NYT: Leathernecks Guard Ramadi, Itching for Fight with Invisible Foe [View All]

[DeepModem Mom]

TROOPS

Leathernecks Guard the Streets of Ramadi, Itching for a Fight With an Invisible Foe


Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
Members of the Second Battalion, Fifth Marines attending a ceremony at which three marines were awarded purple hearts. The battalion runs what some call the "suicide train," a convoy that delivers food to bases.

By EDWARD WONG
Published: October 24, 2004


RAMADI, Iraq, Oct. 21 - The marines here are still searching for their kind of war.

It is not for lack of an enemy. In the heart of this provincial capital, where the marines routinely run convoys and patrols down a 4½-mile stretch of road, hidden bombs explode daily, leaving American bodies riddled with shrapnel, if not ripped apart.

Guerrillas pop out and take shots with AK-47's and rocket-propelled grenades. The marines are even exposed at bases at each end of the downtown area - mortars hit regularly, and snipers' bullets occasionally zing through the air.

But when the marines fire back or give chase, they find that the insurgents have slipped into the palm groves and narrow alleys and mosques, melting in with the civilians and floating away like so many dust motes....

***

To listen to these marines, fighting in a murky counterinsurgency whose final outcome is far from certain, is to hear the voices of young men frustrated by an adaptable and often unseen foe. Many said they were willing, even eager, to do battle, and their anxieties have not resulted in outright rebellion, as did those of an Army Reserve platoon that refused on Oct. 13 to transport fuel through insurgent-controlled territory on what it called a "suicide mission."

But the members of the Second Battalion, Fifth Marines are no longer taking the offensive against a conventional army, as they did during their first tour in the spring of 2003. Now they are fighting a guerrilla war, which has proved a much greater challenge than many of them once thought - a sentiment echoed by troops across Iraq....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/international/middleeast/24troops.html