Military

DATE=3/17/03

TYPE=English Feature

NUMBER=7-37280

TITLE=Jarhead: A Marine Sniper's Story (Part 1 of 2)

BYLINE=Adam Phillips

TELEPHONE=212-264-2148

DATELINE=New York

EDITOR=Rob Sivak

CONTENT=

(ATTN: AMERICANA)

TEXT: Amid all the policy debate and the rhetoric surrounding a possible war in Iraq, it's likely that few civilians really know what it feels like to train for and fight in a war. A critically acclaimed new book, "Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles," shines a timely light on the grim realities of war.

In this finely-detailed memoir, author Anthony Swofford [swAH ford] recounts the sometimes-anguished personal challenges he faced as an infantry sniper and scout with the U-S Marines or "Jarheads," as they call themselves - in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

In a conversation with VOA's Adam Phillips, Mr. Swofford recalls his platoon's arrival in Kuwait as part of the initial American buildup in the tiny oil-rich desert kingdom. It was August first, 1990, just weeks after Iraq's invasion.

AS: We quickly went out to the middle of the desert, where there really wasn't much but other Marines and a few Bedouins and some camels. And we trained until the war began. The bombing started on January nineteenth 1991, and the short war started the fourth of February.

AP: What kind of training did you do?

AS: We trained with our rifles. I was in a scout-sniper platoon so we trained at a rifle range. And a great deal of our training had to do with nuclear, chemical and biological defense. With the MOPP [protective] suits and gas masks. Because there was intelligence that said we were going to be attacked with nerve gas. Sarin gas was the biggest concern. Someone calling 'Gas! Mock gas alert!' to make sure you can get your mask on in eight seconds. If you are still fumbling, someone is yelling, 'You're dead! You're dead!' But in general, the gas mask was always on my hip. It rubbed a raw spot on my leg from walking around with it all the time.

AP: What was the actual unit you were living in? Was your basic social unit a few people or a whole battalion?

AS: I really only socialized with the men in my platoon, which was twenty-three or twenty-four men. I spent twenty-four hours a day with them for six months and I was never alone, except when running off to the desert, to take a piss.

So I knew these men and I'll never forget them and that camaraderie and that closeness. When someone sees it in a film, it can look a little cheesy and a little clichéd, but that stuff really happens. You know 'hey if you die, I'll go talk to your mother.' Or 'I'll visit your girlfriend and your wife,' 'I'll take care of your kids.' Those are moments that really happen when men are about to go fight and maybe die.

AP: Tell me about the terrain. The sand and the desert was a very important 'character' in all of this.

AS: At first, I really hated the desert, because the sand was everywhere. In my eyes, in my nose, in my ears, in every crevice in my body and in your socks and it'd gather between your toes and in your crotch. There was no way you could ever get away from the sand.

Eventually for me and for my platoon mates -- because Marines end up adapting. -- it was 'Oh. This is home now. This is the desert. We sleep here, we eat, we shit, [and] we train in the desert. This is it. This is home.' Maybe I pulled back a bit and I saw the desert is a really beautiful place and an interesting landscape in terms of the way the sunsets and the sunrises hit and the sky at night. The moon is amazing in the desert. The stars are absolutely brilliant.

But it [my feeling] was complex. Because it was also a place where I knew I was going to be fighting and maybe dying. I didn't necessarily want to be dying lying in the sand. Sand would get into the wound -- if I imagined a bullet wound to my arm or something.

AP: How does the sand look to a sniper?

AS: It's troubling because there is not a lot of space to hide, which is what the sniper needs to do. It takes a lot of work to obscure your position.

AP: Take me through the steps of what a sniper is and what a sniper does.

AS: The sniper's job in the Marine Corps is to be the eyes and ears of the battalion commander essentially, and to be forward-deployed and to gather intelligence. Also, to be prepared to call artillery or bombs in, as well to shoot at targets either assigned or 'of opportunity.' People. Humans.

AP: You want to kill, don't you? If you're a sniper, that's sort of what you're there for.

AS: Yeah. You are trained to shoot, you can hit someone in the head from a thousand meters and it's exciting and thrilling. And the possibility of that drives your training and then drives your energy, your stamina during war.

AP: I remember the image of the 'pink mist.'

AS: Yeah. 'Pink mist' is the phrase used to refer to what you can turn someone's head into at a thousand yards.

AP: Did you actually have anyone in your cross hairs?

AS: I had some heads in my cross hairs. We were in sniper position, and had 'visual' on various men. But we weren't given the okay to shoot by the captain who was controlling us.

AP: Did that hurt?

AS: It was very frustrating. We were there. The war had been going on for a couple of days. We'd been shot at a few times with artillery and rockets and we would see these men surrendering and yeah, I wanted to, in a kind of way, be tested. And there are moments when I would go back and give up even my own life for that opportunity. Maybe there is some shame attached to it. Did I really fight? Did I really go to war? What did it mean if I haven't killed?

AP: That really is the basic unit of war, isn't it? The idea that you see somebody and you actually wish them and cause them to be dead.

AS: On both sides. Right. It's very weird. And I also say in 'Jarhead' that the men who fight wars, if they were deciding on fighting or not, there wouldn't be that much war. If they could just look into each other's eyes at say five feet, they would put their rifles down. Being able to shake that person's hand makes you both human. Because you're not (human) when you're fighting and your sole intention is to kill people.

AP: Yeah, but all kinds of ambiguity comes into the picture with that. Isn't it better to dehumanize them in war?

AS: Well it is. Absolutely. The enemy has to be dehumanized and they have to dehumanize you. That makes the enemy a thing worthy of killing. If the enemy is no longer human, your attachment to that soldier as a person is nullified and. he is just the enemy. He is 'evil' for various reasons, and he deserves your wrath and the wrath of your country.

AP: We're preparing for war now. What would you like Americans to really know and what would you like international listeners to know about what the experience is like for the people who are actually fighting?

AS: Well, first I'd say that all that bluster doesn't matter to the guy on the ground. The pro-war and the antiwar: he doesn't care. What's going in (Washington,)D-C, what's going on at the U-N, what is going on in Paris, London, Baghdad, it means nothing to him. The only thing that matters to him is every day, his life in the sand.

AP: Things become preternaturally intense and lot of the frippery (trivial concerns) just sort of melts away when you're actually in a war.

AS: Yeah. The frippery means nothing. What matters to that Marine is simply being told 'you're going to fight' or 'you are not going to fight.' He wants to know that and he wants to know it as soon as possible so he can be prepared for that.

AP: So then, why do people fight? If abstract notions of honor and national glory aren't really at the end of the day what drives the Marine, why do they bother?

AS: I think the thing that makes men fight, and the thing that allows the war to be won is really a camraderie starting at the small unit level. We didn't necessarily believe in the mission, but we knew we had a mission. and we were going forth and we didn't really have any options and the only thing we could count on was each other.

HOST: Ex-U-S Marine sniper Anthony Swofford. He is the author of a newbook "Jarhead: a Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles." He spoke with VOA's Adam Phillips in New York.

Ap/rms