Word: snipered
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...moment, however, Grenadians were not worrying much about the difficult tasks ahead. With only an occasional sniper firing at U.S. soldiers from isolated sites, the Defense Department announced on Wednesday that "hostilities have ceased." Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger then ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces to begin. By week's end the invasion force of 6,000 paratroopers, Army Rangers and Marines had dwindled to about 2,500 men of the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., and up to 500 support personnel. The 400 soldiers contributed by Grenada's neighboring island nations (Antigua, Barbados, Dominica...
...fighting was far from over. An additional 400 Cubans, it turned out, plus an unknown number of Grenadian soldiers and militiamen, continued to rattle the Rangers with sniper and mortar fire. They had isolated the medical school's Grand Anse campus from its True Blue buildings. They roamed the back streets of St. George's, pounding on doors, and melted up into the hills, seeking either hiding or sniper sites. They continued to control the capital's small harbor...
...basketball court was turned into a helicopter pad to lift the wounded to the Guam or to hospital facilities elsewhere. Recalled Student Paula Prezioso of Great Neck, N.Y.: "One minute we'd be under a desk, the next up looking for a Coke, the next treating some Cuban sniper. Then back under a desk...
Every so often, sniper fire from the neighboring Shi'ite Muslim slums would ring out, sending the searchers scurrying for shelter. Then, two days after the blast, came terrifying news. A rumor spread that three vehicles reportedly laden with high explosives were cruising the neighborhood. The Marines were immediately placed on "Condition One," the highest state of alert. Huge amphibious personnel carriers blocked off the roads leading to the base, while the highway curving past the airport was barricaded with boulders of concrete. Several hours later, without explanation, the alert was downgraded...
Other Marines spoke of their frustrated desire for revenge. "I think we ought to start shooting first," said one. Pointing across to the nearby slum Hayes Sullum, the source of sniper fire that had killed two Marines a fortnight earlier, he added, "You see guys running around there with AK-47 rifles and grenades. We should hit them." Yet others realized that punishment should be meted out only to those directly responsible for the attacks and that finding them would be impossible. "We just want to hit back, but hit back at whom?" asked another Marine...