"This duty is absolutely ridiculous"

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

LA Times, June 29, 2003

Between War and Peace, U.S. Soldiers Feel Strain

By Patrick J. McDonnell, Times Staff Writer

RAMADI, Iraq -- They are caught somewhere between an irregular war and an 
uneasy peace, an occupying army in a battered land fraught with uncertainty.

"This kind of war is a lot scarier for me," said Sgt. Douglas White, a 
reed-thin 21-year-old from Denver who was guiding a patrol along the lush 
Euphrates River here, northwest of Baghdad. "You see 9-year-old kids with guns.

"If someone comes up to you on a battlefield, you just light them up. You 
can't do that here."

A few miles away, Capt. James Dayhoff, also from Colorado, was setting up a 
checkpoint along a stretch of desolate highway.

"Every time you stop someone, you don't know if he's going to come out 
firing an AK-47, or just blow himself up, or cooperate," Dayhoff said as he 
maneuvered his troops in the post-midnight blackness.

(clip)

In the Fallouja area, many troops assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division are 
incensed that they weren't sent home after spearheading the attack on 
Baghdad in April, months after their deployment to the region last fall. 
Making matters worse is the precarious nature of their duties in the 
region, where attacks by people wielding anything from rocks to rifles to 
rocket-propelled grenades are common. Soldiers recently discovered a 
booby-trapped shell near a roadside soft-drink stand frequented by U.S. troops.

"This duty is absolutely ridiculous," said Sgt. 1st Class Richard Edwards, 
a 42-year-old from Brooklyn who was on night patrol in the rural area 
between Baghdad and Fallouja. "We are combat troops. We are trained in 
combat. We are not trained in peacekeeping. We should all be home by 
now.... It's like we won the Super Bowl but we have to keep on playing."

His partner, Sgt. 1st Class Andre LeGrant from Georgia, said the 
psychological strain has been immense.

"We fought and fought to survive, and we thought we were going home," 
LeGrant said as he guided his Humvee through a warren of rural alleys and 
along stands of palm and brush ? ideal ambush sites, he noted. "You're not 
really fighting an enemy anymore. You're more or less fighting 
terrorism.... We thought we would go home as heroes after taking Baghdad. 
Now look at us."

One night last week, along with basic patrol duties designed to demonstrate 
a "presence" and deter attacks, the three-vehicle convoy was also watching 
over tons of stainless steel that had been discovered in a warehouse. The 
troops' task was to deter looters ? a common mission in a nation where 
Saddam Hussein's fall unleashed an orgy of pillaging that badly damaged the 
nation's infrastructure.

"They need to get some police officers out here to do this kind of work," 
said Spc. Daniel Keene, 23, from Jackson, Miss., the third member of the 
Humvee crew. "Right now, I'm thinking about getting back home and seeing my 
little boy's first tooth. My wife says he's already teething."

full: http://www.latimes.com/ (click 'US soldiers feel the strain')

Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org