TIMOTHY MICHAEL SMITH

Sept. 20, 1982 to April 7, 2008

Stop-Loss

Stop-Loss orders suspend discharges so that experienced members of the military can continue to serve at a time of national crisis. Hollywood made a movie about it. The reality ordered Sergeant Timothy Michael Smith back to duty last year. He died April 7th when his Humvee struck an improvised explosive device in the streets of Baghdad. He was 25 years old.

Known to family and friends in his hometown of South Lake Tahoe as “Timmy,” the newly-married sergeant had already served one tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2006 and should have been released from the Army last November. Instead, he was redeployed to Iraq as part of the 4th Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 10th Mountain Division out of Fort Polk, Louisiana.

Pretty gung-ho

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LANCE CPL. MARCUS STEPHEN GLIMPSE

1983 to 2006

[EDITOR’S NOTE: To honor the fallen heroes of Iraq and Afghanistan, Précis occasionally revisits those who have paid the ultimate price. This is the second in a series of profiles in bravery—a reminder of what we have lost.]

160 pounds of pure muscle

Few are as utterly transformed by the U.S. Marine Corps as Lance Cpl. Marcus Glimpse of Huntington Beach. Prior to entering boot camp in 2003, Marc, as everyone called him, was 129-pound high-school dropout, who couldn’t hold a job and liked to sleep the day away.  He sported a fuchsia Mohawk, painted his fingernails Visigoth black and spent every waking hour playing video games or watching The Sopranos.

Then the Marines took over.  By the time Marc graduated the School of Infantry in 2004, he was 160 pounds of “pure muscle,” said his father, Guy Glimpse.  He went on to become an authoritative leader, volunteer for the prickliest combat assignments and inspire his collegues with his quick-draw wit.

But the Marines fired-up something else in Marcus Glimpse: ambition. Following his deployment in Iraq, he planned to go on to college and become a lawyer.

That dream came to a crashing halt

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RICARDO ANTONIO CROCKER

by Katharine Blossom Lowrie

1966 to 2005

[EDITOR’S NOTE: All too soon those who gave their lives for our country vanish in a sea of casualty statistics, their character, bravery and humanity lost to all but family, friends and battle companions. To honor the fallen heroes of Iraq and Afghanistan, Précis will occasionally revisit those who have paid the ultimate price and recall some of the faces, dreams and hopes for the future that extended far beyond war.]

A lean, mean fighting machine

Most knew Marine Corps Major Ricardo A. Crocker – a tall, buff, likeable guy who loved spicy food and played ball like a pro – as Rick. Legendary in Al Anbar province for his winning way with Iraqi locals, the 39-year-old Marine Reservist was equally famous in Santa Monica, CA for his work with youth through the Police Activities League (PAL). When he left for Iraq in 2004, a life-size cutout photograph of Crocker – a lean, mean fighting machine in full combat gear – stood in the detective squad bureau of the Santa Monica Police Department where he had worked for ten years.

His fellow SWAT team members, even Police Chief James T. Butts, talked to him “as if he were there,” Chief Butts said in 2005. Email, Face Book and letters kept them all in contact, Crocker’s SMPD pals, his family and friends sending so many extravagant care packages that one Marine compared Crocker’s CAG (Civil Affairs Group) house in Iraq to a “supermarket.”

Swamped with an outpouring of support from folks back home, according to Maj. Scott Kinner of Twenty-nine Palms, CA, who served with Crocker in Western Al Anbar in 2005, “Major Crocker went out of his way to be generous with all the things he received. To anyone [out there] who sent him anything-thanks! I undoubtedly ate, read, or watched some of it!”

‘I hesitate to write about this’

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