Free My Men are My Heroes by Nathaniel R. Helms Page B

training troops at the SOI, Kasal was promoted to Staff Sergeant. Now he had three stripes and a rocker, and he was ready to step on the first rung of the ladder to senior status among NCOs. He was ordered to 3/5 Marines as an infantry platoon sergeant, his home from August 1993 to November 1995.
RECRUITING DUTY
    Career Marines are expected to be well-rounded individuals, as skilled in dealing with the civilian public as they are at commanding troops; so at some point in their careers, they usually get assignments that put them in the unblinking public eye. The Marine Corps believes recruiting duty is an ideal training ground for such experience. It is duty that Kasal had tried—successfully so far—to avoid. His natural reticence recoiled at the idea of dealing constantly with the public, and he knew that performance on recruiting duty could make or break a career. But during the summer of 1995, he received orders to report for recruiting duty. It would be his lot for the next three years.
    Being selected for recruiting duty also snatched away Kasal’s opportunity to serve beside British Royal Marines, an honor and privilege reserved for a very select few.
    â€œThey needed someone who had been to the Mountain Leadership course, so I was in the process of getting my orders for spending three years overseas with the Royal Marines,” Kasal says.

    Fallujah Bridge, January 2005: Leathernecks of 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines secure the infamous bridge where terrorists hanged the bodies of two of the four Americans murdered on 31 March 2004. The bridge was reopened to traffic on 14 November.
    U.S. Marine Corps photo by LCpl Michael A. Carrasco Jr.

    Mortarmen of 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines raised the elevation and rained 60-mm mortar steel on targets almost within grenade range.
    U.S. Marine Corps photo by LCpl James J. Vooris

    In the massive sweep through Fallujah, American and coalition forces captured 1,100 terrorists similar to these taken by Marines of Company B, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines.
    U.S. Marine Corps photo by LCpl Jeremy W. Ferguson

    Patience and sharp eyes paid off as members of Company B, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines and Iraqi special forces discovered a weapons cache on the Marine Corps’ birthday, 10 November 2004. Two weeks of searching in Fallujah produced 191 weapons caches and 431 improvised explosive devices.
    U.S. Marine Corps photo by SSgt Jonathan C. Knauth

    By 11 November 2004 much of Fallujah had been overrun. Marines like these infantrymen from 1st Battalion, 8th Marines engaged in security and stability operations, which would later allow food, water, medicine, and other humanitarian supplies into the city.
    U.S. Marine Corps photo by SSgt Jonathan C. Knauth

    Cordon-and-knock, Marine Corps style, was demonstrated by a leatherneck with Company I, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines as he kicked in a gate in Fallujah where Marines and other coalition forces went door to door, floor to floor.
    U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt Luis R. Agostini

    Infantrymen of Company I, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines move through the rubble that was infested with terrorists looking to ambush Marines.
    U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt Luis R. Agostini

    This dramatic series of photographs of GySgt Ryan P. Shane taken by then LCpl Joel A. Chaverri won the Marine photographer the DoD Thomas Jefferson for Photojournalism award in 2004. Shane, of Company B, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, Regimental Combat Team (RCT) 7, ran into the Fallujah street to pull downed squad leader Sgt Lonny Wells, hit by a sniper, to safety. Shane was wounded in the leg, but survived. Unfortunately, Wells did not.
    U.S. Marine Corps photos by LCpl Joel A. Chaverri

    Luring the enemy is what it is all about to the sharpshooters of 1st Battalion, 8th Marines who used an old but effective trick while waiting and watching for terrorists hiding in Fallujah to give away their positions.
    U.S. Marine Corps photo by LCpl Joel A. Chaverri

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