By Jake Palmateer
Staff Writer
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Three area men represent separate chapters in the more than 7-year-old Iraq war.
One fought in the early stages of the war and again at a time when casualty rates were peaking. Another fought and died as the war wound down. A third is deploying there in a month.
In a televised address to the nation Tuesday, President Barack Obama said the combat role for U.S. troops in Iraq has ended.
Sgt. Maj. Joseph Angelino (ret.)
Norwich Police Chief Joseph Angelino was wounded in Iraq twice in the same month while serving with Company F, 2nd Battalion, 25th Marines. He said he hopes the president is right.
Angelino, who also served early in the war, was initially hit in early September 2005 by an improvised explosive device. He later suffered more serious wounds during a mortar attack on his base while recovering from the first injury.
Despite the president's announcement, there is a long haul left for Iraq, and the 50,000 American troops who remain there for support and counterterrorism training, Angelino said.
"I think we'll have people there for a long time," he said Wednesday.
Obama has pledged to have remaining U.S. forces out of the country by the end of next year.
"They still don't have a government that's functional," Angelino said. "What we consider corruption is a way of business in Iraq."
It will take years for the country to recover, and the best-case scenario is that Iraq remains a state friendly to the West and free from religious extremism, he said.
"It will take two generations of stability," Angelino said.
Declaring victory by reaching a certain benchmark is impossible, and the troops realized this all along, he said.
"I just hope people realize there is not going to be another World War II where there is going to be a declared winner," Angelino said. "We knew there wasn't going to be a peace treaty signed on the deck of some battleship in some foreign bay."
Angelino said the "awakening" in Iraq, which began in Anbar Province in 2005, marked the turning point in the war.
That was when Iraqi civilians realized insurgents were killing innocents, while coalition forces were killing bad people, he said.
"Too many of my friends have been there and never came home again," Angelino said. "I'm very hopeful that what we did over there wasn't done in vain."
With the exception of a few dozen, there are no Marines left in Iraq, he said.
"They've all been shipped to Afghanistan," he said.
A reservist, Angelino retired two years ago at the rank of sergeant major.
army Cpl. Michael Mayne
By 2009, monthly fatality rates for Americans in Iraq had fallen to the single digits for the first time in the war.
But soldiers and Marines were still dying and the toll included Cpl. Michael Mayne, 21, of Burlington Flats, on Feb. 23, 2009.
That same month, President Barack Obama, fresh from his inauguration, set the deadline reached Tuesday.
Mayne, a 2006 graduate of Edmeston Central School, was killed while on patrol in Balad, near Baghdad. His unit came under small-arms fire. Mayne, two other soldiers and an interpreter were slain.
The three soldiers were from the 5th Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division based in Fort Wainwright, Alaska.
Mayne's parents, Lee and Cathy Mayne, who live a short distance away from a memorial erected in their son's honor _ a memorial they can see every day from their front door.
"I hate to think my son died for nothing," Lee Mayne said Wednesday. "And I don't think he did."
Mayne said the apparent end of combat operations for U.S. forces is an important milestone.
"I'm glad it's over. I just hope no one else loses their life over there," Mayne said.
Mayne said he has no doubt his son and the other men in his unit believed in what they were doing.
"He had a positive outlook while he was over there. He said we needed to be there," Mayne said. "I talked with men who served with my son and they say the same thing."
army Pfc. Justin Rous
Just because combat operations are apparently over for American troops, doesn't mean more men and women won't be headed to Iraq.
A childhood friend of Cpl. Mayne's hails from the nearby community of West Burlington. Pfc. Justin Rous' tour of duty in Iraq is set to begin in a month, his mother, Kim Rous, said Wednesday.
"Justin and Lee's son were very close," Rous said.
Her son is at Fort Polk, La., training for his deployment. While there, he has not been able to talk to his family, she said.
"I think the worst part is not having the contact," she said.
It could be because he is training hard, but it also could be that his commanders want to get the soldiers prepared for being away from home, she said.
Rous said the 2009 Edmeston Central School graduate wanted to go into the Army since he was 10 years old.
He achieved that childhood dream and not many 20-year-old men can say that, she said.
"We're all very proud of him," Rous said. "He's got a lot of courage. He knew when he enlisted he was going to Iraq. They didn't sugar coat anything."
A combat engineer with the 1st Infantry Division, her son is expecting to be tasked with convoy security, she said.
Rous' deployment is taking him away from his wife, Raven, whom he wed last Christmas Eve and his newborn son, Jaiden Gage Paul Rous.
Rous said despite Obama's speech, she was scared for her son's safety.
"Oh my God, yes," she said. "There's not a day that goes by that I don't worry about it. And it's not just my son."
Rous said she also worries for all the other mothers and families that have loved ones overseas.
Rous has another reason for her concern.
her son is scheduled to deploy directly to Afghanistan after four months in Iraq, Rous said.
"I'm glad we're pulling our troops out, but we are putting our troops in danger trying to get them out," she said. "We're just moving to another spot in Afghanistan."
Obama's speech Tuesday has made her family suspect he could be headed there even sooner, she said.
