Stories You May Not Know About the U.S. Marine Corps

Marine Corps Dog Handler :

Military dogs are trained to be both loyal and brave. They follow their soldiers and protect them no matter what. Improvised explosive devices (IED’s) were one of the major threats to the military and Lucca had been trained to sniff them out.

"Lucca" is an amazing example of such a dog. Sheserved two tours in Iraq with her handler, Chris Willingham and another mission with hero ther handler, Juan Rodriguez in Afghanistan.

One dayin Afghanistan, Shewas on the trail of one when another exploded. Rodriguez ran to Lucca, and wrapped a tourniquet around her injured leg to slow the bleeding. He saved her life, but in the end, Lucca would need her leg amputated.

But in the end, Lucca retired from the Marines, and receiving a"PurpleHeart" for her service.

Lucca she is now enjoying life as a three-legged dog with Chris Willingham and his family in Southern California.

The dogs are trained for three years before they are ready for duty, and their handlers continue to train them afterward. The presence of a military working dog and handler provides security and confidence to Marines, knowing a dog has swept a potentially hazardous area.

A military working dog handler is a military policeman who is trained to employ a military working dog to conduct vehicle searches, searches of open areas, buildings, vehicles and other locations for the detection of explosives or illegaldrugs.

The handler also can search for missing friendly force personnel and enemy combatants, as well as lost or wanted individuals.

Marines in Irak war :

"Eat the Apple" is a catchy title, but what does it mean?

I thought perhaps it was a reference to Genesis and our ancestors’ exile from the Garden of Eden, the scene of the first sin. But in fact it means to take advantage of a situation.

The tone is set by a Marine who is angry and fed up with the Marine Corps in1973 “Eat the apple, f— the Corps!” he says.

Although my father was in the infantry in World War I, i go to the Army Artillery for two years in Germany. and I found myself drawn to Matt Young’s Eat the Apple, the true story of a young recruit who takes on three deployments in Iraq over five years.

Because the war is mostly over by the time Young is deployed, his battle experiences are limited. Within three months of his arrival, however, a suicide bomber strikes a group of Humvees and a neighboring house near Amariya in Iraq. No one is killed except the bomber, but fourteen Marines are injured. Young recalls that Marines on the roof were taking cover from indirect fire. “We see ourselves, exploded bits smoking on the sand-turned-glass, impaled and shredded by window shards, crushed by falling rock. ‘What are the odds?’....We know we are going to die here too. Because of anger, retribution, oil, lies....We can hear the voices of the dead beckoning us. Who wants to take a bet on tomorrow?”

From time to time Young enters the mind of a fellow Marine, a corporal who wishes he had been grievously wounded, just to break the routine. He worries that years from now he will still regret that he saw no fire fights, no ambushes. He still will not have killed another human being, only dogs.

Sometimes the Marines joke endlessly about homosexuals, but when a fellow soldier says he is gay, they are ashamed for treating him disrespectfully… They are really great’s

My own memory sends me back to Officers’ Basic Training at Fort Bliss, Tex., when I was fed up with the behavior of my fellow lieutenants in Juarez, across the Mexican border. My father cautioned me against making judgments about my peers, because we would depend on one another in battle.

World War II :

During the Normandy invasion, Marine sharpshootersusedtheir rifles to detonatefloating mines and clear the way for Navy ships. At least 50 members of the Corps alsoserved as intelligence agents and saboteurs for the Office of Strategic Services. Theyincluded Colonel Peter J. Ortiz, whoparachutedinto Nazi-occupied France and waslatertwiceawarded the Navy Cross for his efforts in aiding the Resistance. All told, roughly 6,000 Marines took part in the European and AfricanTheaters in somecapacityduring the war.

Feb. 17, 1945

The Battle of Iwo Jima:The Japanesedefending Iwo Jima on D-daydisplayedsuperbtactical discipline. As Lieutenant-Colonel Justus M. ‘Jumpin’ Joe’ Chambers ledhis 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, across the first terrace on the right flank of the landing beaches, heencounteredinterlocking bands of automatic-weapons fireunlikeanythinghehadfaced in Tulagi or Saipan. ‘You could’veheld up a cigarette and lit it on the stuffgoing by,’ herecalled. ‘I knewimmediatelywewere in for one hell of a time.