Word: ramadi
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Marine Maj. Megan McClung could tell something was wrong when I appeared in her office at Camp Ramadi early in December. For starters, I looked terrible after a sleepless night that began with a freezing helicopter ride from Baghdad. And I couldn't hide the fear gnawing at me about my time ahead in Anbar Province, where U.S. forces suffer the highest casualty rates in Iraq. Indeed, I saw my first dead U.S. serviceman as I touched down in Ramadi, a shapeless form in a black body bag waiting in the dark to leave on one the Chinook helicopters that...
...flashed me a big smile. It was an obvious effort to cheer me up, and I gratefully accepted. McClung put a cap over her straight red hair and led me to the chow hall. As we sat down to eat, she gave me an overview of the situation in Ramadi, where insurgents have control of whole swaths of the downtown area. Retaking the city, McClung explained, would not involve an assault of the kind the Marines staged against Fallujah in 2004. "We don't want to Fallujah Ramadi," said McClung, making me laugh. "We don't want to destroy...
...scoffed. Regardless of the situation in Ramadi, casually suggesting Iraq as a whole was on the mend seemed an insult to both our intelligence, especially hers. She was a Naval Academy graduate who went on to pursue a master's in criminal justice at Boston University. Was she kidding...
...felt like an ass as a silence fell over our table. I had just offended probably the nicest person I could hope to meet in Ramadi. But before I could apologize, McClung was all sunny again, smiling and moving to the edge of her chair as she talked about her experiences in Iraq. Originally from Mission Viejo in southern California, McClung was an intense athlete with six Ironman competitions under her belt. She talked longingly of the runs she'd done along the Tigris River in Baghdad, where she was based before Ramadi. We chatted more about other small things...
...heard the news as I stood outside the patients' ward of the field hospital at Camp Ramadi five days later. Three had been killed by a roadside bomb, we were told. McClung was among them. I had seen her briefly only the day before, and we had plans to meet that afternoon. But it was very late at night when I finally saw her resting in the morgue alongside her slain comrades, Spc. Vincent Pomante and Capt. Travis Patriquin. I watched at the edge of the room as the medics unzipped the body bags one by one before stepping forward...