From invasion to Iraq's vote, this GI has seen it all From invasion to Iraq's vote, this GI has seen it all (February 18, 2005)

by Jeb Bing

I t's always more motivating to write about Pleasanton soldiers who come back safely from Iraq than about those who are heading there for the first time, as has happened frequently in the last couple of years. So seeing Marine Cpl. Ehren Terbeek back home last weekend was especially exhilarating because he's been in this war from the start, perhaps longer than any other local enlistee. He was in the first wave of troops to cross into Iraq on March 20, 2003, he fought in the house-to-house battles in Fallujah last year, and he watched several weeks ago when Iraqis voted Jan. 30.

Terbeek, who is 23, graduated in the Class of 2000 from Amador Valley High School and went for a few months to Las Positas College. Restless and uncertain about a college major or career path, he joined the Marines the following January. Although he suffered a back injury in training that made him eligible for a disability discharge, Terbeek stayed on, recovered after surgery, and joined his unit on assignment to Okinawa. Then came the terrorist attacks on 911, and like soldiers everywhere, his unit was placed on alert. For a time, it looked as if he might go to Afghanistan, but instead the Marine was called back to Camp Pendleton and started training to fight in the hot, sandy desert-like conditions around Pendleton. His unit, the 3/5 Lima Company in the First Marine Division, shipped out for Kuwait in early 2003 and was the first battle-ready team to race to Baghdad when the war started.

Terbeek recalls that except for a few pockets of resistance along the main highway, his track vehicle and the others drove rapidly toward the capital, often finding civilians waving to them along the way. There were no insurgents, no roadside bombs, no anti-American signs. Like others in his 3rd Platoon and Lima Company, Terbeek found the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein was looking surprisingly easy. The GIs, the Iraqis they encountered in Baghdad, and perhaps even the Bush administration thought that the toppling of Saddam's statue, which the Marines and Iraqis watched on national television, signified the end of the resistance and a new political leadership would soon take over. As we know now, that didn't happen, and Terbeek found his unit increasingly battling a growing number of street battles.

Fallujah was the worst. Terbeek said his 3rd Platoon fought its way down main streets and alleyways, dodging enemy fire almost every step of the way, and finding unbelievably huge quantities of weapons in house after house - ranging from sophisticated anti-aircraft missile launchers to AK47s, grenades and bombs. It was right after this battle that Terbeek's tour of duty was up and he was scheduled to leave Iraq. But he wasn't about to leave his buddies in the 3rd Platoon and extended his tour by five months so that he could help in "cleaning the insurgents" out of Fallujah, as he said. After the elections, which he saw as a hopeful sign that Iraqis will eventually take back their country, Terbeek accepted his new orders to head home. Next week, he'll report to Camp Pendleton and start the process that will end his Marine service in April - four years and four months and a war in Iraq after he joined up.

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