Last grunts in Iraq prepare to come home - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Last grunts in Iraq prepare to come home

The last Marine infantry battalion will leave Iraq in January, closing a long, complicated chapter in the Corps’ history as combat intensifies on another front in Afghanistan.

Since March 20, 2003, when more than 40,000 amped-up leathernecks stormed into Iraq’s southern Basrah province and launched their push for Baghdad, Marines have waged intense battles throughout the country, punctuated by epic, deadly clashes in Fallujah and Ramadi. At the war’s peak in 2007, more than 20,000 Marines were on the ground, most of them concentrated in volatile Anbar province.

Today, one infantry unit remains: 3rd Battalion, 24th Marines, a Reserve battalion based in St. Louis, Mo. And conditions in Iraq now are decidedly tame in comparison.

“It’s like a completely different world,” Lt. Col. Mark Miner, the battalion commander, said in a telephone interview from Al Asad Air Base. “The level of attacks has significantly decreased. But you still have to be cautious. You still have to be careful.”

For its Iraq mission, 3/24 is organized as Task Force MP, and its 1,000-plus Marines are spread throughout Anbar, conducting security convoys between military bases, guarding ports of entry at the Jordanian and Syrian borders and sourcing military training teams in Mosul, Al Asad, Baghdad and Um Quasr.

In those cities, Marines work alongside Iraqi security forces, who Miner described as “completely competent.” And while many of his Marines want to fight in Afghanistan, he said, they understand the importance of their mission in Iraq — one Marine leaders say shouldn’t be overshadowed by the coming surge in Afghanistan.

Granted, the Corps’ most pressing and difficult task is the fight in Afghanistan, Commandant Gen. James Conway told Marine Corps Times, but the drawdown in Iraq is noteworthy and “most important.”

“It is imperative, after all that Marines have sacrificed to achieve victory in Iraq, that we cement the defeat of extremism there,” Conway said in a statement, adding that 3/24 “represents a long line of infantry battalions, and others, that have won this first battle of the Long War.”

One of the top commanders who led Marines during the initial invasion described one of the Corps’ key successes in Anbar — leading civilians to turn against supporting the insurgency — as “largely unheralded.”

“The sailors, the soldiers, the Marines of Al Anbar were in what was supposed to be the worst place, the heart of the Sunni triangle, yet in early 2004 we knew we would flip that population against the enemy,” said Gen. James Mattis, who now heads U.S. Joint Forces Command and, as a two-star, led the 1st Marine Division into Baghdad. “We saw, for the first time in this war, an entire Arab population turn against the enemy. I think we came out with the best possible outcome that was achievable in this situation.”

In Iraq, Marines experienced the spectrum of warfare, from large-scale engagements with trained Iraqi forces to nuanced urban combat against rag-tag bands of extremists and foreign fighters who poured into Iraq from elsewhere in the Middle East with the lone objective of killing American service members. Through Dec. 5, the Corps reported 851 hostile deaths due to fighting in Iraq.

For much of the war, combat with insurgents took place on rooftops and in alleyways. Later, after a gruesome civil war between Iraq’s two main religious sects began to simmer, violence against U.S. troops steadily abated. The U.S. helped turn Sunni tribal leaders, who early in the war supported the insurgency, against al-Qaida fighters there.

The Corps’ mission evolved from one that was defined by firefights to one that focused on building a new Iraqi military and police force to take control of security operations.

Before he led Marines into Iraq, Mattis led Task Force 58 into Kandahar in southeastern Afghanistan, establishing the Corps’ footprint in that country as military operations commenced against al-Qaida following the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001.

“I think this historical significance [of the last Marine infantry battalion in Iraq] is that war is a real auditor of militaries,” Mattis said. “I think history is going to show that this audit found the Marine Corps ready to do what it’s supposed to do, which is to fight and win within an ethical framework. We say that the Marine is supposed to be most ready when the nation is least ready. For the Marines, they were ready when our nation called.”

What it means to be last

When 3/24 got the call to deploy last year, they were going to Iraq for a second time, four years after their first deployment there in 2004, and they knew they were going to be the last Marine infantry battalion in the country.

The battalion’s convoys roll primarily on Anbar’s major roads, avoiding towns and villages in an effort to minimize the chances of encountering improvised explosive devices. Only one convoy has encountered an IED since the battalion arrived in September. No one was injured. They haven’t exchanged fire with insurgents and have had little interaction with Iraqi civilians.

The battalion’s training teams work with the Iraqi Army’s 7th Division, and Marines have recently taught them how to use non-lethal force. Last month, members of Weapons Company spent several days instructing Iraqi soldiers in crowd control. The soldiers’ final test came when the Marines, dressed in civilian clothes, led a mock riot trying to penetrate a line of soldiers toting clear shields.

The battalion has periodically been called to do missions that Miner calls “enduring tasks.” An example, he said, was when he sent a team out to help repair an oil pipeline.

“Sometimes Marines are frustrated because they’re used to being in the front,” Miner said. “… We’re trying to make them understand that it’s a good thing we’re not actively engaged as before.”

Cpl. Robert Mabry admits he didn’t expect to be teaching Marine Corps Martial Arts Program courses on his second deployment in Iraq. But, he said, he’s not disappointed.

“I’m better served right now as a MCMAP instructor,” he said. “The violence toward coalition forces has gone down a lot. Cooperation has gone way up. They have a really good, stable economy now. I think the best thing about this deployment is we’re closing a chapter in Iraq.”