All that glittered was not gold, wounded Marines say

[thedrifter]

April 16, 2003

All that glittered was not gold, wounded Marines say

By Panos Kakaviatos
Associated Press


LANDSTUHL, Germany ? All was not as it appeared in Iraq, Marines recovering from combat injuries said Wednesday, describing snipers and suicide bombers in cheering crowds ? and the surprising discovery that some of the gold in Saddam Hussein?s palace was actually plastic.
For each of the wounded, there was a moment when the price of the Iraq war crystalized.

?It wasn?t until the night that we crossed the line of departure that I knew I was going to war,? said Marine Pfc. Michael Wayne Meyer, 18, of Austin, Texas. ?It?s no World War II. It?s no Vietnam. But still people have died for their country, and people have been injured.?

Meyer, of the 1st Marine Division based at Camp Pendleton in San Diego, Calif., is one of 223 wounded troops to be treated at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in southwestern Germany, the U.S. military?s largest hospital abroad.

Reserve platoons like his usually showed up after the Iraqis had given up, so they rarely saw fire ? until a sniper started shooting as they unloaded equipment one day.

Meyer was shot eight times ? but two bullets were stopped by the breastplate in his flak jacket. Meyer never made it to Baghdad, but he says he has no regrets.

?Coming home alive,? was his main goal, he said.

Marine Capt. Shawn Basco of Cleveland was wounded on the lawn of one of Saddam?s palaces in Baghdad on April 10, his 33rd birthday.

Marines took the palace within 20 minutes, he said, but it took seven hours more before they secured the surrounding area. A forward air controller, Basco had taken the lawn next to Saddam?s pool as a landing pad for CH-46 helicopters.

He was wounded by shrapnel from a volley of rocket-propelled grenades after the second helicopter landed.

The more seriously wounded were evacuated first, and Basco had three hours to get a good look at the palace. He envisioned gold fixtures and state-of-the art technology.

Instead, Saddam?s bathroom had gold plastic fixtures. The telephone had a rotary dial. And the television in Saddam?s bedroom was a black-and-white RCA, with wood-laminated stickers decorating the VCR.

?He had pink sheets, cheap pink sheets,? Basco said.

Basco and other wounded troops recalled being welcomed by Iraqis into Baghdad ? but that did little to dispel their uneasiness. Worries remained that Iraqi soldiers who had discarded their uniforms were hiding among civilians. But ordinary Iraqis at times provided vital warnings to U.S. forces.

?They were quick to show us their enemy positions that were posed to hit us,? Basco said.

Even in the tense days when U.S. forces were gaining control of Baghdad, Marine Cpl. David McCallen recalled civilians helped warn Marine guards at a checkpoint that a suicide bomber was approaching.

McCallen, 23, of Columbus, Ohio, suffered shrapnel wounds in the April 10 attack at a U.S. checkpoint in Baghdad. He was one of four Marines wounded in the attack, but he says it could have been worse.

?The civilians noticed one man running up on us... strapped with explosives. He got within just a few feet of us and detonated himself,? McCallen said. ?The civilians, they helped us out. They saved a number of people from getting hurt.?

McCallen said the crowds of civilians welcoming U.S. troops also created an uneasy environment ? providing a distraction and cover for Iraqi fighters.

?Our fight is not with the Iraqi people. Our fight is with Saddam?s regime,? he said.






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Copyright 2003 The Associated Press.


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