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Old 06-24-2004, 06:53 AM
thedrifter thedrifter is offline
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Cool Despite bad luck, 'Lucky' makes it through

Despite bad luck, 'Lucky' makes it through
Submitted by: 11th MEU
Story Identification #: 200462465235
Story by Cpl. Matthew S. Richards



ABOARD THE USS DENVER(June 24, 2004) -- Young men are packed into one of the many small living quarters here laughing and listening, captured by stories told by older, saltier Marines.

It's a common practice all over the Corps, but one Marine from Company A, Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), grips their attention and raises their spirits, but not by tales of conquest or glory.

Instead he shares the beating his body has taken.

Most people are overjoyed to walk away with their lives from any danger, especially such as exploding artillery shells, trampling wild animals and falling more than 300-feet.

Sergeant Brian J. Phipps, police sergeant for Co. A, has been through all of that and more. He has pins and rods in his shoulders and elbows, and had part of his hip removed to fuse together his fractured neck. Commonly referred to as "Lucky" by his fellow Marines, he laughs as he proudly displays the multitude of scars scattered across his body, and will share with anyone his calamities in the Corps.

"I can make it through just about anything," the thirty-year-old says with a humble grin. "I'm just usually in the wrong place at the right time."

His fellow Marines have a sense of respect for his unintentional flirts with danger.

"He is ?Final Destination' the movie himself," said Sgt. Michael P. Livingston, Headquarters Platoon Sergeant, Co. A, who was witness to a couple of the instances, jokingly referring to the movie where death constantly chases after people it couldn't kill. "He should write a book."

Phipps' first close encounter came in 1997 when he was with 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, while participating in a Joint Task Force Six counterdrug support mission in Angeles National Forest.

His team of six Marines was inserted by helicopter near the objective and all was going smoothly until they proceeded down a drainage ditch.

"We were walking down the ditch until the guy in the back fell into the guy in front of him and he fell into the guy in front of him and so on," Phipps described the domino effect that sent all six of the Marines falling.

At the bottom of the ditch there was a 380-foot drop. Terrified, they tumbled helplessly over the edge and into darkness.

"It was dark and everything went quiet after all the noise while we were rolling down the ditch," he said. "I thought I was dead, but then I hit the ground."

Phipps didn't pass out, but the bounce, unbeknownst to him, did break his neck, back and ankle. All he felt were the bones sticking out of his elbows.

He grins as he shows off the two identical finger width scars that run a couple of inches on his forearms.

"I just knew about my elbows," he said. "It's amazing how little pain you can feel when you're in shock."

Not all of the Marines survived the fall, one died before help could arrive.

"They didn't know anything had happened to us until we were supposed to make a radio check four hours after we were inserted," he said. "And our radio was smashed in the fall."

A helicopter came in to rescue them but couldn't get close enough because of the terrain. They had to be carried out by a Fire Mountain Rescue Team from the Tijuana Ranger Station.

"We were getting bumped around the whole way up," he said, chuckling.

Phipps was told his future in the Marine Corps was nonexistent after he lost much of his short-term memory.

"They would give me a list of things that I might go to the store for? then they would (distract) me with a lot of questions," he said. "When they asked me what it was I needed to get from the store I couldn't remember."

So Phipps left the Marine Corps the next year, but joined back up in 2001 after he regained his abilities.

"All I had to do was pass a (Physical Fitness Test)," he said. "No one should come in behind me on a run."

He passed and the Corps assigned him to Co. A, BLT 1/4. But that wasn't the end.
Phipps had a slight run-in with a few wild animals.

At the Camp Horno rifle range on Camp Pendleton, Calif., Phipps was with a group of Marines strolling down the range to take their turn pulling targets for the other shooters.

"I saw all the Marines on the firing line waiving and yelling toward us," he said. He just thought they were fooling around.

Then the Marine he was walking with took off running and he turned around to see a disgruntled buffalo charging at him.

"I put my hand out and he hit me in the ribs, it turned me around and knocked me onto the berm," he said. "Then I started hitting at it with my rifle until it ran off."

Livingston shook his head and snickered as he recalled seeing the incident.

The very next year during a deployment to Africa, his company was teaching patrolling to the Kenyans. As usual, Phipps was quietly doing his job, patrolling with his M249 Squad Automatic Weapon.

"I was watching monkeys jump from tree to tree and I heard grass falling down near me," he said. "I looked over and I was knocked out."

He patted his chest showing where he was hit.

One of his fellow Marines ran over to him and called their corpsman.

"He told the doc I was hit by a kangaroo but it turned out to really be a gazelle," Phipps chuckled.

Corporal Nathaniel T. Kilikowski, a squad leader with 1st Platoon, Co. A, saw both the buffalo and gazelle attack him.

"Once you see it you're like? oh! But then you laugh because it's him," Kilikowski said. Phipps laughed.

Kilikowski added that he never doubted Phipps' ability to bounce back from an injury.

"He's my medical problem child," said Petty Officer 3rd Class Douglass M. Benning, a hospital corpsman with Co. A. "I've seen some miracles but never anything like this guy."

Even during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Phipps couldn't manage to go without at least one close call.

He was driving a humvee through Saddam City when artillery fire started to rain down all around his company.

"Then it made a loud ?zwack!'" he exclaimed. "It lifted the humvee up into the air. I was pulling on the steering wheel to try to push the gas pedal farther."

When they managed to stop, Phipps saw a piece of shrapnel lodged just behind where his head was.

"Everyone says I'm God's little plaything," he said. "He's testing me for something."
The abuse his body has taken hasn't hindered his spirits.

"I don't let things get me down in the dumps, because I've been at wit's end," he said referring to being cramped up in hospitals for long periods of time. "In Iraq I'd see the guys that were having a hard time and say ?hey, at least you're not stuck in a hospital bed unable to move because you have too many broken bones,' and they would see it's not so bad and cheer up."

Overall Phipps takes a modest approach to everything he's been through.

"I've seen a lot worse than I've been through, so I'm like?" his indifferent shrug finishing the sentence. "I'm limited but I can still hang."

Phipps often jokes around about the many other injuries he's sustained like surfing accidents and how he was electrocuted by a car once. The crowd of young Marines laughs and waits to hear the story.

"Well, I was?" he starts the tale putting a pinch of dip in his lower lip, as he always does.




Sergeant Brian J. Phipps, police sergeant for Co. A, has narowly escaped death or serious injury from exploding artillery shells, been trampled by wild animals, fallen down a 380 foot cliff and lives to laugh about it. Photo by: Cpl. Matthew S. Richards

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn20...5?opendocument


Ellie
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IN LOVING MEMORY OF MY HUSBAND
SSgt. Roger A.
One Proud Marine
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Once A Marine............Always A Marine.............

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