Walk softly, carry a big stick

[ANTHONY O. MILLER]

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WITH U.S. FORCES IN SAUDI ARABIA (UPI) -- In the Marine Corps, the
combat engineer is the advance man, walking softly with a big stick on
ground that may hide the mechanisms of death.
``We kind of joke about it,'' said Lance Cpl. Gilbert Stainbrook, 20,
of Clearwater, Fla. ``It keeps us from going crazy, I guess. If you
think about it every day, all day, that's going to make you more
nervous.''
There's plenty for these young leathernecks to think about. With talk
that a ground war in Operation Desert Storm is looming, Marine land mine
sweepers are preparing for battle.
``Right now, we're trying to build confidence,'' said 2nd Lt. Chris
Simmler, 23, of Franklin, Mass.
There's a chance Marine combat engineers won't have to ride point
into uncharted territory, benign-looking stretches of sand that may be
laced with hidden death.
They might not have to drive tanks with bulldozer blades across live
minefields to plow up bombs buried by Saddam Hussein's army.
They might not have to egg-walk across booby-trapped earth with
magnetic mine detectors and wooden pikes, probing for buried explosives
that would vaporize them into what one Marine instructor called ``that
big pink mist.''
Their work may be done for them. B-52s bomber planes will drop 70,000
pounds of bombs -- easily the weight of 17 Cadillacs -- and ground
artillery will lob shells into the fields to detonate the mines.
But if that strategy fails, the combat engineers will be sent in.
They'll be the first to enter the killing fields of mines, razor-
edged barbed wire, earthen berms and ditches filled with oil that are
deep and wide enough to swallow a 65-ton tank and cook its crew if set
afire.
In Iraqi-occupied Kuwait, these lethal obstacle courses stretch from
the Saudi-Kuwaiti border to Kuwait city.
The half-million Iraqis in Kuwait, borrowing Soviet military
doctrine, hope to stall a Marine advance through the minefields and tank
traps and shell hobbled Americans with artillery.
It may not come to that, though. The air barrage might wipe out
Saddam's neatly laid traps.
``If everything goes well ... I don't think they'll be able to touch
us,'' Gunnery Sgt. Carroll Campbell said.