War Stories by Oliver North Page B

of state issued their communiqué, declaring that efforts to reach a diplomatic solution would end in twenty-four hours, dozens of Marines were huddled around our tiny video receiver, linked by satellite with FOX News Channel in New York.
    Back on March 5, France, Germany, and Russia joined forces and declared that they would “not allow” a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq to pass in the UN Security Council. Despite this, everyone here expects that when President Bush addresses the nation tomorrow night, Saddam’s refusal to come clean on his weapons of mass destruction will mean war. They aren’t jumping up and down, talking tough, or swaggering with bravado, but there is a palpable sense of resolve—an aura of quiet competence in these Marines. Though no one has said that they are itching for a fight, it’s pretty clear that they are tired of waiting. Every one of them seems to know that they have done everything they can to prepare for what lies ahead.
    Even though today is Sunday, except for a very brief pause early this morning for chapel services, it’s been a full day of training, and has been that way since the sandstorm finally passed. Starting Friday, all the MAG-39 pilots and aircrews that will be flying into Iraq have been coming in groups of fifteen to twenty to the MAG-39 Air Operations Center—a partitioned area inside the steel building next to the squadron ready room tents. There, intelligence officers brief them onthe enemy situation. The Air Group S-3 then issues a detailed Operations Order and the Survival, Escape, Resistance, and Evasion (SERE) plan in the event they go down behind enemy lines. After all this, the Air Group S-1 has them all update their next-of-kin (NOK) information.
    As the pilots and aircrews depart the Ops Center, there is no back-slapping or joking around as there was when they arrived. Nothing focuses the mind of a Marine like an NOK form. It contains the details of who is to be informed, and how, when a Marine is killed, wounded, or missing in action.
    While none of this is a laughing matter, Griff and I have managed, quite unintentionally, to provide just a bit of comic relief. Late Friday night we went out near the Iraqi border with a couple of CH-46s so that the pilots could practice landings, takeoffs, and low-level flying while wearing night-vision goggles (NVGs). After two or three practice landings, we had them put us down in an LZ a few kilometers south of the border so that we could check out how well our night lens could videotape the birds as they came back in. Almost immediately after the two helicopters took off, leaving us alone in the desert, three jeeps came racing across the open terrain and surrounded us, their headlights blinding our NVGs.
    The two CH-46s waved off their landing and pulled away as five or six men carrying submachine guns poured out from the jeeps. “Oh great,” said Griff as the armed men encircled us, their weapons at the ready. “How’s your Arabic?” he asked me as one of the men who had jumped from the jeeps yelled something unintelligible through a bullhorn. Now we could make out their uniforms—Kuwaiti Border Patrol.
    Relieved that it wasn’t an Iraqi patrol, we quickly produced our Kuwaiti Ministry of Information–issued media credentials—to no effect. We might well have spent the night in a lockup if I hadn’t beenable to explain that we were videotaping U.S. Marine helicopters and pointed at the orbiting CH-46s. Suddenly, our inquisitor smiled and said in broken English, “Ahh . . . U.S. Marines. Good, good.” The weapons were quickly slung over shoulders and the patrolmen came up to us, shook hands, and returned to their vehicles waving, and repeating over and over, “Marines good . . . Marines okay!”
    As soon as their jeeps departed the landing zone, the two birds came back in and we quickly loaded our gear, took off, and