Kenneth Brown
Captain
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2003
- Messages
- 3,481
A hero you haven't heard about in the media <br /><br />Maybe you'd like to hear about something other than idiot Reservists <br />and naked Iraqis. <br />Maybe you'd like to hear about a real American, somebody who honored <br />the uniform he wears. <br />Meet Brian Chontosh. Churchville-Chili Central School class of 1991. <br />Proud graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology. Husband and <br />about-to-be father. First lieutenant in the United States Marine <br />Corps. <br />And a genuine hero. The secretary of the Navy said so yesterday. At <br />Twentynine Palms in California Brian Chontosh was presented with the <br />Navy Cross, the second highest award for combat bravery the United <br />States can bestow. <br />That's a big deal. <br />But you won't see it on the network news tonight, and all you read in <br />Brian's hometown newspaper was two paragraphs of nothing. Instead, it <br />was more blather about some mental defective MPs who acted like <br />animals. <br />The odd fact about the American media in this war is that it's not <br />covering the American military. The most plugged-in nation in the <br />world is receiving virtually no true information about what its <br />warriors are doing. <br />Oh, sure, there's a body count. We know how many Americans have <br />fallen. And we see those same casket pictures day in and day out. <br />And we're almost on a first-name basis with the pukes who abused the <br />Iraqi prisoners. And we know all about improvised explosive devices <br />and how we lost Fallujah and what <br />Arab public-opinion polls say about us and how the world hates us. <br />We get a non-stop feed of gloom and doom. <br />But we don't hear about the heroes. <br />The incredibly brave GIs who honorably do their duty. The ones our <br />grandparents would have carried on their shoulders down Fifth Avenue. <br />The ones we completely ignore. <br />Like Brian Chontosh. <br />It was a year ago on the march into Baghdad. Brian Chontosh was a <br />platoon leader rolling up Highway 1 in a humvee. When all hell broke <br />loose. Ambush city. The young Marines were being cut to ribbons. <br />Mortars, machine guns, rocket propelled grenades. And the kid out of <br />Churchville was in charge. It was do or die and it was up to him. So <br />he moved to the side of his column, looking for a way to lead his men <br />to safety. As he tried to poke a hole through the Iraqi line his <br />humvee came under direct enemy machine gun fire. <br />It was fish in a barrel and the Marines were the fish. <br />And Brian Chontosh gave the order to attack. He told his driver to <br />floor the humvee directly at the machine gun emplacement that was <br />firing at them. And he had the guy on top with the .50 cal unload on <br />them. Within moments there were Iraqis slumped across the machine <br />gun and Chontosh was still advancing, ordering his driver now to take <br />the humvee directly into the Iraqi trench that was attacking his <br />Marines. Over into the battlement the humvee went and out the door <br />Brian Chontosh bailed,carrying an M16 and a Beretta and 228 years of <br />Marine Corps pride.And he ran down the trench. <br />With its mortars and riflemen, machineguns and grenadiers. <br />And he killed them all. <br />He fought with the M16 until it was out of ammo. Then he fought with <br />the Beretta until it was out of ammo. Then he picked up a dead man's <br />AK47 and fought with that until it was out of ammo. Then he picked up <br />another dead man's AK47 and fought with that until it was out of ammo. <br />At one point he even fired a discarded Iraqi RPG into an enemy <br />cluster,sending attackers flying with its grenade explosion. <br />When he was done Brian Chontosh had cleared 200 yards of entrenched <br />Iraqis from his platoon's flank. He had killed more than 20 and <br />wounded at leastas many more. <br />But that's probably not how he would tell it. <br />He would probably merely say that his Marines were in trouble, and he <br />got them out of trouble. Hoo-ah, and drive on. <br />"By his outstanding display of decisive leadership, unlimited courage <br />in the face of heavy enemy fire, and utmost devotion to duty, 1st Lt. <br />Chontosh reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest <br />traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval <br />Service."That's what the citation says. <br />And that's what nobody will hear." <br />That's what doesn't seem to be making the evening news. Accounts of <br />American valor are dismissed by the press as propaganda, yet accounts <br />of <br />American difficulties are heralded as objectivity. It makes you <br />wonder if the role of the media is to inform, or to depress ? to <br />report or to deride. <br />To tell the truth, or to feed us lies. <br />But I guess it doesn't matter. <br />We're going to turn out all right. <br />As long as men like Brian Chontosh wear our uniform. <br />These same events went on in Nam by my Buddies, my allies, and my fellow warriors.. You didn't here about it then, and you're not hearing about it now.. <br /><br />But yet some of you say our press, The Media isn't Bias !!!!????
<br />interviewed his local family and and friends too.<br />may not mean much to national media, but we all<br />saluted him up here...
