ANTHOLOGY AND ANNOTATED BIBLJOGRAPHY                                         187

   "If we can't do our job, no one else can," said Mitchell, referring to the
tanks and infantry that will follow his unit into battle.
   Many of the Marines have turned to religion, superstition and good luck
charms to give them the mental boost to face those jobs.
   Cpl. Robert Stacy, 23, of New York City, has clipped two large safety pins
in a crude cross on the front of his desert-tan Marine hat: "it is a sign of the
cross--or I can use it to fix my clothes when things start getting ripped up.
   The crew of an amphibious personnel carrier dubbed "Blaze of Glory" has
strung a plastic Bart Simpson doll on a string between two rear antenna.  A tape
of `,Bart Sings the Blues" blares from inside.
   For Mitchell, who joined the Marine Corps almost two years ago to escape
his Northwest D.C. neighborhood and travel the world, his greatest fantasy now
is returning to his hometown for a bar-hopping spree through Georgetown and
a welcome-home parade down Pennsylvania Avenue.
   He rubbed the cross his mom mailed him--a nickel with a cross cut into its
center.  "With this, I can't go wrong."