Reserves on front line
Bay Area's Echo Company in Kuwait, ready for war
John Koopman, Chronicle Staff Writer Saturday, March 8, 2003
Tactical Area Coyote, Kuwait -- The guys in Echo Company would like to give a big shout-out to Concord -- hey, Concord -- and Burlingame and San Francisco and Oakland and San Jose and just about all corners of the Bay Area.
They're a long way from Ghirardelli Square.
This Bay Area Marine Reserve unit is sitting in a desolate stretch of desert about 20 miles from Iraq, wondering if they're going to have to fight a war.
"It's not as bad as I thought it was going to be," said Lance Cpl. Chris Munich of Oakland, standing near a green tent flapping in the wind of a sandstorm. "But it isn't that great, either."
Echo Company is based in San Bruno and draws its 100-plus members from all over the Bay Area. They're reservists, which means they normally put on uniforms one weekend a month and two weeks during the summer.
But now they're in it for real, and for a while. The unit, along with the rest of the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment, was called to active duty more than a year ago. It was supposed to be a one-year engagement. They stayed down in Camp Pendleton, the sprawling home of the 1st Marine Division, and trained and worked alongside regular active-duty Marines.
Apparently, the Corps liked what it saw. At the end of the year, just weeks before the men were to return to reserve status, the unit's activation was extended. And, as a bonus, they were sent to sunny Kuwait and the tent city known as Camp Coyote.
"I was supposed to get married in August," lamented Lance Cpl. Kenny Dixon, 23, of Windsor. "I guess that's not gonna happen now."
The 2nd Battalion is the only reserve unit that's training to fight alongside regular-duty Marines. The battalion commander, Lt. Col. Geff Cooper, said his men were just too good. They went and won the weapons competition at Camp Pendleton, defeating the regulars at firing .50-caliber machine guns and mortars.
"This unit is more mature and better educated than most," said Cooper, who's normally a deputy sheriff in San Bernardino County. "We have people with Ph.D.s, master's degrees. We have doctors and lawyers. We have people from every walk of life."
'TIP OF THE SPEAR'
He said the unit will be "at the tip of the spear" if Marines end up fighting.
Which is perhaps ironic, considering that the Bay Area is at the tip of the protest spear, as well.
Dixon, who works for Federal Express and hopes to join the California Highway Patrol one day, said he's not crazy about the demonstrations back home.
"I feel like everyone ought to support their country," he said.
Others said they have no problem with protests, that they would be fighting to protect people's right to free speech as much as anything.
"It's like my brother said in a letter, they have the right to speak their mind and show their ignorance,'' Cooper said.
For the most part, Echo Company blends into the bleak landscape at Camp Coyote. Its members sleep in the same green tents as everyone around them, eat the same brown-boxed brown-food MREs (Meals, Ready to Eat), exercise and run in the same sand and use the same dingy portable toilets.
There is nothing to suggest it is a reserve unit, with the possible exception that the guys seem more closely bonded.
In regular Marine units, people come and people go. At best, a Marine might serve two or three years in an outfit. But a reserve unit like Echo Company develops a core group of men who remain with the unit because they live and work nearby. So some of them have been with the same company for eight, 10, 12 years.
"Some of the regulars look at us and think we're a little loose," said the executive officer for the battalion, Lt. Col. Gregory Stevens of Aliso Viejo (Orange County). "But we get the job done. A lot of us know each other from the community, outside the reserves, so that helps. We like each other and understand each other better."
FAMILIES, CAREERS ON HOLD
Still, remaining activated for such a long time is tough. Lives and families and careers get put on hold.
Munich was studying at Sonoma State University. That's going to have to wait. Lance Cpl. Nicholas Kakis of Burlingame, at 19 one of the kids in the outfit, joined just after high school. His college plans got put on hold, too.
Dixon's wedding in August was postponed until a year from April. He said he and his fiancee had already contracted a reception hall, caterer, DJ, the works. Everyone was good enough to understand when he called to cancel, he said.
Maj. Michael Kindorf had to leave the Concord Police Department short one cop while he's in Kuwait.
"I think they can probably get along without me," said Kindorf, a member of the department's special enforcement team. "When you're in the reserves, you're always aware that you could go active."
But Ryan Lara of Daly City said he lost a job in a medical clinic because he was still in his probationary period when he was called up. He had to leave his 10-month-old baby behind, too.
"I'm thinking I might just go active duty for a while, so we can travel," said Lara, a naval medic whose nickname among the Marines is "Doc." Navy medics, called corpsmen, are responsible for Marines' medical treatment. "I've been at this long enough now, I might go for 20 years and get the retirement benefits."
Lara said he's a victim of the dot-com crash. He used to work in the tech division of Visa but got laid off. He went to work as a medical clinic administrator just before the unit was called up.
"This is what I have to do to take care of my family," he said, kicking the dirt and moving his M-16 from hand to hand.
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