Of all the bad places he’d seen during his two combat deploy ments to Iraq, perhaps the worst spot in which Eagan found him self was in Ramadi in 2004, a dangerous time marked by high casualties, numerous roadside bombs and intense fighting.
That tour, Eagan said, was “the worst place at the worst time.”
But Eagan deployed in 2007 to Afghanistan with his platoon from Marine Corps Special Operations Command and in Helmand province, he faced a greater threat.
In a two-week operation dubbed “Scorpion Lion,” Eagan and his men patrolled towns and villages with other coalition special opera tions forces “trying to draw out the enemy … and alleviate some of the pressure” on the local populace, he said.
They did that through 29 firefights with Taliban forces, including close-quarters battles as the platoon cleared buildings. In one village, Eagen, then a captain, led a vehicle section into a kill zone and killed more than 50 Taliban fighters.
On another day, the platoon battled for several hours after they were ambushed by enemy fighters.
– Gidget Fuentes
Even as the only radio operator in his platoon, Niznik was confi dent he could get the job done.
After all, he was only going on a float, he told himself. How hard could it be?
Niznik got his answer soon after the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit began combat operations last year in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, an unexpected detour from the MEU’s oth erwise routine deployment to the Mediterranean.
The 24-year-old had spent one tour in Iraq – in 2006. He was the new kid then, spending most of his time in a communications operations center far from combat.
But Afghanistan was different. On May 29, 2008, his unit – Light Armored Reconnaissance Platoon, Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 6th Marines – was attacked as they headed into Garmsir, a Taliban hotbed along the Helmand River.
For nearly three hours, the Marines took cover in buildings, exchanging fire with the enemy. And they counted on Niznik to fix their radios, relay messages and re-install encrypted codes.
As bullets zipped by and mortars rained down, Niznik shuffled from one task to the next, juggling up to five radios at a time and pausing often to return fire.
– Trista Talton
Loaded with water, food and other supplies destined for an infantry company, Turpin’s resupply convoy left its compound at Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, before dawn and headed into the Helmand River valley.
Turpin, the convoy commander for that Dec. 13, 2008, mission, knew that IEDs pockmarked Helmand’s roads, but she would have never guessed so many threats would pop up on one resupply mission.
They were headed to a forward operating base in northern Helmand province that housed Marines and British soldiers.
But what should have been a daylong mission to the village of Musa Qalah turned into a 54-hour nightmare. They made it to the FOB eventually, but not without a series of scares: The Ma rines fought through four separate attacks, two from explosives buried in the road and two from enemy rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire.
As the convoy crossed a village, children and women ran into houses. Turpin noticed men wearing nicer clothes than the villagers’ and got “a bad feeling.”
She heard the swoosh of an RPG, followed quickly by AK47 fire and more grenades, and then an explosion as one hit the engine block of a fuel truck. Turpin didn’t want the convoy to get bogged down in the village and be at risk for more attacks, so they contin ued on, escorted by two AH-1W Super Cobras.
Two hours later, AK fire flew at the vehicles in the rear. Rounds flew over their heads and Marines in the last vehicle returned fire as the convoy continued. The accompanying Cobras snuffed the threat.
– Gidget Fuentes
Conte was given a job that’s not easy for any Marine.
A squad leader with 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines, based at Camp Lejeune, he deployed to Afghanistan from November 2008 | to June 2009, pushing his Marines in 1st Platoon, Lima Company, as they handled the company’s Quick Reaction Force operations, in which Marines frequently are required to respond to a request for assistance within 15 minutes.
Conte’s squad responded to four urgent casualty-evacuation requests during the deployment, including a mission for a friend, Lance Cpl. Blaise Oleski, who died April 8, 2008.
“If you’d have asked me four months ago, I was dead-set on getting out of the Marine Corps,” said Conte, who is now consider ing re-upping and becoming an embassy security guard. “As time dwindles down, I’m just going to take it four years at a time now.”
Conte earned his Bronze Star for “untiring efforts to lead and train his Marines” and for leading Lima Company’s casualty evacuations – two of which came under enemy fire, according to his award citation.
He led more than 40 combat patrols in an area with “a high concentration of Improvised Explosive Devices” and directed his squad in four other scraps with enemy forces, his citation reads. “Corporal Conte put himself at the main point of friction in every squad task,” it says.
Conte said he plans to wear the medal to his unit’s Nov. 10 Marine Corps Birthday Ball – the first birthday ball for which he won’t be downrange.
“It’s kind of a big deal, I guess, but I really don’t want to get a big head over it,” Conte said. “My family’s really proud of me, and that just makes me grin on the inside.”
– Dan Lamothe
Clookey and his platoon were holed up in a small house in Garmsir, Afghanistan, on May 29, 2008, when another Marine unit traveling nearby was attacked by about 30 insurgents.
Clookey and his men rushed to join the fight.
As the two-hour battle unfolded, a Marine was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade. Clookey – then a staff sergeant in charge of 1st platoon, Alpha Company, Battalion Landing Team, 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit – called for a CH- 46 Sea Knight to evacuate his wounded comrade.
He and his Marines left their secured position and pushed about 300 feet into an open field, where Clookey deliberately drew enemy fire so his Marines could identify the enemy’s location. He then ran to the center of the field to mark the landing zone.
Only days earlier, on May 25, Clookey led his squad to clear a machine-gun bunker. They killed three insurgents trying to escape.
A day later, he and his men destroyed an entire enemy squad.
After more than a month of direct contact with the Taliban, the firefights seem to run together, he said.
“His men, his platoon commander and I, could always count on his measured leadership and devotion to mission accomplish ment,” Clookey’s former company commander, Maj. Sean Dynan, said through a spokesman. “When given a mission, he would knuckle down, ensure his men were prepared, and then lead from the front.”
– Amy McCullough
Discover more Marine Corps heroism at the Hall of Valor.
