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Something That Didn't Make The News
Something That Didn't Make The News
May 7, 2004
Maybe you'd like to hear
about something other than idiot Reservists and
naked Iraqis.
Maybe you'd like to hear
about a real American, somebody who honored the
uniform he wears.
Meet Brian Chontosh.
Churchville-Chili Central
School class of 1991. Proud graduate of the
Rochester Institute of Technology.
Husband and about-to-be father. First lieutenant in the United States
Marine Corps.
And a genuine hero.
The secretary of the Navy
said so yesterday.
At 29 Palms in California
Brian Chontosh was presented with the Navy Cross,
the second highest award
for combat bravery the United States can bestow.
That's a big deal.
But you won't see it on
the network news tonight, and all you read in
Brian's hometown newspaper was
two paragraphs of nothing. Instead, it was more blather about some mental
defective MPs who acted like
animals.
The odd fact about the
American media in this war is that it's not covering
the American military. The most
plugged-in nation in the world is receiving virtually no true information
about what its warriors are doing.
Oh, sure, there's a body
count. We know how many Americans have fallen. And
we see those same casket
pictures day in and day out. And we're almost on a first-name basis with
the pukes who abused the Iraqi
prisoners. And we know all about improvised explosive devices and how we
lost Fallujah and what Arab
public-opinion polls say about us and how the world hates us.
We get a non-stop feed of
gloom and doom.
But we don't hear about
the heroes.
The incredibly brave GIs
who honorably do their duty. The ones our
grandparents would have carried on
their shoulders down Fifth Avenue.
The ones we completely
ignore.
Like Brian Chontosh.
It was a year ago on the
march into Baghdad. Brian Chontosh was a platoon
leader rolling up Highway 1
in a humvee.
When all hell broke
loose.
Ambush city.
The young Marines were
being cut to ribbons. Mortars, machine guns, rocket
propelled grenades. And the
kid out of Churchville was in charge. It was do or die and it was up to
him.
So he moved to the side
of his column, looking for a way to lead his men to
safety. As he tried to poke a
hole through the Iraqi line his humvee came under direct enemy machine gun
fire.
It was fish in a barrel
and the Marines were the fish.
And Brian Chontosh gave
the order to attack. He told his driver to floor
the humvee directly at the machine
gun emplacement that was firing at them. And he had the guy on top with the
.50 cal unload on them.
Within moments there were
Iraqis slumped across the machine gun and
Chontosh was still advancing, ordering
his driver now to take the humvee directly into the Iraqi trench that was
attacking his Marines. Over into the
battlement the humvee went and out the door Brian Chontosh bailed, carrying
an M16 and a Beretta and 228
years of Marine Corps pride.
And he ran down the
trench.
With its mortars and
riflemen, machineguns and grenadiers.
And he killed them all.
He fought with the M16
until he was out of ammo. Then he fought with the
Beretta until it was out of ammo.
Then he picked up a dead man's AK47 and fought with that until it was out
of ammo. Then he picked up
another dead man's AK47 and fought with that until it was out of ammo.
At one point he even
fired a discarded Iraqi RPG into an enemy cluster,
sending attackers flying with its
grenade explosion.
When he was done Brian
Chontosh had cleared 200 yards of entrenched Iraqis
from his platoon's flank. He
had killed more than 20 and wounded at least as many more.
But that's probably not
how he would tell it.
He would probably merely
say that his Marines were in trouble, and he got
them out of trouble. Hoo-ah, and
drive on.
"By his outstanding
display of decisive leadership, unlimited courage in
the face of heavy enemy fire, and
utmost devotion to duty, 1st Lt. Chontosh reflected great credit upon
himself and upheld the highest traditions
of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service."
That's what the citation
says.
And that's what nobody
will hear.
That's what doesn't seem
to be making the evening news. Accounts of
American valor are dismissed by the
press as propaganda, yet accounts of American difficulties are heralded as
objectivity. It makes you wonder
if the role of the media is to inform, or to depress - to report or to
deride. To tell the truth, or to feed us lies.
But I guess it doesn't
matter.
We're going to turn out
all right.
As long as men like Brian
Chontosh wear our uniform.
- by Bob Lonsberry C 2004
Bob Lonsberry is the host of the increasingly popular morning show on KNRS radio in Salt Lake City, Utah -- the second-most popular AM radio station in Utah.
A veteran, Lonsberry is a former Army "Journalist of the Year" and is a recipient of the Meritorious Service Medal.
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