Marines receive welcome surprise in ''enemy'' town
By DENNIS O'BRIEN
The Virginian-Pilot, Tidewater
April 9, 2003
AMARAH, Iraq -- The Marines of Charlie Company did not sleep well Monday night.
The next day's mission was their most serious yet -- a probable tank battle with an Iraqi armored division in this city on the Tigris River. That night and the next morning, many Marines talked openly about the possibility of dying.
At dawn Tuesday, the company rolled out, a vanguard of a task force planning to attack the Iraqi tanks. But not much goes according to plan these days, and that's not always such a bad thing.
When the convoy approached this alleged enemy stronghold, the company was hit, all right -- by an army of jubilant children that mobbed the Marines like they were rock stars.
``Mis-tah! Mis-tah! Bush good!'' they shouted at the stunned Marines.
Charlie Company spent the next four hours wading through swarms of children asking for candy and men offering cigarettes -- hardly what the Marines had prepared themselves for in the hours leading up to the assignment.
``This place is a zoo,'' company commander Greg Grunwald said as he tried to make his way through the crowd after they realized he was the leader.
After a little research, Grunwald discovered what had happened.
``There is no enemy,'' Grunwald said. ``The general got shot yesterday and they quit.''
American airstrikes on the tank division outside town had killed or wounded its general and persuaded the soldiers to desert. About the same time, the townspeople apparently had thrown out the ruling Baath party officials.
That left the task force facing a welcoming party instead of a firefight. As the people of Amarah clamored around the light armored reconnaissance vehicles, laughter filled the air.
Among the throng was one boy who knew a bit of English, and how to use it. ``What's your name?'' he would say over and over. His payoff was having a disproportionate number of packs of Big Red and Dentyne gum thrown his way.
Many of the smaller children were nudged out of the way by bigger kids, but the patient ones were rewarded with M&Ms.
Some of the adults offered smokes to the Marines. Others asked for whiskey -- of which there is none, much to the Marines' chagrin.
For the first couple of hours, women and girls hid in the background. But once it was clear that Charlie Company meant no harm, little girls began jockeying for position among the boys and men. Their mothers and older sisters hung back near the doors to their houses, but they waved enthusiastically as the Marines moved through town.
The corpsmen of Charlie Company had come to Amarah expecting to patch up battle wounds, but instead they wound up treating Iraqi residents for conditions such as chicken pox and asthma.
In all, it was a touching scene for many of these tough-guy Marines.
``I was talking to all the little dudes, just teasing them and stuff and laughing,'' said Lance Cpl. Brian Norman, 19, of Troy, Mont. ``There was this cute little girl back there -- she couldn't have been more than 6 or 7. I just waved to her and she got pushed to the front of the crowd, and the next thing you know she's all talking to me in Arabic. I was surprised they let me talk to her.''
For days, some in Charlie Company had been lamenting the lack of combat action. But after Tuesday's surprise ``engagement,'' most of the Marines seemed relieved.
``It was like the kind of liberation scene they show in war movies,'' said Lance Cpl. David Ploughe, 21, of Cloverdale, Ind. ``Stuff like this makes me glad we're here.''
Staff writer Dennis O'Brien is with Task Force Tarawa in Iraq.
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