Anniversary Prompts Gulf War Memories

It’s been five years since Operation Desert Storm, in which more than 7,000 Marines from Orange County air bases and thousands of infantry troops from Camp Pendleton joined other forces overseas to force Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.

Today, on the anniversary of the thunderous air war that launched the allied engagement, Marines and family members who lived through the painful months of uncertainty turn their thoughts once again to the war and its aftermath.

More than 500,000 U.S. troops and thousands from other Allied countries liberated Kuwait after less than six weeks of fighting--including a decisive 100-hour ground war.

For some, the conflict that killed 147 Americans, including two from Orange County, pulled the nation together and bestowed a pride in country that remains to this day. For one Marine recruiter who served in the Persian Gulf, war snapshots and the scars from a shrapnel injury have served as fodder to lure eager young faces into the nation’s military.

But for others, the war has left nothing but a film of bitterness that wears off slowly, day by day.

“Honestly, I’d like to know what any expert can tell me about what that war was for,” said Carol Bentzlin, who lost her husband in a so-called “friendly fire” incident in Khafji. “It did no earthly good, really.”

Bentzlin’s husband, 23-year-old Camp Pendleton Marine Cpl. Stephen E. Bentzlin, perished with six other Marines in the first land battle of Desert Storm, when their lightly armored vehicle was hit by a missile fired from a U.S. Air Force A-10.

For Bentzlin, the war remains an enigma that she would love to see brought into focus. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein remains firmly entrenched in power, and she said a visit to Kuwait months after the war showed her only destruction--wrought in part by American forces--and the ongoing pain of a people.

Although her children have been talking about the war more in recent days, for Bentzlin the anniversary falls on Jan. 29, the day her husband of one year died.

“This isn’t a five-year anniversary for me. It’s something I’ll remember every day,” said Bentzlin, who alleges that a faulty missile is responsible for the death and that the government has been less than forthcoming with information.

U.S. government officials have vehemently denied those allegations.

“Someday I’d really like people to find out how my husband died.”

For others, however, the anniversary brings bittersweet memories of fear, boredom, the glow of letters from girls back home, and most of all--pride.

Sgt. Alex Brooks of Costa Mesa, who works in the Marine Corps Huntington Beach recruiting office, has a Purple Heart to show for his experience and a dull sporadic pain in his lower back--reminder of a shrapnel wound to the buttocks he suffered just eight hours after the ground war began.

The injury earned him the nickname “Forrest Gump,” for the movie character who also gets shot in the rear end. But Brooks does not joke about the time he served fighting for his country.

“That is the biggest thing I’ve ever been through in my life and it always will be,” said Brooks, 27. “It’s the biggest thing I ever did, and I think it will be the biggest thing I will ever do.”

Brooks was a driver for a fighter pilot. They were injured together during a firefight as they escorted supplies to the Kuwaiti airport.

Brooks arrived in Saudi Arabia in October 1990--the operation was called Desert Shield then--two months after Saddam Hussein sent his troops into Kuwait, and returned to California in April 1991. Now he draws on his experiences to show recruits both the harsh reality and the pride of being a Marine.

“I think it made more people more eager to serve and more proud to serve,” he said of the war. “I show my pictures from the war to the kids a lot, and show them the positive things, how it’s helped me out. It made me proud.”

Sgt. Francisco C. Carrillo’s unit arrived in the Persian Gulf with little more than a day’s notice, immediately before the air war began. The 25-year-old Irvine man, who has since married and has a 3-year-old girl, was offloading ships filled with military gear and still remembers the vivid explosions of Scud missile attacks when the air war began.

“I still feel the same,” Carrillo said. “At the time, it really wasn’t a matter for me if I wanted to go or didn’t want to go. But when Iraq went into Kuwait like that, it was a clear sign of aggression. . . . I was proud to go and I would go again.”

While Carrillo said vital oil interests in the region were important to his personal support for the operation, humanitarian concerns also played a role.

But the fact that Hussein remains in power troubles Carrillo.

“I think the United States and the coalition here should have done something to take Saddam out of power,” he said. “I knew that the mission was to liberate Kuwait and that’s what was done. I thought the mission was accomplished. But now that I have had time to think about it, we still have a nut over there--an unstable leader of a country in charge of a military.”