Fresh From combat, Perryville High Graduate Shares His Stories

It wasn't just one body but dozens of them, sprawled along the dirt road in lifeless heaps. Jason knew from the vapors rising from the bodies that they hadn't been dead for long.

In the month leading up to that mid-March day, Jason and his fellow Marines had been living in foxholes in Kuwait. They'd stood guard in shifts, deprived of sleep, clutching rifles, staring into darkness, picturing the faces of loved ones back home. For weeks they'd stood inside those holes, waiting for something, anything to happen.

Now they were finally on the move, crammed into amphibious assault vehicles, rumbling down the dirt road into Basra, southern Iraq. For Jason and the rest of Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, the wait was over. The mission had begun.

The bodies lying along the road to Basra were members of the Iraqi Republican Guard -- Saddam's truest followers -- who had probably breathed their last breaths minutes earlier. It was Jason's first taste of life inside a war zone -- one he couldn't shut off with a remote control.

"I'd always hoped he'd be a pro ball player," said his father, Joe Hash, an artist and contractor from Elkton.

But ever since he learned how to swing a bat, Jason has dreamed of becoming a Maryland State Police trooper, inspired by an older policeman cousin from Texas. Someone mentioned that the Marines would help Jason prepare for the job.

With his father's blessing, Jason earned all his high school credits early and in the spring of 2002, he joined the Marines.

While his Perryville High School classmates were attending senior prom, he was at California's Camp Pendleton, flexing his muscles at Boot Camp.

He finished Boot Camp just before June and wore his dress blues to his high school graduation ceremony.

"He wanted to show his classmates that his dreams were coming true," his father said. "He's had a tough family life. His mother basically left when he was in high school, which was extremely hard on him. He had a strong desire to become a success story."

But Jason, who returned from Iraq in late August with cropped blond hair and a face his dad says is surprisingly un-hardened by the war, has also learned that there are somber side effects to following your dreams.

While most kids his age were flipping burgers, studying for college exams and going to frat parties, Jason was spending sleepless nights inside a 3-foot-wide dirt hole. During the six months he spent in the Persian Gulf, he saw families trapped inside burning mud huts. He saw his buddies get hit by enemy grenades. He saw women caught in the crossfire. He saw the faces of men who knew they're about to die.

"You get hardened to it, callous to it," he said. "You know you have to do your job."

April 12, 2003, will always stand out in Jason's mind as the day he made his first confirmed kill. It was a Saturday in At-Tarmiyah, a quaint town just north of Baghdad, and talk on the street was that Saddam Hussein had been there just three days earlier.

U.S. troops approached the town while a chorus of enemy F-18 helicopters swept the sky, bombing buildings to stop Marines from crossing a nearby pontoon bridge. Jason passed a buddy who had just taken shrapnel through the leg from an enemy rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). All the while, enemy soldiers surrounded them, hiding on the roofs of buildings, in ditches.

Jason searched for enemies through the scope of his M-16. A grenade exploded nearby, then he spotted an enemy soldier sitting Indian-style with a rocket-propelled grenade perched on his lap.

The enemy was also scanning the scene through the scope of his gun. Jason's heart thrashed about in his chest as he glared at the enemy's face through his own scope, thinking, don't look at me, don't look at me.

His Marine sergeant also saw the enemy with the grenade on his lap. "Take him out," the sergeant commanded Jason, a squad advance marksman.

Jason pulled the trigger to his M-16 and through his scope, watched a red mist spray from the soldier's temple.

"His body jerked and I knew he was done. Then I took one more shot for insurance," Jason said.

Jason later learned that his first kill was a Syrian Chief of Police. He took the dead man's ID and his bayonet as "a pride thing."

Jason has come to terms with the fact that he ended human lives in Iraq. "When you hear bullets cracking by your head, or see bullets and RPGs flying five feet over your head, you fight back or you're dead," he said.

His father, who Jason calls his best friend, is still adjusting to his son's involvement in the war.

"For us, the hardest part of this was the separation during all this, because we're very close; we're inseparable," Joe said.

He rarely got mail from Jason during the war because his son was on the move so much.

"Sometimes his letters were a month old by the time I got them," Joe said. "Sometimes they were written on a piece of cardboard Jason found on the ground."

Jason -- the only Marine in the Hash family -- is home on leave until the end of this month, when he'll head off for duty in Okinawa, Japan. This is the first time Joe has heard in detail about his son's experiences in the war.

"One of the things we've both struggled with is the fact that Jason's had confirmed kills," Joe said. "For a 19-year-old boy to have taken another man's life is a hard thing to deal with. We've both done a lot of soul searching."

Coming home, Jason wasn't sure he'd function without his support system -- his fellow soldiers, who had his back while they staked out buildings, who stood in fighting holes beside him, who shared their fears with him as they stood in darkness thousands of miles from home.

"I thought I'd be overwhelmed without my buddies here," he said. "I thought I'd be weirded out by large crowds, but it hasn't been that bad."

Now when the demons of the war haunt him -- when he hears Americans' protests of the war, when he recalls the faces of the men he's killed -- Jason bears in mind the positive parts of his military mission.

He remembers how Iraqi children's faces lit up when American soldiers gave them candy.

"The people who were protesting were sleeping here comfortably in their beds," he said. "They didn't see how many kids we fed. Those kids were beautiful."

A lot of Marines had the "kill-'em-all attitude" before they got to Iraq, Jason said. "(But) when we got there, we saw how Saddam's regime destroyed the country. The Iraqi people are good people, but with a bad leader."

Jason spent his last three months in Samawa, Iraq, helping Iraqi police maintain law and order in their devastated city.

"The Iraqi people knew what we were doing for them," he said. "We had babies giving us thumbs up; they knew we were good, that we were on their side."

I just received this email and thought I'd share it:

THE MILITARY MAN:

The average age of the military man is 19 years. He is a short haired, tight-muscled kid who, under normal circumstances is considered by society as half man, half boy. Not yet dry behind the ears, not old enough to buy a beer, but old enough to die for his country. He never really cared much for work and he would rather wax his own car than wash his father's; but he has never collected unemployment either.

He's a recent High School graduate; he was probably an average student, pursued some form of sport activities, drives a ten year old car, and has a steady girlfriend that either broke up with him when he left, or swears to be waiting when he returns from half a world away. He can use a 155mm howizzitor and he is 10 or 15 pounds lighter now than when he was at home because he is working or fighting from before dawn to well after dusk.

He has trouble spelling, thus letter writing is a pain for him, but he can field strip a rifle in 30 seconds and reassemble it in less time in the dark. He can recite to you the nomenclature of a machine gun or grenade launcher and use either one effectively if he must. He digs foxholes and latrines and can apply first aid like a professional. He can march until he is told to stop or stop until he is told to march.

He obeys orders instantly and without hesitation, but he is not without spirit or individual dignity. He is self-sufficient. He has two sets of fatigues: he washes one and wears the other. He keeps his canteens full and his feet dry. He sometimes forgets to brush his teeth, but never to clean his rifle. He can cook his own meals, mend his own clothes, and fix his own hurts. If you're thirsty, he'll share his water with you; if you are hungry, his food. He'll even split his ammunition with you in the midst of battle when you run low.

He has learned to use his hands like weapons and weapons like they were his hands. He can save your life - or take it, because that is his job. He will often do twice the work of a civilian, draw half the pay and still find ironic humor in it all. He has seen more suffering and death then he should have in his short lifetime.

He has stood atop mountains of dead bodies, and helped to create them. He has wept in public and in private, for friends who have fallen in combat and is unashamed. He feels every note of the National Anthem vibrate through his body while at rigid attention, while tempering the burning desire to 'square-away' those around him who haven't bothered to stand, remove their hat, or even stop talking. In an odd twist, day in and day out, far from home, he defends their right to be disrespectful.

Just as did his Father, Grandfather, and Great-grandfather, he is paying the price for our freedom. Beardless or not, he is not a boy. He is the American Fighting Man that has kept this country free for over 200 years.

He has asked nothing in return, except our friendship, support and understanding. Remember him, always, for he has earned our respect and admiration with his blood. And now we even have women over there in danger, doing their part in this tradition of going to War when our nation calls us to do so. As you go to bed tonight, remember this shot.. A short lull, a little shade and a few seconds spent looking at a picture of loved ones in their helmets.

Prayer wheel for our military... please don't break it. Please send this on after a short prayer.

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