THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 24, 1995 TAG: 9502240574
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
Ashore, rival clans battle for control of the streets, using mortars, machine guns and anti-aircraft weapons. But for thousands of American sailors and Marines patrolling the seas off Somalia this week, the enemy is boredom.
``It's tough - just sitting around waiting for things to happen,'' said James A. McDonald, a petty officer first class from Suffolk stationed aboard the amphibious assault ship Belleau Wood.
McDonald and his shipmates are part of a 14,000-member international military force waiting to provide cover for United Nations peacekeeping troops as the U.N. force evacuates war-torn Somalia. Several Virginians in the task force talked about the assignment in a telephone interview Thursday.
The troops said they're keeping busy with drills on the Belleau Wood's deck, helicopter and Harrier jump-jet launches and landings, and the daily work necessary to keep the big ship operating smoothly.
But after more than a month off the East African coast, Steve Reeves, a communications officer on the ship, said he'd ``like to go somewhere where it's really niceand hot, with a good beach.''
Originally from Marion, in Southwest Virginia, Reeves now calls Norfolk home. On the ship, he helps maintain and operate equipment that allows the Belleau Wood to keep in touch with the other 22 vessels in the task force and permits the sailors and Marines to make an occasional call to spouses and sweethearts back home.
``Morale seems to be pretty good,'' Reeves said.
When the troops learned of the mission a couple of months ago, many were concerned, he said, ``but once everybody learned what our responsibility was .
``They feel they have a job to do - and want to get back out as soon as possible,'' Marine Cpl. Gary Munford of Portsmouth said of his fellow leathernecks on the ship. ``They want this operation to be as harmless as possible.''
Those in charge emphasize that the Americans going ashore will have overwhelming forces at their disposal should the Somalis provoke a fight. But some of the Marines also will be armed with nonlethal weapons first developed for use by police to control unruly crowds.
The unusual arms include guns that shoot a sticky foam that acts as a ``high-tech lasso'' to immobilize an attacker and ``stinger'' grenades that are packed with rubber pellets to bruise and sting but not kill.
About 1,800 Marines are expected to go ashore within the next few days to provide cover for the last of the departing U.N. troops. The international organization is abandoning a peacekeeping and relief effort begun by the United States in late 1992; the last American troops taking part were withdrawn last year, but the Clinton administration agreed to assist in the U.N. pullout.
The U.N. troops - about 2,500 Pakistanis and Bangladeshis - are flying out of Mogadishu's airport in chartered planes. At the city's docks, chartered cargo ships are loading tanks, armored personnel carriers, helicopters and other equipment - much of it U.S.-supplied - that has been part of the U.N. effort.
So far, the withdrawal has been peaceful, though Somalis can be found fighting one another just a few blocks from U.N. positions. Rival clans are thought to be jockeying for position in a battle for the air and seaport facilities that is expected to begin when the last of the international troops depart.
``The drawdown is going very well,'' George Bennett, the U.N. spokesman in Mogadishu, told The Associated Press on Thursday. ``We're taking out more (equipment) than we thought we could.'' by CNB