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Corporal gets Bronze Star in desert ambush

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — Few of these men had ever seen real shoot-and-kill combat.

But before they could search a suspicious vehicle and its occupants one summer morning in Iraq’s open western desert last year, the members of a quick-reaction platoon from 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion were facing down gunfire from several insurgents. In seconds, enemy rounds knocked down the platoon sergeant and fatally wounded one Marine, hit while running to another’s aid in the ensuing seven or eight minutes of gun-blazing combat on Aug. 2.

Somehow, the Marines on that patrol reacted quickly, fighting back with what their platoon commander called the “80 percent solution right then and there that saved lives.”

“Every Marine is a leader; it’s just that some Marines show it more than others,” said 1st Lt. Chris Ferguson, 26, now the Alpha Company commander. “Every Marine has got the ability to step forward and take charge and accomplish the mission.”

Ferguson spoke outside the battalion’s Camp Pendleton, Calif., headquarters, after a June 27 ceremony where Cpl. Francisco J. Valles, a light armored vehicle scout, received the Bronze Star medal with the combat “V” for heroics during the attack.

It was the second major combat award given to the platoon for actions that day. In March, Cpl. Moses Cardenas received the Silver Star medal — the military’s third-highest for combat heroism — for shrugging off his own bullet wounds and rushing through enemy fire to help save their wounded leader, Sgt. Randy Roedema, who was struck in the lower back.

Valles’ good friend, Lance Cpl. Christian Vasquez, died in that firefight.

“Good NCOs like that will train the junior Marines so when they are up in that position, they can push forward,” said Ferguson, 26, now Alpha Company’s commander. “The seasoned veterans, they teach them to be more teachers and go to through the thought process more than to take the order.”

The citation accompanying the award is succinct in describing Valles’ actions that day.

“(When) a fellow Marine fell wounded in the open to enemy fire, Lance Corporal Valles courageously took charge and left his covered position in order to direct suppressive fires against the enemy and rescue his team leader,” it states. “During the fighting, he killed a suicide bomber running toward an exposed group of Marines. Once all enemies were eliminated, he immediately began providing aid to the wounded Marines until the platoon corpsman arrived.”

The unexpected firefight

On the day of the attack, two sections of LAVs, carrying a squad of scouts, left their base for a morning patrol south of al-Qaim, Iraq. They spotted a pair of “suspicious” vehicles and split off to go in different directions.

Ferguson’s section watched as the occupants of a sedan threw mortars, shells and machine-gun rounds out of the car, in which they later found other weapons and possible bomb-making equipment after detaining the four men inside. Ferguson sent the other section, with Roedema in charge, to stop a water truck.

Roedema, the chief scout, and Cardenas approached it. “The driver and the passenger both jumped out the vehicle while it was moving. It came to a stop, and they hid behind it,” Roedema said.

Cardenas “was screaming at the top of his lungs to come around the vehicle and lie on the ground,” he said. “We were yelling in Arabic, ‘Get on the ground, get on the ground!’”

The passenger had an AK47 rifle and raised it, so Roedema fired at him. Just then, to the surprise of the Marines, three men with weapons popped up atop the water truck. “We didn’t know they were there,” Roedema said.

Body armor covering his back stopped one bullet, but another struck him in his buttocks and groin area. “With the adrenaline going, I didn’t even know I was hit,” said Roedema, 25, who’s leaving the Corps after eight years.

Vasquez “dragged me about 2 feet, and then he was shot,” Roedema said.

Cardenas was struck, but managed to drag Roedema before he was hit again. At that point, with his two noncommissioned officers hit, “Valles is basically taking charge, screaming at Cardenas,” Roedema said. Valles directed Cardenas, who carried a squad automatic weapon, to lay covering fire as they dragged Roedema to safety.

Valles “basically stepped into what I should have [done] but I was down. So he filled the shoes,” said Roedema, whose wife gave birth to their daughter four days after the firefight.

The soft-spoken Valles, now a corporal, declined to speak during his Bronze Star ceremony, held as 1st LAR’s five companies stood in formation. With his wife, Melissa, friends and Roedema’s family in attendance, he swallowed hard as he watched his battalion commander speak about the significance of the young Marine’s actions.

Lt. Col. Scott Leonard wanted his men to know the importance of the Bronze Star medal, created especially to recognize the “miserable lives,” close-in battle and sacrifices of infantrymen.

“You have cemented your place in history,” Leonard said, and he reminded his men to thank “one of our own heroes that lives and breathes right amongst us.”

The battalion Marines responded by forming a line, trading handshakes, hugs and pats on the back with Valles. After the ceremony, he touched the black metal bracelet encircling his left wrist as he spoke with reporters.

Etched on it is the name of Vasquez, 20. “He was my best friend,” Valles said.

The way he remembers it

Valles, a mortarman, recalled how the driver of the truck and the passenger paced nervously before things quickly escalated.

When Roedema was shot, the Marines quickly took cover. “One of the terrorists popped up with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, from the top and tried to fire at us, and he was shot,” Valles said. “Two men came from the back, one with a suicide device. I shot him in the chest.”

The Marines also shot and killed the other man.

With Roedema down and then Vasquez hit, he and Cardenas “decided to move up and rescue our Marines. We weren’t going to leave them behind. That’s not us. That’s not me,” Valles said. So “we went after them.”

When his weapon jammed, he took Roedema’s weapon, reloaded it and began firing at the other insurgent gunmen. Valles got pinned down at one point, but Cardenas — already shot twice — managed to reload his SAW and fire at the insurgents.

Then an LAV approached and killed the other insurgents. Valles rushed to the wounded Marines and helped tend their wounds, but Vasquez could not be saved.

“I could only do so much. I tried,” he said. “We always believed that when it was your time to go, it’s your time to go. I was amazed that I didn’t get shot myself. My whole fire team went down, except myself.

“Maybe it was God, maybe it was something I did, something that happened.”

Valles doesn’t consider himself more special than any other Marine there that day.

“I did my job,” he said. “If I would have gone down, they would have done the same thing I did. They’re not going to leave me behind. This medal isn’t for myself. It’s definitely not for me. It’s to represent the Marines that were there that day and the one that is not here.

“I’m just wearing it, but really it’s them,” he added. “It’s totally them.”