Marines' joyful return is tempered by sorrow

[thedrifter]

Marines' joyful return is tempered by sorrow
Camp Pendleton squadron lost 2 pilots over Iraq

By Jeanette Steele
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

May 8, 2003

CAMP PENDLETON ? Weary crews from the "Stingers" helicopter squadron returned to their hangar before dawn yesterday, happy to be the base's first Marines home from Iraq, sad that two of their mates are gone.

The lines around their eyes showed the strain of having worked too hard and seen too much.

During the height of battle in Iraq, the aircraft of Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 267 flew 200 to 300 feet above the ground, dodging power lines and small-arms fire to drop missiles on enemy targets and protect Marines on the ground.

"It's almost surreal. You can barely believe it," Capt. Brad Lagoski said of his homecoming.

The 30-year-old Cobra pilot from Tennessee was greeted by his wife and two daughters, 5 and 7, during a reception for the squadron and about 100 well-wishers in its hangar.

"When you're out there, you think about home, sleeping in a bed, walking into your kitchen in the morning to get coffee, and it seems so far away," he said.

It was a sweet but sorrowful homecoming for the 368-person squadron, nicknamed the "Stingers." Two of its pilots ? Capts. Travis Ford, 30, and Benjamin Sammis, 29 ? were killed April 4 when their Super Cobra gunship crashed during a combat mission southeast of Baghdad.

Capt. Josh Busby, a UH-1N Huey pilot, said he thought about the two seats left empty as buses carried the squadron home from its landing point at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.

"I wish they were here," Busby said of his fallen comrades.

There will be little rest for these war veterans, who will leave in July for a half-year deployment in Japan.

Other Camp Pendleton Marines will begin returning in the coming weeks; a base spokesman said it's uncertain when specific units will arrive.

This unit of Super Cobra and Huey attack helicopters was one of the military's workhorses in Iraq after shipping out Jan. 16.

Their aircraft jockeyed above the front lines, then returned to roving resupply points three or four miles back, where squadron mates waited with more gas and ammunition.

Missions were sometimes 12 or 18 hours long, and pilots were gone from their Kuwait base camp for three days at a time, the Marines said. The mechanics and crew members who supported them worked 12-hour shifts every day; some lived in the dirt at makeshift forward refueling points.

Twenty-six of the unit's 27 helicopters were hit by enemy fire.

The pace was set the first day of the ground war, when the squadron was called upon to destroy observation posts on the Iraqi border, squadron commander Lt. Col. Stephen Heywood said.

Pilots said they were motivated by the feedback coming through their radios from ground units in the 1st Marine Division from Camp Pendleton.

"The grunts kept sounding really appreciative, sounded like they really needed the help, so we just kept going," Lagoski said.

Heywood wouldn't say if flying conditions contributed to the deadly April 4 crash. But he said their assignments were daunting, with frequent night flights and flying into sand and smoke from oil fires and enemy positions.

Squadron pilots even flew through a sandstorm that slowed U.S. forces in the middle of the war.

On the ground, crews at the Kuwait base camp battled 120-degree heat, mosquitoes and near-constant missile alerts, Marines said.

"You'd lie in your bed and you'd wake up and wipe the sweat off your face," said Cpl. Hugo Tenorio, a 23-year-old administrative clerk. "And five minutes later, again."

It made the prospect of a Camp Pendleton bunk seem like a luxury to his colleague, Lance Cpl. Gerardo Lopez.

"It's a relief that we got back," said Lopez, 20. "It almost seemed like we weren't going to come back at all, when we were out there."



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Jeanette Steele: (760) 476-8244; jen.steele@uniontrib.com



Sempers,

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