Somalia, Iraq War Vet Reflects On Deployments Following Float Ride

Posted Friday January 7, 2011 – 12:52pm

By Brenton Garen, Beverly Hills Courier

When Beverly Hills Detective Sergeant Mark Miner was called into the Police Chief’s office about a month ago, little did he expect to be asked to represent the City on its Rose Float entry.

Miner has served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Marine Corps on a combat tour to Somalia in 1992 as well as three deployments to Iraq in 2003, 2005/06 and 2009/10 which earned him the float riding honor.

He describes his first deployment as “eye opening” as it was his first time out of the United States.

“It was a security mission, but it was extremely dangerous,” Minersaid. “There were a number of incidents where gunfire was exchanged between my marines and the enemy so to speak. They were people who were very anti-American, anti-establishment with many of them were nothing more than criminals looking to take advantage of people we were trying to protect.”
Read More