Marine Battalion Prepares for Third Tour in Iraq

GWEN IFILL:

A Marine unit called Foxtrot Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, or Fox 2/5, is embarking on its third tour of duty. Special correspondent Mike Cerre has been embedded with them in Iraq twice before, and he met up with Fox 2/5 in Twentynine Palms, California, as they trained for their latest deployment.

MIKE CERRE, NewsHour Special Correspondent:

It sounds like Iraq, looks like Iraq, and these villagers are Iraqi nationals helping the Marines of Fox 2/5 get ready to go back to their home away from home for the past four years.

SOLDIER:

For your safety stay inside your house.

MIKE CERRE:

Sergeant Chris Gibbs and his company are going back to Iraq for a third tour of duty this month, nearly four years to the day of the invasion.

SGT. CHRIS GIBBS, U.S. Marine Corps:

It kind of brings back memories, like the training we were doing when we were all on the tracks and everything, it brought me back to the days when you were with us over there.

MIKE CERRE:

When I first embedded with Fox 2/5 in March 2003, they were unexpectedly one of the first American units to invade Iraq. Chris Gibbs and most of his fellow Marines were fresh out of training. Most had enlisted soon after 9/11 to join the war against international terror.

Fox 2/5's abstract notion of combat became the terrifying of reality of war, in a three-day series of ambushes on their final approach to Baghdad. They suffered their first casualties and fatality on April 4, 2003.

When they finally entered Baghdad through Saddam City — now called Sadr City and controlled by Shia militia — they were received as the liberators they've always believed themselves to be. During their occupation mission in the spring and summer of 2003, they never fired a shot. The local Iraqis hosted a barbecue for them before they left.

Their proud homecoming was their "mission accomplished."