Shaffer
04-09-03, 07:17 AM
TWENTY MILES SOUTH OF BAGHDAD, 7th MARINES - The Marines were less than 48 hours into their invasion of Iraq when Pfc. Michael Lara of Raymondville, Texas., was first asked the kind of question that he and some other Marines would hear repeatedly from civilians.
Lara, 19, was standing guard in the turret of his Humvee manning a machine gun along the Shatt Al-Basra bridge in southern Iraq when an old man and his two sons asked permission to pass across the strategic checkpoint.
As Marines waved the man through, he suddenly turned to Lara and asked, "Kuwaiti?"
A stunned Lara paused for a second because he wasn't sure the man was talking to him.
"Kuwait?" the man asked again.
"Naw," Lara responded, "American, Mexican.
"But I don't think he believed me," Lara, a member of Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, said later. "He just keep looking at me."
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/9AE822E37184955086256CFF007EF079?OpenDocument&Headline=Ron+Harris+%3A+Marines'+diversity+offers+ puzzle+for+Iraqi+guessing+game
Lara, 19, was standing guard in the turret of his Humvee manning a machine gun along the Shatt Al-Basra bridge in southern Iraq when an old man and his two sons asked permission to pass across the strategic checkpoint.
As Marines waved the man through, he suddenly turned to Lara and asked, "Kuwaiti?"
A stunned Lara paused for a second because he wasn't sure the man was talking to him.
"Kuwait?" the man asked again.
"Naw," Lara responded, "American, Mexican.
"But I don't think he believed me," Lara, a member of Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, said later. "He just keep looking at me."
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/9AE822E37184955086256CFF007EF079?OpenDocument&Headline=Ron+Harris+%3A+Marines'+diversity+offers+ puzzle+for+Iraqi+guessing+game