Marines uncover weapons cache

[thedrifter]

Marines uncover weapons cache

By: DARRIN MORTENSON - Staff Writer

FALLUJAH, Iraq ---- Without firing a shot or shedding any blood, Marines struck a huge blow to the insurgency on Monday when they uncovered a sizeable cache of heavy weapons in a roughneck neighborhood in northwest Fallujah.

Lance Cpl. Patrick Larson, 21, of Gowrie, Iowa, discovered the secret stash just before sunset on a drizzly, cold day while he was setting booby traps near some brick stables where he and other Marines had chased a grenade-toting rebel the night before.

He said he and fellow Marines Lance Cpl. Gene Rader, 21, of Marlton, N.J., and Lance Cpl. Jason Picchi, 21, of Chicago forced open a locked door and found a room full of rocket-propelled grenades, rockets and a complete 120 mm mortar tube and base plate.


One room led to several more rooms where Marines from Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment found explosives, a huge military locker with bomb-making materials, bags of grenades and machine guns.

"I knew there had to be something over here," Larson said, obviously proud of his find.

He said he had just been complaining that he was fighting a war, "but I never get any glory."

His discovery Monday made up for it, he said. He got kudos from superiors and watched with satisfaction as it took three Humvees to haul the loot away.

Military officials said the biggest finds were the bomb-making materials and the 120 mm mortar. The shells fired by the mortar are considered to be in the category of artillery because of their size. The largest mortar used by the Marines fires an 81 mm shell, and their howitzers fire 155 mm rounds.

Marines say they believe the insurgents in and around Fallujah only had a few of the 120 mm tubes in and around the city.

"Now they've got one less," said 2nd Lt. Patrick Reddick, leader of Fox Company's 1st Platoon. "And they're going to be ****ed!"

Marines are holding their ground in defensive positions in and around Iraqi homes and farm buildings in the northwest corner of Fallujah near the Euphrates River while they await orders.

A weeklong cease-fire has calmed ---- but not ended ---- the fighting that began in Fallujah two weeks ago when Marines surrounded the city and penned in the insurgents.

Talks between U.S. military officials and Iraqi civic leaders apparently yielded some compromises, including a weapons turn-in program in which insurgents who are not hell-bent on dying for their cause can give up their arms and blend in with the population, avoiding the destruction the Marines promise they will wreak if they have to take the town by force.

Publicly, Marine leaders say they are encouraged by the prospects of a political solution.

But privately, most Marines on the front line say they have little confidence the Iraqi politicians have any control over the thousand or so Iraqi and foreign fighters thought to be trapped in the old Jolan neighborhood of Fallujah along the river.

They expect most of those fighters to fight to the end ---- an end the Marines say they'll be more than happy to arrange.

Marine leaders said that while they will continue to scour the piece of Fallujah they occupy for more arms, they say the huge cache on the fringe only hints at what the insurgents have ready in the center of the cramped and irregular Jolan borough where they have had two weeks now to prepare for the final showdown.

"I hate to say it," said Fox Company's commander, Capt. Kyle Stoddard. "But what this tells me is that there's a lot of fight left out there."

Staff writer Darrin Mortenson and staff photographer Hayne Palmour are reporting from Iraq, where they are with Camp Pendleton Marines. Their coverage is collected at www.nctimes.com/military/iraq.



A Marine looks through a box of bomb-making materials that was found along with a cache of heavy weapons




Marines remove heavy weapons from a large cache they found in a stable near where Marines of 2nd Platoon, Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment are living in northwest Fallujah, Iraq on Monday, April 19, 2004.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004..._194_19_04.txt


Ellie