RIOT AFTERMATH : Under the Gun : Thousands of Troops Are Caught in the Cross Fire Between Street Violence and Maintaining the Peace

Thousands of National Guard and U.S. military troops now stationed in Los Angeles arrived as strangers charged with quelling the worst rioting in the city’s history.

But after a string of long days and nights on the job, the troops find themselves swept up in the everyday life and violence of the communities they guard.

They’ve been fed food and candy, and even had hymns sung to them. But they’ve also been thrust into the darker side of Los Angeles--from ducking drive-bys to breaking up arguments between angry motorists.

In one small encounter after the next, residents have expressed their gratitude to the military and offered gestures of thanks. South Los Angeles residents pass out coffee and cookies to the troops. The family that lives next door to the Marine headquarters in Compton delivers fried chicken to them every day. Throughout Los Angeles, people stand and applaud as the armored personnel carriers rumble by.

And at the ABC Market in South Los Angeles, a choir on Sunday serenaded troops with its rendition of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Yet, as the troops linger inside Los Angeles, they continue to run up against the implacable street violence that envelops the neighborhoods where they are posted.

Marines in Compton were swept up in a domestic dispute Sunday and returned fire from the man involved. Another group of Marines saw a man shoot at a security guard early Tuesday, and when they yelled, he fired on them and fled. They caught up with him hiding in a bush and held him until police arrived.

Guard troops in South Los Angeles backed up police as they cornered a suspected car thief, and Army soldiers in Watts peered out over the rooftops of a shopping center Tuesday as distant gunshots echoed through the muggy afternoon and evening.

“This is about the last place I thought I’d ever be,” conceded Army Lt. Curtis Grass as he watched store owners in Watts dragging rotting food from the supermarket and replacing scores of broken windows. “It’s a long way from Ft. Ord.”

Some residents grumble about having 11,000 troops in and around their neighborhoods, complaining that their communities seem more like Lebanon than Long Beach. But after days of raging anger and fear, most said they felt safe again--safer, in fact, than they did before the riots.

After all, many residents said, shooting and other violent crimes were part of daily life in Watts and South Los Angeles long before last week’s rioting broke out. Since the military arrived, many residents have gotten a measure of relief--not only from the rioting, but from those daily crimes as well. Even gang members, the residents say, think twice about shooting off a gun in front of 500 heavily armed soldiers from the 7th Infantry Division.

“All of the neighborhood is safe now. We feel like it’s a safe place to live,” said Orlando Montufar, who was a cook at a Carl’s Jr. in South Los Angeles until his workplace was ransacked last week. “But after they leave, I got to stay inside. . . . Every six months, they should come back and clean the place out.”

Herman Noel, a soft-spoken 81-year-old in a gray fedora, agreed.

“I like the Army, I like them a lot,” said Noel, who has spent most of his life in Watts. “There’s so much crime here. If the Army can stop it for a while, I say: ‘Let ‘em stop it.’ ” The troops have even become a stopping post on the campaign trail: Presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan paid National Guard units a visit in South Los Angeles on Tuesday, sweeping in under the escort of Secret Service agents. Some of the troops, bivouacked under camouflage netting in the parking lot of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, gathered to hear Buchanan. Most skipped Buchanan’s appearance, preferring to catch some sleep.

And yet, even as residents and politicians paid homage to the soldiers, there were signs that the troops could wear out their welcome.

In Hollywood, for instance, Sheldon Wolfe, a 16-year-old homeless boy with a neon green Mohawk, said the troops “make me sick.”

As two Guard members patrolled Hollywood Boulevard, Wolfe shook his head in disgust and said he was tired of “living in a police state.”

Flashes of that anger have cropped up, and troops said that while most of the residents have been welcoming, there are those who see the soldiers as an occupying force and want only for them to leave. Some carloads of people honked and made obscene gestures Tuesday at the Army troops in Watts. The soldiers stood impassively.

Across Los Angeles, there were other scattered signs of discontent. On Sunset Boulevard, for instance, a resident hung a banner out the window demanding: “U.S. Out of Echo Park!”

In fact, the troops themselves say they have no desire to be here any longer than they have to. Many members of the Guard have jobs to return to, and rare is the Army soldier or Marine who joined up to patrol a Los Angeles city street.

The job is far different than standing guard in the deserts of Kuwait, soldiers said. This task is complicated by needing to show strength but knowing that the use of it against U.S. citizens could trigger a devastating backlash.

So the troops try to keep their distance. Tuesday, Army soldiers in Watts nervously spied on a young man in a Los Angeles Raiders jacket as he passed back and forth outside a shopping center perimeter. The man appeared to be counting the soldiers, and the troops watched his every move from the rooftops and reported to an officer in the parking lot below.

“We’re just keeping an eye on him,” the officer said. “We don’t want any mistakes.”

For a time, some officials worried that a fatal shooting by a National Guard contingent Sunday night could turn communities against the troops. Until then, no soldier or Marine had shot a person during the riots.

After that shooting, Guard units patrolling the city were drilled on the rules of engagement, which state that Guard members may shoot to kill, but only if their lives or the lives of others are threatened. Two investigations into the Sunday night shooting--one by LAPD and another by the military--are nearly completed, but officials indicated that they believed the action was justified.

Eager not to inflame the situation, the Guard took down its barricade at Pico Boulevard, near Vermont Avenue, where the shooting occurred.

There have been no flare-ups of violence against the troops since that shooting, however, and by late Tuesday, some officials breathed a sigh of relief.

As the violence subsided citywide, soldiers began to speculate that they may be pulled out by the weekend or early next week. That will be a happy moment for some city residents and soldiers, too.

But in the love-hate relationship that has sprung up between the military and the ravaged neighborhoods where they stand guard, the scales clearly tip in favor of the troops. Many residents--even some who are uncomfortable with the sight of camoflauge and M-16s at their neighborhood strip mall--say they’ll be sorry to see them leave.

“It’s kind of scary,” said Maria Poole, a Long Beach resident who was out walking Tuesday afternoon with her 2-year-old son, Derrick. “I never thought I’d see anything like this on our streets. It’s strange, weird. But I’m glad they’re here.”

Dispatched to Duty

Here is a look at some of the law enforcement personnel and troops who have been deployed or await deployment as of 5 p.m. Tuesday: LAPD: 5,000 (2,200-2,500 deployed at any one time) CHP: 280 (45 to 90 officers deployed at any one time) Sheriff’s Dept.: 1,000 National Guard: 9,844 (7,384 deployed on street / 2,460 support staff) Federal troops: 3,322 Army: Ft. Ord: 1,769 Marines: Camp Pendleton: 1,544 total (571 on street) Federal agents: 9 Compiled by Times researcher Michael Meyers