[Peace-discuss] Support our troops

[C. G. Estabrook]

FROM TODAY'S WP:

...Here at the Alpha Company command post on Fallujah's urban front line,
the Marines sit squarely between a deserted industrial zone and a
residential area crawling with insurgents...

Up on the roof, though, Lance Cpl. Tom Browne, 21, focused intently on the
danger that could instantly shatter the calm of a mild spring day.

Stretched out behind a machine gun inside a small cement shed, he squinted
through a niche at the empty blocks beyond, looking for the smallest sign
of movement.

At 10 a.m. Wednesday, a man and woman tentatively crossed the alley,
carrying a white flag. Browne trained his weapon on them but did not fire.

Five minutes later, another Marine on the roof spotted a man in a white
robe coming out of his house and bending over in his garden.

Browne tensed, watched, waited. The rooftop around him was littered with
spent shell casings. In the distance rose the tiled minaret of a mosque,
gouged by a missile.

"If he displays hostile intent, drop him," the other Marine whispered. The
man in the white robe kept gardening, apparently oblivious.

Impatient, the other Marine squeezed off one warning round from his M-16,
and the man scurried back inside.

"Nobody should be on these streets now," Browne remarked, still squinting
down his gunsight. "We gave them a chance to leave, and if they didn't,
chances are they are up to no good." By this point, he confided, "I don't
really think of them as people any more"...