Marines Feel Pity as B-52s Pound Iraqis

At night, all night, Marines can hear the relentless rumbling. The skyline flickers hot orange. Through the soles of their boots, the Marines feel the sand quiver. Miles from ground zero, they stand in their bunkers and look toward Kuwait at one of the most fearsome sights of modern warfare--the carpet bombing by B-52s.

Mixed with their wonder, the Marines find themselves curiously twinged with pity.

“They’re out there doing the same thing we are,” said Lance Cpl. Gerald Childress, a 20-year-old from Spotsylvania, Va., whose wife is expecting their first child.

“They’re doing what they think is right, either that or because they are scared for their families. They’ve got families at home, children on the way and all that good stuff, just like we have.”

In the last couple of days, U.S.-led bombing of front-line Iraqi positions has measurably increased, so much so that coalition ground troops say they are frankly startled by its intensity. A British defense consultant in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, has calculated that “the tonnage of high explosive bombs already released has exceeded the combined allied air offensive of World War II.”

It seems that everyone, from the troops holding down the forward bases here to callers on talk shows back home, has found need to contemplate the horrible rain of the B-52 strikes.

“I really feel sorry for them,” said Sgt. Percy Smith from Atlanta. “I feel like I’m glad that I’m on this side and not on their side. I know they’re catching hell. . . . When the B-52s came through, the whole ground was just shaking, just trembling.”

Because ground-war casualties have been slight and armored engagements few, U.S. front-line troops have not worked themselves into a fever of hatred. At least not yet. Enemy is a word used by the officers, not always by the grunts. Some of them envision, instead, a foe scared, hungry, dirty but unable to quit.

“Most seem to regard the opposition as simple soldiers, just doing their job, victims in their way of Saddam Hussein,” said Patrick Bishop, reporter for the London Daily Telegraph, in a dispatch from one Marine unit. “When they hear the distant drum roll of another raid, they spare a thought for the unfortunates underneath.”

One of the aims of the repeated “rolling thunder” strikes by B-52s is to damage enemy morale, interrupting sleep and any sense of security, instilling in the opposing troops a dread so deep that no amount of previous battle experience can harden them to it.

One of the strange effects of this pounding has been to stir empathy on this side of the lines.

Coalition troops have heard the stories of B-52 “arc light” missions in the Vietnam War, where survivors emerged from underground bunkers, disoriented, their ears and noses bleeding, helpless to fight. And now, within earshot of a new, pulverizing campaign, these mental pictures are brought into sharp relief for fighting men here.

British Group Capt. Niall Irving at coalition headquarters was asked to describe Iraqi life under the storm of bombs. “I can’t even begin to imagine what it might be like on a personal level. . . . I should think they are in a very poor state indeed.”

Marine Sgt. Smith figured the Iraqi front-line soldiers “must all be shaken. They’ve got to be wondering, ‘Am I next?’ ”

Similar expressions of empathy, if not downright pity, are heard in active Marine artillery batteries, which also are pounding Iraqi positions.

Up on the Marine front lines, a 155-millimeter howitzer battery began an attack with salvos of “Willy Peter,” white phosphorous incendiary rounds that send burning particles deep into skin and bone. It then followed with shells containing “bouncing Betty” anti-personnel grenades. These hit the ground, hop into the air and explode at stomach level. “Gut rippers,” they are called.

“Jesus God,” said Cpl. Lee Welverton, of Enterprise, Ala., as howitzers roared and the whump of impacting shells drifted back. “Jesus God, have pity on their souls. . . . You can’t help but sometimes remember those are human beings under that firestorm.”

Marine commanders express a more cold-eyed view of the bombing and shelling--knowing that suffering on that side of the line will reduce casualties on this side.

“The B-52 is a confidence builder,” said Marine Maj. Charles Clarke. “When you hear the bombs go off and feel the ground shake, you know that’s our guys and they are doing hurt to the enemy.”

Pooled dispatches cleared by military censors were used in the preparation of this story.