assigned to the 'Betio Bastards' of 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment escaped death when an enemy bullet ripped through his Kevlar helmet Aug. 1 in Husayba, an area on the Euphrates River near the Syrian border.
“Everybody’s been calling me ‘lucky,’” said Emerson, a mortarman with Regimental Combat Team 5.
The battalion earned the nickname 'Betio Bastards' during a bloody World War II battle at Tarawa, a chain of islands in the Pacific Ocean where hardened Japanese marines defended the island of Betio with more than 5,000 troops.
Emerson and other Marines from this generation's 'Bastards' were just finishing up a patrol and heading back to their observation post.
“It was a normal day,” Emerson said. “Iraqi families were out. Children were out. Nothing looked weird.”
But things took a turn for the worse.
“I was holding rear security when a blue sedan pulled up to our patrol about 115 meters (125 yards) away,” Emerson said.
He said his experience on a previous assignment guarding the submarine base at Kings Bay, Ga., made him suspicious of the car.
“Two seconds later I leaned my head right to look through my scope,” he said.
A gunshot cracked through the air as an insurgent, leaning from the car's window, shot a round at Emerson. The bullet smacked the Marine's Kevlar helmet.
“It snapped my neck back,” he said. “It was like slow motion. Kind of like I just got my head ‘rung’ from playing tackle football,” he said.
Unlike football, the round hit much harder than any hulking defensive lineman. The impact of the bullet put the 155-pound Marine on his back.
“I rolled back up and checked my head,” he said. “It didn’t hurt because the adrenaline was too high.”
Emerson found nothing after checking himself over, but thought he was hit with something like a rocket-propelled grenade, he said.
Emerson and the rest of the patrol quickly moved to a nearby courtyard down the street to see who was wounded. The bullet had entered through layers of Kevlar helmet, scraped off a patch of Emerson's hair and skin, and then exited from the inside and back of the helmet.
Other Marines were checked but Emerson was the only one hit. As soon as a Navy corpsman said he could return to duty, Emerson said he was ready.
“When I found out I got shot I was pretty pissed off,” he said. “I tried to get up but then I got dizzy and had to sit down.”
Emerson admitted he was lucky, but credited a few others for the fact he’s still walking and talking. The Navy corpsman had shot back at the car with his 9 millimeter pistol, but the car fled the scene - out of range for the handgun, Emerson said.
He attributes the last-minute check through his rifle scope as a life-saving move, tilting his head at just the right angle.
His buddies tell him it was divine intervention that spared him.
“You’re so blessed,” said Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Leonardo E. Benitez, a corpsman who serves alongside Emerson.
The 36-year-old from Brooklyn, N.Y., said, “If that happened to me, I’d give the rest of my life to the Lord.”
Emerson didn’t disagree.
“I think God was looking out for me,” he said.
And so does the battalion chaplain.
“It was God that saved that boy,” said Navy Lt. John G. Anderson, the battalion’s chaplain.
Anderson had prayed that Emerson and his Marines would have a safe patrol, the chaplain said.
Emerson said he would always keep his helmet on in the future.
“I appreciate my gear more,” Emerson said. “I’ll always wear my Kevlar.”
One LUCKY Marine.
Very Lucky. Thank God, indeed.
Lucky us. We need them all alive and fighting.
Before 9/11, when most training consisted of "movement to daylight" through wait-a-minute vines with a set of PVS-7's and perhaps a MILES halo on your kevlar, I think every infantryman with a sore neck has commented something to the effect of "if this helmet doesn't save my life someday then I'm going to be po'd."
A shame they didn't nail the little creep who shot at him.
Too bad he didn't have a chance to fire back, or the other marines for that matter. Those terrorists wouldn't have been so lucky. BTW, at least the MNF press knows who the "enemy" is. Refreshing to see a news report without the word insurgent.
Tarawa wa a very small ilsand in the pacific the was defended by the Japanese so strongly that our casualties there were just awful. The assualt was misplaned and our assault guys were dumped out of the LCVP boats a very long way off shore due to the low tide. They waded in deep water to get ashore and were slautered by the enemy. We still took the island and beat the Japs.
I had a good friend who was there.
We won that war, even though bad things like that happened and I still don't ever remember any of us thinking that we couldn't win that war.
Foxhole ping
I think so too.
One large factor in winning that war was MacArthur's idea of taking only those island we actually needed for airbases. If we'd tried to take all the islands, WWII in sthe Pacific would still be going on.
You lost me there.....what does that mean?
Bump and thanks for the ping. Lucky Marine.
The idea was called "island hopping". Basically, American staff figured we needed a chain of island air bases culminating in the Mariannas, from which B29s could bomb Japan en masse, and we took only such islands as were necessary to construct and protect that necessary chain. The effort to take all the Japanese islands in the Pacific was avoided and the islands we did not need were sealed off from resupply and bypassed.
Hey Marine ,Dont waste your time playing the lottery. You have already won the big one . God speed
When I was in Boot Camp back in '65, they showed us color combat footage of that landing. The entire lagoon was PINK, from the blood of the Marines. They estimated 1000 Marines died in the lagoon before the first Marine made it to shore. The Actor Eddie Albert was decorated for saving Marines in that lagoon. Semper Fi.
I know this isn't funny, but it reminds me of the scene in "Saving Private Ryan" where the guy (on the Normandy landing) gets a bullet on the helmet, takes it off, and laughs about it for a split-second before dying. Good thing it didn't happen to this Marine.
Dang. That is certainly a blessed Marine! Also glad to see our Navy Corpsmen are armed!
For those who were there that day, the trip to the beach was nearly impossible. You are right, way too many died that day because of poor planning among other things. Still the Marines did the job and won that island and that was may point in my previous post.
you are indeed correct that if we had tried to take every island we would have taken too long to do the job. Fortunatley our country was pretty united behind those in charge of the war and the anti-war sniping was not a problem like it is today.
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