Last (USMC) grunts in Iraq prepare to come home

[unhappycamper]

A Marine takes cover behind an Iraqi Army humvee during the beginning of combat operations in Amarah, Iraq, in June 2008.


Last grunts in Iraq prepare to come home
By Trista Talton - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Dec 20, 2009 11:08:43 EST

The last Marine infantry battalion will leave Iraq in January, closing a long, complicated chapter in the Corps’ history as combat intensifies on another front in Afghanistan.

Since March 20, 2003, when more than 40,000 amped-up leathernecks stormed into Iraq’s southern Basrah province and launched their push for Baghdad, Marines have waged intense battles throughout the country, punctuated by epic, deadly clashes in Fallujah and Ramadi. At the war’s peak in 2007, more than 20,000 Marines were on the ground, most of them concentrated in volatile Anbar province.

Today, one infantry unit remains: 3rd Battalion, 24th Marines, a Reserve battalion based in St. Louis, Mo. And conditions in Iraq now are decidedly tame in comparison.

“It’s like a completely different world,” Lt. Col. Mark Miner, the battalion commander, said in a telephone interview from Al Asad Air Base. “The level of attacks has significantly decreased. But you still have to be cautious. You still have to be careful.”

For its Iraq mission, 3/24 is organized as Task Force MP, and its 1,000-plus Marines are spread throughout Anbar, conducting security convoys between military bases, guarding ports of entry at the Jordanian and Syrian borders and sourcing military training teams in Mosul, Al Asad, Baghdad and Um Quasr.

Rest of article at: http://marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/12/marine_iraq_121909w/