
Honoring 3/5 Darkhorse and Corporal Koehler's Valor
From Battlefield to Ultramarathon
3/5 Darkhorse lost the most Marines in Afghanistan clearing Sangin Afghanistan in 2010. The last Taliban stronghold. 200 Marines wounded, and 25 Marines who made the ultimate sacrifice for their brothers and for their country. Those Marines continued to carry the torch as the fiercest fighting force on the planet. The few. Who in times of chaos and fear did not run away from Hell, but picked up a weapon and ran towards it without hesitation. Warriors. The men who when their country asked “who will go” they raised their hand and said, “Send me.”
CPL Gary Koehler was one of those men. One of the few. One of the best. He was my Scout Sniper Team Leader. He lived, ate, and breathed sniper. He was serious, but funny. He taught me with the same concern that an elder brother would have teaching his siblings, the keys to life, survival, and how to be calm, cool and collect, when all hell is breaking loose. He was wounded in 2004, during Operation Phantom Fury, shot through the leg, three days later he was limping around, asking to go back out. He was tough. He was a true Marine. Even after having been shot through the leg, he would take me on 15 and 20 mile runs, and every time no matter how far we would run, he would sprint the last quarter mile, beating me to the end every time, and each time he would smile and say, “I thought you were faster than that?” He had a good heart. In the Kuwaiti desert, he saved a lizard when the rest of the platoon wanted to sacrifice it to the 500 yard shot gods, and named it, “Larry the Lizard.” We were born on the same day. I believe in many ways he protected me like a big brother. Which is why when our sniper platoon was activated to conduct counter sniper operations in Haditha Iraq in 2006, to hunt for another sniper who had acquired US rifles, and was killing a Marine a week, he was the one that made the decision to walk point in the order of movement because as he said, “I lead my team into battle. Not the new guy,” and on Halloween night, in 2006, team 1 was ambushed by a command detonated IED where Gary was standing.
Gary said that when he returned he was going to move to the mountains, live off grid, and grow his own food. And for the past 10 years, I have been doing just that. His spirit lives on through me. We still run together. He still holds me accountable. I still carry out my actions with the same intent that I would want my team leader to be proud of, and that I am not wasting an opportunity to help someone else, or use my life to make a positive impact on others.
For Marines like Gary, the concepts that we value in this country when we consider what it means to be, “a good American”, weren’t just ideas, they weren’t just cliché phrases they threw around, it was a code. The very thing that made them who they were. And the very thing they gave their lives to protect. So to them. Those ideas, that code, is the truth. And it forever will be. It is the responsibility of the living to embody those concepts. Every single day. So that those sacrifices may never be in vein. We must earn respect everyday. And never allow ourselves to become complacent and expect what we did yesterday to be what we are measured by. The only easy day, was yesterday, and as long as I’m alive, their sacrifice will never be forgotten.
Now the legend of 3/5 Darkhorse and Gary Koehler, will echo through history in the form of pure motivation, and pain, the mechanism through which discipline is honed, with the Darkhorse Gary Koehler Ultramarathon.
Get Some.
Oorah.