Nation & World News
U.S. soldiers see poor Iraqi
youths master art of begging
Poverty-stricken children
are known to beg soldiers
for necessities such as
food, water and shoes
By Mark Washburn
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq — "Pepsi, Pepsi,"
the Iraqi boy implores the U.S. sol
diers guarding a convoy stopped on
the roadside.
No Pepsi.
"Baby," he says, making a popcorn
eating motion, meaning he was little
and wanted food.
No sale.
Then a new tack. "Money for
shoes!" he calls, smiling and pointing
to his bare feet.
No handout.
He moves up the line to a tractor
trailer whose civilian driver is inspect
ing his flatbed load and repeats his
appeals. The driver hands over an
MRE, a military meal sealed in vinyl.
As the convoy pulls out, the boy —
he looks about 4 or 5 — clutches the
MRE against his small chest, tiny but
experienced fingers tugging out a pack
of M&Ms.
The encounter, replayed dozens of
times daily along the main supply
routes feeding the occupation force in
Iraq, is, by turns, a poignant, comical
and sometimes tragic ballet with pity
and poverty in starring roles.
Today's convoy is on a 340-mile
journey that started at dawn in south
ern Iraq and will end at dusk north of
Baghdad.
It first stops for mechanical adjust
ments near Samawah in southern
Iraq, on a forlorn swath where little
vegetation obstructs the desolate
panorama.
Soon, as though bidden by a ge
nie's magical fingerplay, children
appear where no children had been
before, barefoot and fearless panhan
dlers materializing from the desert
dust.
Because of the massive tradeout of
U S. forces — 200,000 soldiers are on
the move in and out of Iraq now —
more than a dozen convoys can pass
this spot in an hour. When one stops, it
beckons like a many-wheeled pinata.
A small boy about 4 walks up wear
ing a soiled Dallas Cowboys T-shirt,
opens a candy bar he's gotten from a
trucker and throws the wrapper to the
ground.
"Food, food," he bleats to the sol
diers. "No shoes, no shoes."
The oldest child is perhaps 12. No
adults are in sight. Convoys are
pounding past at 60 mph or more.
First Lt Eric Hedlund, 33, of Rio Ran
cho, N.M., admits he's conflicted about
the begging children, in part because he
suspects the MREs and candy they take
from truckers feed those who shoot at
convoys at night. "Most of the food
they give out goes to support the anti
coalition cause," he says.
But he says it is Iraq's youngest gen
eration that is easiest to win over in a
struggle for hearts and minds. When
he goes to a village near his base, he
carries candy for the children that he
pays for himself because rules of en
gagement prohibit giving military
food or water to Iraqis.
On the convoy route, though, he
shakes the children off, doesn't want
them near the trucks.
"We've had kids get run over trying
to get candy," Hedlund says.
"Many have been hit, I guarantee
you that," confirms Lt. Col. Thomas
Sisinyak of Huntersville, N.C. He is
riding along on this day to inspect the
main supply route from Kuwait to
Baghdad and beyond, one of his com
mand responsibilities with the Char
lotte, N.C.-based 812th Transporta
tion Battalion.
Sisinyak has a son at home who's
almost 2, not much younger than
some of the children who approach
the convoy, wiggling festively, giving
thumbs-up signs to the soldiers.
Sometimes the encounters are
more painful. In some Iraqi towns,
like the unruly Batha, children aren't
looking for handouts but mischief.
They hurl rocks at the trucks.
Hedlund's soldiers have developed
a cunning counterattack: Penny-size
lemon drops fired from slingshots.
The hard outer coatings shatter on im
part, inflicting a memorable sting.
"That's a lot better than a bullet,"
Hedlund says.
At day's end, the convoy reaches its
destination, a seized Iraqi air base oc
cupied by U.S. forces near Balad. It is a
farm area and as the trucks wait in line
to get through the checkpoint, chil
dren emerge from the fields.
One boy, no more than 3, breaks
away from his older brother and wan
ders alone among the idling rigs, step
ping into the travel lanes as Hedlund
charges forward in his Humvee to run
off adult vendors approaching the
trucks to offer phony Rolex watches
for $20 and other trinkets.
The child turns around, sees the
Humvee bearing down and darts back
into the thicket of trucks.
Hedlund has worked security for
truckers on the supply route since it
was established in the wake of the fall
of Baghdad. In that year, he has no
ticed a change in the children.
At first, they were gleeful at the
handouts from Americans. Now they
see it as a form of tribute, a toll to be
extracted.
"They used to say thank you,'" he
says. "Now they don't care. It's more,
gimme, gimme.'"
(c) 2004, The Charlotte Observer
(Charlotte, N.C.). Distributed by Knight
Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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