Military News - Military Times

For Wis. Marine, 3rd time in Iraq was charmed

LAKE HALLIE, Wis. — It was remarkable, Garett Bunkelman said.

He can’t get over the change in Fallujah, a city 43 miles west of Baghdad.

As a U.S. Marine sergeant, the Lake Hallie resident served three tours in Iraq. The first was from February to June 2003, the second lasted seven months and ended in October 2004, and the latest seven-month stint ended March 11.

Bunkelman, 25, served in Fallujah in his second tour in ‘04, and in the one this year.

“It’s totally night and day. From 2004, I was involved in the battle of Fallujah,” he said.

Back then, the city was the heart of the insurgency in Iraq.

Bunkelman, whose parents are Vicki and Gary Bunkelman of Lake Hallie, recalls his outfit having to fight multiple times.

“It was difficult. It took him a long time to get over the 2004 tour,” Vicki said of her son. She said seven of Garett’s buddies were killed during that time.

Returning to Fallujah in 2008 was quite a different story.

“This last tour, we never fired a shot,” Garett said.

“(Iraqis) would invite us into their houses and we would drink Chi tea. It was totally unexpected to me,” said the 2000 graduate of Chippewa Falls Senior High School.

The difference?

“It’s getting more people involved,” Bunkelman said.

Individual tribes set up their own security in the province, with the help of Marines.

“They’re sick of the fighting and sick of the violence,” he said.

Bunkelman said the Marines lived in a small village outside of Fallujah. Local residents would come to the Marines’ compound for meetings, and report where IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and old ordinance would be so the explosives would be picked up.

When he was involved in the fighting in 2004, Bunkelman said he didn’t have much interaction with Iraqi residents.

This year gave him a new perspective.

“There’s nothing they won’t do for you,” he said.

The Iraqis are a proud people, and you have to give respect to get it, he said. The Marines had to take the time to get to know and think of them as people, he said.

“It worked out very well for both parties,” he said.

Bunkelman had heard there had been progress made in the city, but he had his doubts after his second tour in Iraq.

“I was a skeptic at first after coming out of 2004,” he said.

But the Marines there are putting in much time and effort to connect with the Iraqis, and the residents are embracing U.S. troops.

“The change has just been phenomenal,” he said.

Vicki Bunkelman said while this was an easier tour of duty for Garett, it still had its share of hardships. For example, she said the Marines were forced to cook hamburger patties in toasters.

“We were just sending tons of food over because those boys were hungry,” she said.

Bunkelman entered the Marines in the fall of 2000. He thought he would be out of the military after getting his honorable discharge in 2004 following his second tour of Iraq.

He was working in Maryland as a nuclear plant security specialist when the Marines called him up to serve a third tour of Iraq.

As a result, a longtime personal relationship he developed after getting back in 2004 ended, Garett’s mother said.

Her son made other sacrifices during his time in the Marines. Seven of his relatives died during the three tours of Iraq, including his great-grandparents and grandparents.

He understands the feeling of other soldiers who are being called back to their second or third tour of Iraq.

“I really feel for the families that are ready pushing through this,” he said.

But he added that people in the military are special and are tough, and they will be able to get through another tour.

As for Bunkelman, he plans on starting school at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. He said he’s grateful that Wisconsin has a program that pays 100 percent of tuition to state schools for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

That made another veteran of Iraq, Wisconsin Secretary of Veteran Affairs John A. Scocos, very pleased. Scocos said there’s talk on the federal level of changing the GI Bill to do what Wisconsin does in paying for veterans’ tuition.

“If we can spend $2 billion a month in Iraq, we can spend money for veterans,” Scocos said.

As for Bunkelman, he plans on majoring in sociology at UW-Stevens Point.

“I guess Iraq brought out a lot of that,” he said of that study. One of the things he would like to do is work for the FBI.

What’s sticking with him is the memory of how he left Iraq the latest time. The plane flew over Fallujah itself.

“That was something we never did (in 2004),” he said.

But now, he said, it’s possible.