Leading the fight is Gunnery Sgt Michael Burghardt, United States Marine Corps, known as “Iron Mike” or just “Gunny”. He was on his third tour in Iraq. He had become a legend in the bomb disposal world after winning the Bronze Star for disabling 64 IEDs and destroying 1,548 pieces of ordnance during his second tour. Then, on September 19, he got blown up. He had arrived at a chaotic scene after a bomb had killed four US soldiers. He chose not to wear the bulky bomb protection suit. “You can’t react to any sniper fire and you get tunnel-vision,” he explains. So, protected by just a helmet and standard-issue flak jacket, he began what bomb disposal officers term “the longest walk”, stepping gingerly into a 5ft deep and 8ft wide crater. The earth shifted slightly and he saw a Senao base station with a wire leading from it. He cut the wire and used his 7in knife to probe the ground. “I found a piece of red detonating cord between my legs,” he says. “That’s when I knew I was screwed.”
Realizing he had been sucked into a trap, GySgt Burghardt, 35, yelled at everyone to stay back. At that moment, an insurgent, probably watching through binoculars, pressed a button on his mobile phone to detonate the secondary device below the sergeant’s feet. “A chill went up the back of my neck and then the bomb exploded,” he recalls. “As I was in the air I remember thinking, ‘I don’t believe they got me.’ I was just ticked off they were able to do it. Then I was lying on the road, not able to feel anything from the waist down.”
His colleagues cut off his trousers to see how badly he was hurt. None could believe his legs were still there. “My dad’s a Vietnam vet who’s paralyzed from the waist down,” says Sgt Burghardt. “I was lying there thinking I didn’t want to be in a wheelchair next to my dad and for him to see me like that. They started to cut away my pants and I felt a real sharp pain and blood trickling down. Then I wiggled my toes and I thought, ‘Good, I’m in business.’ As a stretcher was brought over, adrenaline and anger kicked in. “I decided to walk to the helicopter. I wasn’t going to let my team-mates see me being carried away on a stretcher.” He stood and gave the insurgents who had blown him up a one-fingered salute. “I flipped them one. It was like, ‘OK, I lost that round but I’ll be back next week’.”
Copies of a photograph depicting his defiance, taken by Jeff Bundy for the Omaha World-Herald, adorn the walls of homes across America and that of Col John Gronski, the brigade commander in Ramadi, who has hailed the image as an exemplar of the warrior spirit. GySgt Burghardt’s injuries — burns and wounds to his legs and buttocks — kept him off duty for nearly a month and could have earned him a ticket home. But, like his father — who was awarded a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts for being wounded in action in Vietnam — he stayed.
If I were to ask if you knew who said, “I have not yet begun to fight!”, most if not all of you would respond with the correct answer, John Paul Jones. But do you know the whole story?
On September 23, 1779, Captain John Paul Jones with the ship, the Bon Homme Richard, engaged and defeated the British ship, the HMS Serapis, off the coast of England, during the Revolutionary War. You probably don’t know the whole story, and as you might suspect, it involves Marines. In this case, the Continental Marines.
The US Navy, as with the other navies of the world at the time were not the military men we have today. Most sailors and officers, expected to supplement their salaries by taking booty or receiving prize money for their conquests. There was no money in fighting another fighting ship; the money was in attacking merchant ships. The sailors and other officers on Jones ships were not only reluctant to fight, they were sometimes down right mutinous.
Scotsman, John Paul Jones was not interested in taking booty. He wanted to fight the British and fight for his new country. Jones did not make any secret what his intentions were when he recruited potential crewmembers. He openly advertised his intentions saying, “I propose to go in the way of danger.” The aggressive Jones planned how he would fight his naval battles so he made sure he had a full compliment of Continental Marines.
The American Navy had few ships during the first war with Britain. Jones seemed to be the only Captain eager to fight the enemy, and he was popular with his Marines, who he considered an essential ingredient in his personal strategy for winning naval battles. First he would direct his cannons to take out the rigging of enemy ships so he could maneuver close where his Marines would clear the decks of the crews with musket fire until the enemy ship was not able to maneuver or get away. Enemy captains would be forced to surrender.
In the evening of September 23, 1779 in the North Sea miles off the Flamborough Head, England coast, Jones spotted a convoy of merchant ships being escorted by two British Navy vessels. The larger ship, the Serapis was a 44 gun warship commanded by Captain Richard Pearson. It was faster and more maneuverable than Jones ship, and it was equipped with new protective copper sheathing on the hull. At the sight of Jones and another ship with him, the merchant ships fled. The Serapis did not.
Jones made way to engage the Serapis. It must have seemed like suicide to his sailors as their smaller ship was an old worn out French merchant ship named Duc de Duras. Benjamin Franklin scrounged up the ship in France using his French contacts as he was the Ambassador to France at the time. He knew Jones was a fighting man and he wanted to help him get back out to sea from France where Jones was stranded. Jones refitted and armed the old ship and renamed it using the French name for Benjamin Franklin’s book, “Poor Richard”; the Bon Homme Richard. Jones cast off from France in the summer of 1779, looking for trouble.
Jones in the Richard took a beating moving close to the Serapis. He directed his guns to aim for the rigging of the Serapis. His Marines, stationed in the rigging of his ship with their muskets, opened fire when they were close enough. The Marines raked the deck of the Serapis eventually killing all their gunners. The Marines made the deck a haven for dead heroes who tested the Marines. Eleven helmsmen attempted to control the wheel; all failed. The Marines threw grappling hooks over to the Serapis and pulled her close. Repeatedly, British sailors attempted to cut the lines. Fourteen British sailors tried to cut the lines; fourteen died. It was reported Jones took a musket from one Marine and took a shot as well.
The top deck of the Serapis was swept clean by Marine fire, so that no sailor or officer could get on deck. The Serapis’ lower deck guns were still hammering away at the Richard. Captain Pearson knew the Richard could not take much more and asked Jones if he wanted to surrender. Jones did not have any offensive power left, except his Marines. Jones replied, “No sir, I haven’t as yet thought of it. I’m determined to make you strike.”
A short time later Captain Pearson released a number of British prisoners up to the deck, hoping they would fight for him, but Jones ordered them to stay off his ship and man their pumps or drown. They pumped. Captain Pearson again demanded Jones surrender. Jones may have said something like, “Sir, I have not yet begun to fight.” Jones reportedly cussed up a storm during the entire three hour battle, and may have chosen other words, but we’ll never know.
Jones had by all reasonable measures lost the battle, except for two things: he didn’t quit, and, he had Marines. A sailor threw a grenade onto the Serapis which ended up killing a large number of sailor on the second deck. Captain Pearson was afraid his main mast was about to give way, so he struck his colors and surrendered.
Jones Continental Marines never faltered or failed him. They were the backbone of the fighting ship. Sixty seven Marines were killed or wounded in this battle, which was Jones last.
Jones wasn’t awarded any recognition by his own country until in 1905 when his remains were removed from an unmarked grave in Paris and escorted by an honor guard of American cruisers to the United States. He was placed in marble shine at Annapolis with these words nearby: “HE GAVE OUR NAVY ITS EARLIEST TRADITIONS OF HEROISM AND VICTORY.
Note: I looked high and low for a good painting of this battle to include with this story. I discovered nearly every painting I found labeled for this famous sea battle, did not portray this battle at all. I even found one with depicting the "British" ship, flying a Confederate Flag. The painting I've provided with this story is the closest to being historically accurate I could find.
As Stated in a previous conversation, I said I would help promote the Unit and I said I would provide a YouTube Trailer.......So, 3 months down the line.....here it is.
Let me know what you think!
SSgt Spencer if you wanna add this to the 4th MRB Channel im more than happy for you to do so, I have already uploaded the video file to Media Fire incase you want to use it just message me and I will send you the link.
I've found that by creating a loadout without a radio in the communications slot will allow you to save and load said loadout. Worked for me the past few missions.
I must say that is a damn fine hole. My uncle owned his own construction company and I often worked with him over summers so I've seen my fair share of holes.
GySgt B. Crowley got a reaction from Green in Greens Video and Picture Thread
GySgt B. Crowley got a reaction from Capt Childs in Greens Video and Picture Thread
GySgt B. Crowley got a reaction from CW3 Hershall in Dolan's Oilfield adventures