2 more receive Purple Hearts
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
KANE'OHE BAY — The firefight in the house in Fallujah on Nov. 13 was probably the hundredth that the 1st Squad had been involved in, and probably the 10th that day, Marines said.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
But it was the first time the Hawai'i Marines ran into a well-planned ambush inside. A lot of times, Marines wouldn't enter Iraqi houses because they suspected they were set up with defenses.
Cpl. Christopher Lewis, center, and Lance Cpl. Joshua Fincham received Purple Hearts yesterday in a ceremony that honored the 3rd Marine Regiment's valor in Iraq and its anticipated homecoming. Capt. Jer Garcia, who returned Tuesday, pinned the medal on Lewis.
"We'd just pound it from the outside," said Lance Cpl. Joshua D. Fincham.
Going in this day, 1st Squad encountered cut-outs in the ceiling. Grenades and machine gun fire rained down from above.
Thirteen C Company Marines went in. Eleven would be wounded.
"We saw them before they saw us, so we started shooting up ... and no one saw the grenade land," Fincham, 20, said. "I kinda came to in a room and swung back up real fast and realized I had sustained quite a lot of injuries."
Lance Cpl. Robert Carter was there, too, and was hurt badly. Carrying Carter outside, Fincham somehow avoided injury from another grenade that exploded a few feet away — but luckily for him was old or poorly constructed.
"I just pretty much said, 'I'm going to die if I don't get up and run,' " Fincham said. "I got up and started to fire at the house as I walked away, and that's when I got shot in the hip."
Yesterday, the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine rifleman had a Purple Heart pinned on his battle dress uniform by fellow squad member Lance Cpl. David Lee Battle — who also was wounded in the firefight and now walks with a cane.
The ceremony outside 3rd Marine regimental headquarters also included a presentation to Cpl. Christopher A. Lewis, 24, a B Company Marine from Connecticut who was wounded on Oct. 30 in a suicide car bomb attack near Fallujah that killed eight 1/3 Marines. Ten Hawai'i Marines were wounded.
Capt. Jer Garcia, who returned from Iraq Tuesday night and presented Lewis' Purple Heart, had seen the suicide bomber's face as he passed the Suburban half hidden off the road, the Christian Science Monitor reported.
"Capt. Garcia saw it happen, tried to stop it. Wasn't much he could do," regimental Executive Officer Lt. Col. Owen Lovejoy told the more than 150 Marines in formation for the two Purple Heart awards.
With the recognition of the two Marines' sacrifice, and 1/3 Marines finally leaving Iraq, Lovejoy said, "Today is a great day for the 3rd Marine Regiment."
Most of the nearly 1,000 1/3 Marines and sailors have left Iraq for Kuwait, officials said. The battalion will be heading to Okinawa, and is expected back in Hawai'i in a couple of months.
Forty-six Marines and sailors assigned to 1/3 were killed — including 27 in the Jan. 26 crash of a California-based CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter in western Iraq.
The loss shocked the Marine Corps base and a state with close ties to the military, and the departure from Iraq finally is one bit of good news.
"I've talked to wives, I've talked to moms and dads and everybody whose son has finally made it into Kuwait — they call it the Happy Dance," said Sharon Kostic, whose husband, Maj. Andrew Kostic Jr. is executive officer for 1/3.
"So, yeah, everyone's just delighted, but you talk to that one person, or that one parent or one wife whose son hasn't made it down there yet" and that means worry remains, she said.
Ceremonies for Purple Heart recipients are held as the medals are approved. Yesterday's awards represented the 20th and 21st for Marine Corps Base Hawai'i, with more to come.
For Fincham, near miracles abounded on that day in November during what is now the legendary Battle of Fallujah. Either grenade that went off could have killed him.
"Their grenades are nothing like our grenades, thank God," said Fincham, a single Marine from Virginia Beach, Va. "If they were, we'd all be dead. He (Battle) wouldn't be standing here. I wouldn't be standing here."
Fincham previously had seen armor-piercing 7.62 mm rounds — the kind that hit him in the hip — penetrate two ceramic plates of body armor. Doctors told him the bullet lodged 2 millimeters from his femoral artery.
Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command in the Middle East, said the Battle of Fallujah "will go down (in history) with the great battles of the United States Marine Corps."
The Pentagon said 71 U.S. soldiers and Marines were killed and 450 were wounded in Fallujah during the several-week offensive that began Nov. 8. Eleven Hawai'i Marines in addition to those who died in the suicide car bombing and helicopter crash were killed in Iraq — most in Fallujah.
Hollywood has a movie planned about the battle that could star Harrison Ford, Agence France Presse reported.
Battle, 20, from Montclair, Calif., has his own movie-like tale. The Marine was shot twice in the leg and was wounded in his left hand. He lost his ring finger when he told medical personnel he didn't want his wedding ring cut off.
"The thing was, when they took off the ring, they damaged (my finger)," he said. That meant the finger had to go. During the procedure, the ring was misplaced. "So I'm hoping that somebody from our platoon knows and grabbed it," Battle said.
Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5459.
