Flight Pundit

A fallen hero is honored this week.

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On the last night of his life, Lance Cpl. Aaron Austin joined a prayer session with other Marines hunkered down in a bullet-riddled neighborhood in Fallouja, Iraq.

Austin, a 21-year-old machine-gunner, asked God for protection not for himself but for his fellow Marines of Echo Company of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Regiment, 1st Marine Division, based at Camp Pendleton.

The next morning, insurgents attacked from three directions, firing thousands of rounds from AK-47s and other firearms and hurling dozens of grenades.

With the Marines in danger of being overrun, Austin exposed himself to enemy fire in order to throw a grenade at their position 20 meters away. The grenade helped repel the attack, but Austin was mortally wounded.

For those who knew Austin, his action was no surprise. Today, in a simple ceremony at the Texas Panhandle War Memorial in Amarillo, Austin’s parents will receive the Silver Star, awarded posthumously to their son.

Sgt. Maj. William Skiles, who was with Austin that brutal morning in Fallouja, will present the award — the nation’s third-highest medal for bravery in combat.

“All the Marines stepped up, and Aaron led the way,” Skiles said.

Austin’s mother, De’on Miller, said she understood her son’s actions during the firefight on April 26, 2004. Loyalty, she said, was at the core of her son’s personality.

“He loved the people he was with,” Miller said from her home in Lovington, N.M. “That was Aaron: When he was loyal, he put his entire heart into it. He wouldn’t quit fighting.”

Austin’s Silver Star is the third for a Marine from the “Two-One,” one of the units that led last year’s assault on the insurgent stronghold.

Lt. Ben Wagner remembered the prayer session the night before Austin was killed. “Aaron was praying for the safety of the other Marines,” he said. “That was his personality, concerned with others, not himself.”

The Marines were searching buildings in the war-torn Jolan neighborhood when they came under attack in one of the bloodiest clashes between the U.S. military and insurgents that spring.

Austin helped evacuate the wounded and led other Marines onto a roof to operate a machine gun. When the insurgents kept advancing, he took a grenade from his vest and moved into the open for a better throwing position.

“Several enemy bullets struck Lance Cpl. Austin in the chest,” said the official Marine Corps account. “Undaunted by his injury and with heroic effort, he threw his hand grenade at the enemy on the adjacent rooftop.”

The grenade hit the bull’s-eye and forced the insurgents to halt their attack.

When the battle was over, Marines erected a makeshift memorial to Austin in one of the buildings they had fought to defend.

Austin joined the Marines after graduating from high school, which had been marked by his love of parties and football (although he quit the team in solidarity when his cousin had a run-in with the coach).

His parents supported the decision, deciding the Marines would give him discipline and direction.

When he would call home from Iraq — where he was also part of the 2003 assault that toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime — Austin avoided talking about combat and the chances of death. But his voice had a tone of foreboding, his parents said.

“All I ever wanted was for Aaron to come back. That’s all I wanted,” said his father, Doug, who owns a small grocery store.

Aaron Austin was buried near his father’s Amarillo home.

Among fellow Marines, Austin was known for his laugh and his confidence.

“There’s no place I’d rather be than here with my Marines,” Austin told the Los Angeles Times two days before the firefight. “I’ll always remember this time.”

Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who commanded the 1st Marine Division during the spring 2004 offensive, said this week that Austin “represented the very best of us.”

“They don’t write the foreign policy,” Mattis said of Austin and other Marines, “but they faithfully serve our country, even at their peril.”

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Semper Fi

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The Marines are making news all over the place today.

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United States Marine Corps Capt. Michael Trapp, who has roots in Bradenton, received the Distinguished Flying Cross with a Flying V on July 13 for his heroic actions in Afghanistan.

Michael Trapp is the son of Bradenton accountant Gary Trapp, who said he couldn’t be prouder of his son. The elder Trapp said that when his son joined the Marines, he thought it was a good move for a young man without direction.

“Mike started out as an enlisted Marine and worked his way up to qualify for officer candidate school,” Gary Trapp said. “He eventually became a pilot.” The proud father said his son was a hard worker and deserved the Distinguished Flying Cross medal.

According to the citation summary, Capt. Trapp flew an emergency mission on Aug. 25, 2003, that saved the lives of coalition forces pinned down by an enemy ambush.

“We were given an emergency alert to scramble to help about 200 miles away,” said Trapp, who pilots an AVAB Harrier jet. The 35-year-old pilot said that at first the alert was fairly routine; he had flown more than 100 missions while in Afghanistan. He said he and the other pilot in his section, Lt. Col. Mike Franzak, flew to where the enemy forces were firing from higher positions on the coalition forces below.

Trapp said he realized it was more than a routine flight when he heard gunshots over the radio. “That’s when the adrenaline starting coming in,” he said. The adrenaline really helps you focus on what’s important.” Because the terrain was mountainous and unfamiliar to the pilots, there was some difficulty in pin-pointing where the coalition forces were located.

According to the citation summary, Trapp “dove for the deck and performed several low-altitude, high-speed passes in an effort to quell the enemy’s assault. “The sight and sound of the Harriers flying down the valley, expending self-protection flares at low altitude, appeared to halt the enemy’s assault” for enough time for the coalition troops to withdraw. As the ground troops were repositioning themselves, they traveled into a deep gorge, where the enemy again ambushed them with rocket-propelled grenades and fire from small arms and automatic weapons.

That was when the squadron attacked the enemy positions with their 25-mm cannons.

The citation summary read like an action-packed novel in describing Trapp’s next move.

“After watching the lead’s gun impacts, Capt. Trapp quickly rolled in and adjusted his aim point according to the (ground troops’) commands, scoring a direct hit on the intended target with almost 100 25-mm semi-armor piercing high explosive tracer rounds.” In between all this action and running low on fuel, the Harrier squad took turns and performed mid-air refueling maneuvers four times during the mission. After four hours of “punishing” al-Qaida and Taliban enemy fighters the Marine jet squad was out of ammunition and turned the mission over to Danish Air Force jets.

Trapp and his squadron spent six hours in the air before returning to base.

That was when he learned the coalition forces received only minor wounds.

Trapp said it was about 24 hours later when some of men from the ground forces came over to his camp to thank Franzak and him personally. “They invited us over to their camp for dinner,” he said.

Because the enemy had more men, there could have been more coalition deaths if the Harriers had not helped out when they did.

“Due to the heroic and professional actions of Capt. Trapp, certain tragedy was avoided and coalition lives were saved,” according to the summary. “By his superb airsmanship, inspiring courage and loyal devotion to duty in the face of hazardous flying conditions, Capt. Trapp reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.”

Trapp flew his medal-winning mission in the 11th month of his one-year tour in Afghanistan.

“The mission worked out real well for us,” he said.

Trapp is stationed at the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Ariz., with his wife, Darleen, and three children, Audria, 17; Kyle, 12; and Adam, 1.

He has been in the Marines for 17 years and said it’s “the greatest job in the world”.

“Especially flying jets.”

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Another hero.

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