{"id":3499,"date":"2010-02-03T00:15:10","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T08:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=3499"},"modified":"2010-02-02T23:00:24","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T07:00:24","slug":"us-marines-bring-memorial-cross-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/03\/us-marines-bring-memorial-cross-home\/","title":{"rendered":"US Marines Bring Memorial Cross Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

As US forces continue to draw down their equipment and leave Iraq, there are some unique items that troops are having to deal with.<\/p>\n

As bases were built and initial combat conducted, a variety of memorials began to surface as units looked for ways to remember the fallen.\u00a0 Some bases have T-barriers painted with murals, and others have entire walls covered with the names of those who paid the ultimate price at their nation’s call.<\/p>\n

PFC Oscar Martinez is one such Marine.\u00a0 He was killed in a rocket attack on Camp Al Taqaddum in Iraq in 2004.\u00a0 His unit made a 3 foot tall aluminum cross<\/a> and placed it on the base in his memory–nearly six years ago.<\/p>\n

\"USMC

USMC Photo (Cpl Bobbie Curtis)<\/p><\/div>\n

Now that bases are closing and being turned over to the Iraqis, US Marines at Al Taqaddum didn’t want the memorial to be lost.\u00a0 Lance Cpl Andrew Johnson will hand-carry the cross to Martinez’s family:<\/p>\n

It was a poignant reminder of what could happen…I felt compelled to carry it home because it was a memory…It was a reminder of why Marines keep coming back to [deployments].\u00a0 I wanted to carry on the legacy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As US forces continue to draw down their equipment and leave Iraq, there are some unique items that troops are having to deal with. As bases were built and initial combat conducted, a variety of memorials began to surface as units looked for ways to remember the fallen.\u00a0 Some bases have T-barriers painted with murals, and others have entire walls […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[4,162,52,149,2,17],"class_list":["post-3499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-churchandstate","tag-cross","tag-iraq","tag-marines","tag-military","tag-religious-expression"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}