CENTRAL IRAQ - The Iraqi artillery fire crashed into the edge of the field before dawn, sending bivouacking Marines into a panic as they scrambled from their sleeping bags into their armored assault vehicles.

"I say we just -- nuke this place and make it into a parking lot," seethed Lance Cpl. Ryan Eman, 22, of Michigan.

U.S. forces invading this country make frequent reference to "nuking" Iraqis, whom they call "ragheads" and "camel jockeys," often without appearing to distinguish between civilians and enemy forces. The extent to which such remarks are part of the daily vernacular underscores the cultural and political challenges the United States faces as it becomes a major military presence in a post-Saddam Iraq.

Who's a raghead? Anybody who actively opposes the United States of America's way ... If a little kid actively opposes my way of life, I'd call him a raghead, too.

Lance Cpl. Christopher Akins, 21, of Louisville, Ky

Asked later about his remark, Eman said he hadn't sincerely wished to drop a nuclear bomb on the people he was sent to liberate from Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein. "I was frustrated and tired," he said. "I don't wish nukes on anybody, because anything we throw like that at somebody could come back at us."

Most Marines will say the same. "We're men of honor. We don't mean it, we just want to get this over with and go home," said Lance Cpl. Jay Dreyer, 20, of Lake Crystal, Minn., who admits he's occasionally used the "N" word in reference to Iraqis.

Moving north into populated areas during the past week, Marines within Regimental Combat Team 5, many of them in a foreign mission for the first time, have come into increasingly close contact with a variety of Iraqis. Some are soldiers firing at them from tanks and militiamen who've stormed them with rocket-propelled grenades; others are men, women and children who've given them thumbs up and pressed gifts of coarse flat bread and sticky dates into their hands.

For many troops, the friendly exchanges have been as much of an eye-opener as the hostile ones.

While his unit rolled through a village near the Tigris River a few days ago, Navy Corpsman Ryan Patrick Cox, a medic attached to the combat team's 2nd Battalion, treated a young boy who was sick - probably from drinking the untreated water found in most parts of the country.

After Cox gave the child penicillin and purified water, the boy's father asked his son, "Saddam or Bush?" "Bush!" the child said and kissed Cox on the cheek.

"It made me feel so good, like we're doing the right thing," Cox said.

Other Marines, however, remain circumspect - partly because of their own actions. "The way these Iraqis smile and wave at us as we drive by, sometimes I think they support us more than the Americans back home do," said Lance Cpl. Ben Dible, 21, of Grand Junction, Colo. "But I wonder what they think when we leave our fighting holes and our trash all over their yards."

They're all just ragheads to me, the same way they used to call the enemy 'gooks' in Vietnam.

Cpl. Jeb Moser, 21, of Ruston, La

U.S. military officials are repeatedly urging troops to avoid any conduct that would prompt Iraqis to turn against coalition forces. However, some such incidents already have occurred, such as bombings that have struck civilians, or the two episodes last week in which U.S. forces shot and killed civilians at checkpoints.

No reports have surfaced of serious U.S. military looting or pillaging, and troops have been diligent about burying trash. Nevertheless, plastic Meal-Ready-to-Eat wrappers have become ubiquitous along roads and in fields as American troops move north. To make room for their assault vehicles and tanks or to build bridges, U.S. forces have bulldozed civilians' palm trees and wheat fields. They have accidentally machine-gunned or fired mortar at camels, seeing them in the far distance near tanks and believing them to be Iraqi soldiers.

One group of Marines last week snatched a chicken from the yard of a crumbling dirt farmhouse near where they bivouacked, hours after evacuating the family inside on the chance they were enemy. The Marines wrung the chicken's neck, plucked it, roasted it over an open fire and merrily ate it, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it might have been one of the family's few possessions.

Marines have at times become impatient or irate when Iraqi families ignore their signals to avoid areas under military control. Yesterday, unit commanders told troops that they'd been using the wrong hand signal for halt: a palm held up perpendicular to the ground, which actually signifies "welcome." The correct motion is to hold a hand parallel to the ground and move it slightly up and down, they said.

In addition to being concerned that previously welcoming Iraqis might turn against them, U.S. military officials say they are even more concerned about the fact that many Iraqi soldiers and militia are blending in with the civilian population to ambush U.S. forces.

Not only does that make Iraqi troops harder to spot, but it further blurs the line for many Marines between innocent civilians and hostile Iraqi troops.

"It's like you're fighting a faceless enemy," said Cpl. Jeb Moser, 21, of Ruston, La. "They're all just ragheads to me, the same way they used to call the enemy 'gooks' in Vietnam."

"Raghead, raghead, can't you see? This old war ain't -- to me," sang Lance Cpl. Christopher Akins, 21, of Louisville, Ky., sweat running down his face in rivulets as he dug a fighting trench one recent afternoon under a blazing sun.

Asked whom he considered a raghead, Akins said: "Anybody who actively opposes the United States of America's way ... If a little kid actively opposes my way of life, I'd call him a raghead, too."

As for non-hostile Iraqis, "I think they can be brought up intellectually, but it'll take some work because they're still in the Stone Age," Akins said. He appeared startled to hear that Iraqis are descendants of ancient Mesopotamia, a thriving civilization that created the world's first known system of writing and body of law, and that until the havoc of Hussein's regime, Iraq also enjoyed a substantial and highly educated middle class.

Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

###