Sgt Danny Young, USMC

Excerpted from an article in The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, June 1, 2003

AD DIWANIAH, Iraq - I am in the U.S. Marine Corps serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. .... I belong to the 6th Engineer Support Battalion, Company A. It's a reserve unit in our hometown of Eugene.... When we arrived in Kuwait on Feb. 9, we left our parent reserve battalion (the 6th) and joined an active duty battalion (the 7th Engineers) out of Camp Pendleton, Calif. The 7th Engineers played a vital role in the initial breach of the berms and minefields on the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border, allowing the 1st Marine Division to pass into Iraq. Our missions have taken us all the way to Baghdad.

....... (At Camp Anderson): One of the saddest sights was a small boy, maybe 6 years old, who had gunshot wounds to the face. He was in a car with seven other people disguised as a "family" that was trying to drive explosives (a car bomb) into a Marine camp. The gate guards had to fire at the vehicle, and the small child was unfortunately in the car. That Marine did his job, but will now have to live with the memories of the incident.

The majority of Iraqi people are very happy to have us here. There is no greater feeling than hearing them say, "Thank you" and "Yes Bush, no Saddam." They are very grateful. I have heard stories of them inviting Marines over to have tea and offering tokens, gifts, even livestock as a form of gratitude.

After Anderson we moved forward to a camp called Viper. Viper was a staging area for our next mission. While at Viper we all got the news that Baghdad had fallen to the Marines. We all celebrated as best we could in the desert.

A few days later, we were ordered to help out an explosives ordnance disposal unit. Our first job took us back south toward Anderson, where we disposed of two el-Salaam II missiles, then the next day we went north into Baghdad.

The camp in Baghdad was an Iraqi Republican Guard training base (like boot camp). We set up camp in the middle of their obstacle and ropes course. For the next four days we collected unexploded ordnance from the base as well as the nearby town.

The Iraqi army had kicked people out of their homes and turned them into fighting positions and ordnance storage sites. For days we cleared out people's homes in what one Iraqi boy told me was one of the nicest, newly developed areas of Iraqi housing. They treated us like family.

We formed chains of people all through the houses, moving out boxes of ammo, rocket-propelled grenades, artillery rounds, mortars and mines. The great thing was that the chain was made up of Marines and Iraqi civilians, who were happy to lend a hand and help out their neighbors. We didn't speak a word of each others' language, with the exception of a few bilingual people, but we laughed together, worked together and sweated together. When we left, many people showed their appreciation with a hug or a small kiss on the cheek.