Blackfive has posted articles a couple of times regarding Major Zembiec. He is an Albuquerque native and his wife and year old daughter reside in Maryland.

Here is a small top portion of Blackfive's post, copied and linked as well as the links sent to me posted there concerning Major Zembiec. I’ll pass along any other information that becomes available.


Thank you.
De'on
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The Fallen Lion - Godspeed Major Doug Zembiec
Posted By Blackfive

"Your son was killed in action today. Despite intense enemy machine gun and rocket propelled grenade fire, your son fought like a lion. He remained in his fighting position until all his wounded comrades could be evacuated from the rooftop they were defending. It was during his courageous defense of his comrades that Aaron was hit by enemy fire.... With the exception of the Marines on Security, every man in the company attended the service. Aaron was respected and admired by every Marine in his company. His death brought tears to my eyes, tears that fell in front of my Marines. I am unashamed of that fact." - Douglas Zembiec, Captain, U.S. Marine Corps, writing to the mother of Aaron C. Austin, included in Operation Homecoming by Andrew Carroll



Doug Zembiec, Major in the USMC, was known at the "Unapologetic Warrior". We featured him here as Someone You Should Know almost three years ago (must read). In fact, he was among the few that I included when I began that index - he is very "Mattis-like" or, maybe, General Mattis is very "Zembiec-like".


Just a few months before, then Captain, Zembiec led Echo Company into Fallujah. We caught that as part of the Showdown series about Fallujah (link here). Zembiec was leading his unit into combat where most of his men (53) had been wounded, with some wounded two or three times and still in the fight. He talks about his Navy Hospital Corpsmen that kept his men alive (link here).

+ + +Thank you for the memorial posted at your site Blackfive.