ANTHOLOGY AND ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY                                          43


Saudi Christmas:
the Marines Banter and Brave the Cold

by Henry Allen

The Washington Post, 26 December 1990.


   Shining in the east, far beyond First Battalion, Fifth Marines, were a couple
of flares from gas burning over oil wells, the closest thing the Marines would
see to Christmas lights.
   The Marines bad gotten here in August, back when the temperature was 130
degrees and everyone was saying they'd be home for Christmas.
   Now it was 40 degrees.     It was midnight on Christmas Eve.     This is an old
story, and against the gas flares you could see the outlines of Lance Cpl. Steven
Shalno and a buddy sitting on five-gallon water cans having an old argument to
go along with it, one of the older arguments in the history of the world.
   "I am from Boston, Massachusetts," Shalno said very slowly, "and I am
behind George Bush, my commander in chief, 110 percent.
   "I am half Indian," said his buddy, nOt quite as slowly. "And I say it is cold
    out here.  This whole thing out here, you've got to be kidding."
   "I am from Boston, Massachusetts," Shalno kept saying, "and I am a devil
dog.
   "Devil dog" is what the Germans called Marines in World War I. The
Marines know their history.    It seems like half the corps also has read all of the
novels about Casca, the eternal mercenary, who pulled the duty of nailing Christ
to the Cross and was doomed, the Marines will tell you, to spend eternity as a
soldier, a career that can lead to billets like sitting on five-gallon water cans in
the cold desert wind on Christmas Eve in Saudi Arabia.
   After a while, they went back into their hooch, a bunch of canvas cots under
camouflage netting. The wind blew through the netting. Men snored and talked
in their sleep--they dream a lot out here in the desert, they say.  You could see
the stars through the netting.  Jittery smears.
   For a long time Shalno stood outside the hooch and stared at the cot of a
stranger to the platoon, stared and stared until the stranger decided to move and
show he was awake.
   "You warm enough?" Shalno asked.     "You look cold, man. I'll give you my
poncho liner."


Copyright 1990 The Washington Post. Reprinted with Permission