Word: platoons
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...dead sergeant, whose hand he clutched in a morgue in Iraq just five days earlier. At 22, Salter, from Walla Walla, Washington, is so young that he called 29-year-old Sergeant Kyle Childress "Grandpa." "He always took care of me," says Salter, who lost two fingers when his platoon burst into a bombmaker's house near Samarra one night and was met with a torrent of machine-gun fire. As Childress fell, Salter emptied his M-4 rifle into the dark. The return fire raked his chest; his life was saved by his bulletproof vest. "For 48 hours after...
...center of this swirling storm stands Pantano, a 33-year-old officer who peers say was viewed as the top platoon commander in his battalion. "He was consistently the most cool-headed, tactically savvy officer in the field," says a more senior officer. Although Pantano's lawyers have advised him not to give interviews about the charges pending against him, he spoke to TIME about his life and career. From these conversations and interviews with friends and family members emerges a portrait of a born fighter who gave up a prosperous Manhattan lifestyle after 9/11 to rejoin his beloved Marine...
...Pantano loved it. In January 2004, after a year of officer's training, he was assigned as a second lieutenant to Easy Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of Marines--2-2, for short. In mid-March they arrived in Iraq. Pantano prepared his platoon by working the men hard. His men grumbled--enlisted men call officers like Pantano "motarded"--motivated to the point of retardation. But he believed that the more they trained, the fitter they were, the more chance they had of surviving a real war. The effort paid off. In more than 40 combat...
...Marines expected much fighting when they were assigned to Mahmudiyah, just outside Baghdad. Then the insurgency erupted. Newly arrived units took more casualties in a few days than their predecessors had in eight months. Pantano recalls watching a convoy of Marine humvees pass his platoon. "We wave, then realize something is wrong. Tires and windows were shot out, blood was seeping through, out the bottoms of the humvees. Ten humvees had busted out of a kill zone but were shot to hell. There was one KIA, and nearly everyone else was wounded one way or another." Officers interviewed by TIME...
...April 15, the Marines in Mahmudiyah achieved a small breakthrough. Two captured rebels pointed the Marines to the location of a group of insurgents and an arms cache. Pantano's platoon set out for the targets, two large compound-style Iraqi houses, just off a highway. As the Marines approached one of the houses, a car sped away. The Marines shot out the tires, and Pantano arrived with his command element--a Navy corpsman and a radio operator--to check...