Marines on a Mission to Win Friends in Iraq

For Marines here Saturday, it was the way it was supposed to be.

Accompanied by Navy corpsmen and a chaplain, the Marines spent much of the day handing out toys, candy, crackers, backpacks and soccer balls to eager children in this farming village adjacent to Fallouja.

For adults, the Americans had bags of planting seed, farm tools and sluice gates to help with irrigation.

This was to be the Marines’ strategy for winning friends in the restive Sunni Triangle region. But when four American civilian contractors were killed and their bodies mutilated, the newly arrived Marines were ordered to place a cordon around Fallouja, where they battled heavily armed insurgents for nearly a month.

Now, as a result of an agreement cobbled together with help from former Iraqi generals and Iraqi politicians, the shooting appears to be over, at least temporarily.

No one knows whether the truce will hold, or whether the Fallouja Brigade will prove capable, or willing, to bring the insurgency movement to heel. But this much is known: For five days, not a shot has been fired at the Marines.

So Marines on Saturday fanned out in the surrounding countryside, distributing goodies to kids and farming implements to adults. They also asked what battle damage the village had suffered; a Marine lawyer will do follow up and decide on compensation.

When the Marines in mid-March assumed responsibility for much of Al Anbar province from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, they hoped to emphasize the first part of the 1st Marine Division’s motto, “No better friend.” Instead they found themselves emphasizing the second part, “No worse enemy.”

Now they’re attempting a new beginning.

“We’re trying to do as much good as we can,” said Navy corpsman Marcos Figueroa, 28, of Culver City. “The children are less hostile than the adults. They’re the key to the adults. If you’re good to someone’s kids, it makes them feel better about you.”

As the Marine convoy rolled into the village center, barefoot children came running in anticipation. “Mistah, mistah, mistah,” they pleaded.

Soon men and young girls, often with babies in arms, also came near the Humvees. Women peeked out from behind curtains in their one-story cinderblock homes; they are rarely seen in public here, and almost never heard.

Sheik Ahmed Huraysh Mohammed Jumaill, the elder of a local tribe, arrived to inquire about compensation for battle damage. He was told that a lawyer would arrive Monday for discussions. He nodded but then stomped off.

At one group of homes, the Americans were offered small glasses of chilled goat milk. Thin and sour, the milk was seen as a peace offering, and the Americans took large gulps.

“We just want them to know we’re here to be their friend,” said Cpl. Reynold Rosado, 20, from the Cleveland area. “It’s our primary mission now. In the end, it’s for their benefit.”

Corpsmen looked at three ailing adults: a middle-aged man with high blood pressure, an elderly woman suffering hip problems and a man who said he was still having trouble with injuries received while in an Iranian prison during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. He said he was 52; he looked much older.

The convoy was restricted to farming areas just north of Fallouja. Someday, Marines hope to go into the city of 300,000 on a similar goodwill mission.

“Maybe the people in the city will see this and say: Look, we could have had that but we decided to fight,” said Sgt. David McLaughlin, 27, of Dickson, Tenn. “Maybe they’ll realize they could have this too.”

The Americans were surprised at the amount of happiness a small gift could bring.

Children receiving ballpoint pens smiled and ran off excitedly. Other children hugged small toiletry kits. A Navy chaplain’s assistant showed pictures of his family as curious children gathered.

One child, as a Marine put a pair of sunglasses on the boy’s head, smiled and said, “Gorgeous.”

The village is not unfamiliar to the Marines. During recent fighting, insurgents in a nearby factory sprayed the Americans with bullets. It is possible that some of the villagers sided with the insurgents.

At least two motorcycles were seen of the type that insurgents were known to favor as they positioned themselves at night for attacks on Marine positions.

“You have to put that aside,” said Staff Sgt. Frank Ortega, 37, of Oceanside. “You know that some of these people were probably shooting at us last week. But this week, if they don’t shoot at us, we can make good things happen for them.

“You have to be a professional and drive on.”