Marine shields team from harm, earns Bronze Star

John Gastaldo
Velzeboer, part of an explosive-ordnance-disposal team, drove a trailer full of grenades away from the fiery aftermath of a bombing.

Marine shields team from harm, earns Bronze Star
By Jeanette Steele, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 12:04 a.m.


After the blast, Staff Sgt. Dustin Velzeboer looked around and realized he was the only person still standing.

His gunnery sergeant lay in pieces, literally, on the ground. Two other members of the bomb unit were dead, and so was the sergeant assigned to them for security.

Velzeboer, a 27-year-old Marine with a baby on the way at home, saw no other choice: He couldn’t move his guys away from the danger. He had to move the danger away from them.

The tall, blond Marine jumped into the team’s truck, which was hooked to a trailer packed with 45 Iraqi rocket-propelled grenades. The grenades were sure to detonate in the fiery aftermath of the roadside bomb blast.

With one hand — his other was shredded by shrapnel — Velzeboer drove the truck away from his men. These thoughts ran through his mind: “Get the rig off the road; we need the road to leave.” “I hope there are no more bombs where I’m driving.” “I need to tell my wife I love her.”

There were no speeches. But afterward, Velzeboer — not much for grandstanding himself — talked about the life of an explosive-ordnance-disposal Marine, one of the most dangerous and in-demand jobs in the military.

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Marine shields team from harm, earns Bronze Star