Richard Marshall is a 66-year-old Vietnam veteran. He’s a Juneau resident and was a civilian contractor for the U.S. military in Iraq. He signed up to drive fuel trucks through combat zones because he wanted to help.
During his first year in Iraq, Marshall drove 96 combat missions. In 2004 on Good Friday, he narrowly avoided a deadly attack. I asked him to share his memory of that day and he explained how it changed his life. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
“Everyday we would line up and they would hand out keys and according to which key to which truck you got, you would be assigned a convoy commander and you’d form up into a group and leave.
“I was living in a tent with a bunch of guys that I got very close to. So when we would go up to sort of hang around the place where they handed out the keys, we’d routinely walk up together. That morning, they’d awakened us very early in the morning. All of the roads had been shut down for a couple of days. The threat was so high, the danger was so bad, the combat was so furious that they wouldn’t let anybody leave any of the camp. We were (sitting) around waiting for them to line us up and I got up to go get a bottle of water. As I was getting a bottle of water from an area … they called for us to come line up. So we did and it just happened that I ended up a couple of spaces ahead of this group of guys that was behind me. That couple of spaces put me as the last man in the first convoy that day.
“It was just horrible, we got shot at from the minute we left the gate and we got beat up and shot and blown up until we made it to Taji which is halfway to Baghdad. Finally got out of Taji and got south into Baghdad and we were able to supply enough fuel to keep the medevac birds going – that’s about all we could do at that point.
“The following morning, they allowed that second group to leave. … The group of guys that I lived with were all in that convoy. That was the group that got hit with anti-aircraft guns. They pretty well wiped out the convoy. The convoy commander lost an eye; I think we lost seven — there were seven drivers killed, there were several injured. Three or four soldiers killed that day. Basically everybody … all my friends were killed that day.
“So the fickleness is that even though I had it tough getting out of the gate that day and we had a tough time, had it not been for that bottle of water, that silly bottle of water, I would’ve been with them. So … that’s part of the reason why I stayed.”
Now, do you still feel survivor’s guilt?
“Oh sure, yeah, I don’t think — I don’t think that ever goes away. My response, my way of dealing with it, is to try and feel — feel very lucky every day. It’s tough to talk about, but in truth, I just don’t feel like I have the — I don’t have the right to feel bad about anything.
“I’m sorry. In other words, now when I’m working, when I’m doing anything — I mean my gosh, any of those guys — on my worst, worst day, every one of them would love to have that day. I’m just blessed, that’s all. I’m very blessed.”
Richard Marshall left Iraq at the end of 2007 and returned in 2010. After a short break, he moved on to work in Afghanistan for two and a half years.
Today he is semi-retired and works for Juneau Docks and Harbors in his spare time. He and his wife Teresa just celebrated their 32nd wedding anniversary and plan to build a retirement home in Haines. Marshall said his biggest regret is spending so many years away from his wife.
