Cpl. Steve Walls wasn’t naïve. When he enlisted in the Marine Corps late in 2002, he knew what he was getting himself into.
“I knew what I was going to do,” said the 1998 Indian River High School graduate, who, like others, was prompted to join service after the Sept. 11 attacks. “You don’t join the Marine Corps to be a cook. You want to get some.”
Walls, a Fenwick Island native, didn’t have to wait long for that chance. In late January, he graduated from MOS school, where he learned his Marine job as a 0311 – a foot soldier. That night, he was sent to 29 Palms in California, just two weeks from being sent to the troubled Middle East.
“I graduated,” Walls said. “Hugs and kisses and all that. But at 2100 hours, I was on a bus, ready to go to war.”
So he gave a family member power of attorney. He wrote his will. And from Feb. 16 to Sept. 29 of 2004, Walls — now a decorated Marine — served the first of his two Iraqi tours in Husayba, in the Al Anbar province of Iraq.
Before leaving for that first tour, Walls admits, he had a “Hollywood” concept of combat. War movies had affected his opinion, as they likely have to so many Americans.
By the end of September, that had changed. Walls was suffering from some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and it was causing problems in his young marriage, he said.
Loud noises made him flinch. Small things like his wife asking him to do the dishes made him angry. And, probably worst of all, he knew he had to go back. This time, he would be serving time in Ramadi, one of the most volatile regions of the war-scorn country, according to most sources.
He and his wife didn’t go out. They didn’t have much fun between his tours. He might just be killed in that second tour — so what was the use?
“I knew what to expect” the second time, Walls said. “You watch Marines get killed. You watch them getting put into helicopters. I was scared,” he admitted.
But then he got word from his higher-ups that he was to be appointed squad leader. A member of 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, he would lead a group of 10 people into combat as one of the squad leaders in Kilo Company, after being recommended by Capt. Phillip Ash, his commanding officer and fellow Indian River graduate.
“Steve and I would go out on patrols. We’d go out and share hardship, share danger,” said Ash, a member of the 1987 graduating class who spent Christmas with Walls in Iraq. “He is a great Marine,” Ash said of Walls.
Ash also recommended Walls’ meritorious promotion to corporal, an honor bestowed only to one Marine a quarter per battalion, saying he was “head and shoulders” above his peers and an “obvious” recommendation. Upon returning to Iraq, those promotions and the greater amount of responsibility changed Walls’ outlook.
“When you get there, you don’t think about George Bush. You don’t think about all of that political stuff,” said Walls, a history major and graduate of the University of Delaware, who said his political beliefs probably stray from that usually found in the Marine Corps. But that didn’t matter then. “All you’re worried about is surviving. I got to take care of nine people,” he said, adding that four of those people were married and one had kids. “That’s the kind of thing you think about.”
Walls served his tour in Ramadi from Sept. 5, 2005, to March 29 of 2006 and lost one of his Marines. The only member of Kilo Company killed, and one of the 10 members of Walls’ squad, was killed by a mortar explosion while filling sandbags. No one is ever safe in Ramadi, Walls said.
That realization constantly ran through the corporal’s mind while serving in the noticeably-scarred big city. While there, he and his squad shared responsibility with the rest of the Kilo Company. For six days at a time, he and his squad, along with fellow Marines guarded the Government Center, helping the city’s official’s work safely. Then, they would secure the main supply route for three days before conducting offensive operations for six.
Walls remembers searching for weapons caches and improvised explosive devices, which lined the city. He remembers a building so littered with gunshot holes, he and his fellow fighters called it “the Swiss cheese building.”
He remembers watching a mortar blast overturn a Bradley fighting vehicle. He remembers then watching the American occupants emerge from the Bradley, on fire, burning and fighting for their lives. He also remembers the people of the country, most of whom didn’t want anything to do with the war.
“Everyone is the same,” Walls said. “They just want to take care of their kids.”
But now Walls remembers those things from home in the States: he is away from those eerily familiar people and that unfamiliar place. And the California resident, living at the 29 Palms base outside of Palm Springs, has just received word that he was awarded his third Naval Marine Corps achievement medal.
The Navy awarded Walls this time for a valorous act during contact with an enemy, a significant award in the world of the Marine Corps, according to Ash. He is now back with his wife and not suffering from many of the problems from which he suffered upon returning from his first Iraq tour. But, more than occasionally, he does have a feeling he calls “sick.”
“I’m happy, but some of my men are going through hard times right now,” Walls said. “I just got home; and in a sick way, I wish I was still in Iraq.”