U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Emilio Diaz Jr., a 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment machine gunner with Weapons Company, Combined Anti-Armor Team 1, stands in front of a Humvee before embarking on a mission near Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Diaz, from Brownsville, Texas, received the Purple Heart for injuries he sustained while manning a .50-caliber machine gun in Iraq on 1/3's last combat deployment when his Humvee was hit by an improvised explosive device. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Joe Lindsay



By Marine Sgt. Joe Lindsay
Task Force Lava Public Affairs

JALALABAD AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, May 18, 2006 — There was a persistent ringing in his ears that just wouldn’t go away - piercing, consuming, unyielding.

It’s been more than a year since Marine Cpl. Emilio Diaz Jr., a 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment machine gunner with Weapons Company, Combined Anti-Armor Team One, was riding in a Humvee that hit an improvised explosive device outside Fallujah, Iraq. Although violently rocked, Diaz somehow remained in his turret position atop the vehicle, where he was manning a .50-caliber machine gun.

When he woke up after the explosion, he was still atop the Humvee, still in the seated position, being held up only by his gunner’s strap. He wasn’t sure how much time had gone by. Marines were running around on the road below him yelling, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying over the ringing - the constant ringing.

The Humvee he was riding in just a few minutes before had been transformed into a heap of twisted metal. The .50-caliber gun he had been manning was in pieces. He thought, perhaps, he was dead - that his buddies were dead.

But he wasn’t dead. And his friends weren’t dead. In fact, just he and one other Marine in the Humvee were wounded in the explosion. The IED blast had come sideways from a tree, destroying everything in its midst, save the Marines. Some said their flak jackets and helmets saved them, or that the vehicle’s armor saved them. Others just called it luck and left it at that.

When the Purple Heart was pinned on his chest some months later, back at his unit’s home base of Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Kaneohe Bay, he called it the proudest moment of his life, with the possible exception of the day he graduated boot camp and became a Marine.

But the ringing in his ears - the ringing was still there.

“Right after the IED hit, I went deaf. After a month, I was still deaf,” said Diaz, recounting his story as he prepared for yet another combat patrol, this time in Afghanistan. “They kept me in a military hospital in Iraq for about a month, observing me, monitoring me and hoping my hearing would come back.

Eventually Diaz was sent to Germany and finally back to Hawaii for surgery.

“I was scared I’d never hear again - and also scared I’d get medically discharged from the Marine Corps,” said Diaz, from Brownsville, Texas. “I didn’t want that. I wanted to be back with the guys. I wanted to hear again. Most of all I wanted the ringing to stop. I hadn’t learned to block it out at that time.”

After successful surgery back in Hawaii, Diaz regained full hearing in his right ear, and most of the hearing in his left ear. Still, though, the ringing persisted.

“It’s basically something I’ve learned to block out, or maybe it’s more accurate to say it’s something I’ve learned to live with,” explained Diaz. “It doesn’t dominate me anymore. I can function again as a Marine and as a leader of Marines.”

That is good news for the Lava Dogs of 1/3 who are serving with Diaz as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.

“Corporal Diaz is one of the best corporals, if not the best corporal, I’ve ever had,” said Staff Sgt. Douglas Derring, a 1/3 infantry platoon leader with Weapons Company, CAAT 1, from Virginia Beach, Va. “He’s just an outstanding NCO, the type of Marine that the younger troops can really look up to. He’s a self-starter and he’s got combat experience, which gives the Marines under his charge an added dose of confidence.”

Lance Cpl. Tyler Baecker, a 1/3 tow-gunner with Weapons Company, CAAT 1, has served with Diaz since they both went through the School of Infantry, then served in Iraq and now Afghanistan.

“He’s a good man and a good Marine,” said Baecker, from Montrose, Colo. “He’s always been that way, since day one. The more responsibility they put on his shoulders, the more he can carry. He believes in his Marines and we believe in him. There’s nothing we can’t do. We’ve all got a bond that can only be formed under fire.”

That bond sometimes affords the Marines in Diaz’s unit an opportunity for some good-natured fun.

“Sometimes the guys will start yelling or talking around me, except that they are only just moving their lips and mouthing the words, not actually speaking,” said Diaz, suppressing a chuckle, but unable to hide a growing smile. “A couple of times I’ve had to do a double-take, thinking my ears were messing with me again. That’s just Marines being Marines. I love ‘em for it.”

And that’s exactly the reason his Marines say they “sometimes mess with Corporal Diaz,” noted Lance Cpl. Michael Ericson, a 1/3 assaultman in Diaz’s unit.

“We wouldn’t do it if we didn’t respect him,” said Ericson, from Larkspur, Colo. “I served in Iraq with Corporal Diaz and I’d follow him anywhere. It’s just our way of showing him that we care about him, that we’re glad he’s still here with us, and that he’s once again leading us in a combat zone.”

For his part, Diaz said he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but in Afghanistan right now.

“These people need our support,” said Diaz. “When we’re out on patrol, the locals wave at us and throw us the Hawaiian shaka hand sign as a gesture of goodwill. I guess it’s something they picked up from 3/3 or 2/3, but they seem to know that we are from Hawaii. It’s pretty cool. What isn’t cool is that there are enemies here that will kill and terrorize people for being friendly with us.”

But Diaz said he and his fellow Marines are convinced the enemy will be defeated.

“The Afghan people are our friends,” said Diaz. “It’s just that there are pockets of insurgents here, who want to keep the people enslaved both mentally and physically through terror. That is the problem here. We’re gonna fix that problem.”