Larger text
Smaller text
Print
E-mail
Battle-minded battalion pauses for patrol duty
Carl Prine can be reached via e-mail or at 412-320-7826.
Their mission: Find mines under irrigation canal culverts, along roads and in the high grasses.
They spent much of the broiling afternoon along Iraq's main north-south highway waving their mine detectors over sand. Acres and acres of sand.
They found a little rebar under the concrete and a few spoons buried in the dirt.
But not one mine.
Military police escorts patrolling the highway gazed at the sappers and grinned. The MPs disparagingly referred to their fellow Marines as "mine sweepers."
It all didn't sit well with the sappers, especially after hearing that Bravo Company of the 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion suffered heavy casualties Friday, when many Marines were caught in an ambush during brutal Nasiriyah street fighting.
The sappers also were reeling from the loss of a non-commissioned officer killed while leading a charge at a nearby Iraqi airport.
Because the lightning pace of the first days of the war has become a game of inches, the combat engineers no longer are poised to thrust into the heart of the Iraqi Republican Guard. Instead, the battalion is patrolling roads, guarding lonely outposts and sweeping for mines along a 100-mile stretch of asphalt and gravel.
"There are no words to describe it," said Nick Friszell, 22, of Long Island, N.Y. "I mean, don't get me wrong. I'll do whatever they tell us to do. But I don't know what I was supposed to be doing today. I'm not an MP. I'm a combat engineer.
"It's hard to think that we're losing some good friends at other areas, and now we're just looking for mines that aren't there. We should be fighting, too."
In Marine parlance, it's called an "op pause" -- a halt to battle operations until all the combat formations can shift positions. With guerillas attacking Marine supply lines and suicide bombers wreaking havoc at checkpoints, the sappers find themselves working more like cops than killers.
It's not something they're good at.
"Maybe we could do better at it if we had more communication from higher up," said Lance Cpl. Jonathan Turner, 26, of Baytown, Texas. "People don't seem to know what combat engineers do. We're grunts who blow things up."
Seeing this lull looming three days ago, the battalion's senior enlisted man, Sgt. Maj. Michael Johnston, of Kingsport, Tenn., plopped down his soap box in the Iraqi sand. His message: Those who wish to see more combat "should be very, very careful about what you wish for. You might get it."
"I thought it was important to say what was on my mind," Johnston said. "Today, so many of these kids think war will be like a video game or an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. They think war is sexy.
"But it isn't. Parents out there should know these young Marines get good supervision. They have good leaders with the welfare of their men uppermost in their minds.
"These men are frustrated. There's an 'op pause' and their buddies are getting killed. But I told them the big battle in Baghdad is coming. We will fight there. That's what we're getting ready for.
"It's coming."
