Listening for That Whistle

By Kenneth W. Banta

For U.S. Marines, days of routine laced with danger

Around the runways of Beirut's international airport, the low, sandbagged bunkers form ragged lines, cluttering a 2 1/2-sq.-mi. stretch of barren, unprotected ground. On two sides the old airport fence topped with barbed wire divides the encampment from the predominantly Shi'ite shantytown of Hay es Sullum, where bombed-out buildings sometimes shelter Muslim fighters armed with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. In the surrounding hills that rise 3,000 ft. from the plain, Druze and Christian militias clash, igniting the night skies with tracer rounds and exploding shells.

For the estimated 175 U.S. Marines of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, 24th Marine Amphibious Unit, the dusty field is home. One of several Marine contingents totaling 1,200 men ashore, Alpha Company landed in Lebanon more than three months ago amid hopes that its visit would be fairly placid. In three weeks of renewed violence, including 15 consecutive days when rockets and shells fell within the perimeter of the Marine encampment, the men have learned otherwise: all four American members of the multinational force killed in the recent attacks were from Alpha Company. Says Lance Corporal John Sexton, 18: "I don't care if they say this isn't combat. I'm a combat veteran now."

For the most part, the Marines are living under wartime conditions. Sunday barbecues are now rare, while the showings of videotaped major league baseball and the vigorous interplatoon softball, volleyball and basketball competitions of the past are gone. Also suspended are the daily four-or five-mile runs that the Marines took along the road circling their encampment, as well as the routine 15-to 20-man patrols of the streets of Hay es Sullum. Now the soldiers seldom venture far from their bunkers. Under what they call the shade tree, the men relax on bright orange lawn chairs donated by the U.S. embassy in Beirut. Long hours are spent cleaning weapons, and standard attire for a visit to the showers is now gym shorts, flak jacket and steel helmet. Says Lance Corporal James Stewart, 23, referring to the sound of incoming rounds: "We've always got one ear listening for that whistle, which means: 'Here comes one, gents.'"

The tension is tempered with long stretches of hard work. Two to six soldiers camp in each bunker. Each day they crawl into the morning air and head for tin cups of coffee and a rudimentary breakfast. A few of the men find time for a shower, and sometimes there is hot water. Then the serious work begins: filling sandbags. By continuously building new bunkers, each requiring hundreds of sandbags, the Marines can spread themselves more thinly, reducing casualties from a direct hit. Trees cut from the banks of a foul-smelling nearby creek provide supporting timbers. Says Staff Sergeant David Stout, 28, of Charlie Company, whose platoon calls itself the Ebony and Ivory Construction Co. for its racial mix: "The order of the day is sandbags and more sandbags and more sandbags, and then you'll sleep tight."

As the temperature rises into the low 90s, the perspiring Marines break for lunch on the spot. A major tribulation is that dinner, once a full meal served in the mess tent, now often consists of field-issue MREs (meals, ready-to-eat) like hamburger, turkey tetrazzini and other delights that can be made almost edible by warming the packages in hot water, sunlight or even under an armpit. Some Marines lift weights; others read books (mostly science fiction, thrillers and mysteries). Like lonely troopers everywhere, many of them use their idle hours chiefly to write home. Seated at a picnic table, three beefy helicopter ground crewmen scribble side by side like overgrown schoolboys taking exams. One 19-year-old private writes regularly to his wife but has omitted any worrying incidents, including the shrapnel that hit his bunker a few weeks ago. "I tell her as little as possible," he says. "When I get home, I'll tell her the truth."

The soldiers seem very young, and they are: the average age is 20. One night Keith Lewis, 19, and three companions were savoring field-ration brownies in their bunker when a shot rang out near by. They leaped to their feet, then started giggling, realizing they had nowhere to run. "It's weird in the dark," says Lewis. "We get to laughing a lot." The men are, however, aging quickly. Captain Paul Roy, the company commander, gathered his troops a few days ago in a memorial service for two of the Marines killed in action. He read eulogies to them in the clear accent of the Maine woods and then asked his men to join in singing Amazing Grace. "I don't care about a lot of things I used to care about," said Private First Class Mike Stevens, 19, afterward. "All I care about now is that the rest of us get out of here safe." Captain Roy's men talk frequently of the two soldiers killed by a rocket as they stepped from their bunker two weeks ago. Says Lance Corporal Randy Lunt, 21: "The pictures we took together are still in my camera. I hope they turn out. I'll keep them forever."

The Marines are understandably frustrated at their orders to take only defensive actions. "We were trained to be attack troops," says Lance Corporal John Zurakowski, 19, "but all we do here is get attacked." They cheer the Reagan Administration's decision to send over the New Jersey and other offshore firepower, but they clearly itch to settle matters themselves. Last fall, when Marines in Beirut were not allowed to carry loaded weapons, the company mess tent was decorated with a sign reading THE CAN'T SHOOT BACK SALOON. After they were finally allowed to arm themselves last spring, the sign changed to THE CAN SHOOT BACK SALOON. When Alpha Company engaged unidentified gunmen in a daylong firefight on Aug. 29, the Marines repainted the sign THE DID SHOOT BACK SALOON. "When we see the whites of their eyes, we'll do it to them," promises John Sexton. Still, for a group of highly trained, largely untested fighters, life in Beirut has an air of maddening unreality. Says Randy Lunt: "This situation is kind of messed up. If we go back and tell people what happened here, they ain't going to believe it. So we ain't going to tell them." --By Kenneth W. Banta.

Reported by Roberto Suro/Beirut

With reporting by Roberto Suro This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.