Squadron of Marines Deployed to Bosnia

Lance Cpl. Sloane Briles stood near a gate here Thursday, not far from the wind-swept runway where a chartered jet was waiting to fly him to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Unlike the scores of other Marines who were cleaning their M-16A2s or their 9-millimeter Berettas, Briles was hugging his grandmother and talking wistfully of Christmas already.

“But I’m really excited. I’ve been training for this a long time,” said the 20-year-old native of Irvine, who was one of 180 Marines flown Thursday from the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station to Frankfurt, Germany.

War-scarred Bosnia was his final destination, after stops at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York as well as Frankfurt and somewhere in Hungary, all unfamiliar ports to a baby-faced Marine from Orange County.

Briles is a member of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, which is being deployed in Eastern Europe in support of Task Force Eagle, the U.S.-led contingent assigned to NATO’s Operation Joint Endeavor.

The task of most of these Marines is to keep the peace, under the Dayton, Ohio, agreement. The deployment is scheduled to last at least six months, meaning most won’t be home for Christmas.

And much of their mission is dangerous. Three of the 20,000 U.S. military personnel deployed in Bosnia have been killed in the line of duty, and a recent plane crash in the region killed 33 U.S. government and business leaders, including Commerce Secretary Ron Brown.

In some of the faces Thursday, fear--or at least a creeping anxiety--was clearly evident.

“My husband and my two children don’t like it at all,” said Staff Sgt. Loretta German, 41, a native of Atlanta, Ga. “They’re scared because they’ve heard about those land mines over there. But we’re going to Tuzla, which I’m hoping won’t be too bad.”

German’s father and 20-year-old daughter have been phoning her frequently, wondering why she has to go to Bosnia after having served the Corps for 18 years. She left the question unanswered but looks forward to the day sometime next year, she said, when she will be “a housewife” and an ex-Marine.

“I’ve never missed a Christmas at home,” she said with a sigh, “but I’ll probably miss this one, and I’m not too happy about it. I’m not gonna like it; it’s my favorite holiday. I told my sister to just leave my presents on the floor back home.”

German and her departing colleagues are part of the 1st Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron, the first full aviation squadron to be deployed in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Like 139 of the Marines leaving Thursday, German is based at Twentynine Palms.

The remaining 40 are based at El Toro, Camp Pendleton and Yuma, Ariz.

The unit will survey territory from the air by sending up remote-controlled aircraft carrying cameras. They will use seven of those aircraft, one ground control station and four receiving stations.

Cpl. Heather Bartolotta, 23, of Long Island, N.Y., was looking forward to the trip for the chance to fly those remote-controlled planes, her specialty since joining the Corps five years ago.

“We send back videos that provide real-time intelligence and reconnaissance capability to the field commander,” Bartolotta said.

The technology came into being after U.S. military operations in Grenada, Lebanon and Libya in the 1980s, Marine officials said, and gives local commanders a much richer information source than ever before.

In other words, it isn’t the stuff of World War II.

“Well, it certainly would have helped our folks back then,” Bartolotta said with a smile. “Getting to use it is something I enjoy--a lot.”

Sgt. David Orchard, 29, of Winslow, Ariz., also was looking forward to the trip, despite realizing how far removed Bosnia would be, geographically and otherwise, from his cherished surfing sites on the beaches of Southern California, or the rodeos he grew up loving in Arizona and still follows with a passion.

As “an active single guy,” he said he wasn’t expecting any romantic experiences like those chronicled in a song about his hometown, “Take It Easy,” by Jackson Browne and Glenn Frey.

“Take it easy isn’t exactly what we’re expecting to do,” laughed Orchard, a military intelligence officer.

As the scores of men and women in their camouflaged fatigues clustered near the loading gate, some pacing nervously, others nibbling on last-second snacks, Lance Cpl. Briles waited with his grandmother, 74-year-old Lila Carter-White of Irvine.

Her grandson wasn’t just headed to Bosnia but was making his first deployment, which some of his fellow Marines equated to playing one’s first game in the Super Bowl.

“Yeah, it’s a pretty darned good one!” Briles said with a toothy grin. “It’s the big daddy. I’m goin’ right into the fire.”

His grandmother put her arm around him, winced slightly and said: “I’m not crazy about this potential war-zone stuff. But it’s part of his job. My husband was a Marine, though, and fought in three wars. I’m proud of my grandson.”

Her only regret? “I wish President Clinton would suit up and go over there with them,” she said. “I think he ought to. It only seems right.”