Six Seconds .....

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billryan
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Six Seconds .....

Post by billryan »

to live.
Jonathan Yale was a mixed-race kid born dirt poor who lived with his mom and her infant daughter.
Jordan Haerter was a middle-class white kid from Sag Harbor, where the rich go to party.
There is no reason to believe they ever met before they were assigned to an exterior post defending a barracks where 150 US Marines and their Allies were being quartered.
Cpl. Yale was days from going home. Haerter had just arrived in Iraq and wasn't officially supposed to start his tour until the next day.
Six AM on a Sunday morning they relieved two fellow Marines and joined a half dozen Iraqi police in securing the area in front of the entrance to the building. Moments later, a truck turned into the alley and began speeding towards the entrance. The Iraqi police fire their guns and take off running, as most people would. Not the two Marines. No one can know what they were thinking in those last few seconds but security cameras show them advancing to the truck and firing into the cab. The driver evidently killed, the truck stops several feet from the entrance and 2,000 pounds of explosives go off. The truck's engine travels 200 yards in the air. Building down the block collapse and twenty-odd buildings had to be demolished because of damage.
Both Marines are killed instantly but because of their actions, no other Allied troops die.

General John Kelly gave a speech at a Gold Star Breakfast in 2014 which told their tale that is now part of the training every Marine goes thru.
Gen. Kelly lead the investigation that resulted in both Marines winning the Navy Cross.
When a witness said that any normal person would have dove for cover, General Kelly replied-these are not normal people. They are United States Marines.
There is a great short film on youtube called The 11th Order. It tells their story far better than I could.
General Order 11 of the USMC states no person or object will pass thru my assigned post without authorization.

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