Replacements for Marines in Gulf Hone Battle Skills

Pfc. Michael Khalil is one of about 12,000 Marines hurriedly being trained as replacement troops for the Gulf War, and on Wednesday the bespectacled 21-year-old Marine had his first skirmish, of sorts.

It was with his infernal gas mask.

Khalil was flat on his stomach at the rifle range at Camp Pendleton when an instructor unexpectedly shouted, “gas, gas, gas,” and the young Marine nervously groped to doff his heavy helmet and don the unruly mask.

As if Khalil needed more pressure, Sgt. F. J. Baldwin was walking menacingly along the line of prone Marines, clapping his hands and bellowing, “Look around, all of a sudden, you’re throwing up, you got stuff on your lungs.”

The sergeant then exhorted the Marines to peer through their baggy masks and accurately fire their M-16 rifles at a tiny black target 300 yards downrange.

Afterward, Khalil turned to Pfc. Clint Kadrmas and confided, “That scares hell out of me, him screaming ‘gas.’ ”

It’s going to be like this, more or less, for 11 days.

The Marine Corps is giving an intense combat refresher course to about 6,000 Marines on each coast before their possible deployment to the Gulf War, where they would replace killed and wounded troops or those leaving their units for other reasons.

These replacements are both regular duty and reserve Marines, and 1,355 have been trained so far at Camp Pendleton. A new group of 443 Marines had their first day Wednesday, brushing up on firing rifles and .45-caliber pistols, and at night firing under illumination.

“We specifically hone in on combat techniques,” said Lt. Col. Ray Blum, commanding officer of the Warrior Training Battalion.

Marines routinely practice fighting skills, but Blum said this is the first time such refresher training has been done on a “large scale.”

“Should the ground war kick off, and should we take casualties, we’d have replacements on hand,” he said. At Marine Corps headquarters in Washington, where casualties are a sensitive topic, it is emphasized that many replacement troops simply will be used to bring units up to strength.

The replacements get nine days of processing and firearms practice at Camp Pendleton before two days of additional training at Twentynine Palms in San Bernardino County, where desert warfare is taught.

Many of these Marines have military jobs ranging from truck driver to mechanic, and the pre-deployment combat course is designed to make sure they have fresh infantry skills.

Pfc. Khalil, for example, specializes in operating a 42,000-pound amphibious assault vehicle, but on Wednesday he practiced how to adjust the sights on a rifle and shoot while enshrouded by his gas mask.

He believes every skill counts, especially since he figures Saddam Hussein has something nasty up his sleeve for American ground troops. “A Scud here, a Scud there, they’ve got something ready for us,” said Khalil.

His big fear is chemical warfare, and even the drill he’s just been through has affected him. “Did you see me up there fumbling for my gas mask? I was shaking. Every time they say ‘gas,’ . . . you’ve got to take it serious.”

Kadrmas seems preoccupied not by the all-too-real training, but by the interminable wait to get this war business over. The 19-year-old Seattle native said, “We’ve been waiting around here too long.”

On a nearby firing range, another group of replacements practices shooting at targets with hard-kicking .45 automatic pistols.

The paper targets, only about 15 or 20 feet away, are human-shaped cutouts of figures dressed in civilian clothes and carrying AK-47 assault rifles.

The Marines practice drawing from their holsters, carefully removing the pistol’s safety, and shooting with proper sight alignment. The accuracy in this session is not exactly inspiring.

In a way, shooting this circa 1911 pistol would seem irrelevant to such a high-tech war with smart bombs and computerized weapons systems. But 2nd Lt. Chuck Mock, a logistics officer, believes Marines will be involved in ground combat in which a pistol has a use, perhaps during close-up fighting to clear an enemy trench.

“I think we’ll probably wind up in combat,” said the New York native.