One Good Man

BROUGHT TO THE STATES AS A TEENAGER FROM HIS native Puerto Rico, Domingo Arroyo quickly learned that America is not always the promised land. With his mother Ramona and younger brother Ramon, he grew up in a grim housing project in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and struggled with studies in high school. He saw military service as the path to a better life and seemed well on his way to achieving it. Six months short of completing a four-year tour in the Marine Corps, Private First Class Arroyo, 21 -- who had won a combat-action ribbon during Desert Storm -- pulled duty in Somalia with elements of his California- based regiment. When his night patrol retreated under sudden gunfire near Mogadishu airport last Tuesday, Arroyo was discovered to be missing. His body was recovered within minutes, and he became the first uniformed fatality of Operation Restore Hope.

Arroyo's death dramatized the continuing violence in Somalia. Much of it was directed against U.S. forces under orders to confiscate numerous arms caches controlled by Somali warlords, but others are caught in the middle. The International Red Cross suspended operations after one of its officials was killed by robbers in Bardera. At week's end leaders of 14 feuding Somali factions meeting in Ethiopia agreed to a cease-fire at home. But word of the stand-down had still not reached Mogadishu, where gunfire continued to sound routinely. At least 100,000 Somalis still carry weapons.