2008 Woodie Awards
Pacific Personality: Mark Organ
Part two of our three part look at Pacific students who helped to serve their country.
Sami Richards
Issue date: 3/14/08 Section: A & E
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Within two years, Organ was deployed three different times and experienced an array of both amazing and horrifying experiences.
Organ received a license in light army reconnaissance after graduation from boot camp in San Diego, CA. Soon after, in March 2003, he was deployed for the first time.
During his first deployment Organ started in Kuwait and took a convoy to Baghdad and later Tikrit. He says the opportunity to be in different countries was a great privilege even though there wasn't time for much other than his marine duties.
One of the neatest things Organ said he got a chance to see was the Tower of Babel in Babylon. He explained how Saddam had done the same thing with statues of himself that Nebuchadnezzar had before.
After a while, the civilian people started to destroy them. "…thousands of Saddam Hussein likenesses have been decapitated, bashed with shoes and hammers, dragged through the streets and blown to bits…" reported Catherine Donaldson-Evans in a Foxnews article.
He explained that this deployment was in effort to finish up the war and that there were few actual fights. "It went really fast, I don't have many memories," he said.
Right after returning home from this first deployment Organ married his high school girlfriend.
His second deployment was where he experienced the most action.
From Feb. to Oct. of 2004 Organ was deployed to Falusia. His unit was trying to shut down the Syrian border. "It was really tough for as few guys as we had," he explained.
"I get asked if I have killed people more times than I would like. I think they imagine it's a funny conversation starter. I don't want people to think about that when I talk to them."
Organ's latest deployment was from Sept. 2005 to April 2006. It was just a month into this third deployment that Organ experienced one of his most lasting and painful memories.
His friends, Hildebrant and Bubb, were shot and killed in front of him.
The soldiers were sent out on a raid east of the forward operating base that his company was working at. When they arrived at the assignment, the targets walked out of the house to greet them. Another man was hidden inside the building and shot the two soldiers.
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