Posted on 04/18/2003 8:48:22 AM PDT by Incorrigible
Friday, April 18, 2003
BY WAYNE WOOLLEY
Star-Ledger Staff
AN NUMANIYAH, Iraq -- As the war wound down, Marines here played baseball.
The diamond appeared on a hazy afternoon in a vast plot of sand that days earlier had been a scene of frantic effort to load trucks full of artillery shells for a siege on Baghdad that proved to be unnecessary.
After nearly a month of running round-the-clock supply convoys to support the 1st Marine Division's push through Iraq, the men and women of the Transportation Support Group suddenly found themselves looking for a diversion this week.
"Might as well play ball," said Lance Cpl. Chris Roberts, 23, of Longwood, Fla. "We had two home run derbies and two games already."
Roberts, a reservist with the 6th Motor Transport Battalion, fashioned a ball from electrical tape and created a bat from an ax handle.
As Marines from Roberts' unit and their active-duty counterparts from Camp Pendleton, Calif., dove after foul balls in the sand and their shouts replaced the roar of their now idle truck, many of their comrades marveled at how abruptly the war fizzled out.
For days, Sgt. Rob Anderson, 26, of Orlando, Fla., worked from sunrise until 3 a.m. coordinating supply convoys departing from a depot 70 miles south of Baghdad.
"Then one day, they started sending ammunition back," Anderson said. "That's when we knew this thing was over."
Many Marines from the transportation support group, which includes New Jersey reservists, experienced combat first-hand, shooting their way out of attempted Iraqi ambushes in the early days of the war.
Staff Sgt. James Vaccaro, 37, a reservist from Keansburg, said he was shot at in Kuwait before the war began and then was on a mission that came under heavy fire near Nasiriya.
"After all that go, go, go, sitting here and waiting is driving me crazy," said Vaccaro, a member of the Headquarters and Service Company of the 6th Motor Transport Battalion, based in Red Bank. "We were just waiting for the word."
It is unclear how long Vaccaro's unit will remain in Iraq. If the Marines become key players in humanitarian relief efforts, the deployment may last into the fall.
Even if the unit receives orders to come home immediately, commanders expect at least two more months of retrieving trucks spread from northern Kuwait to near Baghdad loading equipment onto ships.
The return home is known as retrograde and it's a task that no Marine relishes.
"The war is the easy part," said Maj. Jeff Eberwein, a 34-year-old ExxonMobil executive and reservist from Tampa, Fla., "the retrograde can be a nightmare."
Until they get home, Marines find themselves fantasizing about the day when they can again enjoy things most civilians take for granted -- like indoor plumbing and cold beer.
"I don't want much," said Maj. Jens Curtis, 35, an active-duty Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton. "I just want to go for a walk with my wife, at home, wearing sandals."
Although Marines have shed their cumbersome flak jackets for most duties and no longer strap gas masks to their hips, Curtis will wear combat boots until he returns home.
Many Marines plan to spend their first days at home surrounded by family.
Vaccaro, a bull-necked Essex County corrections officer in civilian life, plans a trip to Disney World with his wife, Colleen, and their three daughters, ages 3 to 6. After that, Vaccaro plans to take his wife on a cruise to make up for the honeymoon he couldn't afford when they were first married.
He also looks forward to the reception he'll get when he returns home to Keansburg, a blue-collar Jersey Shore enclave. "The town is old-school. They keep their American flags flying long after everybody else has taken theirs down."
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