Word: battalion
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...policy toward Central America, in particular El Salvador. Two days after Bush's ultimatum, Salvadoran extremists won worrisome victories: a rightist coalition in the legislature managed to weaken the three-year-old land-reform program, and leftist guerrillas in the field ravaged a U.S.-trained army battalion (25 dead, 45 wounded) in a ten-hour firefight. In Nicaragua, meanwhile, the left-wing Sandinista government has made much of its recent moderate gestures, as the U.S. endeavors to fashion a diplomatic response...
Added Lieut. Colonel Ray Smith, a battalion commander: "I certainly don't fault them for doing it." There were other skirmishes throughout the week, but none so serious as the one that cost the lives of the eight Marines...
This message apparently was not enough to prevent yet another string of atrocities. In Copapayo, some 45 miles northeast of San Salvador, survivors told foreign journalists last week that troops of El Salvador's elite Atlacatl battalion herded at least 20 women and children into a house, then turned machine guns on them. In a separate incident near by, the soldiers reportedly fired on a group of more than 30 civilians, killing some outright and forcing others into a lake, where they drowned. Said a guerrilla boastfully: "This type of behavior reflects the agony of an army that...
...loved ones back home needed no reminders. As rescue workers clawed through the smoking ruins last week of what had once been the Battalion Landing Team Headquarters of the U.S. Marines, and the toll grew bleaker, relatives and friends kept vigil across the country, awaiting word. For most, the news came only after several wrenching days of uncertainty. All of a sudden, the dreaded figure in uniform would appear and say, "The Secretary of the Navy has asked that I inform...
Many of the dead Marines were naked or dressed only in jogging shorts, without their dog tags, making identification difficult. Worse yet, most of the battalion's personnel records and dental charts were destroyed in the blast. To ease the worry of families back home, the Marines were later permitted free five-minute telephone calls home...