PATRIOT BULLETIN - Military Order of the Purple Heart

PATRIOT BULLETIN
Page 8
LUKE A.P. CONNALLY
Patriot, Chapter 1919
Marine Corps, Iraq
Luke A.P. Connally was born November 2, 1982 in Maryland, at which time his
father, a career Marine Corps officer, was serving at the Naval Academy in
Annapolis. In fact, Luke’s extended family had always been Marine Corps. His
Elementary School years were spent in Quantico, Virginia where his father retired
in 1995. The family then moved to Round Rock, Texas where Luke attended
Middle School and then McNeil High School where he graduated with the class of
2002. He had enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve in 2001 and immediately after
graduation from High School he was sent to California where he went through
training at the San Diego Marine Corps Recruit Depot. He completed training
August 23, 2002, and returned home where he was assigned to a mortar crew in
Weapons Company, 1 st Battalion, 23 rd Marines, United States Marine Corps
CORPORAL LUKE A.P.
CONNALLY PHOTO
JULY 29, 2005
Reserve, located at Camp Mabry in Austin. Luke was promoted to Lance Corporal on February 2, 2003.
He had been in the Boy Scouts of America from an early age and he has attained the rank of Eagle Scout.
Luke attended Texas A&M University at Galveston for three semesters during
which time he was selected for Officer Candidate School and, during the
Summer of 2003 he completed the six-week Platoon Leaders Course in
Quantico (under that program, graduates are commissioned upon completion of
a bachelors degree). But, Luke’s college career was interrupted when his
battalion was activated on June 1, 2004.
The 1 st Bn, 23 rd Marines were sent to Twenty-Nine Palms, California where
they rapidly went through their “work-up” for deployment. On August 9, 2004
the battalion deployed by air to Kuwait and from there was immediately
MARINE CORPS SEAL
airlifted into Iraq to Al Asad in Al Anbar Province by C-130 aircraft. By mid-
August they were already at work patrolling roads in the area, principally along the Euphrates River.
Luke’s mortar section had been integrated into a Combined Anti-Armor Platoon (CAP), and he was in a
four-man team that made up the crew of a Humvee that
mounted a Mark-19 Grenade Launcher. After about a month at
Al Asad the unit moved further north, establishing camp at the
Hadytha Dam on the Euphrates. For the next several months
they continued patrolling the main supply routes and conducted
other types of operational or humanitarian missions.
On the morning of December 1 st , Luke’s Humvee had gone out
on patrol of the main road to secure the movement of supply
convoys. About noon they observed a car that aroused their
suspicion, so they pulled it over out of the traffic. Luke and the
commander of his Humvee dismounted and started to approach
the vehicle to question the driver. The suicide bomber
detonated his car bomb when they were about thirty feet away.
LUKE CONNALLY (ON THE LEFT) AND CREW
OF HIS HUMVEE PRIOR TO THE PATROL IN
WHICH HE WAS WOUNDED.