Dispute over cross casts light on four fallen Marines

Dispute over cross casts light on four fallen Marines
The controversial hilltop memorial at Camp Pendleton honors two enlisted men and two officers, three of whom helped erect a cross there in 2003 before going to Iraq.

By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times
January 3, 2012

Scott Radetski, 49, a retired Navy chaplain; Sgt. Josue Magana, 32; and Staff Sgt. Justin Rettenberger, 31, work to secure a cross at Camp Pendleton on Veterans Day. A constitutional scholar says that because the crosses are only visible from Camp Pendleton they could be viewed as a memorial rather than having a religious purpose. (Rick Loomis, Los Angeles Times / November 11, 2011)

Reporting from San Diego— In the early days of the U.S. battle with the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, the four Marines from Camp Pendleton were among those troops on the front lines in Anbar province.

The two enlisted Marines would not survive those violent days in the spring of 2004: one was killed by "friendly fire" when a mortar round went awry and one was mortally wounded while hurling a grenade to repel an enemy assault, bravery for which he was posthumously awarded the Silver Star.

The two officers survived, only later to be killed in other battles in other parts of the country: one by gunfire while leading a raid in Baghdad to kill or capture a "high-value" target in 2007 and one by stepping on a buried bomb while scouting an attack position near the Syrian border in 2005.

Now the four — Lance Cpls. Robert Zurheide and Aaron Austin, and Majs. Douglas Zembiec and Ray Mendoza — are the focal point of a legal dispute about how best to honor their service and sacrifice, and that of other U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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