After Gulf Duty, Marine Gets His Green Christmas

The Bell family of Irvine will get a Christmas tree later than usual this year. But the full joy of the holiday arrived by helicopter four days early.

“I’m thrilled,” Mary Bell said. “It’s going to be a great Christmas--I already got my present.”

The present was the return of her husband, Staff Sgt. Mark Bell, a Marine who came home after a six-month deployment in the Persian Gulf region. He was among 200 Marines based at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station who arrived in 16 helicopters Monday morning from a ship off the coast near Camp Pendleton.

“I’m real happy,” said Mark Bell, 31, a mechanic with Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 163. “It’s better being here than anywhere else.”

Since June 22, he’s mostly been aboard the Essex, a Marine assault ship, cruising in the western Pacific, Indian Ocean and, for the last four months, the Persian Gulf.

“Pretty much we were just floating around waiting for something to happen,” Bell said.

In fact, several things almost did happen. The squadron completed two major military exercises with gulf ally nations and one in Kuwait on its own.

Some of its members flew patrol missions over the Kuwait-Iraq border, maintaining continuous surveillance to ensure compliance with U.N. resolutions. And on several occasions as tensions mounted, the Orange County-based Marines were ordered into the region in readiness for possible action.

When the U.S. bombing of Iraq began last week, the squadron was already near Hawaii wending its way home. “We didn’t even know about it until a few hours later,” Bell recalled.

Still, he said, there were concerns that the long-anticipated homecoming might be delayed. “We thought we were pretty much home free,” Bell said, “but you never can tell with the military. They could tell us tomorrow to load up and go back.”

After the reunion with his wife and two children, Bell took the family out for an early dinner at a local restaurant, then back home for some time to catch up.

“We’d go for a walk, but it’s too chilly,” said the Marine, who’s become accustomed to gulf-area temperatures over 100 degrees. “I’m freezing. I’m in warmups and got the heater on and I’m still shivering.”

The family plans on going out to buy its Christmas tree, delayed in anticipation of his homecoming.

In fact, Bell said, the tree symbolizes some of the basic things people in California take for granted.

“I missed seeing green grass,” he said. “It’s so different from the brown sand and burned hills. There’s plenty of grass here in Irvine.”