AL ASAD, Iraq -- Three Marines assigned to Combat Logistics Battalion 2 were presented with Purple Hearts on April 12 for wounds received in action in the Al Anbar Province in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Colonel William S. Aitken, battalion commanding officer, presented Lance Cpls. Aaron B. Alejo-Havens, Matthew A. Lawrence and Craig T. Gulley with the medals at a ceremony held at the battalion’s motor transport lot.
Lawrence and Alejo-Havens, assigned to the battalion’s Transportation Support Company, were on a truck that was part of a convoy traveling toward Forward Operating Base Al Qaim on March 18 when they ran over an anti-tank mine.
A motor transport operator from Glen Ridge, N.J., Lawrence was driving the vehicle and ran over the mine with the right front tire. When the explosion occurred, the vehicle was shaken up and Alejo-Havens was knocked unconscious.
The vehicle caught on fire and Lawrence tried to escape but his door was jammed. He then noticed Alejo-Havens was unresponsive and jumped over to revive him. Once Alejo-Havens regained consciousness, both of them sprinted from the vehicle to an area where Navy corpsmen treated their wounds to the best of their abilities.
They boarded a humvee that took them to Al Qaim and from there they received medical air transport to a hospital in Balad.
Alejo-Havens, an air delivery specialist from Kerman, Calif., is on his first deployment to Iraq and had volunteered to be the assistant driver that day. In preparation for this deployment, he received training on convoy operations at a Combined Arms Exercise conducted last year at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif.
“Our ‘gunny’ said he wasn’t going to let us go in any convoys,” he said. “Things were going slow for us (air delivery specialists) and later he let us volunteer. That was my first convoy here.”
Lawrence, already a combat veteran, is here on his second tour in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He is a reservist originally assigned to the 6th Motor Transport Battalion out of Red Banks, N.J., and served in Iraq when the war started.
“I was concerned about something like this happening,” said the recent graduate of the University of New Hampshire, “but that wasn’t going to stop me from going on missions.”
Gulley, a military policeman assigned to the battalion’s military police detachment, was part of a convoy heading toward Camp Korean Village on March 25 when the humvee he was riding in was hit by two 155 mm mortar shells.
Everybody in the vehicle was injured and three of the Marines were flown to a larger medical facility. Gulley and Lance Cpl. John E. Rapacz, a military policeman as well, received wounds and concussions caused by shrapnel and debris and were treated at the medical facility at Camp Korean Village.
A Spring Hill, Fla., native, Gulley is on his first deployment to Iraq and had been on several convoys before without any incidents. “I’ve been pretty lucky,” he said. “In a sense I’m still lucky.”
Rapacz, from Orlando, Fla., was to be presented the award at the same ceremony, but operational commitments didn’t allow him to be present.
The Purple Heart, established by Gen. George Washington in 1782, is one of the most widely recognized and respected medals. It’s considered to be the oldest military decoration in the world still in use.
- For more information about the Marines reported on in this story, please contact Sgt. Juan Vara by e-mail at varaj@acemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil -