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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, March 16, 2005

33 war-weary Marines return, 'safe and sound'

By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer

Their eyes told a story, even when their words could not.

Nicole Fisher, with her daughter, Mikayla, 2, welcomes home fiance Sgt. Raul Munoz Jr. Munoz was among 33 Marines who returned to Hawai'i yesterday from the war in Iraq.

Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

One by one, as the 33 young Marines of the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment emerged from the baggage claim area yesterday at Honolulu International Airport, their eyes searched for a friendly face.

They looked tired.

An eight-month deployment that was never supposed to leave the Pacific took the Hawai'i-based Marines instead to Iraq and the worst corner in the war on terror — Fallujah.

"It doesn't even feel real right now," said Cpl. Jason Hernan, 23. "It's hard to describe."

Most of the battalion is still sailing back to Hawai'i aboard transport ships, but because these Marines either are transferring to another assignment or leaving the military, they were sent home a few weeks earlier. The rest will return in April.

Pfc. Jason Kurtz looked at the greeting — the hugs and handshakes and the five-piece Marine band — and inhaled the fresh air of safety.

"It's good to know I'm back and safe and sound here and not there," said Kurtz, 22.

Combat put a lot of things about life in stark relief.

"It makes you realize a lot of things about yourself," he said. "It makes you appreciate things more. Over there it's not about being rich or poor. It's about life or death."

Capt. Jer "Jay" Garcia, Bravo Company commander, got to the airport about an hour ahead of the 6:30 a.m. arrival. He was eager to see the dozen Marines from his company.

Garcia has been home for a few weeks to recover from a shrapnel wound to his left eye. Some of his peripheral vision is gone, but he still has the eye.

Combat changed his Marines, he said. "It built character and made men out of a lot of young men. The tactical skills and training were only training before. Now they are combat veterans."

That is no small distinction, especially for those who weathered the fierce fighting in Fallujah last November. Physically and mentally, that was the most difficult part of the deployment, he said.

"We had a lot of loss and injured," Garcia said. "Every unit was touched. Everyone has felt that pain and sorrow and loss."

Forty-six Marines from the battalion died in Iraq, including 26 killed when their helicopter went down Jan. 26 in a sandstorm in western Iraq.

About 1,000 Hawai'i Marines with the 1st Battalion landed in Iraq in September with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit out of Okinawa, Japan.

Standing at the curb yesterday, Cpl. Jonathan Tackett said he felt tremendous relief.

"It feels great to be back," Tackett said. "There is no way to explain it. It's not something you can imagine. It makes me appreciate freedom a lot more than I did before."

The deployment seemed longest in the last hour that Nicole Fisher waited for her fiance's return. She held 2-year-old daughter Mikayla in one hand and a red-white-and-blue silk lei in the other, watching the Marines come through the door that separates international arrivals from the airport curb.

There were times during the deployment when her fiance, Sgt. Raul Munoz Jr., would be out of touch for two weeks. Fisher worried and wondered what he was doing, where he was and if he was safe. News accounts described someone who had died or was wounded. She got scared.

"It was very trying," Fisher said. "It wears on you and on a relationship."

And then Munoz emerged, tired, but safe. Fisher pulled him into a tight embrace, her eyes tearing.

Iraq was "intense," said Munoz, carrying Mikayla in the crook of his arm. "I'd rather not talk about it."

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8012.