Monday, July 12, 2004

Purple Heart goes to 16 Seabees

By KEN LEWIS
The Times-Union

Ten-year-old Jasmine Reyes was watching Nickelodeon in her living room in Jacksonville when her father called May 2 from a hospital in Baghdad. Using a civilian's cell phone, Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Odis Reyes told his daughter he was wounded in a mortar attack.

"He said, 'Don't worry, Jasmine, I'm all right,'" she said.

Sunday morning, she pinned a Purple Heart on his desert camouflage uniform while hundreds watched during a ceremony at Jacksonville Naval Air Station. The medals were awarded to 16 Seabees for wounds suffered April 30 and May 2 in Iraq for the reservists from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 14, headquartered in Jacksonville.

A mortar fired into Camp Fallujah Marine base in the Al Anbar province near Ramadi wounded dozens, 19 seriously, and killed five. Two other Seabees were slain and one injured April 30 when their vehicle hit an explosive device while in a convoy. Four Purple Hearts have already been issued.

Members of the Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 14 applaud as Equipment Operator Petty Officer Second Class Michael Vorburger is the last member of the unit to receive his Purple Heart Sunday morning.
--BOB SELF/The Times-Union

A giant U.S. flag hung behind the sailors Sunday morning as they looked out to their families. The crowd of more than 200 gathered under a pavilion, with a Navy band behind the audience playing patriotic tunes.

Chief of Navy Reserve John Cotton, a vice admiral, flew down from the Pentagon to partake in the event. His office was destroyed in the Sept. 11 attacks, and friends were murdered, he told the crowd.

The war is important because it keeps the "away game" from becoming a "home game," he said, adding he came to Jacksonville to salute heroes and give them one of the military's highest honors.

Rear Adm. Raymond K. Alexander, deputy commander of the 1st Naval Construction Division, said the battalion was mobilized because it was the best. The Seabees were mobilized in February to fix electrical and water systems and sewage problems, officials said. They were rebuilding schools and helping restore water.

Steelworker Petty Officer Third Class Michael Rambo received two Purple Heart awards.

"You may look in the mirror and not see much, but we see heroes," Alexander told the medal recipients.

Though the ceremony took place two days after a U.S. Senate committee said the war was based on flawed intelligence, Cotton said in an interview that he was not disheartened. The world will be better off with Saddam Hussein deposed, whether or not weapons of mass destruction are found, said the chief of the 2,600 Navy reservists currently mobilized. The Seabees and the rest of the armed forces are participating in an event that is bigger than themselves, he said.

"There will be an Islamic democracy," Cotton said. "We have given a gift of freedom to the Iraqi people."

The Seabees faced constant, inaccurate mortar attacks at the base in Iraq, said Petty Officer 2nd Class David Vernaza, of Orlando. On May 2, the sailors escorted Rear Adm. Charles Kubic to their base. By working, the Seabees were "healing" from the trauma of the deadly explosion two days earlier, he said. Then mortar erupted a distance away. Five seconds later, shrapnel burst into his shoulder and leg following a direct hit, he said. "It's like they say, time stops," Vernaza said.

Jasmine Reyes, 10, (right) hugs her dad Petty Officer Third Class Odis Reyes after pinning a Purple Heart medal onto his uniform Sunday morning. Jasmine said, "I'm very proud of my father and I love him very much."
BOB SELF/The Times-Union

In the attack, shrapnel ripped into Reyes' body, breaking his left leg and burying at least 10 pieces of metal in his lower extremities. Five pieces have been extracted, but at least five remain, he said.

Just a few days ago, a barber made a strange discovery while giving Reyes a buzz cut at the naval air station.

"The barber found shrapnel in the back of my head," Reyes said. He said the attack caused mayhem and chaos, a word other sailors also used. Bodies were everywhere, he said, adding he's not comfortable discussing the carnage. His daughter was sitting next to him as he spoke under the pavilion. Seabees, soldiers and sailors had rushed to help the injured, he said.

"They were like ants on a piece of candy," Reyes said. "The corpsmen there reacted professionally and quickly, saving many lives."

One of the Purple Heart medals given to members of the Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 14 who were injured while serving in Iraq.
BOB SELF/The Times-Union

After being hospitalized in Baghdad, Reyes called his wife with a cell phone that was being passed around by a civilian volunteer. Then she called other family members, such as Reyes' brother and their mother in Austin, Texas.

"We didn't know what was going on or how bad he was hurt," said his brother, Ken Reyes.

The entire experience of having a son at war was one of "pins and needles, not knowing from one minute to the next if he's going to be alive or dead," his mother, Sharon Reyes, said.

"I was constantly watching the news, from morning to night, while he was there," she said.

Ten-year-old Jasmine said it was "scary."

The Reyes family came to Jacksonville in the late 1990s to be part of the construction battalion headquarted at the naval air station. Odis Reyes said he's going through physical therapy and getting his life in order. The Seabees, who had an average age of about 40, just wanted to do their jobs and return to their families, he said.

"I was over there for my daughter, for all the other children," he said

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