?I never wanted a medal,? he said. ?I just wanted to save my Marines.?
Area Marine is honored
By Benning W. De La Mater
Staff writer
(May 23, 2004) ? It is two hours before dawn in the Iraqi desert when Capt. Brian Chontosh wakes and rustles himself and his fellow Marines out of their Humvees.
The day is March 25, 2003 ? Day Six in Iraq for the anti-armor platoon, 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment, 1st Division of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.
It is a day that will lead to Chontosh, a graduate of Churchville-Chili High School and Rochester Institute of Technology, winning the Navy Cross, one of the nation?s highest military honors.
Orders are to head north 20 kilometers on Highway 1 and destroy the enemy entrenched outside Ad Diwaniyah, a city where Marines had suffered casualties the day before.
With boots in the sand, Chontosh, 29, tells his 56 troops to prepare their weapons, stock up on ammunition and grab some chow. Breakfast is beef enchiladas in a plastic pouch.
The strong-jawed Marine has trained for this type of operation since enlisting at 18. He joined because he ?lacked direction,? not because he was looking for combat.
But he is about to get a whole lot of it.
Within two hours, Chontosh and his men are ambushed. One of his Marines is ripped apart by a rocket-propelled grenade. Chontosh reacts swiftly, kills 20 Iraqi soldiers and saves his platoon.
A little more than a year later, his boots were back in the sand. Only this time, they were in a California desert, where Marine Corps Gen. Michael Hagee pinned the Navy Cross on Chontosh?s uniform during a ceremony May 6.
?I never wanted a medal,? he said. ?I just wanted to save my Marines.?
That March morning in Iraq is vivid in Chontosh?s memory. His account of it is corroborated by the Marine Corps, which interviewed the men involved.
As the sun rises over the horizon, Chontosh readies his troops. Looking for an extra man for his Humvee, he grabs Lance Cpl. Robert Kerman, 21.
The Humvees head out with four M1 Abrams tanks leading the way. Fifteen minutes into the trip, the unit is ambushed by hundreds of Iraqi soldiers positioned behind a berm, a wall of sand 15 feet high.
?We started taking mortar rounds,? Chontosh says. ?The tanks took hits and suffered casualties. ? It was mayhem.?
A radio call says a Humvee is hit and a Marine is dead. It?s the vehicle Kerman had been riding in for two weeks.
Bullets fly toward the Marines from an opening in the berm. Chontosh says he has no recollection of any conscious thought process from this point on.
He orders his driver, Cpl. Armand McCormick, 22, to head straight for the opening. He directs his .50-caliber machine gunner, on top of the Humvee, to pour rounds into the enemy position. ?Our gun was better than theirs that day,? Chontosh says.
McCormick rams the vehicle into the berm. Chontosh jumps out firing an M-16 A2 rifle into a trench filled with Iraqi soldiers. Kerman and McCormick follow, firing their weapons.
With his rifle empty, Chontosh pulls out a 9mm pistol. The three are outnumbered but their aim is devastating. Then Chontosh?s 9mm is spent. He picks up an enemy?s AK-47 and unloads it into a crowd of soldiers. He finds another one and does the same.
The three men, advancing through the trench, reach a group of enemy soldiers bearing down on them. McCormick passes a rocket-propelled grenade launcher to Chontosh and he fires toward the group.
Other units from the battalion arrive in support. It?s over in fewer than 15 minutes. The 200-yard trench is filled with bloodied corpses.
?I?ll never say I?m proud of what I had to do,? Chontosh says. ?It?s unfortunate and hard to swallow. In fact, when I think about it, I?m disgusted. If I had been killed, it would have been called reckless. It came down to love and hate. I loved my Marines and hated the guys who were trying to kill them.?
Kerman and McCormick received Silver Stars. ?They saved my life,? Chontosh says, ?and had as much to do with winning the (firefight) as anything I did.?
He is uncomfortable talking about his actions. His parents didn?t learn details of the event until they arrived in California for the awards ceremony two weeks ago.
?He doesn?t feel like he did anything special,? said his father, Richard Chontosh of Churchville. ?He was just being a Marine. We?re just thankful we still have our son.?
Since returning to the United States last fall, Chontosh has been stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif. He?s with his wife, Joy, who is due to give birth to their first child in August.
He hasn?t made it back to Churchville in more than five years and doesn?t know when he?ll get a chance. He will head back to Iraq this summer.
?There are a lot of good people over there. The children are beautiful. I really see a lot of good things for the future of Iraq.?
Area Marine is honored
By Benning W. De La Mater
Staff writer
(May 23, 2004) ? It is two hours before dawn in the Iraqi desert when Capt. Brian Chontosh wakes and rustles himself and his fellow Marines out of their Humvees.
The day is March 25, 2003 ? Day Six in Iraq for the anti-armor platoon, 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment, 1st Division of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.
It is a day that will lead to Chontosh, a graduate of Churchville-Chili High School and Rochester Institute of Technology, winning the Navy Cross, one of the nation?s highest military honors.
Orders are to head north 20 kilometers on Highway 1 and destroy the enemy entrenched outside Ad Diwaniyah, a city where Marines had suffered casualties the day before.
With boots in the sand, Chontosh, 29, tells his 56 troops to prepare their weapons, stock up on ammunition and grab some chow. Breakfast is beef enchiladas in a plastic pouch.
The strong-jawed Marine has trained for this type of operation since enlisting at 18. He joined because he ?lacked direction,? not because he was looking for combat.
But he is about to get a whole lot of it.
Within two hours, Chontosh and his men are ambushed. One of his Marines is ripped apart by a rocket-propelled grenade. Chontosh reacts swiftly, kills 20 Iraqi soldiers and saves his platoon.
A little more than a year later, his boots were back in the sand. Only this time, they were in a California desert, where Marine Corps Gen. Michael Hagee pinned the Navy Cross on Chontosh?s uniform during a ceremony May 6.
?I never wanted a medal,? he said. ?I just wanted to save my Marines.?
That March morning in Iraq is vivid in Chontosh?s memory. His account of it is corroborated by the Marine Corps, which interviewed the men involved.
As the sun rises over the horizon, Chontosh readies his troops. Looking for an extra man for his Humvee, he grabs Lance Cpl. Robert Kerman, 21.
The Humvees head out with four M1 Abrams tanks leading the way. Fifteen minutes into the trip, the unit is ambushed by hundreds of Iraqi soldiers positioned behind a berm, a wall of sand 15 feet high.
?We started taking mortar rounds,? Chontosh says. ?The tanks took hits and suffered casualties. ? It was mayhem.?
A radio call says a Humvee is hit and a Marine is dead. It?s the vehicle Kerman had been riding in for two weeks.
Bullets fly toward the Marines from an opening in the berm. Chontosh says he has no recollection of any conscious thought process from this point on.
He orders his driver, Cpl. Armand McCormick, 22, to head straight for the opening. He directs his .50-caliber machine gunner, on top of the Humvee, to pour rounds into the enemy position. ?Our gun was better than theirs that day,? Chontosh says.
McCormick rams the vehicle into the berm. Chontosh jumps out firing an M-16 A2 rifle into a trench filled with Iraqi soldiers. Kerman and McCormick follow, firing their weapons.
With his rifle empty, Chontosh pulls out a 9mm pistol. The three are outnumbered but their aim is devastating. Then Chontosh?s 9mm is spent. He picks up an enemy?s AK-47 and unloads it into a crowd of soldiers. He finds another one and does the same.
The three men, advancing through the trench, reach a group of enemy soldiers bearing down on them. McCormick passes a rocket-propelled grenade launcher to Chontosh and he fires toward the group.
Other units from the battalion arrive in support. It?s over in fewer than 15 minutes. The 200-yard trench is filled with bloodied corpses.
?I?ll never say I?m proud of what I had to do,? Chontosh says. ?It?s unfortunate and hard to swallow. In fact, when I think about it, I?m disgusted. If I had been killed, it would have been called reckless. It came down to love and hate. I loved my Marines and hated the guys who were trying to kill them.?
Kerman and McCormick received Silver Stars. ?They saved my life,? Chontosh says, ?and had as much to do with winning the (firefight) as anything I did.?
He is uncomfortable talking about his actions. His parents didn?t learn details of the event until they arrived in California for the awards ceremony two weeks ago.
?He doesn?t feel like he did anything special,? said his father, Richard Chontosh of Churchville. ?He was just being a Marine. We?re just thankful we still have our son.?
Since returning to the United States last fall, Chontosh has been stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif. He?s with his wife, Joy, who is due to give birth to their first child in August.
He hasn?t made it back to Churchville in more than five years and doesn?t know when he?ll get a chance. He will head back to Iraq this summer.
?There are a lot of good people over there. The children are beautiful. I really see a lot of good things for the future of Iraq.?
