Inside a guard post, Barwanah, Iraq

Mark Perna was born April 14th,1982. He lived in Florida and Connecticut for a brief time before his family relocated to Colorado at the age of 12. He graduated from Chatfield Senior High School in 2000.

After high school, Mark drifted between jobs and tried to make it on his own without any roadmap to point him in the right direction. He desperately wanted independence, and success, but more than anything he wanted to find something that defined him. In March of 2003, he watched as close friend took part in the invasion of Iraq, and Mark felt that he should have been there. He wanted to be a part of of history.

When the insurgency took hold in Iraq in late 2003, Mark went to his Marine Corps recruiter. He must have been the easiest recruitment ever.

Infantry, 0311.

When do you want to go to boot camp?

His answer? Tomorrow.

Mark went to Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego and graduated Delta Company, Platoon 1075 in June of 2004. He completed MOS training at the School of Infantry, Camp Pendleton, California, and was stationed with 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.

When 2/3 shipped out from Hawaii to Kunar Province, Afghanistan, Mark took part in a pivotal battle against Taliban militants in retribution for the Navy SEAL incident of June 28, 2005. Mark’s squad was in the “kill zone”  during the the first shots at which time over 100 Taliban ambushed 3rd Platoon, Fox Company’s force of just over 40 men. Five members of Mark’s squad were hit within the first thirty seconds. The battle has been chronicled in the book Victory Point by Ed Darack.

"LPOP of Death"

To the left is a picture taken shortly after the “Star Wars” firefight in Chapter 14, where 7 of the Marine’s of 2nd Squad lead by Chris Smith, took up positions 500 meters outside the company defense on an observation post. They were ambushed around 10:30 pm by a force of 45 insurgents, outnumbering them more than 6 to 1. The Marines jokingly referred to it as the “LPOP of Death”.Following this harrowing introduction to the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan, the battalion returned to Kaneohe Bay without four of it’s members, one of which was Mark’s close friend Lance Corporal Kevin Joyce.

After returning from Afghanistan in January of 2007, Mark was appointed the position of squad leader and provided the oppurtunity to train combat veterans as well as new Marines for their deployment to Barwanah, Iraq later that year.

In Barwanah, between September 20th, 2007 and April 11th, 2008, Mark’s squad conducted over 250 combat patrols, reported contact with enemy forces over 150 times, found and detonated the largest IED cache in the area of operations.Second squad sustained no casualties, save for the grazing bullet wound Mark received by sniper fire on November 25, 2006.

As a whole, the battalion suffered heavy losses in some of the most intense fighting since the battle of Falluja and Ramadi in 2004. Twenty-two Marines and one Navy Corpsman were killed, and there were over 200 wounded in action. In a force of 600 men, the Marines of 2/3 stood a 1 in 3 chance of getting hit.

During his Iraq deployment, then Corporal, Mark Perna chronicled the daily events of  his life in Barwanah. The journal he kept is the source for what has now become Don’t Ever Call Me a Hero. The project is scheduled to be finished early 2010 and published shortly thereafter.

Mark currently resides in Englewood, Colorado with his wife Sara, and attends the University of Colorado.