http://www.newsday.com/news/nationwo...507apr07.story
Cultural Gulf Separates Forces, Iraqis
By Letta Tayler
STAFF CORRESPONDENT
April 7, 2003
Central Iraq - The Iraqi artillery fire crashed into the edge of the field
before dawn, sending bivouacking Marines into a panic as they scrambled from
their sleeping bags into their armored assault vehicles.
"I say we just -- nuke this place and make it into a parking lot," seethed
Lance Cpl. Ryan Eman, 22, of Michigan.
U.S. forces invading this country make frequent reference to "nuking"
Iraqis, whom they call "ragheads" and "camel jockeys," often without
appearing to distinguish between civilians and enemy forces. The extent to
which such remarks are part of the daily vernacular underscores the cultural
and political challenges the United States faces as it becomes a major
military presence in a post-Saddam Iraq.
Asked later about his remark, Eman said he hadn't sincerely wished to drop a
nuclear bomb on the people he was sent to liberate from Iraqi strongman
Saddam Hussein. "I was frustrated and tired," he said. "I don't wish nukes
on anybody, because anything we throw like that at somebody could come back
at us."
Most Marines will say the same. "We're men of honor. We don't mean it, we
just want to get this over with and go home," said Lance Cpl. Jay Dreyer,
20, of Lake Crystal, Minn., who admits he's occasionally used the "N" word
in reference to Iraqis.
Moving north into populated areas during the past week, Marines within
Regimental Combat Team 5, many of them in a foreign mission for the first
time, have come into increasingly close contact with a variety of Iraqis.
Some are soldiers firing at them from tanks and militiamen who've stormed
them with rocket-propelled grenades; others are men, women and children
who've given them thumbs up and pressed gifts of coarse flat bread and
sticky dates into their hands.
For many troops, the friendly exchanges have been as much of an eye-opener
as the hostile ones.
While his unit rolled through a village near the Tigris River a few days
ago, Navy Corpsman Ryan Patrick Cox, a medic attached to the combat team's
2nd Battalion, treated a young boy who was sick - probably from drinking the
untreated water found in most parts of the country.
After Cox gave the child penicillin and purified water, the boy's father
asked his son, "Saddam or Bush?" "Bush!" the child said and kissed Cox on
the cheek.
"It made me feel so good, like we're doing the right thing," Cox said.
Other Marines, however, remain circumspect - partly because of their own
actions. "The way these Iraqis smile and wave at us as we drive by,
sometimes I think they support us more than the Americans back home do,"
said Lance Cpl. Ben Dible, 21, of Grand Junction, Colo. "But I wonder what
they think when we leave our fighting holes and our trash all over their
yards."
U.S. military officials are repeatedly urging troops to avoid any conduct
that would prompt Iraqis to turn against coalition forces. However, some
such incidents already have occurred, such as bombings that have struck
civilians, or the two episodes last week in which U.S. forces shot and
killed civilians at checkpoints.
No reports have surfaced of serious U.S. military looting or pillaging, and
troops have been diligent about burying trash. Nevertheless, plastic
Meal-Ready-to-Eat wrappers have become ubiquitous along roads and in fields
as American troops move north. To make room for their assault vehicles and
tanks or to build bridges, U.S. forces have bulldozed civilians' palm trees
and wheat fields. They have accidentally machine-gunned or fired mortar at
camels, seeing them in the far distance near tanks and believing them to be
Iraqi soldiers.
One group of Marines last week snatched a chicken from the yard of a
crumbling dirt farmhouse near where they bivouacked, hours after evacuating
the family inside on the chance they were enemy. The Marines wrung the
chicken's neck, plucked it, roasted it over an open fire and merrily ate it,
seemingly oblivious to the fact that it might have been one of the family's
few possessions.
Marines have at times become impatient or irate when Iraqi families ignore
their signals to avoid areas under military control. Yesterday, unit
commanders told troops that they'd been using the wrong hand signal for
halt: a palm held up perpendicular to the ground, which actually signifies
"welcome." The correct motion is to hold a hand parallel to the ground and
move it slightly up and down, they said.
In addition to being concerned that previously welcoming Iraqis might turn
against them, U.S. military officials say they are even more concerned about
the fact that many Iraqi soldiers and militia are blending in with the
civilian population to ambush U.S. forces.
Not only does that make Iraqi troops harder to spot, but it further blurs
the line for many Marines between innocent civilians and hostile Iraqi
troops.
"It's like you're fighting a faceless enemy," said Cpl. Jeb Moser, 21, of
Ruston, La. "They're all just ragheads to me, the same way they used to call
the enemy 'gooks' in Vietnam."
"Raghead, raghead, can't you see? This old war ain't -- to me," sang Lance
Cpl. Christopher Akins, 21, of Louisville, Ky., sweat running down his face
in rivulets as he dug a fighting trench one recent afternoon under a blazing
sun.
Asked whom he considered a raghead, Akins said: "Anybody who actively
opposes the United States of America's way ... If a little kid actively
opposes my way of life, I'd call him a raghead, too."
As for non-hostile Iraqis, "I think they can be brought up intellectually,
but it'll take some work because they're still in the Stone Age," Akins
said. He appeared startled to hear that Iraqis are descendants of ancient
Mesopotamia, a thriving civilization that created the world's first known
system of writing and body of law, and that until the havoc of Hussein's
regime, Iraq also enjoyed a substantial and highly educated middle class.
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.