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> Special Sections > Letters From Iraq > Letters > Now Home, Marine shares story of war
Now Home, Marine shares story of war
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By Sarah M. Corigliano, Assistant Managing Editor
After an eight-and-a-half month deployment to one of the most active fronts in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Marine Corps reservist Captain John Kasparian is home in East Longmeadow.
As part of the Third Battalion, 25th Marines, Kasparian and his peers served in the western Al Anbar Province of Iraq, fighting enemy insurgents and blocking them from driving to southern provinces of the country as suicide car bombers. Kasparian was also in charge of keeping track of each infantry soldier, supervising detainees, reporting casualties and more.
A day in the life of a Marine
Upon arriving in Iraq, Kasparian said he and his fellow Marines were spread across a 60-square-mile area. He said there were two camps, and primarily four locations out of which they fought. As one would guess, there was no typical day for Kasparian.
He said he spent the majority of his time at Haditha, but made several trips to Hit and to forward locations. He described the population density of the area as similar to the northeast United States.
"There would be small town after small town, mixed in with a city," he said. However, he added, unlike the Northeast, there was extreme poverty everywhere.
"Our worst neighborhoods in the U.S. are their best," he said. "But the war didn't do that to them. To begin with, there is nothing outside of Baghdad -- there is a lack of education and there is extreme poverty."
He said the concept of spreading the wealth, like in the U.S., did not exist in Iraq under Sadaam Hussein's dictatorship.
Because of the civilians, Kasparian said this has been, primarily, a war fought on the ground.
"We don't randomly drop bombs and we never fired artillery," he said. "We rarely fired mortars back at them [insurgents]. We were rooting them out by making them run, capturing them, or killing them."
He said the 3/25 Marines conducted house-to-house, rifle-to-rifle fighting.
"We were constantly in battle the entire time," he said. "We were constantly forward and constantly engaged -- this was not a chess match."
About every three days, he said the 3/25 Marines experienced fire fights; they had multiple mortar attacks.
"We were taking it to the insurgents," he said. "We cleared 10,000 houses, we had 171 confirmed kills [of insurgents and foreign fighters] and we had 119 long-term detainees."
Because of their location, he said, the 3/25 Marines probably had 10 times more action than most other battalions in the war.
"The Marines are always sent to the heaviest fighting," he explained. "The unit next to us saw their share, too."
On top of tracking and supervising detainees, Kasparian said he had administrative duties that were hard to keep on top of with all the action, especially since any support staff he would have had was on the front line.
"Out in the field, a week out for me was like being out three weeks," he said. Prepping for major operations, keeping track of soldiers, reporting casualties, answering press inquiries, issuing awards, delivering packages -- these all had to be done on a daily basis, even with a fire fight going on.
"The hardest days were, we'd take casualties, take mortar fire, take press, take detainees ... when they all came at once -- and they always came at once," he said. "Everybody was doing double duties. When we did major operations, the average day was 20 hours, and we'd fit in sleep between there. We were more heavily engaged than any other reserve unit since Vietnam. I'm very proud of my unit."
Kasparian said most of the battles won in the Iraq war today are won in the western Al Anbar Province, but you wouldn't have heard much about it on the evening news.
The stories you missed
Since most of the war correspondents are based in Baghdad, Kasparian said the successes of his unit and others were not often publicized.
"The press only sees what they can see," he said. "We have a lot of respect for the combat correspondents -- when they came out, a quarter of the time we were fighting and they were on the move with the units."
For example, the story of Hit is probably unfamiliar to most Americans.
"Hit is a city of 100,000 people," Kasparian said. "We ripped it out from the insurgents and turned it over [to the Iraqis]. It's now a solidified Hit, it was a big success."
He said he thinks many stories went untold simply due to logistics -- by the time news got to Baghdad, it was old, sometimes weeks old, or not exciting enough to warrant coverage. After all, he said, if the 3/25 Marines took control of a neighborhood or town and few people were injured and no one was killed, it wasn't as attention grabbing as a roadside car bomb or similar incident.
For the time Kasparian was deployed, he said 950 - 1,800 Marines covered that area -- when they left in October, he said they were replaced with 3,500.
Dealing with the enemy
Kasparian said his job dealt with clearing cities of enemy insurgents and foreign fighters, then moving on to the next one.
"Unfortunately I dealt with most of the bad ones," he said. "They are evil people -- they don't care about anyone but themselves."
He said he remembers one case when an older man and his two sons were arrested and detained as insurgents.
"Almost always [in that situation] the father says 'I don't know anything, my sons are bad.'," Kasparian recalled. "That was the insurgent. They would attack the population and extort from them -- they would attack Americans for cash."
He said, in many cases, if the Marines raided a house to arrest a man who was an insurgent, soldiers observed that the man was fat and his children and wife were starving.
"They were overweight and their kids were scrawny and starving -- that's what our battalion saw," he added. "To me, there's no rehabilitation or trying to understand them."
Working with the Iraq Army
Kasparian said working with the Iraq Army helped improve communication and cooperation with civilians.
"The Iraqi Army came in and worked alongside the Marines toward the end of our term," he said. "They talked to the people, and the civilians more readily shared information. There is no other solution [to succeeding in Iraq]."
He continued, "When the Iraqi forces came in, neighborhoods and quality of life improved. As Marines, we couldn't do that. We go where the fight is. The Iraqi forces could stay in place and maintain order."
He added, "What people don't understand right now is we've already won this war." However, he said the U.S. is a more humane society than in earlier wars, and has an obligation to remain until peace is maintained and the country does not fall back to its previous state when the U.S. leaves.
"We don't want to fight this war again," he explained. "The true success of Operation Iraqi Freedom will be won by the Iraqis themselves. They need to be able to maintain order within the cities, alone. When they learn how to fight at the battallion level, to coordinate operations at that level ... when their first reaction to finding a solution to a problem is not to fight -- when that happens, the war will be over."
Coming home
Kasparian said he and the young men of the 3/25 Marines returned home in October.
"People keep asking me -- at home, 'what was good about coming home?'," he said. "Obviously, seeing my wife [Jennifer] again was very good."
He said he was encouraged by the welcome that was given to the Marines.
"We came back to a hero's welcome," he said. "It really showed that, no matter what you hear, the people of this country [really care about the armed forces]. I did what I did, but the kids were out there fighting."
Kasparian refers to the infantry men as "kids" because most of them are under the age of 24.
"It's an 18 to 22-year-old fight out there," he said.
He said, when the infantry soldiers returned, the most gratifying thing to hear was older veterans thanking them for their service.
"They followed in their forefathers' footsteps and they were proud to do it," he said. "The biggest compliment they can get is some old warrior saying 'well done' or 'thank you for carrying on our tradition'."
Now that he's home, Kasparian said he has had no problem transitioning back to life in East Longmeadow.
"It's good to drive again without fear," he said. "And the convenience factor of America is incredible."
While there's no comparing the quality of life to where he was stationed in Iraq, Kasparian said he is always struck by the amount of food and entertainment choices in the U.S. compared to other countries. And, he said he is amazed at the convenience of hardware stores, which he said are not common at all outside of the U.S.
Kasparian said he will remain in the Marine Corps Reserves, but that the job search is currently on for full time employment. Upon re-enlisting in the Marine Corps Reserves, he sent his clients to another trusted computer systems consultant and closed his business.
He said a lot of reservists have faced the job search upon returning home.
"One thing about the Iraqi war deployment is you know ... when you come back, you start looking [for work]," he said. "A minority actually go back to what they were doing before -- that's the sacrifice of the reserves. A lot of soldiers gave up high-paying jobs or tenure."
He said he knows there are many ways around laws that require employers to hold positions for active duty personnel. But, he said, it's worth employers' risk to invest in hiring and training recently-returned soldiers.
In his case, he said, he has a miniscule chance of being deployed again.
"I'll serve, and I'll do Toys for Tots," he laughed. "But the chances are astronomical that I would go back."
Others, he said, are going to be leaders when they return.
"These young guys will be leading corporations. These guys retiring from Iraq -- they will be running the country," he said. "They're our future and I feel good about that."
He said the stresses of politics and of corporate situations would be nothing for the young soldiers who fought on the front lines.
"When they come back and go back to college, do you think they're going to be stressing about the next test?" he said.
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