"We All Knew the Hazards"

By KURT ANDERSEN

At daybreak, exactly 72 hours before the terrorist explosion killed scores of his comrades at Marine headquarters, First Sergeant William Creech had just awakened and shuffled outside with his mirror and canteen of hot water to shave. And talk. "There's no comparison with Viet Nam," said the Georgian, at 34 older than most of his fellows. "We're here for high visibility, not to engage in combat." Life in any war zone is both tedious and desperately anxious. But for the 1,600 U.S.

Marines in Lebanon, the inability to fight back has created a particular vulnerability that shows up in the uneasy expressions of many men. For Bravo Company, the long, empty days are spent mostly in dugout bunkers or grungy tents.

The simultaneously high and low points involve hitting the dirt: at the southern end of the airport compound, snipers are as close as 150 yds., and incoming grenades and light rockets occasionally fall near by. At night it is cool and damp. The lush sound of the Mediterranean surf is punctuated by the regular whump of outgoing mortar rounds aimed into the Chouf foothills and, every ten minutes or so, the clatter of a Lebanese Army .50-cal. machine gun firing at Druze militiamen and their allies. Each morning before 8 a.m. the troops finish breakfast (eggs to order, French toast and, as ever, Spam). The volleyball games and group jogs have been rare since the hostile fire turned intense late in the summer. Between duties, some soldiers kill stray scorpions and centipedes in the three-and four-man bunkers. When he was out and about during a stint as liaison officer to the British peace-keeping troops, First Lieut. Lee Marlow of Nashville found to his surprised pleasure that "people in Beirut seemed friendly. They waved and said hello." But now he and everyone else must spend the bulk of their time hunkered down. "It's mostly boring, really," says one of the riflemen guarding a road to the main coastal highway. Marlow agrees. "You really can't go anywhere," he says.

"So I've spent a lot of time lifting weights or playing my guitar." He pauses. "I'm not good at it. I really only bought it because I knew I was coming here." Tinny-sounding melodies of various sorts drift out of the compound's tents and fortified holes in the ground all day long. "I was listening to my radio," explained one grunt in his bunker at Post One, "until I got tired of the Arab music." His own tape player was broken. "I was going to put me on some Deep Purple, but I got ketchup on the batteries." Each Marine is permitted one can of beer a day. Many of them have read more during their months in Lebanon than ever before.

Letter writing to parents, siblings and girlfriends is a principal pastime. "They're looking forward to going home next month," Marlow says of his men, "and some of the troops can't wait to get out of here. But I don't think morale is a problem." That was before Sunday.

Conversations fill the gaps in the days, endless hours of idle chatting, serious talk and slightly nervous joking among buddies. The Marines have never been quite comfortable with the curious, frustrating nature of their Lebanese mission. In the stark light of last weekend's catastrophe, their speculations now have a tint of terrible, sad sweetness. "I've never really been in combat," said one young officer a few days before the bombing, "so I can't say what combat is. All I can say is this is regarded as a hostile-fire situation. We don't get out of our foxholes on the offensive." Thus constrained, he shows his Marine pride in another way, perhaps a bit wishfully: "I think the hostile forces have a healthy respect for us. The Marines have just that special flavor."

The chummy discussion by two enlisted men sitting outside their bunker was, perhaps surprisingly, dominated by the ambiguous considerations of diplomacy. "If we fire back at snipers," said Corporal John Anderson, 21, "we'll only cause more problems. They'll blame us." Corporal Jimmy Cornell, 20, nodded. "He's right. It's really catch-22. We were sitting here last night on the sandbags when this guy fired at us. The dirt flew up in our faces, but what can we do?" Anderson was worried too that fire lobbed into the mountains "will wind up hitting innocent Lebanese."

The evening meal, eaten on trays in the mess tent beginning at 4:30 p.m., is sociable, almost homey. The Marines call it "supper," and last Wednesday night was typical: goulash and noodles, green beans and vanilla pudding, all washed down by Kool-Aid or milk. Afterward, the troops fall into candlelit bull sessions back in their bunkers, or head over to the company "club," a shanty where they watch videotaped movies on a small television set powered by a protectively sandbagged generator. Lights (and TV) out is at 9:30 p.m.

Captain Monty Hoover, 32, likes commanding the 200 men of Bravo Company, who defend the airport's southern perimeter.

"There's nothing finer," he says.

"In a way, I feel fortunate to be here. It's not that I enjoy fighting -- I've never been in a fistfight. But it's -- how can I say it? -- and where the action is for the U.S. It's a life I chose, and here I am." He has pangs of homesickness just like his troops; his wife and two children are back in North Carolina.

Even Captain Hoover, as gung-ho as he seems, knows the horrors. "I've lost a good friend," he said. A few days ear lier, the of his fellow captains was killed by sniper fire at the airport. For Hoover last week, three days before his head quarters was wiped out, the losses still seemed of emotionally manageable proportions. Casualties had happened one or a few at a time. "No one likes to hear about Marines being killed or wounded," Hoover said. "I've known half of the men who have been killed, one particularly well. That's always hard to take. I think the anxiety level for our families must be high." But for himself, he is no special pleader. "We all knew the hazards of being in the military, of being in Lebanon. We're all volunteers."

-- By Kurt Andersen. Reported by William Stewart/Beirut

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