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Gulf War veterans recall Muslim distrust By Joanna Weiss, Globe Staff, 11/11/2001 His campaign against the West began with his protest of US troops in
Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm. And he has used lingering
anger about the Gulf War to recruit supporters and terrorists.
But while many Americans have found that anger baffling, some Gulf War
veterans say they aren't surprised. From postings in Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait 10 years ago, they saw firsthand the layers of resentment: the
grudging acceptance of ''infidels'' on their soil, the assumption
that Americans were morally corrupt, the cultural tendency to hold a
grudge for a long, long time.
Now, Gulf veterans look to the Middle East and Central Asia and see
some of the same combatants, grievances, dangers. ''This is basically an
extension of the Gulf War,'' said Paul Perrone, 36, of Methuen, who served
on an air base in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He said he fears for what US
soldiers will encounter in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom,
and what they'll face when they come home.
Several Gulf War veterans said this Veterans Day is especially
poignant, since they find themselves torn over the military: deeply
supportive of US soldiers, deeply cynical of the military bureaucracy.
They complain of the mysterious, debilitating health problems that have
come to be known as Gulf War Syndrome. Some have spent a decade fighting
with the government for information, medical claims, and recognition.
Venus-val Hammack, 48, a Lynn native who served in the Gulf, said her
children refuse to celebrate Veterans Day, in protest over her illness.
Now she's concerned for US troops overseas - suspicious that some have
already been harmed, fearful that if they encounter biological attacks,
they'll have to fight for benefits in years to come.
''I honor them, I respect them, but I want to scream at the top of my
lungs to them: Watch your [back], because the government won't,'' Hammack
said.
Gulf veterans said they know how dangerous the situation is for current
troops in Afghanistan, whether from land mines and the fear of biological
weapons, or from the mere fact of being Western soldiers on Muslim
ground.
''They look down on us. They frown on us heavily,'' said Kirt Love,
37, an Army mechanic who served on the front lines in Kuwait and has since
become a Gulf War Syndrome activist. Many locals he encountered in Kuwait,
he said, assumed that all Americans had venereal disease and that all
American women were immoral. He said he saw Saudis approach women guards
at his camp, put money in their hands, and refuse to let go, assuming that
the uncovered women were prostitutes.
Frustration about Western women could spill out into the streets, said
Hammack, who served as a paralegal, guard, and driver in the war. When she
took a group of female soldiers into the streets of Riyadh for an errand
during the war, locals hit them with batons, asking why they weren't
covered and didn't have male escorts. To make them stop, she ducked into a
store, pulled out a credit card, and bought some robes.
When the Saudis learned she was Muslim herself, Hammack said, she was
able to break through some of the cultural barriers. Some local women
invited her to tea and showered her with curiosity, asking how she could
work with men, and whether life in the United States was really what
they'd heard - a place where you could go to any mosque you wanted, travel
by any train you chose.
But Hammack said she was always considered an outsider, quite aware of
how the Saudis viewed her mission. ''They were using us as rent-a-cops,''
she said.
American troops often bristled at that treatment, and chafed at the
restrictions of Muslim society, such as the prohibition on alcohol, said
John Cianci, 38, an active member of the Rhode Island National Guard who
processed POWs 30 miles from the Iraqi border.
''For any country to be able to dictate that to our country while we're
defending it, it bothers you,'' he said.
On a military visit to Kuwait last April, Cianci found that little had
changed; in a local coffee shop, American soldiers weren't served until
their local escort arrived. The 18- and 19-year-old soldiers who
accompanied him on this latest trip had trouble understanding why they
weren't appreciated more.
But Love said he can understand the local response. ''How would you
feel if we had Saudi Arabians that had a military base here in America?''
he asked. ''No one appreciated us over there. The only people who
appreciated us were the people that we liberated. Joe Public out there was
like, `Thank you, now get lost.'
Love said he has come to realize that Middle Eastern resentment goes
back further than the Gulf War, to decades of US foreign policy and
perceptions that American promises aren't always kept.
Hammack said her time in Saudi Arabia has also given her a better
understanding of the culture and ''how long and how deep the memory
goes.''
Besides, Perrone said, locals had few illusions about American motives.
''I never fully expected them to be appreciative,'' he said. ''We didn't
really go over there to protect Muslims. We went over there to protect
oil.''
Yet he has no regrets about the way the Gulf War began, or the way it
ended. He said, ''A lot of people have been coming up to me and saying,
`If we had taken care of this in 1991,''' this wouldn't have happened. But
he disagrees.
''If we had gone in there and taken out Saddam, the resentment would
have been worse,'' Perrone said. ''We went to war for all the right
reasons. Everything that we're doing today is for the right reasons,
too.''
Others have mixed feelings about the way American troops should be used
in the current war. Love said he hears the cry for ground troops, the
argument that, if Americans engage Taliban soldiers face-to-face instead
of from the air, the United States would earn more local respect. He's
unconvinced.
Bin Laden's foot soldiers ''don't respect much of anything but their
own culture,'' he said. ''We're not going to win with them no matter what
we do.''
And while Perrone supports the current war, he, too, is doubtful that
it will end our problems with fundamentalists, or bridge cultural gaps
that are so profound.
''We're going to have problems with these people for the rest of their
lives,'' he said. ''These people are going to be a thorn in our side
forever.''
This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on
11/11/2001.
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