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May 09, 2004

Frisbees over Fallujah

When a tank becomes stuck, getting it unstuck can be a challenge in more than one way. In this report from Camp Falluja, Civil Affairs Marines took the opportunity to show local citizens the friendly side of the Marine Corps.

Navy corpsman Marcos A. Figueroa, blows soap bubbles for kids in a village near Fallujah.

Marines from 3rd Civil Affairs Group, based out of Camp Pendleton, visited the hamlet dubbed Tank Village and surrounding communities May 6 to compensate for the damages.

"All of this is a chain reaction from where the tank got stuck," said Lt. Col. Colin P. McNease, the officer-in-charge of the 3rd CAG detachment under Regimental Combat Team 1. "Aside from paying for damages, we told them we could start some projects out here."

It didn't take long for the word to spread that Marines have taken an interest in lending a helping hand.

"People from other villages heard that we compensated for the damages, but also saw that we brought fertilizer and tools for that one village," McNease explained. "As we were leaving, they waved us down wondering if we're willing to work with their villages too."

Here's a report from the front lines, courtesy of Jim Hake from Spirit of America:

Message from LtCol McNease

We went out to the village where the tank got stuck, about 3 km northeast of Fallujah. The area is a dirt road farming village of conrete or mud brick houses strung along a single road which runs from a cemetery to a 'T' intersection. The people have gotten to know the Marines since the tank spent a week there before we could pull it out. They were friendly to the Marines who already felt bad about trashing their canals and fields while trying to unstick the M1A1. When we went out to pay damage claims for all the lost crops and date plam trees and torn up roads, we saw a lot of kids around and met a few of them. This made us think of the SoA stuff, especially the soccer balls and frisbees, we had been sent and had back on Camp Fallujah.

The next time we went to visit the village, we took as many of the soccer balls and frisbees as we could fit into the open space in the back of our hummers (around chow, water, ammunition, radio batteries, etc.) When we arrived at the village and parked the HMMVWs in the center, some shy but curious kids were peeking out from doorways or looking out their windows. But when we pulled out the soccer balls and handed the first one out, they started coming out like ants to a picnic.

None of them wanted frisbees at first, all really wnated the soccer balls. But when we ran out of soccer balls and kept handing out frisbees they would line up to take them, sometimes trying to get more than one, and many making sure their little brothers or sisters got one as well. They didn't know what to make of the frisbees at first, holding and throwing them like dinner plates, but once they had a little professional military education on how to operate the frisbee and were checked out on it, a lot of them became surprisingly good surprisingly quickly. I spent almost 45 minutes tossing the disc with one very young girl who got to be quite accomplished.

Some of the the kids' parents and some of the older kids who could read did pick up on the friendship message and would point to the english and then point to the arabic and give us a thumbs up to show that they understood that they meant the same thing in both our languages.

This took place at a time when we were being shot at in most every other place we went so it was particularly gratifying, and it was nice to have something good to give them. Other things they seem particularly crazy about are sunglasses (they always want ours) and colored pens.

When these Marines deployed in February, they took shipping containers filled with school medical supplies, toys, and - of course - frisbees and soccer balls.

The Marines in the An Najaf province last year lost more soccer games than they won . . . but in the process of losing games, they won the respect and cooperation with the locals. No Marines casualties from hostile action were recorded from April, when they arrived in An Najaf, to October when the last Marines came home.

Recently, a number of bloggers ran a friendly competition to raise funds for the Spirit of America Foundation and in just a week, raised more than $55,000 to help our Marines with nation-building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fundraising continues - make your donation here.

Posted by Deb at May 9, 2004 08:28 PM

Comments

Anything Jim Hake and Spirit of America do is a great project. You listed two of the best recent ones.

Not to fear: Jim Hake has others. Even the Army is doing a few good things. ;) LOL

Posted by: Steve at May 14, 2004 08:00 PM