Worry turns to elation after photo of soldiers in one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces appears on newspaper Web site.
By: Jeff Milgram
The last time Princeton University Professor Uwe Reinhardt and his wife, May, saw their son Mark, 24, it was rush, rush, rush.
It was January, and Mark, a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, was hurriedly packing and getting ready to ship out from California to Kuwait with the other members of the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion.
"We literally flew out for one dinner," Professor Reinhardt said.
The next day, 2nd Lt. Reinhardt left for Kuwait and while the Reinhardts heard from him from time to time, they still worried.
The war interrupted the correspondence, but the Reinhardts understood that mail was slow. But while the war raged, the Reinhardts heard no news of their son or his unit until a few days ago, when they saw a photo on The New York Times’ Web site of exhausted Marines sitting on chairs in Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein’s palace in Tikrit, north of Baghdad.
There, among the Marines, was 2nd Lt. Reinhardt.
"I find it incredulous," Ms. Reinhardt said. At first, she didn’t believe it really was her son. But after being convinced, she was relieved. "I’m deliriously happy," she said.
Second Lt. Reinhardt attended Princeton Junior School, which Ms. Reinhardt helped found, and graduated from The Lawrenceville School. He graduated from Princeton University in 2001 and went into the Marines.
"He always said he wanted to lead men," said Professor Reinhardt, who teaches economics and public policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. "He just loves the kind of challenges … testing himself to the limit."
With an older son who is a financial planner and an older daughter in medical school, Ms. Reinhardt said, "Not in my wildest dream would I imagine Mark would become a Marine."
She said her youngest son became attracted to the Marine values honor, loyalty, discipline and leadership.
"He thought a stint in the Marines would be a good thing," Ms. Reinhardt said.
Part of the challenge in training was a grueling 60-hour session called "The Crucible," said Professor Reinhardt, who was a child in Germany at the end of World War II. During the 60 hours, the troops go without sleep and food and train in the most difficult of circumstances.
"The Crucible" was the right training for fighting through sandstorms and surviving shortages of food, Professor Reinhardt said.
Second Lt. Reinhardt is responsible for a biological and chemical warfare unit. One day, he was expecting delivery of truckloads of new chemical warfare suits. What he found on the trucks were chickens, his father said. When 2nd Lt. Reinhardt got angry, he was told that the chickens were there to warn the troops about chemical and biological attacks, the way miners used canaries to warn against poisonous gas.
While Professor Reinhardt is proud of his son, he does not give the war his unqualified approval. "I personally would have preferred seeing this as a United Nations war," he said.
The Reinhardts don’t know when their son will return from Iraq or whether he’ll get leave to come home. If he does, the Reinhardts plan to throw a party.
And while the fighting is mostly over, the worrying continues. "I continue to worry because the Marines are in the south now," Ms. Reinhardt said.
The family still doesn’t know 2nd Lt. Reinhardt’s whereabouts, but they do know the Marines have left Baghdad, some going to the north, where the Kurds are friendly to the United States, and some going to the south, where Shiite Moslems are not all friendly.

