Those three words belong together. In the two hundred plus years that the United States Marines have served their country, the young men who served have lived up to every challenge and met every foe.
Jordan Haerter and Jon Yale went out for guard duty in the morning of April 22, 2008. Before nightfall, their actions would become the stuff of Marine legend. A hundred years from now, drill sergeants will use their names to inspire future generations of Marines.
Manning a small guard post as they had dozens of times in the past, the two Marines saw a truck speeding towards them through the string of barriers on the road. It was obvious that something was wrong, that the truck was probably a suicide bomber driving a load of explosives.
Both Marines held their ground and began shooting. The truck detonated, well short of its goal, killing the two and leveling the guard post.
But 50 Marines and Iraqi policemen in the targeted building survived.
Two of the Marines, Cpl. Jonathan Yale, 21, and Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter, 19, earned the Navy Cross, the service’s second-highest award for valor. On guard together at the front gate of a base in Ramadi, the two men stood their ground and opened fire as a truck loaded with 2,000 pounds of explosives weaved around concrete barricades toward them.
Their gunfire slowed the truck, which exploded close to where they stood. Yale and Haerter died, and three Marines were wounded along with eight Iraqi policemen and more than 20 civilians. But their actions are credited with saving the lives of at least 50 U.S. and Iraqi troops on the base.
“I will never forget blessing Lance Cpl. Haerter’s body,” said Lt. Cmdr. William Muhm, a chaplain who spoke at the service. “I will always be grateful that I was there to do it.”
Jonathan T. Yale
Marine Cpl Jonathan T Yale, Navy Cross for valor in Iraq
Jonathan Yale was close to his mother, a single parent who gave birth to him when she was only 17. And he was the kind of guy who liked to make people happy, she said.
“He was the class clown, even when he wasn’t at school,” his mother, Rebecca Yale, said yesterday. “But he also didn’t mind sitting home with his momma to watch a chick flick with a box of Kleenex between us. He was the best boy you could ask for.” [snip]
Yale grew up in rural Meherrin, one of those “teeny tiny little Virginia towns where if you sneeze, you miss it,” Rebecca Yale said.
When he was little, Yale loved to hang out with his granddad “in the bush and the thicket,” his grandfather, William Sydnor Sr., said. “I used to call him ‘Wild Man.’ No matter how much he would get scratched up in the woods, he always wanted to go again next time . . . and he was only 5 or 6 then.”
Sydnor said his son, Yale’s father, lived with the boy off and on while he was growing up.
Yale became an “awesome skateboarder” and “one of the top paintball players” in the area, according to his mother. She said he was setting up a Web site for a paintball team he had founded.
Jordan Haerter
Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter, Navy Cross for valor in Iraq
Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter, 19, was from a comfortably middle-class suburb on Long Island. As a boy, he had worn military garb, and he had felt the pull of adventure and patriotism. He had just arrived in Iraq.
On April 22, the two were assigned to guard the main gate to Joint Security Station Nasser in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, once an insurgent stronghold and still a dangerous region. Dozens of Marines and Iraqi police lived at the compound, and some were still sleeping after all-night patrols when Yale and Haerter reported for duty that warm, sultry morning.
Yale, respected for his quiet, efficient manner, was assigned to show Haerter how to take over his duties.
Haerter had volunteered to watch the main gate, even though it was considered the most hazardous of the compound’s three guard stations because it could be approached from a busy thoroughfare.
The sun had barely risen when the two sentries spotted a 20-foot-long truck headed toward the gate, weaving with increasing speed through the concrete barriers. Two Iraqi police officers assigned to the gate ran for their lives. So did several Iraqi police on the adjacent street.
Yale and Haerter tried to wave off the truck, but it kept coming. They opened fire, Yale with a machine gun, Haerter with an M-16. Their bullets peppered the radiator and windshield. The truck slowed but kept rolling.
A few dozen feet from the gate, the truck exploded. Investigators found that it was loaded with 2,000 pounds of explosives and that its driver, his hand on a “dead-man switch,” was determined to commit suicide and slaughter Marines and Iraqi police.
The thunderous explosion rocked much of Ramadi, interrupting the morning call to prayers from the many mosques. A nearby mosque and a home were flattened. The blast ripped a crater 5 feet deep and 20 feet across into the street.
Shards of concrete scattered everywhere, and choking dust filled the air.
Haerter was dead; Yale was dying.
Three Marines about 300 feet away were injured. So were eight Iraqi police and two dozen civilians.
But several dozen other nearby Marines and Iraqi police, while shaken, were unhurt. A Black Hawk helicopter was summoned in a futile attempt to get Yale to a field hospital in time. A sheet was placed over Haerter.
When I interview heroes, or read their stories, two things stand out. They all say that they were not heroes, that they were just doing their duty. And they all say that they acted to save their fellow soldiers, sailors, airmen or Marines. I do not know what Jordan and Jon would answer to the question “Why?” but I am willing to wager that they would tell us that they did it because they were Marines and it was their duty.
No words can express the thanks I have that brave men like this existed and still do exist. I’m honored that Jordan’s mom has invited me to the Navy Cross ceremony. Jordan and Jonathan will never be forgotten.