By Marine Corps Cpl. Jeff Drew
2nd Marine Division
MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C.,
July 12, 2012 – He watched as five Marine buddies beside him were cut down by
enemy machine gun fire during a fierce firefight against insurgents in Marjah,
Afghanistan, nearly two years ago.
Within seconds, Marine Corps Lance Cpl.
Jeffrey Cole joined his brothers-in-arms on the ground as a three-round burst
lifted his 200-pound frame and 80 pounds of gear completely off the ground,
moved him five feet in the air, and slammed him into the dirt -- all in less
than half a second.
Cole, a Woodstock, Ga., native, had
taken three rounds into the ceramic plates protecting his body. He was down,
but not wounded. The injured Marines made their way into a nearby canal for
cover as Cole provided suppressive fire with his rifle. With half of the
Marines on the patrol wounded, they tried radioing for extraction, but couldn’t
reach anyone. No help was on the way and approximately 20 insurgents entrenched
only 30 meters from their position were headed in their direction and they were
out for blood.
The morning of August 17, 2010, in
Afghanistan started early for Cole. He woke at 4 a.m. to stand four hours of
guard duty. As he finished his time on post, an early-morning patrol returned
and he helped cook food for them before cleaning his rifle and restocking on
water. He heard through the grapevine about another patrol going out soon and
he wanted in on the action. In the three and a half weeks that his unit, 2nd
Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, had been in-country, Cole
had already been on 46 missions, luckily without incident.
The patrol that changed his life forever
consisted of six Marines from his squad as well as a Navy corpsman and three
Marines from a Professional Mentor Team, a group primarily responsible for
training and working with Afghan National Security Forces. It was a
reconnaissance mission -- to photograph the local landscape and populace and
learn as much as they could about the area. At 1:30 p.m. the patrol made their
way to a location they had visited just the night before. They spoke with local
Afghans and searched mud compounds. Around 3:30 p.m. they left the final
compound, then a crack of gunfire filled the air and they found themselves in
the fight for their lives. The patrol was pinned down by heavy enemy fire; five
Marines were wounded and they were unable to contact anyone on the radio.
“Thirty minutes into the firefight, I
heard screams that the enemy was advancing toward us,” Cole said as he
recounted his actions that day. “I took a machine gun from my buddy who was
shot and gave him my rifle. I put the machine gun in my shoulder and started
firing. Then I got up on the road and shot from my hip in a sweeping motion
from left to right. I shot 150 rounds off, and as I did, I was shot three more
times. A round hit my plates again and two rounds went through my arm.”
“This time it felt like a sunburn,” Cole
said, as he remembered the feeling of the rounds penetrating his arm. “My bone
vibrated and severed my nerve and blew out the inside of my upper arm, I
couldn’t feel anything. It spun me around and threw me into the ditch.”
Immediately the Marines put a tourniquet
on the wounded Cole in an effort to stop the bleeding. As the sixth injured
service member, the Marines knew they had to move -- quickly. They made their
way into a nearby compound as enemy fire dug into the mud walls. The enemy was
advancing and all Cole could hear were the calls over the radio.
“All channels, anywhere, anything around
us that can receive us -- we need help now!”
Another tourniquet and a pressure
dressing were applied to Cole’s arm but he was still losing blood -- time was
running out. Despite his grievous wounds, Cole continued to shoot at the enemy,
making sure the Marines on patrol remained covered and safe.
As if by some miracle, the sound of
attack helicopters broke through the cloud of gunfire. The Marines, running low
on ammunition and badly wounded, continued to return fire as their air support
offered protection for a medical evacuation. A British CH-46 Sea Knight
helicopter landed under heavy fire from the nearby insurgents. The Marines,
supporting one another, staggered toward the rescue helicopter in the midst of
enemy fire and climbed aboard.
Cole was flown to Camp Bastion where he
immediately went into surgery. Nearly 18 hours later he was stabilized. The
call that he was injured went out to his family and his brother was grateful
that his older sibling hadn’t been more seriously wounded.
“My mom called me at work and told me I
needed to come home,” said 20-year-old Perris Cole. “The first thing I asked
was, ‘Is he alive?’ she said, ‘Yeah,” and then we had to wait six or seven days
for him to get back to the states. We were just impatient, waiting. I was
scared, but I was just happy he was alive.”
After a short stay at Walter Reed
National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., Cole joined the Wounded
Warrior Battalion – East on Camp Lejeune and began the journey to recovery.
Cole was awarded the Silver Star, the
nation’s third-highest military combat decoration for valor here on July 10 for
his actions that day in Afghanistan. Cole adamantly denies that he is a hero
and that when he decided to stand up on that road, he was just doing his job.
“I don’t think I deserve it,” Cole said.
“Nothing I did comes close to the Marines I was with. Pinned down in a ditch,
wounded, they fought for an hour against an enemy that got within 30 meters.
Not once did they waiver. This award isn’t my award. It’s their award and all
the guys who we lost who can’t wear it now, I’ll wear it for them since they
can’t.”
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