Sniper earns Silver Star, fellow Marines' respect
Sniper earns Silver Star, fellow Marines' respect
Sniper earns Silver Star, fellow Marines' respect
By Harry Levins
Of the Post-Dispatch
Saturday, Jul. 09 2005
Killed 32 in fight for Fallujah
At his family's kitchen table in Lake Saint Louis, Ethan Place comes across as
a squared-away 22-year-old. He speaks softly and modestly. He smiles easily. He
could be a college student, even a seminarian.
Instead, Place is a trained killer. He has a Silver Star to prove it.
Last year, Place spent seven months in Iraq, his second combat tour there as a
Marine. In the spring, he took part in the first battle for Fallujah.
Tony Perry of the Los Angeles Times was embedded with the Marines in Fallujah.
Last month, Perry was at Place's home station, Camp Pendleton, Calif., to watch
the Marine get his Silver Star. Perry wrote that Place "is a sniper, able to
kill an enemy at 1,000 yards or more with a single shot. ... In the battle for
Fallujah, Iraq, in April 2004, Place had 32 confirmed kills, from April 11 to
April 24."
Place's Silver Star citation speaks of the sergeant's "calm, collected demeanor
under intense combat conditions." Although the citation makes no mention of 32
kills, it says that on April 26, Place "disregarded his own safety and left the
cover of his defensive position to close with and destroy the enemy," in the
process killing five insurgents.
But at the kitchen table, Place shrugs off the statistics. "Numbers? I don't
want to get into the numbers game," he says. "It's not about numbers. It's
about saving other Marines."
Those other Marines had their own award for Place. Back at Camp Pendleton, the
unit to which Place had been attached gave him the unit guidon its Marines had
carried across Iraq.
The guidon is a small red flag with yellow letters that spell out the unit's
designation - Company E, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines. The desert sun bleached
out much of the color from the guidon, which was modest to begin with.
But Place seems to value his war-weary guidon as much as he values his Silver
Star, the nation's third-highest decoration for valor.