War Stories by Oliver North

who are accompanying the combat units being assembled on the Iraqi periphery have also beenadmonished not to report exact unit troop strength figures. We’ve already been directed that we may not state exactly where we are. Instead, we are told to euphemistically describe this remote and very austere air base as “in the vicinity of the Iraqi border.”
    Quite understandably, we’re also not permitted to report where we are going—or when. Some of the other correspondents covering other squadrons in MAG-39 chafe at what they perceive to be restrictions on the “freedom of the press.” Most, however, seem to understand the rationale for the limitations. Those who find the burden of “self-censorship” too onerous can always “unvolunteer” and simply go home.
    That option, of course, doesn’t apply to the rest of the volunteers over here—the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, more than 200,000 of them, who are now deployed in the trackless desert along the Iraqi border. On days like this, with a vicious sandstorm blowing across the dry, flat “moonscape,” going home sounds even more attractive than usual. Life in this extreme climate and terrain prompts a longing not just for the companionship of loved ones but also for the simple pleasure of living without sand. One Marine said today, “I don’t think I’ll ever go to the beach again for the rest of my life.”
    Two months ago, HMM-268 was at Camp Pendleton, California, without any particular plans to travel—although like all Marines in this post–September 11 environment, they were prepared for various contingencies. Then, on January 10, the word came down: “Prepare your aircraft for immediate embarkation.”
    Four days later the squadron’s twelve CH-46 helicopters, their blades removed, were all packed and sealed, and on January 15, the aging aircraft were lifted aboard a commercial ship in San Diego. Accompanying the birds was a detachment of a dozen Marines, led by a sergeant. “Now think of this,” said 1st Lt. Williamson. “Here’s a shipment worth more than sixty million dollars being signed for by a twenty-two-year-old Marine sergeant. Where else would you getthat kind of responsibility at that age?” Where else indeed?
    The rest of the Red Dragons departed from California at midnight on February 9 (for reasons still inexplicable to this old leatherneck, the U.S. Marines never go anywhere in daylight). When they arrived “in country” on February 11, the unit, officers and enlisted alike, pitched in to build tents and fill sandbags—more than twenty thousand that first week alone, according to Chief Warrant Officer Sean Wennes.
    â€œWhy so many sandbags?” asked one of the horde of media that have descended on this remote desert air base. “Because these tents don’t even stop a sandstorm. They sure wouldn’t stop a Scud,” replied Cpl. Phillip Sapio. “Sometimes a sandbag is all you have between us and them.” By “them,” of course, the Marine means the Iraqis—who deny even having any of the long-range weapons capable of carrying chemical or biological warheads into the heart of this desert base.
    â€œSix hours after the helicopters arrived in port, they had been stripped of the weatherproof covers, had their rotor blades replaced, and were ready for flight,” explained Lt. Col. Driscoll. “Some people think that’s extraordinary. And maybe for some organizations it would be—but for these Marines, this is what we do for a living,” he added.
    Picking up and moving isn’t the only thing that these Marines do for a living: they must also be prepared to fight when they get to where they are going. The Red Dragon helicopters have to be ready at a moment’s notice to carry Marine infantrymen in a heloborne assault, resupply the units in contact, insert reconnaissance