Maybe you'd like to hear about something other than idiot Reservists and naked Iraqis.
Maybe you'd like to hear about a real American, somebody who honored the uniform he wears.
Meet Brian Chontosh.
Churchville-Chili Central School class of 1991. Proud graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Husband and about-to-be father. First lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps.
And a genuine hero.
The secretary of the Navy said so yesterday.
At 29 Palms in California Brian Chontosh was presented with the Navy
Cross, the second highest award for combat bravery the United States can bestow.
That's a big deal.
But you won't see it on the network news tonight, and all you read in
Brian's hometown newspaper was two paragraphs of nothing. Instead, it
was more blather about some mental defective MPs who acted like animals.
The odd fact about the American media in this war is that it's not
covering the American military. The most plugged-in nation in the world is receiving virtually no true information about what its warriors are doing.
Oh, sure, there's a body count. We know how many Americans have
fallen. And we see those same casket pictures day in and day out. And
we're almost on a first-name basis with the pukes who abused the Iraqi
prisoners. And we know all about improvised explosive devices and how we lost Fallujah and what Arab public-opinion polls say about us and how the world hates us.
We get a non-stop feed of gloom and doom.
But we don't hear about the heroes.
The incredibly brave GIs who honorably do their duty. The ones our
grandparents would have carried on their shoulders down Fifth Avenue.
The ones we completely ignore.
Like Brian Chontosh.
It was a year ago on the march into Baghdad. Brian Chontosh was a
platoon leader rolling up Highway 1 in a humvee.
When all hell broke loose.
Ambush city.
The young Marines were being cut to ribbons. Mortars, machine guns,
rocket propelled grenades. And the kid out of Churchville was in charge. It was do or die and it was up to him.
So he moved to the side of his column, looking for a way to lead his
men to safety. As he tried to poke a hole through the Iraqi line his humvee came under direct enemy machine gun fire.
It was fish in a barrel and the Marines were the fish.
And Brian Chontosh gave the order to attack. He told his driver to
floor the humvee directly at the machine gun emplacement that was firing at them. And he had the guy on top with the .50 cal unload on them.
Within moments there were Iraqis slumped across the machine gun and
Chontosh was still advancing, ordering his driver now to take the
humvee directly into the Iraqi trench that was attacking his Marines.
Over into the battlement the humvee went and out the door Brian Chontosh bailed, carrying an M16 and a Beretta and 228 years of Marine Corps pride.
And he ran down the trench.
With its mortars and riflemen, machineguns and grenadiers.
And he killed them all.
He fought with the M16 until he was out of ammo. Then he fought with the Beretta until it was out of ammo.
Then he picked up a dead man's AK47 and fought with that until it was
out of ammo. Then he picked up another dead man's AK47 and fought with that until it was out of ammo.
At one point he even fired a discarded Iraqi RPG into an enemy
cluster, sending attackers flying with its grenade explosion.
When he was done Brian Chontosh had cleared 200 yards of entrenched
Iraqis from his platoon's flank. He had killed more than 20 and wounded at least as many more.
But that's probably not how he would tell it.
He would probably merely say that his Marines were in trouble, and he
got them out of trouble. Hoo-ah, and drive on.
"By his outstanding display of decisive leadership, unlimited courage
in the face of heavy enemy fire, and utmost devotion to duty, 1st Lt.
Chontosh reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service."
That's what the citation says.
And that's what nobody will hear.
That's what doesn't seem to be making the evening news. Accounts of
American valor are dismissed by the press as propaganda, yet accounts
of American difficulties are heralded as objectivity. It makes you wonder if the role of the media is to inform, or to depress - to report or to deride. To tell the truth, or to feed us lies.
But I guess it doesn't matter.
We're going to turn out all right.
As long as men like Brian Chontosh wear our uniform.
Thanks Coastie! We need these stories! We also need to start taking a little more assertiveness, maybe get off these boards for a while and send messages to local and national media and tell them we have had enough.
The local Fox affiliate hear in Tampa evidently started getting an earful and the other night on the news they did a piece about 3-4 minutes long about nothing but the good that is happening in Iraq. Did you know our soldiers have rebuilt over 2000 schools in Iraq since the liberation? The list goes on.
Right now I'm going over to the Fox website and give them a big thanks. Later!
__________________
If you give a politician an enema you can easily hide them in a bread box.
Thanks Coastie, it's a shame that you have to search for stories like this. Wonder when,if ever the media will learn that stories like this is what sells papers and gets people to watch.
I take pride in our military whether I hear reports like this or not; I know they're the best on the battlefield and in the streets among civilians. But when I forwarded this to my socialistic cousin (great guy, one of my best friends, excellent hunting/shooting buddy, but way out there politically), he brought up the failed hunt for WMDs and the abuse scandal. Sad to say it, but liberals report only that which reinforces their opposition to the war. That's why we never hear any of this. It simply makes the left look bad.
VEry nice news Coastie, I've been contending along that what is going on over there is better than what we hear. THis country was founded by Men like him, I'm proud of all those serving and proud to be their fellow countryman.
A couple of years after we'll probably see a movie about guys like him. I haven't seen it lately but FOx news has a show called "War Stories" with Oille North. I'm sure he has some of those type stories on his show?
You didn't see this on the news!!
