New York native Staff Sgt. Vanessa Parrish, assistant supply chief for 2nd Marine Division (Forward), holds a photo of her with her husband and son. Parrish’s husband, Staff Sgt. Timothy Parrish, is also a deployed Marine, and their son stays with her sister. Parrish said communication with her son is the key to keeping their relationship strong. Photo by Cpl. Jeff Drew

Her family arrived in the United States from San Cristobal in the Dominican Republic more than 28 years ago. She grew up as the second youngest in a family of eight children. Her mother, with four children, married her step-father, also with four children, and they lived as a modern-day Brady Bunch. They loved having large Dominican meals and dancing. It was never a dull moment in their three-bedroom New York City apartment.

“It was loud; it was fun; there were always a lot of people around – you could never be bored,” said Staff Sgt. Vanessa Parrish, the assistant supply chief for 2nd Marine Division (Forward). “Every holiday is always a lot of fun; any excuse to have a party — birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, whatever – we’re always trying to have fun.”

The resilient bond Parrish built with her family at a young age endures, providing strength to her as a Marine currently deployed to Afghanistan. Parrish, the mother of a four-year-old, knows well the sacrifice of giving up priceless time with loved ones to serve her country.

“The hardest part of deployment is being away from your family,” said Parrish. “Not being able to be with my son is very hard. As a mother you want to spend every second with your child, but I had to leave him with one of my sisters.”

Being a deployed mother and having to leave her son is difficult, but another challenge she faces daily is the fact her husband, Staff Sgt. Timothy Parrish, is also deployed to Afghanistan as a supply chief with 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment. Parrish explained that in the case of a dual-military household such as hers, communication is the key when keeping in touch with family back in the United States.

“You have to send constant e-mails – because of the time difference you can’t just always pick up the phone, and sometimes the lines don’t work,” said Parrish, a 2000 A. Philip Randolph High School graduate. “My husband is with (an infantry unit) and out in the battle space, so whenever he gets a chance to communicate, he sends an e-mail to let the family know everything is alright. It can be just a one-liner, just to let them know. It doesn’t seem like much, but it means a lot.”

Parrish said she knows being absent for those big moments in a child’s life, like the first day of school, is important, but may be difficult for deployed service members to be a part of. For the moments she can’t be there, Parrish has her sister e-mail pictures.

Parrish said, “It doesn’t matter (what it is); it can be pictures of him playing in the park or going to the carnival. I’d like to see him every day, but I can’t so I ask for a picture every week, and it doesn’t seem like I’m missing as much.”

She displays the photos near her desk and in her room as a way of keeping her family near.

Parrish’ situation as a dual-military household is not unique among military members, but it is also not overly common in the Marine Corps. The Marines she works with said they appreciate the challenges Parrish faces and are very supportive.

“I’ve never had a Marine work under me (who was part of) a dual-military family,” said Baltimore native Gunnery Sgt. Bryan J. Alberts, the supply chief for 2nd Marine Division (Forward). “Being a parent myself, it’s hard (being away) from my civilian wife, but being dual military must be really hard, especially with both of them deployed. I think she deals with it very well. She’s very patient; I see pictures and they communicate all the time.”

Parrish is nearly two-thirds of the way through a year-long deployment, and although she must be away from her son, she is thankful for all the opportunities and benefits the Marine Corps has provided her family.

“I’d like to stay in the Marine Corps,” said Parrish. “I’ve met a lot of wonderful people, and I’m hoping to make a career out of it and retire at 20 or 30 years.”

Story by Cpl. Jeff Drew
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“She’s aggressive and compassionate, she doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, and if she runs into a roadblock she finds a way around it,” said Herndon, Va., native Petty Officer 1st Class Richard Martinez, the leading petty officer with 2nd Marine Division (Forward) surgeon’s office. “She takes very good care of her subordinates [and] tries to keep us laughing.”

Lima, Ohio, native Petty Officer 2nd Class Jesse Waterfield, a corpsman with 2nd Marine Division (Forward), knows the seriousness and importance of her job. She is responsible not only for the welfare of the junior sailors within her care, but also for tracking all Marines and sailors in Southwest Afghanistan who are involved in blasts and those who have sustained concussions throughout her year-long deployment.

“If you suffer a concussion, then your brain needs to take a time-out in order to heal itself,” said 33-year-old Martinez. “If we catch a Marine who’s had a concussion early enough and we prevent him from getting further concussions, then we can help him get back to the fight. If we don’t, then that minor traumatic brain injury could turn into a full TBI, and that’s when you see the memory loss, amnesia and anger issues.”

During the summer months, an increase in insurgent activity and improvised explosive device placement leads to a higher rate of concussions. Waterfield tracked several hundred service members involved in blasts in June alone, of which a relatively small percentage had concussions. She is the lone corpsman in charge of tracking concussions within her section and has only 72 hours from the time of the blast to coordinate with the Marine’s or sailor’s unit and report the information to Marine Corps Forces Central Command. Waterfield said it isn’t the short timelines or the busy workdays, however, that are most challenging, rather it can often be difficult to watch the events unfold through reports on a computer.

“It’s tough to let go of things,” said Waterfield. “I can watch the events happen [through the reports] and there’s not really anything I can do while the Marines are out there. We do our work here so they can go back, but watching and not being able to physically do much is the hardest part.”

The 28-year-old woman has a personal connection to the Marines in the fight as well, as her husband is also a Navy corpsman who returned from a deployment with 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, October 2010.

“Seeing the events take place day-in and day-out and seeing the things my husband went through when he was here with [an infantry battalion] makes me realize just how precious life is,” she explained.

Waterfield’s desire to ensure service members get the care they need begins with the units providing information for her to track the members’ status. The injured count on her to make sure she gets the information she needs to track their cases and she doesn’t disappoint, overcoming all challenges in her way.

This tenacity has followed her outside the office and into the martial arts tent as well. There she spends some afternoons increasing her knowledge in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program and taking a break from the stressors of the day. She’s taken the initiative to attain four out of the five belts and continues to work hard to achieve the coveted black belt.

“She has the dedication, motivation and willingness to learn,” said Chicago native Sgt. Quinton King, a MCMAP instructor with 2nd Marine Division (Forward). “It’s [great] to have a corpsman go from very little martial arts training and stick with it the way she has.”

Waterfield’s dedication in and out of the office makes her a tremendous asset to her section.

“She’s an outstanding sailor and professional,” said Martinez. “She jumps on every task, stays late if she needs to, and is all about mission accomplishment and taking care of the Marines.”

Photos and story by Cpl. Jeff Drew
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Female Engagement Team 13 member Lance Cpl. Jacqueline Veres smiles as she gives a backpack full of school supplies to an Afghan girl at the closing of the Sangin Youth Outreach Shura at Forward Operating Base Jackson, Aug 17. With a literacy rate of seven percent in Sangin, District Governor Mohammad Sherrif has recognized the need for education here. Through his outreach shuras to the community he impresses on the people the need for the children of Sangin to become educated so one day they will be able to assume leadership roles within the up and coming Sangin government. Sherrif realizes and tells the people “children are the future of Sangin.” Veres is from Canton, Ga.

More than 85 children from around Sangin attended the Sangin Youth Outreach Shura held by Female Engagement Teams assigned to 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, at Forward Operating Base Jackson, Aug. 17.

“It is important to work with the youth of Sangin because just like the kids in the U.S., they want to grow up to be something,” said Sgt. Juanita Towns, the FET 13 team leader. “So it is just best that we try to start them off on the right path at a young age vice letting them join the (insurgency) now.”

When on patrol with the battalion’s infantry squads the team members spread the word about the youth shuras and have recently had Afghan Uniformed Police officers help them in their endeavor to reach out to the children of Sangin.

The children, ages 1-14, were split into three groups in which they participated in age-appropriate informative stations and activities. This enabled the FETs to reach out to each age group more effectively, and is modeled after the cultural breakdown the children often gravitate towards on their own.

“It’s the first activity in Sangin for the kids, focused on the kids,” said FET member Lance Cpl. Jacqueline Veres. “So we are just trying to get them to see that we are here to help them, they can come to us and they can trust us.”

“The first one we had was a hygiene shura. The shura that we just had was a healthcare, education and activities shura,” said Towns, a Richmond, Va., native. “They played soccer, they did their time tables and the smaller kids just played with educational toys.”

With a literacy rate of seven percent in Sangin, District Governor Mohammad Sherrif has recognized the need for education here. Through his outreach shuras to the community he impresses on the people the need for the children of Sangin to become educated so one day they will be able to assume leadership roles within the up and coming Sangin government. Sherrif realizes and tells the people “children are the future of Sangin.”

“Children are the innocent ones in most cases,” said Towns, a parent herself. “If they are not educated there is just a repetitive cycle of insurgency and drugs. If you educate them when they are small there is an opportunity for them to be better than that and do positive things.”

Until last year, these children had not been afforded opportunities to break the trend and reach new levels. However teaching children how to do this is a challenging task since they lack the focus levels of adults. So the team had to mix things up to captivate their young audience and keep them interested in the shura.

“We know that they have a short attention span and if we talk to them for an hour like we do with the women then we are not going to get anything accomplished,” explained Towns. “If we have different activities and different things for them to do, they are going to participate, we are going to hold their attention longer and they are going to come back.”

Sometimes when the children do come back to the gates of the base they are looking for free hand outs and naturally are not interested in discussion of long term solutions. Other times the children show up wanting just to spend time with the teams. This requires the engagement teams to improvise and make the best of each situation.

“Even in between shuras we go to the gate and have 20 to 30 kids wanting to just come and talk to us,” said Veres a Canton, Ga., native. “We don’t really have anything planned sometimes, but we will just sit down and hold a mini-shura.”

The youth shuras in Sangin will continue to further expand their horizons to a new way of life that breaks the trend that plagues the region. In short, the activities give the youth something better, which is important to developing and educating the next generation of citizens and leaders in Sangin.

Youth shuras take place in several locations across Helmand province including the districts of Musa Qal’eh, Now Zad, Garmsir and Marjah.

“I think as soon as we stop having youth shuras we will see more insurgent activity, because we have actually given them something to look forward to every two weeks,” said Towns. “If they didn’t have that outreach on life then they would just do something bad that we are not ready to take the fall for.”

First Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, is currently assigned to Regimental Combat Team 8, 2nd Marine Division (Forward), which heads Task Force Leatherneck. The task force serves as the ground combat element of Regional Command (Southwest) and works in partnership with the Afghan National Security Forces and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to conduct counterinsurgency operations. The unit is dedicated to securing the Afghan people, defeating insurgent forces, and enabling ANSF assumption of security responsibilities within its area of operations in order to support the expansion of stability, development and legitimate governance.

Story by Cpl. Benjamin Crilly
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Staff Sgt. Logan Cortes, combat skills training instructor, Combat Skills Training School, Combat Logistics Regiment 17, 1st Marine Logistics Group, displays the Bronze Star he received at Camp Pendleton, Calif., June 25, for his actions during Operation Steel Curtain. During an attack to clear houses in New Ubaydi, Cortes' platoon moved in to clear a small single-story building and was engaged by an enemy ambush. Cortes, 33, from Stockton, Calif., left his position three times, running through enemy fire to save two Marines and retrieve ammo for his machine gunner. Cortes is currently an instructor with the 1st MLG Combat Skills Training School at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

The students taking courses at the Combat Skills Training School don’t doubt their teacher’s knowledge, but it’s hard to see the man behind the information as a decorated combat veteran.

Staff Sgt. Logan Cortes, an instructor with the 1st Marine Logistics Group’s CST at Camp Pendleton, Calif., is a Bronze Star recipient and currently teaches Marines how to use the weapons systems he had first-hand experience with in Iraq.

“He is a great role model,” said Lance Cpl. Jose Laguna, CST instructor, Combat Skills Training School, Combat Logistics Regiment 17, 1st MLG, 26, from Dallas.

Even though he was awarded the Bronze Star for his actions, he still thinks about the Marines who were there with him that day.

“I don’t think I deserve a Bronze Star for my actions out there,” Cortes said. “I wasn’t the only person out there. There were the other Marines covering me when I went out to recover those guys.”

It started with Marines storming door-to-door looking for insurgents in New Ubaydi, Iraq. But for 2nd Platoon, Nov. 16, 2005 turned into an ambush and proved one Marine’s courage and commitment to his fellow Marines.

Cortes was a machinegun section leader with Company F, Battalion Leading Team 2/1, Regimental Combat Team 2, 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, when his unit moved in to clear a small single-story building and was engaged by an enemy ambush.

“We were told that there were three insurgents inside one of the houses we were clearing that day,” said Cortes. “So I led a team into a position so we could help engage the enemy. It turned out to be an ambush,” said Cortes, 33, from Stockton, Calif.

During the heated firefight with the enemy combatants, Cortes was informed that there were casualties inside one of the buildings.

He dashed from his covered position to retrieve a Marine who suffered wounds to both of his legs from a grenade blast, and pulled him to safety as bullets from allies and enemies flew past his body.

“After I pulled the Marine to the covered position, I saw the machine gunner lying on the ground,” Cortes explained. “I was like ‘are you OK? Why are you lying on the ground?’ Turns out he was out of ammo so I ran back to grab some more for him. After I brought back the ammo an insurgent jumped out with an AK-47.”

Cortes quickly dispatched the enemy combatant. He saw more casualties and once again left his position to recover another wounded Marine.

For his courageous actions that day, Staff Sgt. Cortes was awarded the Bronze Star, the fourth-highest combat award. Cortes also recognized Lance Cpl. Roger Deeds, who was the only Marine in his fire team killed during the operation that day.

“I still think I don’t deserve the Bronze Star,” Cortes said. “I believe [Lance Cpl. Deeds] traded his life for mine.”

Other than being a great role model, Marines that work with Cortes have many good things to say about him.

“He treats you like a Marine, but first as a man,” said Sgt. Jared Louis Thom, CST instructor, Combat Skills Training School, CLR-17, 1st MLG. “He’s the first to help you and makes sure you’re setup and doing the right thing for yourself. He will stand up for what is right no matter what the consequences are.”

He also added that meeting Marines like Cortes isn’t an everyday occurrence.

Students at the CST benefit from learning from this Marine who has had experience on the battlefield and passes what he knows on to them. He encourages them to do the right thing at all times.

Someone pointing at a PowerPoint presentation may not look like a Marine who ducked and dodged bullets to save his fellow Marines’ lives in Iraq, but the man behind the information has a lot to offer.

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Story by Sgt. Jennifer Brofer

Col. Douglas Thomas, the commanding officer of 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, presents a Bronze Star Medal with combat distinguishing device to Staff Sgt. Philip Crosby, June 10. Crosby earned the award for heroism shown while serving as the assistant effects advisor for Military Transition Team 133, Multi-National Force West from November 2007 to October 2008 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Staff Sgt. Philip Crosby was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with combat distinguishing device for heroic achievement and sustained meritorious service during combat operations at a ceremony, here, June 10.

Crosby, who is now assigned to 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, was the assistant effects advisor for Military Transition Team 133, Multi-National Force – West from November 2007 to October 2008 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Crosby and his MTT embedded with the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Iraqi Army Division, to protect the Iraqi people and support the local government in the Diyala and Baghdad provinces.

“We went out and patrolled with [the Iraqi Army] almost every day, usually on foot,” said Crosby. “Our main role was to support the Iraqis by controlling air assets, gathering intelligence, planning operations and organizing support such as [AH-64 Apache helicopters] and [explosive ordinance disposal] units.”

According to his award citation, Crosby was assigned to 20 Iraqi scouts, Feb. 17, 2008, when they were ordered to join 20 members of the U.S. Army to conduct a combined raid on the village of Bodija.

After capturing multiple enemy suspects, Crosby and the Iraqi scouts set out on foot in cooperation with the U.S. Army, in pursuit of possible insurgents spotted by air assets.

After a two-kilometer patrol, the U.S. and Iraqi forces came under fierce ambush from insurgent forces.

During the ensuing battle, Crosby exposed himself to enemy fire to communicate and coordinate a counter-attack with the army unit.

While still receiving sporadic enemy fire, Crosby again exposed himself to assist wounded soldiers and escorted the wounded to a helicopter landing zone.

“He stepped up to the occasion, and exhibited some incredible bravery that day,” said Lt. Col. John John Orille, who worked with Crosby in Iraq. “He intuitively thinks on his feet and executes with confidence. His judgment is spot-on at the snap of a finger. No matter what you throw at him, he’s able to assess the situation and take action.”

Crosby’s leadership enabled the battalion to foster an environment of security and stability for the Iraqi people.

“The last time I’d been to Iraq was during the invasion,” said Crosbey, an Inman, S.C., native. “I saw a lot of differences from before – mostly with the people in the towns we went and cleared. You could see the difference two or three days later, because there would be kids playing in the street that weren’t there before.”

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Story by Lance Cpl. John Faria