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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 (now Captain) 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. 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 jerks
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, machine guns and
grenadiers. And he killed them all. He fought with the M16
until it 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.
If you are as proud of this Marine as I am,
then send this to everyone you know and ask them to do the same.
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