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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

Marines From Iraq Sound Off About Want of Armor and Men
By MICHAEL MOSS

Published: April 25, 2005

In May 29, 2004, a station wagon that Iraqi insurgents had packed with C-4 
explosives blew up on a highway in Ramadi, killing four American marines 
who died for lack of a few inches of steel.
The four were returning to camp in an unarmored Humvee that their unit had 
rigged with scrap metal, but the makeshift shields rose only as high as 
their shoulders, photographs of the Humvee show, and the shrapnel from the 
bomb shot over the top.
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"The steel was not high enough," said Staff Sgt. Jose S. Valerio, their 
motor transport chief, who along with the unit's commanding officers said 
the men would have lived had their vehicle been properly armored. "Most of 
the shrapnel wounds were to their heads."
Among those killed were Rafael Reynosa, a 28-year-old lance corporal from 
Santa Ana, Calif., whose wife was expecting twins, and Cody S. Calavan, a 
19-year-old private first class from Lake Stevens, Wash., who had the 
Marine Corps motto, Semper Fidelis, tattooed across his back.
They were not the only losses for Company E during its six-month stint last 
year in Ramadi. In all, more than one-third of the unit's 185 troops were 
killed or wounded, the highest casualty rate of any company in the war, 
Marine Corps officials say.
In returning home, the leaders and Marine infantrymen have chosen to break 
an institutional code of silence and tell their story, one they say was 
punctuated not only by a lack of armor, but by a shortage of men and 
planning that further hampered their efforts in battle, destroyed morale 
and ruined the careers of some of their fiercest warriors.
The saga of Company E, part of a lionized battalion nicknamed the 
Magnificent Bastards, is also one of fortitude and ingenuity. The marines, 
based at Camp Pendleton in southern California, had been asked to rid the 
provincial capital of one of the most persistent insurgencies, and in 
enduring 26 firefights, 90 mortar attacks and more than 90 homemade bombs, 
they shipped their dead home and powered on. Their tour has become 
legendary among other Marine units now serving in Iraq and facing some of 
the same problems.
"As marines, we are always taught that we do more with less," said Sgt. 
James S. King, a platoon sergeant who lost his left leg when he was blown 
out of the Humvee that Saturday afternoon last May. "And get the job done 
no matter what it takes."
The experiences of Company E's marines, pieced together through interviews 
at Camp Pendleton and by phone, company records and dozens of photographs 
taken by the marines, show they often did just that. The unit had less than 
half the troops who are now doing its job in Ramadi, and resorted to making 
dummy marines from cardboard cutouts and camouflage shirts to place in 
observation posts on the highway when it ran out of men. During one of its 
deadliest firefights, it came up short on both vehicles and troops. Marines 
who were stranded at their camp tried in vain to hot-wire a dump truck to 
help rescue their falling brothers. That day, 10 men in the unit died.
Sergeant Valerio and others had to scrounge for metal scraps to strengthen 
the Humvees they inherited from the National Guard, which occupied Ramadi 
before the marines arrived. Among other problems, the armor the marines 
slapped together included heavier doors that could not be latched, so they 
"chicken winged it" by holding them shut with their arms as they traveled.
"We were sitting out in the open, an easy target for everybody," Cpl. Toby 
G. Winn of Centerville, Tex., said of the shortages. "We complained about 
it every day, to anybody we could. They told us they were listening, but we 
didn't see it."
The company leaders say it is impossible to know how many lives may have 
been saved through better protection, since the insurgents became adept at 
overcoming improved defenses with more powerful weapons. Likewise, Pentagon 
officials say they do not know how many of the more than 1,500 American 
troops who have died in the war had insufficient protective gear.

If anyone has the stomach to read the other three pages of this article, 
they will be found at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/25/international/middleeast/25marines.html?hp&ex=1114401600&en=27af79ca337a2ec9&ei=5094&partner=homepage