Kane'ohe Marines celebrate return home
By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
The Marines of the 4th Force Reconnaissance, reservists out of Marine Corps Base Hawai'i in Kane'ohe, didn't have much of a chance to adjust to a new culture and climate when they arrived in Kuwait in February, a month before they would go to war.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser
"As soon as we were on the ground," said Richard Therriault, "they told us to make sure we had our kevlars and vests on — they'd been taking sniper fire."
Marine Corps Base Hawai'i's 4th Force Reconnaissance members, displaying a photo taken in Iraq, gathered at the Shriner's Beach Club in Waimanalo yesterday.
The Hawai'i Marines had a long seven months ahead of them. But they returned in September, and yesterday, at the Shriner's Beach Club in Waimanalo, they celebrated Veterans Day with Friends of the 4th Force Reconnaissance Veterans.
The barbecue, with live music, dancing, cannon salutes and a master of ceremonies dressed in a Revolutionary War uniform, had the men smiling happily — Anheuser-Busch's contribution in hand — and hugging everyone who walked into arm's reach.
"Wow, did you see all that?" a Marine remarked to his buddy as the ceremony closed. "A poem. And bagpipes."
"Bagpipes make me cry," another said.
The Marines had been loaded onto buses after their February flight into Kuwait and taken to Camp Commando to await the war.
"There were scud missiles falling 300 feet from the edge of the compound," said Cpl. Brian Baugh.
"You could watch the Patriot missiles come up and intercept them like that," said Staff Sgt. Jose Tablada III, tracing the triangulation with his hands.
The threat of chemical or biological attack, the Marines said, was among the most disturbing thoughts as they waited. Just waiting was difficult enough.
"Anticipation of the fight," Sgt. Richard Therriault said, "is always more difficult than the fight itself."
The Marines said they felt better once they were on the road, moving into Iraq after the war began.
Much of what the Hawai'i Marines did in Iraq, working with Special Forces and other clandestine groups, is still classified. At one point, they were assigned to a unit that rescued Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi hospital, but Tablada said the Hawai'i men were on a separate, classified mission on that day.
Another day, they rode their modified Humvees into the town of Ad Diwaniwah, providing security for forces that had gone in to recruit Iraqis, and for psychological operations troops, who announced the liberation of Ad Diwaniwah over megaphones attached to the tops of Humvees.
The Iraqis they saw that day — tens of thousands of them — were not interested in launching attacks.
"They cheered, they clapped, they threw flowers," Baugh said.
"They even tried to give us money," Tablada said, "and these were people who didn't have money to give."
The children of Iraq took every opportunity to interact with American troops, the Marines said, calling each of them "mister," and sometimes bringing along English grammar books to show them.
Sometimes older English-speaking people came to them, too, telling them how happy they were to end years of oppression, Tablada said.
Those days made the men of 4th Force Recon feel proud of what they were doing, but still the long months in the desert passed slowly.
"Tax Free, Baby!" a reference to their pay, was a joke they used to keep up morale.
Ignoring the rumors and promised departure dates that never came helped to keep them sane, they said.
And then finally, the day came that they really did fly out, tired, filthy and stinking for three days in the back of an Air Force C-5. They arrived back in Hawai'i on Sept. 16, alive; the 4th Force Recon hadn't lost a man.
"Coming back," said Cpl. Ryan Legaspi, "felt like a second chance at life. You could do what you wanted to do and what you needed to do.
"And maybe this time," he said, "you could get it right."
Reach Karen Blakeman at 535-2430 or kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.
