Marines Finding Surrendering Fighters (misleading headline) [View All]

[Barrett808]

Marines Finding Surrendering Fighters
EDWARD HARRIS
Associated Press

FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. Marines charged up the stairs in one of Fallujah's grandest buildings Saturday, seeking the high ground in their battle with insurgents. There, they found three foreign men lying in wait.

But they were unarmed, elderly and infirm - three shaken and hungry Egyptians, kneeling on the floor, waving a white sheet.

One wore a turban, had sallow skin and a distended belly. He held out a note in English - a message from Marines who had swept through earlier. It said the foreigners were not suspected combatants, unlike many in Fallujah.

"Tell them we'll get them out for medical treatment. Not now, but soon they'll have a ride to the rear," Lt. Owen Boyce, 24, of Simsbury, Conn., told a translator. "Tell them we'll take care of them. But we've got a casualty and that's the priority."

The three Egyptians were traveling to Baghdad for medical care when the were caught up in the Fallujah fighting.

...

"It's pretty clear these guys aren't fighters," Boyce said as the Egyptians pressed cheap plastic lighters, gifts of gratitude, into his hands.

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http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/state/10174758.htm