Red Marines: From music to war and back

Oakland Tribune, Aug 21, 2007 by Sasha VasilyukSTAFF

IT IS 8 A.M., but the music is still pumping from the night before.

The twins -- Mark and Valentin Tarasov -- are nodding to the beat of the turntables while the early morning crowd dances in a shaded area in front of the stage.

The sun is already starting to scorch this remote beach in Lake County, three hours north of San Francisco, where hundreds of Russian immigrants from California gathered recently to celebrate life, love and art at the Red Marines Festival.

Now in its fourth year, the music festival first began as a private party to mark the safe return of Mark and Valentin from Iraq, where they spent several months serving in the U.S. Marine Corps. Their older brother Eugene, who lives with the 26-year-old twins in Vallemar, a small town south of Pacifica, organized that first gathering of 60 friends and relatives to show the boys that they were thought of and prayed for.

The Tarasovs have always been a very musical family -- all four siblings, including the boys' sister Julia, play musical instruments and dance in a local Russian folk group. So it was only appropriate that the gathering be centered around music.

Eugene and his rock band "Mobius" prepared a song for the twins and showed a film with pictures from Iraq that made everyone cry. At the end of the film, Mark and Valentin came out in full Marines dress uniforms and thanked everyone in the audience. The

inaugural festival was named "Red Marines -- the Return."

The war

Although the U.S. military attracts a big immigrant population, it is unusual for Russian immigrants to serve, since one of the main reasons many left Russia and other former Soviet Union states was to escape the obligatory draft system.

But the Tarasov family always had a connection to the military. The boys' grandfather served as a combat pilot in World War II, their grandmother worked as a dispatcher, and back in Latvia, where they lived until 1993, their father was an aero engineer.

It was no surprise then that when Eugene turned 18, he decided to enlist in the Marines to become a pilot.

"Everyone told me that we brought our children to America to save them from the draft, and that I was crazy to let him enlist," says his mother, Olga. "But my father was a combat pilot, and I think it's not a bad thing for a man to serve in the military. Of course, not when there is a war."

In 1998, Eugene finished boot camp, and the family went to his graduation. As an honor graduate, he was marching in front of the battalion.

"The boys were very impressed," says Olga. "They said they should enlist, too."

Soon, Mark and Valentin also became honor graduates and went back home. There was no talk of war then and their parents weren't worried. But on Sept. 11, 2001, the twins were called back for combat training.

For a year they learned to walk through minefields, survive tear and nerve gas attacks, run with rockets on their backs and face combat situations in small, unknown towns meant to represent Afghanistan. Although they were told they were training to go to Afghanistan, a year later, they were deployed to Iraq.

Eugene felt terribly guilty. It was because of him that his younger brothers went into the military, he thought. He couldn't even go instead of them -- by law, only two out of three brothers could be sent to war, and the twins were inseparable.

But Mark was optimistic, thinking, "If our grandfathers could survive five years of war, then why can't we?"

In Iraq, he and Valentin had to fight to survive. They crossed almost the entire country, watching towns being destroyed. "You run down the street and behind you a whole city is falling," says Mark.

They had many moments that made them proud. At one point, Valentin led a group of Marines through a minefield only to realize that one of his men was missing. So, he went back, found the scared Marine and led him through the field, crossing it safely for the third time that day.

At another point, Mark saved 70 troops by taking out a sniper who was pointing a grenade launcher at the Marines.

There were moments of absurdity, too. After two months of combat, the twins were so happy to find a decent bathroom that even a sniper's shooting couldn't deter them from answering nature's call.

But back home, Olga was worried sick. It had been a month since they crossed the Iraqi border and she hadn't heard any news from her boys.

Eugene was trying to find out information from his base, and Olga read everything she could about the operation on the Internet.

"When they began fighting, everything just stopped -- there wasn't a single letter or phone call until they reached Baghdad," says Olga.

"It was horrible. I always prayed for them. I normally don't go to church, but since then, I started falling asleep with my hand on the cross because I was so scared. But God had mercy on them."

Olga is happy that when her sons came back, they didn't seem to be suffering any injuries.