Documentary : A Week of War: Mix of Monumental, Trivial

There are so many faces to a war--even one in which outside access to the fighting remains almost non-existent. Killing is too important not to touch the lives of millions, whether near or far from the front. Those facing imminent combat handle the tension in many different ways.

Here is a brief diary of images from the war zone.

JANUARY 21

At a U.S. Air Force base in Saudi Arabia, fighter pilot Scott Hill and 10 colleagues are lounging in the ready room when their eyes are suddenly riveted by the appearance on their television screen of the bruised, puffy and dazed faces of allied pilots downed over Iraq.

“We were just kind of in awe, I guess,” says Hill, 38, an Ohioan. “We didn’t say much. We all handled it in our own distinct ways.

“That’s kind of the fighter pilot way,” Hill adds. “You know, at times we have gigantic egos and are very self-centered. At other times, we just kind of sink into our own feelings.”

The base goes on maximum alert for a possible chemical attack.

In the mess hall, where midnight meals are being served, air crews pull on their gas masks and bulky chemical protection suits, then watch their spaghetti, shrimp gumbo and scrambled eggs grow cold as they wait 45 minutes for the all clear.

JANUARY 22

The name on the tiny storefront restaurant and bar half a block from the U.S. Embassy in Amman, Jordan, is an obvious attempt to lure the American tourists and diplomats who once frequented the neighborhood. Uncle Sam’s, it’s called. But things have changed. A war is raging not far to the east. And today, for the first time, there is a huge poster of Saddam Hussein in the window. Also, the owner suddenly has a different explanation for his restaurant’s name.

“It’s my name--my name’s Sami--and I have many nephews,” says the 80-year-old proprietor who opened Uncle Sam’s 14 years ago.

The Americans order a pizza and listen to old Sami speak with tears in his eyes of the day he fled his ancestral home near Haifa when Israel was created in 1948; of his worship for Saddam, the new protector and champion of Palestinians like him; and of his new-found hatred for George Bush and the nation the President has led into a war against Iraq.

Half a dozen Jordanian customers become increasingly agitated as Sami’s diatribe grows louder, and the Americans are getting nervous. Sami notices and immediately softens. “Two Turkish coffees, on the house (for the Americans),” he tells the waiter, winking.

A new twist at a provincial cockfighting pit in Turkey has owners and spectators naming the fighting birds after the principal antagonists in the Gulf War.

“Both were stubborn warriors,” says Ahmet Afik, owner of a white cock named Bush, the eventual victor in a two-hour-long match. “Bush only won by ripping open Saddam’s beak, and they both stayed on their feet to the end.”

JANUARY 23

The twisted carcass of a Patriot missile has been placed on a pedestal in the lobby of the Dhahran International Hotel with the inscription, “We love you.” Soldiers and reporters line up to have their pictures taken next to the wreckage.

Rumors flourish in the foxholes.

“I hear Israeli commandos caught Saddam Hussein last night. That true?” a young front-line Marine Corps sentry asks a reporter. Another story has King Fahd offering a $1,500 bonus to every U.S. Marine on station in the gulf, only to have the gesture rejected by President Bush.

A correspondent in the Saudi Arabia war zone receives word that his teen-age daughter has renamed the family’s errant puppy “Scud.”

Abdi Yussef Osaman stands 6-foot-6, but at a transit camp in the no-man’s-land between Iraq and Jordan, he is one of the virtually invisible victims of the war.

“I left Baghdad on Monday. Too many problems Baghdad,” he says. “But now, where can I go? The Jordanians won’t let me cross. They say I have nowhere to go if they let me in. . . . And it is true. You see, I am from Somalia. My country is in flames now. They say, ‘Go back Baghdad.’ I say, ‘I can’t go back Baghdad--too much problems. No food. No water. Too much bombing. And I can’t go Somalia--too much war there.’ War is all around me, and I am trapped here with nowhere to go.”

Refugee relief groups in Amman confirm that hundreds of other Somalis are like Osaman, men and women without a country, trapped by a war that has only begun.

JANUARY 24

The first signs of war shortages begin to emerge in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, closest to Kuwait. Bottled water has doubled in price; some sizes of batteries are unavailable. At least one hotel has stopped cashing traveler’s checks. Many items remain in good supply, though, including Cuban cigars--smoking being the one acceptable sin in this land of Islamic law.

While Palestinians’ complaints about not being supplied enough masks in the Israeli-occupied West Bank have received considerable publicity, little has been said about the foreign workers in Saudi Arabia who have the same problem.

In the midst of yet another Scud attack, Filipino cook Felicito Hernandez takes what precautions he can, pulling a large plastic bag over his head as the Americans who shared his bomb shelter don their masks and special clothing.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw it,” Master Sgt. Robert Smolen, a U.S. National Guard member, says later. The next day, following a Smolen complaint to Hernandez’s employer--Saudi Catering Co.--the cook and his peers are issued gas masks.

JANUARY 25

The American presence in Saudi Arabia may be tolerated, but a cultural gulf persists.

When two Americans, a man and a woman, visit one of Riyadh’s few small cafes open in the neighborhood on this, the Muslim holy day, the proprietor asks the woman to stay outside in deference to a number of Saudi men already there.

When everyone else has left the establishment, he ushers the pair inside lest people driving past be scandalized by the lack of covering on the woman’s head and face. Finally, two Saudi men and a young boy walk into the restaurant, spy the woman, debate quickly, turn on their heels and leave.

At least one drunken Turkish businessman on an Istanbul airport bus has apparently taken to heart President Turgut Ozal’s repeated, televised statements that this is “a warrior nation” that “should not fear to fight for a new world order.”

“Bayonets,” cries the businessman as his fellow passengers watch with amused embarrassment. “This gulf business needs to be finished with bayonets. These Americans can’t do it, and we Turks can.”

JANUARY 26

The alarm at 3:35 a.m. is a piercing scream, jolting the Patriot launch crew from their dozing. They rush to positions and listen: “It’s coming in this direction,” says Sgt. William Salmon, 23, of Stillwater, Okla., the radio operator. “We have inbounds! We have inbounds! Scud launch! Scud launch!”

“We’ve got them on the scope,” reports Capt. Joe DeAntona, 28, of Scranton, Pa. “Here it comes!”

At 3:37 a.m., Bravo and Alfa batteries fire their Patriot anti-missile missiles. “We have launched,” says DeAntona, and the banter is replaced by an expectant silence. Long seconds followed by the sound of a distant whump. “We got it!” exults Salmon.

The troops are losing their patience with nighttime Scud alerts that disturb their sleep and force them to don protective gear against possible poison gas--particularly false alarms like the one last night. As they shave with cold water, one soldier sneers that the alarm was probably triggered by someone urinating on a chemical detection device in the dark. Another quips that the only gas in the area so far had been generated by troops forced to eat a steady diet of prepackaged “Meals Ready to Eat”--this war’s equivalent of C-rations.

While Israelis welcome American Jews and others who arrive from abroad to demonstrate their support during a time of trial for the country, they are also bitter about those Israelis who have been going abroad. And the “desertions,” as they are seen by some, are the subject of dark humor.

In a television appearance, top Israeli comic Tuvia Tsafir impersonates one of his countrymen making bold statements about Saddam Hussein’s Scud attacks.

“There’s no reason to be afraid. I’m not afraid of his missiles,” the brave citizen says, chewing on a toothpick. “There’s no chance that his missiles will get here.”

As he talks, the camera pulls back to reveal Big Ben and Westminster--the speaker is in London.

JANUARY 27

Emotions ride a roller coaster among the Americans in Saudi Arabia--troops and journalists alike. One day, it seems the war will be over in a week; the next, it looks like everyone will be here for a year. Saturday was rough, with rumors of an imminent terrorist attack. Today, the skies are clear and blue.

Good weather means two things. First, it seems to lessen the chance of a Scud attack--the Iraqis apparently prefer to fire Scuds from under a cloud cover. And second, it means that allied pilots will be conducting extra missions.

At a muddy gas station in the Jordanian border town of Ruweished, a Thai driver wearing a plastic baseball cap pulls his tanker-truck into line for a fill-up. War hasn’t stopped the oil trade between Iraq and resource-poor Jordan, he makes clear.

“We go over empty,” he says. “Sometimes we have to wait here a night or two because of the boom-boom. But when it’s clear, we go in, load up and come back to Zarqa (Jordan’s major oil refinery).”

Diplomats say Jordan pays about $16 a barrel for Iraqi crude. Despite the war, it’s business as usual.

Times staff writers Douglas Frantz, John Balzar and David Lamb in Saudi Arabia, Nick B. Williams Jr. and Mark Fineman in Jordan, Daniel Williams in Jerusalem, and William Montalbano in Turkey contributed to this report. Hugh Pope in Turkey also contributed to this report. Material gathered by pool reporters and reviewed by allied military censors is also included.