Marines win top unit award for Iraq fight

[thedrifter]

Marines win top unit award for Iraq fight

ASSOCIATED PRESS
2:39 p.m. November 4, 2003

WASHINGTON ? The Navy has awarded its highest unit honor to the Marines who invaded Iraq, pushed north to Baghdad and helped Army troops liberate the capital.

Navy Secretary Gordon England gave the Presidential Unit Citation to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force on Monday. The award is the highest given by the U.S. military to an entire unit.

Marine units have won 40 of the awards in the corps' 228-year history, the last coming in 1968 during the Vietnam War.

"This is the Oscar of unit awards," said Steven Mackey, head of the Marines' military awards branch. "The Medal of Honor is the most coveted award for individuals. The Presidential Unit Citation is the most coveted award for units."

The unit ? called 1 MEF in military jargon ? oversaw all of the more than 60,000 Marines involved in the Iraq war. Those Marines now may wear the Presidential Unit Citation ribbons on their dress uniforms.

The citation commends the Marines for their "extraordinary heroism and outstanding performance" during the invasion of Iraq. The Marines made the longest sequence of overland attacks in the corps' history, moving nearly 500 miles from the Kuwait border to areas north of Baghdad.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...nes-award.html


Sempers,

Roger