Fwd: [Marxism] News from the glorious offensive in Western Iraq

[paul bunyan <cutemdown2003@xxxxxxxxx>]

Joaquín Bustelo <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> relayed news article:
Demise of a Hard-Fighting Squad
Marines Who Survived Ambush Are Killed, Wounded in Blast

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, May 12, 2005; A01

>vehicle, circling toward the spot where helicopters would later land to pick
>up casualties. As he passed one group of Marines, he uttered one sentence:
>"That was the same squad."
>Among the four Marines killed and 10 wounded when an explosive device
>erupted under their Amtrac on Wednesday were the last battle-ready members
>of a squad that four days earlier had battled foreign fighters holed up in a
>house in the town of Ubaydi. In that fight, two squad members were killed
>and five were wounded.
>In 96 hours of fighting and ambushes in far western Iraq, the squad had
>ceased to be.
>Every member of the squad -- one of three that make up the 1st Platoon of
>Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment -- had been killed or wounded,
>Marines here said. All told, the 1st Platoon -- which Hurley commands -- had
>sustained 60 percent casualties, demolishing it as a fighting force.

Actually "Lima" refers to the company (180-190 men). This squad had more than 
100% casualties. A Marine squad consists of 13 riflemen and an attached Navy 
medical corpsman. Apparantly, they either had replacements, who almost 
immediately became casualties, or "beefed up" the squads with members of 
another squad. Having 4+ killed, 10-14 wounded in a company size unit is bad 
enough. To lose an entire squad and to have 60% casualties in a single 40 man 
platoon, to put it mildly, is devastating.



                
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