The Gift of Hope

• Share

Under the blazing morning sun a hodgepodge of military vehicles falls into sloppy formation on the dunes near the Mogadishu airport. Somali children sneak through shell holes in a wall to beg for food and baksheesh. Marines shoot souvenir snapshots of each other as the convoy slowly takes shape.

Six days after the Marines arrived in the coastal capital of Mogadishu, they were finally going out into the countryside where starving Somalis and relief workers alike are eager for their help. The 700-person contingent was headed for Baidoa, a southern Somalian town where famine has hit especially hard; it is there, and in the remote villages beyond, that most of the U.S.'s humanitarian mission will be carried out. It is there too that the conflict between the narrowly conceived objective of safeguarding food convoys and the larger needs of rebuilding a shattered and lawless nation will be played out.

At noon the lead armored vehicle, with Old Glory waving, shifts into first gear, followed by 76 five-ton trucks, humvees and amphibious light armored vehicles. Belt-fed machine guns, mortars or antitank missile launchers are mounted on each vehicle. Every one of the 700 carries an automatic rifle. Marines pull on heavy desert-camouflage flak jackets and don steel helmets. Ammunition clips snap into place. The men of Team Tiger, the name given to the group of Marines going to Baidoa, are expecting trouble.

In his five-ton truck, Lance Corporal Greg Riles, 22, laughs off predictions of danger. "Scared? With all this?" he says, gesturing toward the olive-green steel vehicles surrounding him. "In a way, I'm sort of hoping for a little combat. All this time you train for this. You carry these weapons, and you want to use them."

The Baidoa expedition exemplifies the doctrine of invincible force espoused by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell. The weaponry en route to liberate Baidoa from the "technicals" -- pickup trucks mounted with machine guns -- may look excessive, but it is intended to ensure minimal resistance. "You have to use overwhelming force," says Lieut. Colonel Tom O'Leary, the commander of Team Tiger. "That's the only way you can go in smiling and waving."

The Marines are worrying more about showers and mail. They have not had either since landing. But missing Christmas is their biggest gripe. They joke about the number of shopping days left and dare one another to swim home. U.S.M.C., they say, stands for "You Suckers Missed Christmas."

A red plush stocking embroidered with the name Chris and stuffed with a toy Santa hangs inside Corporal Christopher Sotak's vehicle. The 23-year-old received it from his mother in the last mail shipment before Thanksgiving. On Dec. 25, "we'll get a bag with diced turkey and gravy," says First Sergeant Steven Fisher, 37, Sotak's crewmate. "Christmas will be when you get back home."

After 18 years in the corps, Fisher takes Somalia's discomforts in stride: humidity that soaks uniforms in sweat, swarms of flies, malaria-carrying mosquitoes undeterred by repellent, sun that blisters the skin. There are scorpions and cobras in the undergrowth, and the prevalent vegetation -- thorn trees covered with needle-sharp spines -- must be chopped down to make encampments.