[Shotimes] True story

[James F. Ryan III]

Slow day on the list so I thought I'd pass this along.  It's an
unbelievable story, but it's true.
 

SOMETHING THAT DIDN'T MAKE THE
NEWS
 
 
 Maybe you'd like to hear about something other than
 idiot Reservists and naked Iraqis.
 
 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.  Captain in
 the United States Marine Corps.
 
 And a genuine hero.
 
 The secretary of the Navy said so yesterday.
 
 At 29 Palms in California Capt. 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. Instead, it was more blather
 about some mental defective MPs who acted like
 animals.
 
 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 pukes 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.  1st Lt. 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 1st Lt. 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, machineguns 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.