Operation phantom fury hell house11/15/2023 Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggested pulling the Marines out of Sangin for a while. His bosses back at the Pentagon had a different idea. He stepped up training: The Marines buried mock IEDs and practiced finding them. Morris pressed his company commanders to take extra care on patrol. I mean, having to figure this out? It's up to the battalion commander," he says. It fell to Morris, the battalion commander, to fix things. I don't think any of us really thought it was going to be like it was in October," recalls Amy Murray, the wife of Capt. "I wasn't prepared for it to be as bad as it was. To calm everyone down, the Marines convened a town hall meeting, and 150 family members showed up. Back home, the emails and phone calls flew back and forth. The Darkhorse battalion was taking horrific casualties. What happened to Ashley Tawney was happening to other Marine families. I couldn't fathom that he was gone," she says. the whole, me going to Dover to meet his body, and that's when it hit me, and I just covered my face with my hand and was like, 'Oh my God, oh my God.' There's no goodbye and there's no nothing. "I remember my cat was playing with the chaplain's uniform. And I opened the door, and then they started off with the whole spiel. "And everything was kind of in slow-motion. "I, like, floated over there or something," she says. To this day, she doesn't know how she made it to the front door. At the end of the week, another Marine was dead: Sgt. In just two days, Morris lost seven of his men - more than his predecessor had lost in six months.Īnd the violence didn't let up. Then, Morris remembers three rapid explosions they turned out to be three Marines stepping on IEDs in rapid succession. The initial report came in that they were taking mortar fire. The next day, some of Morris' Marines went out on a foot patrol. 13 - the same day the 3/5 officially assumed control over the area - four Darkhorse Marines were killed when a blast ripped apart their vehicle. The only thing that was different from what we had trained all our lives for as Marines was the IED threat," Morris says. "We had over a hundred firefights in the first three weeks. Morris - the Darkhorse commander - the battle was everywhere. The situation was extremely dangerous: The Taliban had stockpiled weapons and poked holes in thick mud walls to use as shooting positions in order to ambush the Marines. Charles Broun.Ī few weeks later in Afghanistan, Tawney led his men on a patrol. Jason Morris (right), the commanding officer for 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, discusses the Marines' progress during Operation Golden Shillelagh in Malmand, Afghanistan, on March 12, with 1st Lt. The Marines of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment remember Sangin in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province as different from anywhere else they'd fought. This week, NPR tells the story of this unit's seven long months at war - both in Afghanistan and back home. By the time their tour ended in April 2011, the Marines of the 3/5 - known as "Darkhorse" - suffered the highest casualty rate of any Marine unit during the past 10 years of war. Marine officers and enlisted men of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment deployed to restive Helmand province in southern Afghanistan. Marine CorpsĪ year ago, nearly 1,000 U.S. During its seven-month deployment, the 3/5 sustained the highest casualty rate of any Marine unit during the Afghan war, losing 25 men.Ĭpl. Marines with 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment and the Afghan National Army provide cover as they move out of a dangerous area after taking enemy sniper fire during a security patrol in Sangin, Afghanistan, in November 2010.
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