Young Marines prepare for
war
By Karen Brandon
Chicago Tribune
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif.
(KRT) — The young men, so young
one wants to call them boys, are
Marines, meaning they are not the
type to wear their emotions on their
starched-stiff, precisely rolled cam
ouflage sleeves.
But a range of feelings is surfac
ing here — a degree of apprehen
sion, a new sense of determination,
even a glimmer of exhilaration —
as this generation of soldiers who
enlisted in peacetime, at a time
when soldiers were often called
peacekeepers, for the first time con
fronts the prospect of their nation at
war.
Officers insist that it’s business as
usual on this vast 125,000-acre
base, and for the 33,000 Marines
stationed here.
No one really believes that,
though, what with motorists cheer
ing the Marines whenever they
drive their tanks along Southern
California freeways and the phones
ringing constantly with worried
mothers and fathers from across the
country asking the same question:
Are you going to war?
A balmy Pacific breeze in his
face, Lance Cpl. Teodoro Barajas, a
21-year-old from Chicago’s South
west Side, nervously puffed a ciga
rette as he stood near an orderly
line of 16 light armored vehicles, or
LAVs in Marine shorthand. These
vehicles each carry a 25-millimeter
cannon, two 7.62-caliber machine
guns and radio equipment and are
operated by some 160 men who
make up Charlie Company of the
1st Light Armored Reconnaissance
Battalion.
This is a moment Barajas hadn’t
counted on when he signed up to
join the Marines on the heels of his
graduation from Farragut High
School three years ago. Of course
he knew he could face war, but he
never really gave it a serious
thought.
"This is kind of like a rude awak
ening," he said. “This came up.
This is my job, and my country
calls."
From the beginning, Barajas said,
he knew that his four-year enlist
ment “was all I was going to do."
With three years behind him, he
had begun looking forward to leav
ing the military, to enrolling in col
lege, probably the University of
Southern California.
But his plans changed with the
Sept. 11 terrorist attack that came
while he and his company were
training in remote Southern Cali
fornia mountains.
That afternoon he returned to the
three-storv barracks, whose bland
exterior is broken up only by a
painting of Charlie Company’s
“Warpig” mascot, a theatrically
muscular wild boar holding a dag
ger.
Seventeen messages were wait
ing for him, all from his mother.
“She just says to pray to God
every day, to stay close to God," he
said. His father? “He says to be
brave."
He cannot answer his parents’
questions about whether he is go
ing to war, for he does not know. He
asks himself other questions. “Did
I do everything to be ready? Am I
ready? and the answer he gives is,
“I think I am ready."
Cpl. Matthew Moore, a 22-year
old from Rockford, 111., said his fa
ther told him the other day that he
had had a premonition of war
ahead and that his son, an onlv
child whom he raised alone, would
be participating in it.
Moore joined the Marines after
spending a year or so working as as
sistant manager of a restaurant. He
wanted to get out of Rockford, he
said. He also wanted the money to
attend culinary school, to train to
become a chef.
All that is in the back of his mind
now. “I’m prepared to go,” Moore
said. “That’s what I've been train
ing for here for the past three
years.”
His fiance, however, is not pre
pared. An aunt of hers who lived in
New York City is missing and pre
sumed dead after the Sept. 11 at
tack, Moore said.
“She doesn't want to see me go
because she’s already experienced
a loss from this."
What Charlie Company’s future
will hold, no one can say. At pres
ent, they are training normally
ahead of a scheduled deployment
to the Persian Gulf in January. But
by their very role in reconnais
sance, responsible for gathering in
formation on the enemy for U.S.
forces to their rear, they could be on
the leading edge of any combat.
“We consider ourselves the tip of
the spear," explained Capt. Robert
Rice, the 30-year-old company
commander from Seattle who also
faces the prospect of his first com
bat experience.
Rice, whose wife is also a Marine
and is soon to be deployed to Egypt
fora previously scheduled mission,
said the training is the same, but he
acknowledged that something else
has changed.
Looking over the recruits and
thinking of the many times he had
struggled to keep his young
Marines motivated, he said, “This
whole context of being on the brink
of war does give a different under
standing to these recruits of just
why they are here.”
(c) 2001, Chicago Tribune. Distributed by
Knight RidderTribune Information Services.
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