Free Republic

AL ASAD, Iraq(Jan. 12, 2006) -- Imagine you are walking through a thick Vietnamese jungle in the spring of 1965; the temperature is a sweltering 130 degrees and rising with 100 percent humidity. You are surrounded by a seemingly invisible enemy in their country and they want you dead. The Vietnam War is in its early stages with soldiers and Marines hard at work locating, closing with and destroying a fierce enemy. You are a war correspondent for United Press International with little training in the art of war, but with the 9th Marine Regiment on your first of four...

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (Oct. 13, 2005) -- When Seaman Hipolito V. Avitia, 21, from Albuquerque, N.M., deployed to Iraq for the second time at the beginning of this year, he thought it would be exactly the same as he left it in 2004. But now, after his deployment in the Al Anbar province has gone by, the 2000 graduate of Rio Grande High School has seen not only a different part of Iraq, but a difference in Operation Iraqi Freedom. As a corpsman, or field doctor, for Company F, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, who were south...