Hood County Genealogical Society

CODY TARHERN

THE STORY OF A HERO

by Stan Weinberg

Hood County News – July 30, 2003

Corporal Cody Tarhern

The tall, clean-cut young man sat across the conference table. He was dressed in casual clothes, a pair of sandals and wore a bronze tan. He could have been a college student who spent part of his summer vacation scouting girls on Padre Island. But Marine corporal Cody Tarhern, 21, of Granbury got his tan crossing the Iraqi desert during fierce bloody battles with Iraqi troops. He was home on leave and came by the Hood County News to share what he went through during the four months he was in the Middle East.

When Cody told me about the Marine who was blown apart when a mortar shell exploded while he was clearing a bunker, I got a knot in my stomach, and the hair stood on the back of my neck.

I felt better when he told me how the Marines beat the Iraqis during a battle near the Tigris River and how their artillery ripped apart Saddam's finest during a two-hour battle.

I wrote about Cody a few months ago after his mother, Liz Koratich, a teacher at Granbury Middle School, called me.

He had been home on leave, and she told me her son took pen pal letters written by area students with him when he returned to his base. He was going to distribute them to his Marine buddies.

She also told me he was being sent to Kuwait and then on to Iraq.

I listened as Cody described what it felt like being shot at by the Iraqis – he said he wasn't scared.

"It wasn't what I thought it would be like," he said.

I was impressed by his calm descriptions; however, his voice was filled with emotion.

When I was in the Navy I never had to shoot someone nor was I shot at. And to be honest, I never missed the experience.

There's a big difference between standing behind a ship's 14-inch guns firing at targets miles away and hearing exploding rounds fired at you from an automatic rifle or a hand-held rocket launcher.

I knew lots of Marines, and they were like Cody.

I don't know if it's their training or their indoctrination. But those guys could tell some gory war stories without batting an eye.

They were also extremely proud of the job they did.

Being there is always a unique and personal experience.

No matter how many television news broadcasts you watch or newspapers you read about war, they are never the real thing.

Listening to Cody made me appreciate the difference between being on the front lines and reading the front page.

Cody's stories pained me just as I was pained when my son Mike told me about his hair-raising experiences as part of a helicopter rescue crew during the first Iraq War.

I thought about my brothers-in-law who fought during World War II.

I always wondered why they avoided talking about their war experiences or minimized what they did.

Like Cody, they said, "We just did our jobs."

I know why most of the veterans I interviewed for stories in the Hood County News were reluctant to talk about what they went through.

But some things can't be ignored about any war.

War is hell.

War isn't romantic.

War isn't glorious or glamorous.

War isn't just funny stories.

War isn't like you see it in the movies.

War is dangerous.

War is flesh-tearing, body-maiming horror.

War is a killing field.

Wars are fought by young men like Cody who went from walking the halls in high school to patrolling battlefields in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Bosnia, Vietnam and Korea, among others.

2004 HOOD COUNTY TEXAS GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY