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Training 'Strategic Corporals'
By Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 19, 2003; 1:05 PM
LIVING SUPPORT AREA-7, Kuwait -- With an authoritative thrust, Lance Corporal Jeffrey Rosenthal
planted his knee on Saturday into the back of a fellow Marine from Charlie Company who was lying
face down and spread-eagled on a warm patch of desert.
With his thumb and forefinger, Rosenthal, 21, found pressure points at the base of his captive's nose and
behind the ear and twisted the head to face the pounding midday sun. Calmly, Rosenthal wrenched the
other Marine's right arm behind his back and dragged him to his feet. "Get up! Get up, now!" Rosenthal,
of Bakersfield, Calif. shouted.
Then he barked a command in Arabic and led his prisoner away to a separate holding area to be
interrogated by linguists who speak Arabic or Farsi.
After months of preparing to fight the Iraqi army, Marines from the 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment
have been learning how to deal with the soldiers who don't fight back.
In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, approximately 65,000 Iraqis surrendered in the field. This time around,
U.S. troops pushing all the way to Baghdad could encounter even greater numbers. Many experts are
predicting high desertion rates among Iraqi army regulars, many of whom are young conscripts.
Specially trained civil affairs personnel waiting miles behind the frontlines will be responsible for the
long-term care of the Iraqi captives, but it will fall to people like Rosenthal to make first contact and
secure the prisoners' transfer to the rear.
"If we hit them hard enough, hopefully they will see the light and give up," said Lt. Col. Christopher
Conlin, who commands the battalion and was observing the training Saturday morning. The exercises,
he said, are designed to make young and relatively low-ranking Marines into what he called "strategic
corporals," well aware that their actions towards prisoners "could effect much larger operations."
Taking prisoners is most difficult when the advancing troops are outnumbered by their captives, Conlin
said. In one incident during the 1991 war, a platoon of Iraqi armored vehicles surrendered to a four-man
Marine sniper team.
Charlie company practiced scenarios in which several dozen Marines playing the role of captives
surrendered to a squad of just 13 Marines.
Instructors demonstrated the proper technique for a "hasty search," turning up knives, identification
documents, and other important items stashed in the prisoners' clothing.
They the Marines separated officers from enlisted personnel to make the prisoners feel alone and, they
hoped, cooperative. Those who had been processed were lined up side-by-side, with their heads pointing
in alternating directions so it would be harder to communicate. Later, the instructors said, a more
extensive bodily search would be conducted.
"The job is a lot easier if we shock them right at the beginning. They are supposed to understand that it
isn't going to be a cakewalk. It's all about establishing control," said Sgt. Justin Campbell, 23, of
Columbus, who ran the exercise, barking out instructions and teaching by example.
In Arabic, Campbell barked an order in lie down to a young corporal playing a prisoner. The man
refused. So Campbell took hold of him and swung him around like a rag doll. "You see, he's in a little
pain right now," Campbell said.
Campbell jerked the corporal's head straight back so his eyes faced the sky. "This way they can't get a
lot of pressure if they want to bite you," he said. "Of course, you only need to do this if they're being
insubordinate."
Insubordinate the mock prisoners certainly were. A group started a brawl with their captors that by the
instructor's reckoning would have resulted in the deaths of about half of the prisoners and all of the
Marines guarding them.
One prisoner jumped to his feet yelling "Allah Akbar!" and was summarily slammed on his back by a
Marine standing just a few feet away. Another bolted from his prone position with an ear-to-ear grin and
led two rifle-toting guards on a wild-goose chase around the large white tents that fill this desert camp.
He returned with his smile intact and his face coated in sand from the guards' revenge.
"The initial search is the most dangerous part, after that we feel more at ease," said Gunnery Sergeant
Ruy Pena, a 37-year-old reservist from Los Angeles. In recent weeks, he has gone from platoon to
platoon, teaching Marines to "search, silence and segregate the prisoners, speedily and most importantly
safely."
Once the prisoners are corralled and subdued, the translators and interrogators take over, singling out
prisoners they feel could provide useful information. "We're an extra set of eyes and ears," said one of
the specialists, who asked not to be named.
Cpl. Dale Whitehead, a 26-year-old Arabic speaker from Morristown, New Jersey, who would work as
an interpreter for people interrogating Iraqi prisoners, said that the hardest part of his job would be
quickly and accurately relaying not just what prisoners say, but what they mean. "The conditions will be
stressful and speed will count," said Whitehead, who learned Arabic during a 15-month course at the
Defense Language Institute in Monterrey, Calif.
Part of U.S. strategy in this conflict, warplanners have said, will be to convince Iraqi soldiers that they
will benefit from surrendering. But many of the Marines said that one of their biggest challenges will be
distinguishing between those soldiers still fighting and those trying to give up. They could end up
shooting a fighting soldier and capturing the one next to him, if he chooses to surrender, instructors said.
Those leading the training stressed repeatedly that prisoners must be treated as humanely as possible.
"The military is not just about sticking someone in the eye with a bayonet," said Lt. Adam Macaluso of
Charlie Company, who was overseeing one of the exercises. "We can't forget the humanitarian side."
The Marines have been instructed to provide captives with food and water rations stored in each combat
vehicle. Prisoners are to be permitted to pray five times per day, and, to prevent misunderstandings that
could lead to unnecessary violence, each Marine has been taught a few key Arabic phrases. The Marines
have also been told never to make a prisoner kneel in front of them, because that posture conjures
images of an execution.
U.S. forces must be prepared to fight a "a three-block war," said Conlin, the battalion commander:
simultaneous humanitarian, peacekeeping and combat missions.
Illustrating the scenario he described, just a few hundred yards from where the capture training was
taking place, another platoon from Charlie Company was running through an urban warfare exercise.
"Many of their soldiers may surrender before we get to this stage," said Major Rick Hall, the battalion's
executive officer, as he watched teams of two to four Marines move from room to room in a mock house
made of white strips of tape laid across the sand. "But the one individual with the gunsights on you may
not, and we have to be prepared for that too. We plan for the worst and hope for the best."
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