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Show Feature SOUTHERN UTAH NEWS 9 Kanah Marine says insects were worse to fight than iraqis MONDAY MAY 6, 1991 By JEANETTE RUSK class of his sister, Malynda, and Editor the kindergarten class of his sis- - r Marine Corporal Sam Car- - ter, KayCee. j penter was the third local man Sam, who has been married I who served in Desert Storm to for about a year and a half, was retumhome.andhewasgivena particularly proud of one bit of heros welcome when he drove news. His wife is expecting a into town with his dad, Stn baby in December. Elva stayed Carpenter, Sr., after he vu at the couples home in Vista picked up at the Las Vegas Air- - during most of the time Sam was in the Gulf, but she visited port on Saturday. April 27. machine gun with Sams family in Kanab for The team leader was with Task a week in February. Sam has been in the Marines for just over two years. He was sent to Saudi Arabia with the 7th Marine Regiment the first the strangest experience of the prisoner. They were white and war was the total blackening shaking they were visibly very caused by the smoke in this area, scared, he said concerning the There was no sunlight," he said, prisoners initial reaction. We It was black 24 hours a day."- found out later they were told That night Sam said he couldnt that we were required to kill our see his hand in front of his face whole family so we wouldnthave and he had to use a anyone to go back to and could device to find his machine gun focus on killing Iraqis; that we when he had taken three steps were merciless and would gun them down, hang them by their feet, and torture them; and do generally barbarian things." Sams unit stayed at the airport until March 4, and then, main objective. On this day, he since it was the first group into had his second major scare of Kuwait,italsowasthefirsttobe the war. As they were going withdrawn back into Saudi through an area called Kuwait Arabia. Two weeks later on March 17, National Forest" about the size - night-visio- n ld trenches for the advancing forces. He had a couple of scares the war when Iraqi fire hit on or near his ar- mored vehicle, but mostly his is of total ineffectiveness of tne Iraqi defense and complete American superiority. Young Carpenter, son of Sam and Trina Carpenter of Kanab, said he was surprised and em- d barrassed by the welcome parade he got through and Kanab on Satur- day evening when he arrived, He said he also was surprised and appreciative of the volume of mail he got from home during four-da- y police-escorte- his nearly eight-mont- stay in h Saudi Arabia. He got letters from the LDS 3rd Ward Young the Kanab Youth Civic and Clubs the fourth grade class of his sis- Jessica, also wrote to him. Through these and letters from his wife, Elva, and other family members and friends, he was kept in touch with home. One ofthe first things on Sams k stay agenda during his in Kanab before returning to his home in Vista, Calif., near where letter-writingproje- ct, two-wee- he is stationed at Camp Pendleton,' was to talk to the class that wrote him. He went to Leona Swallows class on Monday and delighted kids as he answered alftheir curious questions about what it was like for a local boy in a far-owar. On Tuesday, he made appearances in the second-grad- e fourth-grad- e ff oartmentoFliblic Health h ll its schedule in Fredonia for May. A Womens Clinic will be on Tuesday, May 7, a Well Child Clinic on the same day, and an Immunization Clinic on Tuesday, May 28. All will be held in the Fredonia Medical Building at 100 E. Cowboy. The Womens Clinic will be from 9 a.m. to noon. Call Judy at 7 for an appointment The Well Child Clinic will be from 1 to 3 p.m. Also call for an appointment. The Immunization Clinic will be from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Immuni: zations offered will be Hib, diptheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, measles, mumps, and rubella. No appointment is 643-709- necessary, but bring immunization records. regiment to be deployed then on Aug. 12 of last year. He was with the northernmost Ameri-durin- g can military unitin Saudi Arabia and spent irom August through December just sitting in a fensive position in tne desert. He said the monotony and routine of waiting so long was difficult It was uncomfortable because of the heat and the on- slaught of insects, like scorpi- ons, flies, and dung beetles. The flies were terrible," he de-sto- ry said.WefoughtSaddamforfour days. We fought the flies for eight months." Before the war started, Sams unit mostly spent its time in training and preparing for the job it would do in hitting the forward trenches and breaching obstacles. Sams unit was transported in an AAV an armored, amphibi-ter- , ous vehicle. It was the largest vehicle on the battlefield at 13 feet tall, 26 feet long, and 12 feet wide, and weighing 26 tons. It was surrounded with two inches of rolled aluminum armor. When the ground war started, Sams unit crossed the border at 11 at night on Feb. 23 (itjwas Feb. 22 here). Nobody even fired during the first breach, but at the second breach at about 2 p.m. on Feb. 24, the Marines met what Sam calls light resis-th- e tance." Seven Marines were wounded but no one was killed. However, Sam says one of the scariest times of the war occurred at that time. We were sitting at the second breach," he recounts. The Iraqis were shooting artillery fire, which was hitting all around us. We were surrounded by fire. Everybody was ting. But we gunned made and it through the fire. it of Kanab. he says they were Sam Carpenter speaks to Ns sister's ambushed and took some rounds of small arms fire on the vehicle. fourth-grad- e class at Kanab it was minor and no Although School. damage was done, the fire actu-ally hitting the vehicle woke Sam flew into March Air Force Base near Riverside, Calif., and was bused from there to hi s home base at Camp Pendleton. He was reunited with his wife and spent 10 days there, before getting a y leave. He plans to stay in Kanab until May 9, then spend two weeks at home in Vista with Elva before returning to duty. Sam signed up with the Marines for six years, so he still has more than three years to serve. When he finishes, hed like to return to Kanab and work for the Police Department or per- haps as a forest ranger or 30-da- in the combat engineers. The Iraqis had left huge Quantities of weapons and supplies when they fled, and the engineers were called in to blow them up. Sam said the Marines were very surprised at the speed of their advance and the light re- sistance. It wasnt supposed to happen this fast," he said. How ever, on the morning of Feb. 25, there was a minor Iraqi counter-Womeattack. We heard rounds going overhead and could see them impact," Sam related. As an illustration of the American dominance, Sam said the Marines sent out seven tanks and they wiped out an entire company of Iraqi tanks without even taking a hit. realizing it is pretty real,1 remarked, Although an armored ambush greeted the Marines at the port when they arrived the night of Feb. 27 ana early morning of Feb. 28, it was totally ineffective because the Iraqis had no night- vision capability, Sam explained, Every round they fired went he said. There were zero casualties." On the morning ofFeb. 28, the Marines got word that there would be a ceasefire. Sam was ordered to take a machine gun squad and round up some POWs in an area near the airport. He said the Iraqis were in pathetic condition, and all they wanted was food and water. Sam said one of the amusing about the war was talk- to the prisoners and finding ing Jubeil Airfield. In that position, out what they had been tola they were right in the middle of about American Marines to burning oilfields, and Sam said make them scared ofbeing taken air-Fredon- ia n, wild-nowher- life officer. Sam said he feels good about his service in the Gulf War. He feels it was a necessity and had to be done, and particularly afin Khafji ter he saw first-han- d and Kuwait City the damage that the Iraqis aid, and their harmingandkillingof Kuwaitis. In Khafii, all of the buildings were left riddled with bullets, Sam said. They pillaged erything, he commented, That man had to be stopped," ev-thin- gs he said of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. It wasnt for oil. It was a lot deeper than that." 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