In Step With...Corporal James Webb

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http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2007/edition_11-11-2007/In_Step_With...Corporal_James_Webb

By James Brady
Published: November 11, 2007

Young Marine CPL. James Webb was busy training at Camp Lejeune when I caught up with him a few weeks ago. Having completed his first tour in May, he expected to be back “floating off the Atlantic coast or in the Mediterranean soon. Odds are, we will end up in Iraq again or Afghanistan,” he said.

Webb already has a unique perspective of the Afghan wilderness. In 2004, he joined his dad, James Webb—now a Senator from Virginia—in Afghanistan on a PARADE magazine assignment. While there, he went out with a Marine squad “on a combat patrol up into the steep mountains.” Later, Webb left Penn State University to join the Marines himself.

What made him give up college for a dangerous tour of duty in Iraq?

“The TV coverage of fighting in Fallujah showed me that I needed to be out there,” said the cool 25-year-old. In addition, Webb comes from a Marine family. “I had a cupboard full of role models,” he said. “I was raised to be a warrior.” Indeed. Webb’s grandfather fought on Iwo Jima during World War II, and his father fought as a highly decorated Marine officer in Vietnam...