SOUTHERN IRAQ

Scripture and a photo give sense of comfort

By Brian MacQuarrie, Globe Staff, 3/22/2003

he Good Book and the Isley Brothers. That's where Specialist Aaron White of Uniontown, Ala., turns his attention when he isn't loading 100-pound rounds into a Paladin howitzer.

"I'm just waiting patiently to go and do the damn thing," White, 24, said before the Army's Third Brigade, Third Infantry Division punched into Iraq Thursday.

On a day when the battalion awoke in a Kuwaiti camp only 3 miles from the Iraq border, the artillery unit received the unexpected news that its 18 howitzers would move out at midday to an attack position, the last staging area before crossing the sand berm into Iraq.

When the soldiers crawled out of their vehicles at dawn after a few hours of sleep, none of them was aware that US aircraft had launched the first airstrikes on Baghdad. After all the training, the fight was no longer a mere possibility.

So, Thursday morning was one more chance to clean weapons, inspect gas masks, and ensure that the engines of war were in good working order. None of the soldiers seemed nervous or scared.

"We all have God on our side," White said. "We leave it up to Him."

Sergeant Craig Robinson, 23, of Hartford took his comfort from a photograph of Racquel, his new bride, that was attached to the dashboard of his Humvee.

"That's my motivation right there," Robinson said, pointing to the image of the childhood friend he married in October. "It makes me smile. Even if I'm not going to make it back, she makes me I think I will."

When White was asked how he planned to spend the final hours before combat, he held up a copy of the Bible. "This keeps my mind at ease," he said, adding that an Isley Brothers CD wasn't bad preparation, either.

This story ran on page A17 of the Boston Globe on 3/22/2003.
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