'The best picture I have of hell'

Lance Cpl. Todd Corbin got word that a platoon of his fellow Marines were “heavily engaged” in Haditha.

So he and the rest of the Quick Reaction Force took off in three Humvees and one seven-ton truck.

What they didn’t know is that they were walking into a well-prepared trap laid by insurgents.

Corbin, 33, a reservist with the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, said he noticed that a car was following the QRF team as it left the gate on that day, May 7, 2005.

In another ominous sign, no one was on the streets when the team got to Haditha, the Norwalk, Ohio, native said.

When one of the tanks escorting the team came across a roadblock, the team’s platoon sergeant decided to turn around and find another way to get to the besieged platoon.

As they were turning around, a white van came out of an alley that Corbin had not seen.

Corbin, who was in the truck at the time, said he watched as the driver reached between the seats and pulled the detonator.

“It was just like I was watching TV,” he said.

The blast disabled three Humvees and knocked many of the dismounted Marines to the ground. Of 16 Marines, only seven were uninjured.

The insurgents immediately opened up with mortars, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

The fact that insurgents already had their mortars zeroed in showed that they had prepared the kill zone for the QRF, Corbin said. And knowing the Marines’ rules of engagement, the insurgents had taken position in a hospital.

Corbin told his vehicle commander to report that they had been ambushed, and he ran over to the Humvees to pick up his wounded comrades, he said.

He first picked up his platoon commander and carried him 30 to 40 yards to safety, all the while being shot at.

“All I wanted to do was get him off the ground and get him out of harm’s way.”

After putting his platoon commander in the back of the truck, Corbin went back to help carry more of the wounded to safety.

He said it’s a mystery how he managed to avoid getting killed in the hail of gunfire.

“By God’s grace,” he posited. “It’s kind of a weird feeling when you see the ground jumping in front of you and you don’t get hit.”

When he got back to the Humvees, he saw a Marine try to help a mortally wounded corpsman.

Corbin tried to get the corpsman to respond to him, asking the corpsman to blink, but the man died right in front of him.

“He just laid back and took his final breath.”

Corbin then ran back to the truck and grabbed a gurney, and then he and another Marine helped move another wounded Marine to safety.

For the next 45 minutes to an hour, Corbin crisscrossed the kill zone until he had picked up all of the wounded and fallen troops and loaded them into the back of the truck, all the time shooting while on the move.

“All I’m thinking is, ‘I want to get my buddies out of there.’”

He said he still remembers vividly seeing one of the Humvees engulfed in flames and hearing the shrieks of the wounded and the dying.

“The best picture I have of hell is that day.”

But the Marines fought their way through it, firing at muzzle flashes until the shooting on the other end stopped.

When Corbin had every wounded servicemember in the back of the truck, he took the wheel.

Even though the vehicle had three flat tires and had been shot through the radiator, Corbin drove the truck over rubble, somehow managing to get it back to base “on a wing and a prayer,” he said.

While driving, Corbin realized that his body armor had stopped two rounds.

He later learned from other Marines who interrogated the insurgents that they had planned a “perfect ambush” for the Marines. His Marines were able to get through it only by “violence of action.”

Now a corporal, Corbin said it was bittersweet when he learned he would receive the Navy Cross for his actions in Haditha, saying he lost a lot of good people that day.

“If I could give back my Navy Cross and bring my friends home, I would, without a doubt, because that’s too big a price to pay for a piece of metal,” he said.