“It all started because the lawnmower ran out of gas,” said Maj. Trent A. Gibson, the executive officer of 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, with a chuckle. “If the lawnmower hadn’t run out of gas, I would have never heard the phone ring.”

The voice he heard upon answering was that of a Marine recruiter, explaining what the Marine Corps had to offer the young man from Piedmont, Okla. Neither could imagine the future that Gibson would experience as he enlisted to become one of the few, the proud and the brave.

After twenty-two years as one of the few, Gibson experienced true pride in having served among the undeniably brave.

In the dangerous city of Karabilah, Iraq on April 14, 2004, Gibson, then a captain and the commander of Company K, 3rd Bn,, 7th Marines, went on patrol with his men of 2nd Squad, 4th Platoon.

WHO WAS JASON DUNHAM?
The carefully chosen squad leader for 2nd Squad was a 22-year-old corporal from the small town of Scio, N.Y., by the name of Jason Dunham.

“Cpl. Dunham was the quintessential Marine,” Gibson said. “He was the square-jawed, muscular all-American man you envision when someone says Marine. He had the character to back up his looks, too. There wasn’t a mean bone in his body.”

He earned respect from his men by example, not by intimidation, Gibson said of his leadership style.

“Cpl. Dunham was the kind of guy you would want your daughter to bring home,” he added.

During the patrol, their battalion commander’s convoy was ambushed nearby. Dunham led his Marines south of the ambushed convoy when vehicles began to flee the scene. As the Marines prepared to stop the vehicles, an Iraqi clad in black jumped from a white sport utility vehicle and attempted to choke Dunham. During the scuffle that ensued, the Iraqi dropped a hand grenade.

THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE
Cpl. Dunham didn’t falter.

In his last conscious act he threw his Kevlar helmet – then himself – on the grenade, absorbing the blast and saving the lives of his fellow Marines who were nearby.

When the smoke cleared, Dunham lay unconscious on the hard dirt road. His Kevlar ripped into two major pieces and countless shreds by the explosion.

When Gibson arrived on scene, he inspected the small cache of weapons retrieved from the vehicles and noticed a piece of Dunham’s Kevlar leaning against the wall of a nearby building. Once he realized what exactly he had found, he and the Marines in the area scoured the street for any scraps of the Kevlar they could find.

Five years have passed since Dunham’s selfless sacrifice to save the lives of his fellow Marines earned him the Medal of Honor and a Navy destroyer bearing his name.

THE DECISION TO DISPLAY
For five years the pieces of Dunham’s Kevlar were stored within the 7th Marine Regiment–until Gibson began collaborating with Deb and Dan Dunham, Cpl. Dunham’s parents, on the proper way to preserve the history of the helmet.

The three of them had to decide either to donate the helmet to the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Va., to display the helmet on the quarterdeck of the USS Jason Dunham along with his dress blue uniform, seal the entire thing in the destroyer’s mast or simply to bury it.

“At first we were a little uneasy about the notion of displaying it, due to the graphic nature of the object,” Gibson said. “But I mainly didn’t want the significance of the helmet to become lost. It isn’t just Marine Corps property; it was spiritually transformed to a part of the Marine Corps’ living history.”

Eventually they concluded the best way to ensure the legacy of the Kevlar and the history it represents was to donate most of the helmet to the museum, but to save a single shred to be forever sealed in the mast of the ship that bears Dunham’s name.

Gibson contacted Lin Ezell, the director of the National Museum of the Marine Corps, and coordinated to deliver the helmet to the museum during the same weekend the ship’s Mast-Stepping ceremony was being held.

PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER
As Gibson made his way from the Combat Center to the Marine Corps Museum, he carried with him a simple, locked black case with the combination 0-4-2 which represented Cpl. Dunham’s radio call sign of Kilo 4-2.

The case, which was never out of Gibson’s sight, attracted the attention of curious passengers throughout the trip. Gibson left each inquiring commuter with a new memory as he told them the story of what the simple black case held.

Within the first hour of arriving in Washington, D.C., July 9, Gibson made his way to the Marine Corps War Memorial and spent more than an hour sitting on the steps carefully examining the fragments of Dunham’s helmet-pieces he helped collect from the streets of Karabilah.

THE HANDOVER
After ensuring all the pieces were accounted for, he changed into his desert utility uniform and drove to Marine Corps Base Quantico to pick up Sgt. Mark Dean, one of Cpl. Dunham’s close friends and an Owasso, Okla., native, and the pair made the final leg of the journey to the museum together.

As they entered, they were greeted by Ezell and Owen Conner, the uniforms curator at the museum, and escorted upstairs to complete the exchange. Once upstairs, Gibson recounted the story and shared with the small audience the importance the helmet carried with it.

Once Gibson showed what each piece was and how the puzzle fit together, Gibson and Dean deliberated on which piece of the helmet would be appropriate to bring to the USS Jason Dunham to be forever capsulated in the destroyer’s mast.

TOAST TO A HERO
After ensuring the helmet was in competent hands, the history would be displayed for generations to come, and an appropriate piece had been set aside, the group went to the museum’s “Tun Tavern” and shared a toast.

“It’s been a while,” Dean said emotionally.

“It’s been five damn years,” Gibson replied. “Five damn years.”

After their glasses were drained and their stories shared, Gibson and Dean parted ways once again with promises of reunions to come. They parted with the Kevlar that Cpl. Jason Dunham used to selflessly save his fellow Marines’ lives – but not with Dunham. He will live with them forever in spirit and history.

DVIDS
Story by Pfc. Michael Gams

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.”

DVIDS
Story by Lance Cpl. John Faria

Dan and Deb Dunham, of Scio, N.Y., read their son’s memorial following the barracks dedication in honor of Cpl. Jason L. Dunham at Naval Submarine Base King’s Bay. Dunham was mortally wounded by a grenade during an encounter with insurgents in Iraq in April, 2004, and posthumously received the Medal of Honor on Jan. 11, 2007. Dunham was assigned to the security force company at King’s Bay from 2001 to 2003.

Photographer: Seaman Dmitry Chepusov, Navy Visual News Service

Silver Star – and I believe an excellent candidate for the MOH. He promised his friend that he’d look after his family, and he is. A bittersweet part of the story.

Albuquerque Tribune

During a patrol May 25, 2005, Hunter’s squad was ambushed from a house. His squad leader, Sgt. David Wimberg, was mortally wounded during an initial attempt to quell the ambush.

Hunter, also a sergeant, charged into the house and pulled Wimberg to safety, according to the military. Acting as squad leader, Hunter reorganized his Marines and led them into the house a third time, finally taking it.

Two months later – on July 28 – Hunter’s squad was on patrol near Cykla, when an adjacent squad came under small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire, according to the military. Hunter pushed his squad forward to help. He shot two enemy troops and made two unsuccessful assaults against enemy fire to retrieve a wounded Marine.

He then ran across a fire-swept street to link up with an American tank and guided its fire, allowing the extraction of a mortally wounded Marine, the military says.

Christopher Lyons was killed that day. An ad rep at an Ohio newspaper, he’d left home three months before his daughter, Ella, was born. He’d seen her only in e-mails.

A few weeks later, Hunter got an e-mail from Lyons’ wife, Bethany. She’d found his address among Christopher’s things, she said.

They stayed in touch and eventually, Hunter says, they fell in love. They got married, and their son, Atticus, was born four months ago.

But if he hadn’t fallen in love with Bethany, Hunter says, he’d probably be back in Iraq now. Back in the place he and his buddies called the “Wild West.”

“We’d hear gunfire coming from a village, and we’d find out it was two tribes fighting each other to see who got to fight us,” he says.

“There were a lot of scumbags there; a lot of people who had no problem hurting people, beheading people, torturing people,” he says. “But there were a lot of people who were just poor people stuck in a rotten situation. We were there to help them. I’m proud of what we did.”

Hunter, a member of the Mormon Church who did a two-year mission to Ukraine before joining the Marines, now hopes to be a high school history teacher. He is a junior at the University of New Mexico.

Military.com

Crouched and flattened against a waist-high wall, Marine Sgt. Jeff Hunter could see the muzzle flashes of the enemy AK-47 as it took out chunks of the wall by his head. In the middle of a shoot-out with a fortified insurgent in western Iraq, Hunter never could have known he’d later be hailed a hero.

But two years after that May 2005 firefight – and a year after he finished his Reserve contract – Hunter, 28, received the Silver Star on June 18 at City Hall in Albuquerque, N.M., for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity” in Iraq during the summer of 2005 – including two fire fights in which he pulled a fellow Marine out of enemy fire.

Originally an administrative clerk at Albuquerque-based Delta Company, 4th Reconnaissance Battalion, Hunter deployed to Iraq as an infantry fire team leader with Columbus, Ohio-based Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, in March 2005.

In the early hours of May 25, then-Cpl. Hunter set out on foot with Lima Company toward Haditha’s market district in the opening days of Operation New Market.

According to Hunter, the company planned to arrive at the market by sunrise in order to catch insurgents by surprise. He said the trip seemed like any other, until a Marine shot a stray dog that had charged him. About ten seconds later, “all hell broke loose,” Hunter said.

The award citation released by the Corps and interviews with Hunter and his fellow Marines reveal the platoon was ambushed by small arms fire that seriously wounded an officer on the patrol. Sgt. David Wimberg, Hunter’s squad leader, ordered the squad to take a house to their left, where they were receiving fire.

Wimberg hopped the fence and opened the gate for Hunter’s fire team, then kicked in the door and ran inside with Hunter on his heels.

“Sgt. Wimberg barely took a second step into the room before a muzzle to an AK-47 was presented [at his chest] and fired several times,” Hunter said in a recap of the events he wrote after the firefight.

When Wimberg fell to the ground, “I instinctively reached down and grabbed him, pulling him back out of the house,” Hunter wrote. “I dragged him to the right of the door under a window and lay on top of him while I heard him wheeze for us to frag the room.”

Hunter called for two of his squad mates to take Wimberg to their corpsman while he pushed forward with the attack on the house.

“In the back of my mind, I knew that I was now in charge of the squad and I had to get control of the situation,” he wrote.

“Acting as squad leader, [Hunter] reorganized his Marines and led them into the insurgent position…ultimately securing the house with close-range small arms fire and hand grenades,” according to the Corps release. Wimberg later died as a result of his wounds, but Hunter’s actions during the firefight “enabled his company to regain its momentum,” the release said.

Two months later, Hunter’s platoon was tasked with sweeping a couple small towns west of Baghdad the morning of July 28. According to Hunter, the patrol had been uneventful until Cpl. Andre Williams started to knock on the door of a house in Cykla.

“Right as he went to knock, a heavy-machine gun shot him through the door,” Hunter said. That kicked off a four-hour firefight between nine insurgents bottled inside the house and Hunter’s platoon.

When some of the insurgents fled to another nearby house, Hunter maneuvered his squad closer, using their own cover fire to move to a rooftop overlooking the second house.

A couple hours into the firefight, the other two squads were still engaged in the at the first house, but rounds were no longer coming from the second house. When Hunter’s squad cleared the house, they found an empty rocket-propelled grenade launcher, but no shooter.

They moved to the back yard where livestock were frantically running around following the hours of shooting going on around them. In the midst of the chaos, two of Hunter’s Marines broke off to search two small cinder block buildings for enemy fighters.

As Lance Cpl. Christopher Lyons – Hunter’s closest friend in the platoon – crossed the threshold of one of the buildings, he was shot by an insurgent fortified inside.

Hunter and his Marines took cover in a room of the building, which was still under construction. The wall was about three feet high, with huge portions missing for windows, Hunter said.

Crouched against his portion of the wall, about 15 feet from the insurgent’s position, “I could see the muzzle flashes from the doorway [from] the guy shooting…while the AK-47 was just taking chunks out of the wall,” Hunter said.

“It got pretty scary there for a minute.”

During that fight, Hunter “shot two enemies and made two unsuccessful attempts in the face of enemy fire to retrieve a wounded Marine,” the Corps release said.

Hunter “then ran across a fire-swept street to link up with a M1A1 tank, guided it’s fire and directed it to breach the building,” the release added. “This action neutralized one insurgent and allowed the extraction” of Lyons, who had been mortally wounded.

R News

A Navy Destroyer will bear the name of the Allegany County Marine killed in Iraq two years ago.

The Navy’s newest Guided Missile Destroyer, DDG-109 will be named the USS JASON DUNHAM.

Dunham is the Marine Corporal from Scio who died battling insurgents in Iraq in April, 2004. Dunham dove on a grenade and saved the lives of other Marines.

Dunham became the first Marine in the Iraq War to earn the Congressional Medal of Honor.

His parents, sister and brother received the medal in his honor from President Bush in January.

Secretary of the Navy Donald Winters will take part in a naming ceremony for the Destroyer Friday in Scio.

Newsday

The Navy will name its newest guided missile destroyer the USS Jason Dunham, New York lawmakers said Tuesday. A formal ceremony in Scio with Navy Secretary Donald Winters is scheduled for Friday.

Sen. Charles Schumer called the destroyer naming “another fitting tribute to his life and humbling heroism.”

Rep. Randy Kuhl, R-Hammondsport, whose district includes Scio, said the destroyer will be another way to ensure that “Jason and his heroic, selfless acts will long be remembered.”

The Dunham will be an Arleigh Burke class destroyer, one of the deadliest warships afloat.