Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 1, 1991                   TAG: 9103010303
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: DHAHRAN, SAUDI ARABIA                                LENGTH: Medium

SURRENDERS HAD RARE STYLE

"They were surrendering in droves, almost too fast for us to keep up with," said Marine Col. Steve Wagner, who escorted a group of reporters on a tour of a vast POW camp in northern Saudi Arabia.

Of several noteworthy surrenders, he said: "The guys here like to tell about one of them who gave up to an RPV [remotely piloted vehicle]. Here's this guy with his hands up, turning in a circle to give himself up to a model airplane with a camera in it."

One group of about two dozen emerged from a roadside bunker and surrendered to a high-level convoy carrying the top commander of the U.S. Marine contingent, Lt. Gen. Walter Boomer.

Members of the Tiger Brigade, a U.S. Army tank unit, singled out a surrender by several hundred Iraqis who marched toward the Americans behind one man holding up a white sheet with a crude U.S. flag drawn on it.

The Tiger commander, Col. John Sylvester, accepted the surrender of two Iraqi majors, both brigade commanders, who gave up with their entire units.

"One of the surrendering Iraqi majors said, `It's not our cause . . . we only want peace.' And I told him I only wanted peace too and accepted his surrender," said Sylvester, 45, of Brownsville, Texas.

In another surrender recounted by U.S. troops, an Iraqi private began walking and then started running toward a waiting Army military policeman, who waved him on to another MP. The scene was repeated until the Iraqi reached a fourth MP. There the Iraqi halted, surrendered and then extended his hand.

The MP clearly was startled by the offer of a handshake. After a pause, he reached out to clasp the Iraqi's hand, then ordered him to the ground and began searching him for weapons.

At one point, according to allied soldiers, an Iraqi tank and an armored personnel carrier came upon a U.S. humvee utility vehicle stuck in the mud. The Iraqis helped free the humvee, then surrendered, the soldiers said.