GyBill
07-16-2005, 16:09
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
July 10, 2005
By Harry Levins, Of the Post-Dispatch
At his family's kitchen table in Lake Saint Louis, Ethan Place comes across as a squared-away 22-year-old. He speaks softly and modestly. He smiles easily. He could be a college student, even a seminarian.
Instead, Place is a trained killer. He has a Silver Star to prove it.
Last year, Place spent seven months in Iraq, his second combat tour there as a Marine. In the spring, he took part in the first battle for Fallujah.
Tony Perry of the Los Angeles Times was embedded with the Marines in Fallujah. Last month, Perry was at Place's home station, Camp Pendleton, Calif., to watch the Marine get his Silver Star. Perry wrote that Place "is a sniper, able to kill an enemy at 1,000 yards or more with a single shot. ... In the battle for Fallujah, Iraq, in April 2004, Place had 32 confirmed kills, from April 11 to April 24."
Place's Silver Star citation speaks of the sergeant's "calm, collected demeanor under intense combat conditions." Although the citation makes no mention of 32 kills, it says that on April 26, Place "disregarded his own safety and left the cover of his defensive position to close with and destroy the enemy," in the process killing five insurgents.
But at the kitchen table, Place shrugs off the statistics. "Numbers? I don't want to get into the numbers game," he says. "It's not about numbers. It's about saving other Marines."
Those other Marines had their own award for Place. Back at Camp Pendleton, the unit to which Place had been attached gave him the unit guidon its Marines had carried across Iraq.
The guidon is a small red flag with yellow letters that spell out the unit's designation - Company E, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines. The desert sun bleached out much of the color from the guidon, which was modest to begin with.
But Place seems to value his war-weary guidon as much as he values his Silver Star, the nation's third-highest decoration for valor.
Curiously, Place developed his marksman's eye with a bow, not a rifle.
As a boy, Place went hunting with his father - Richard Place, a professor of education at Lindenwood University - and his brother Rich, now 24. "We mostly used bows, not rifles," says Place. "There's more discipline in archery, and it takes more skill."
Place's dad taught him a special skill he'd need as a sniper - how to hunker down silently for hours at a time.
"To an 11-year-old, that's a nightmare - being stuck in a tree and told to keep still," Place says. "But I got my first deer that first year."
He graduated from Wentzville High School in 2001 but figured he wasn't ready for college. He joined the Marines and shipped out to San Diego for boot camp shortly after 9/11. On the rifle range, he fell short by a single point of winning an expert's badge. "But I got better as I learned to relax with it," he says.
A fellow Marine talked Place into signing up for sniper school. On his first tour in Iraq, in the invasion of 2003, Place was a spotter - the junior member of a sniper-spotter team. The second time around, Place was very much the senior partner.
But snipers have to live with a mixed image. Snipers are like mines and submarines - silent killers whose victims never see death coming. U.S. propagandists in World War II made much of the German submarine wolf packs, even as U.S. submarines were disemboweling the Japanese merchant fleet.
Some military people dislike all snipers, no matter whose side they're on. Place has felt that dislike. "I got a little bit of that - at least before we went into combat," he says.
But after Fallujah? Place says, "I can guarantee you that after we went into that city, every Marine was glad to have us along."
He has the guidon to prove it.
July 10, 2005
By Harry Levins, Of the Post-Dispatch
At his family's kitchen table in Lake Saint Louis, Ethan Place comes across as a squared-away 22-year-old. He speaks softly and modestly. He smiles easily. He could be a college student, even a seminarian.
Instead, Place is a trained killer. He has a Silver Star to prove it.
Last year, Place spent seven months in Iraq, his second combat tour there as a Marine. In the spring, he took part in the first battle for Fallujah.
Tony Perry of the Los Angeles Times was embedded with the Marines in Fallujah. Last month, Perry was at Place's home station, Camp Pendleton, Calif., to watch the Marine get his Silver Star. Perry wrote that Place "is a sniper, able to kill an enemy at 1,000 yards or more with a single shot. ... In the battle for Fallujah, Iraq, in April 2004, Place had 32 confirmed kills, from April 11 to April 24."
Place's Silver Star citation speaks of the sergeant's "calm, collected demeanor under intense combat conditions." Although the citation makes no mention of 32 kills, it says that on April 26, Place "disregarded his own safety and left the cover of his defensive position to close with and destroy the enemy," in the process killing five insurgents.
But at the kitchen table, Place shrugs off the statistics. "Numbers? I don't want to get into the numbers game," he says. "It's not about numbers. It's about saving other Marines."
Those other Marines had their own award for Place. Back at Camp Pendleton, the unit to which Place had been attached gave him the unit guidon its Marines had carried across Iraq.
The guidon is a small red flag with yellow letters that spell out the unit's designation - Company E, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines. The desert sun bleached out much of the color from the guidon, which was modest to begin with.
But Place seems to value his war-weary guidon as much as he values his Silver Star, the nation's third-highest decoration for valor.
Curiously, Place developed his marksman's eye with a bow, not a rifle.
As a boy, Place went hunting with his father - Richard Place, a professor of education at Lindenwood University - and his brother Rich, now 24. "We mostly used bows, not rifles," says Place. "There's more discipline in archery, and it takes more skill."
Place's dad taught him a special skill he'd need as a sniper - how to hunker down silently for hours at a time.
"To an 11-year-old, that's a nightmare - being stuck in a tree and told to keep still," Place says. "But I got my first deer that first year."
He graduated from Wentzville High School in 2001 but figured he wasn't ready for college. He joined the Marines and shipped out to San Diego for boot camp shortly after 9/11. On the rifle range, he fell short by a single point of winning an expert's badge. "But I got better as I learned to relax with it," he says.
A fellow Marine talked Place into signing up for sniper school. On his first tour in Iraq, in the invasion of 2003, Place was a spotter - the junior member of a sniper-spotter team. The second time around, Place was very much the senior partner.
But snipers have to live with a mixed image. Snipers are like mines and submarines - silent killers whose victims never see death coming. U.S. propagandists in World War II made much of the German submarine wolf packs, even as U.S. submarines were disemboweling the Japanese merchant fleet.
Some military people dislike all snipers, no matter whose side they're on. Place has felt that dislike. "I got a little bit of that - at least before we went into combat," he says.
But after Fallujah? Place says, "I can guarantee you that after we went into that city, every Marine was glad to have us along."
He has the guidon to prove it.