The Combat Operator

Memoriam: Gregory R. Wright, Jr.

Dec 7, 2008 Jake's Posts, Memoriam

CIA Memorial Wall

7 DEC 2008

I first met Greg in October of 1995 when we both reported to the U.S. Marine Corps’ Officer Candidate School in Quantico, Virginia.  In those chaotic and frantic first few hours upon our arrival somehow we came to share a rack, he on the upper bunk and I on the lower.  The assignment could not have possibly been more random.  Nonetheless, that accidental assigment meant that every day would begin, transpire and end with he and I watching each other’s back.  Our friendship and bond was immediate and would last our lifetimes.

In the years that followed we kept in close contact in the way that brothers should.  His decision to come to Iraq as a security contractor must have been agonizing.  Several of our comrades and former Marines were already there and I suppose looking back

he must have felt the urge to join us.  What he probably did not know, was that we were all jealous of the job he already had.  While most of us were in Iraq risking our lives for people we didn’t even know or like in the hopes of one day exchanging that experience for a cherished place on the civilian ‘CP circuit’, Greg had already reached the pinnacle of the Close Protection universe.  He was the CP Detail Leader for one of the world’s wealthiest businessmen.  He had it all, money, travel, stability, the works.  But like all warrior-patriots the call to duty was like a force of gravity from which he could not escape.

In what must have been one of his few missions in Iraq Greg was killed when his low profile set was ambushed while protecting a CIA officer.  The stories which emerged later about his acts of heroism in the last minutes of his life are the stuff of Hollywood films.  For those of us who knew him we were not surprised at all.    In May of 2007 CIA honored Greg with a Star on their Memorial Wall at the Headquarters in Langley.  It is an honor that less than 90 citizens have been awarded in the history of the agency.  How fitting that a star is the symbol that will forever commemorate Greg’s service to country.  He was himself a star.

Rarely a day passes that I don’t think of him or wonder what he would say about this or that.  On December 7th, 2005 we lost a patriot, a brother, a son, a Marine and a friend.  He is and always will be missed.

The Gregory R. Wright, Jr Memorial Fund provides a scholarship in Greg’s name every year to a cadet at The Virginia Military Institute.

Semper Fidelis

Jake Allen

Tags: Greg Wright, Jake's Posts, Memoriam