http://express.netforchange.com/cgi-bin/WebX.fcgi?50@133.xpfNaS1Jefu^0@.11d09c61
   
       
   Camels, Long Nights for U.S. Troops
   
   http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-marines-camel-
   corps1205d
   ec05.story
   
   By DOUG MELLGREN, Associated Press Writer
   
   SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN -- It's cold, very dark and quiet in this foxhole
   in the desert of southern Afghanistan. The excitement of the night,
   perhaps of the week, is a stray camel.
   
   Four young Marines from Charlie Company are holding this forward line,
   about a mile from the secret desert air base they helped seize in a raid
   on Nov. 25.
   
   "We should have brought a book on the stars," says Cpl. John Grayson,
   22, of Bald Knob, Ark. The four men look up. There is no moon yet, so the
   stars shine with impossible brightness.
   
   For more than a week, these men from the 15th Marine Expeditionary
   Unit, have worked from this fighting hole, as the Marines refer to it. It
   has been their workplace, their home and their security.
   
   They've dug two trenches: one for fighting and one for sleeping and
   stowing their gear. Their M-16 rifles lean ready on sandbags. They've
   cut a ledge in the dirt to make a dusty bench, where they sit during
   their vigil, making up word games, talking about the past and the future,
   dreaming aloud of hot showers, warm meals and home.
   
   It's been quiet near the base all week, except for the roar of helicopters
   and transport aircraft in the night. The loud chop-chop-chop of
   helicopters shakes the sand under sleeping bags. There are no tents.
   
   The four men -- Grayson, Sgt. Adam Tahir, 24, of Woodland, Calif.,
   Lance Cpl. Josh Swanson, 20, of Gaston, Ore., and Cpl. Robert Ray, 23, of
   Dallas -- say all they've seen is a few birds, some small scorpions,
   and what they call "the Puma."
   
   "It's probably really a desert fox," Tahir says.
   
   From another hole in the sand, somewhere in the darkness, there are
   shouts and then gunfire. The four stand up instantly.
   
   "Kill it. Kill it," a voice shouts in the darkness.
   
   The unit's field telephone rattles.
   
   "They're saying kill it," Grayson says into the receiver. He
   emphasizes the word "it" -- this is not a human enemy.
   
   A few minutes later, one of the Marines spots the target though his
   night scope. "It's a camel," he says. "It's big."
   
   The camel draws closer, walking right up to their hole, around it and
   then back.
   
   "Is there anything on it?" demands Grayson, alert to the possibility
   that it could be carrying a bomb or booby trap. They see nothing.
   
   The camel wanders off.
   
   Later in the night, the unit and the base go on high alert. There are
   more shots, machine-gun fire with bright tracer bullets. The main compound
   off in the distance goes dark. Capt. Steward Upton, a public affairs officer,
   will later say the shots were fired to scare the animal away from the
   desert runway.
   
   At daybreak Wednesday, back at the command post hundreds of yards
   away, mortar crews are cleaning themselves with bits of towel and
   bottles of water.
   
   Compared to the fighting hole, this is luxury. There are tents, and
   ingenious Marines have built themselves a bunker, covered with mats of
   woven twigs found at nearby abandoned mud-and-brick buildings. Inside,
   smoke comes from an old wood stove, also found nearby.
   
   "It's like building forts when you were a kid. It's like a big camping
   trip with a little danger," says Lance Cpl. Joel Cheney, of Bossier, La.
   
   But the troops remember why they are here.
   
   "They attacked us," says Grayson.
   
   At another hole, farther down the lines, an American flag is pinned to
   a sandbag. Next to it is a piece of cardboard with a picture of
   suspected terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, under the hand-lettered text:
   "Wanted, dead or alive."
   
   "We saw the picture in Rolling Stone (magazine), and figured we had to
   do something with it," says Cpl. Brad Luschinski, 22, of Sheridan, Ind.
   
   Minutes later there is another alert. In the distance, seven military
   vehicles churn up dust as they race across the desert to intercept
   another intruder. They are out an hour.
   
   The intruder turns out to be another camel.
   
   "Well, that was the morning's excitement," says Staff Sgt. Dana Cator,
   38, of Irmo, S.C. "Guess we'll see what the afternoon brings."
   
   Copyright 2001 Associated Press