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

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.

The nearly 150,000 U.S. troops stationed in Iraq are a varied lot, and it is impossible to generalize about their feelings -- aside from the unanimous desire to get home safe to their families. But time spent with soldiers during the last week gives a glimpse of the gamut of emotions -- pride, fear, even anger -- about their assignment here in Iraq.

“What we’re doing is very satisfying,” Lt. Christopher S. Wenner, a 31-year-old National Guardsman from North Dakota, said as he bought ceiling fans to install in Iraqi schools -- one of many humanitarian missions here. “People are so happy to see us. You should see the looks on those kids’ faces when we get in.... We’re helping put Iraq back on its feet again.”

But even as Wenner’s detail shopped along a Baghdad boulevard, support troops kept their weapons trained on the bustling street and on adjacent rooftops. On Friday, a U.S. serviceman was shot in the neck at close range while shopping for DVDs in a predominantly Shiite Muslim neighborhood of Baghdad that had largely welcomed American forces.

“I’m more nervous now than I was at the beginning,” said Sgt. 1st Class John Goerger, 36, who joined the North Dakota guard unit on its shopping excursion. “I know this: People are still dying.”

*

Military Insecurity

Despite the highly visible presence of tanks, armored personnel vehicles and all manner of light and heavy weaponry, the troops are acutely aware that they are seldom fully secure. Determined snipers, hit-and-run assailants and suicide bombers can easily strike as troops run patrols, launch raids, staff checkpoints, guard strategic sites and work with civilians.

“During the war, we didn’t let anyone get too close to us,” said Lt. Jay Mechtly, a 23-year-old West Point graduate now based in Fallouja, the Sunni Muslim-dominated town 35 miles west of Baghdad where U.S. soldiers have been repeatedly attacked. “Now anyone can come up to us with a handgun and start shooting.”

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.”

This is a force composed largely of young men full of enthusiasm and energy. Belief in the righteousness of the U.S. cause seems overwhelming, despite complaints about other issues. Their morale long worn down by the tedium of routine, the soldiers grumble about the relentless heat of the Iraqi summer. Some acknowledge that they miss the thrill of battle.

“We were on the move then, heading toward Baghdad. There was still a lot of excitement,” said Spc. William Parkin, 22, a Virginia native pulling guard duty in the 115-degree heat outside a U.S. compound near Fallouja. “We didn’t know what we were going to see next.”

Today, much of the troop strength on the ground in Iraq is composed of units -- Army, Army Reserve and National Guard -- that saw no large-scale fighting during the war. They came aboard as an occupying force from Day One, focused less on destroying the enemy and seizing territory than on maintaining security, repairing infrastructure and winning over an apprehensive people. Few have trained for the role they are being asked to play.

“All the Iraqi people want power and running water, but they don’t realize that we don’t have power and running water either,” said Maj. Artice Scott, a Mississippi native whose unit is based in a onetime guest palace on the sprawling grounds around what was formerly known as Saddam International Airport. “They don’t believe us. All they know is that the palace must have the best running water and electricity.”

For U.S. troops, living conditions appear to have improved from the war’s early days, though accommodation is still basic at best. Several units are camped out in the once-luxurious palaces, which, while damaged in most cases, are a big step up from field tents in the desert.

“This is as good as it gets,” Sgt. Clarence Pugmire said as he sat on a patio not far from a massive eagle carved of Italian marble that looks down on a palace meeting hall. A U.S. antiaircraft unit has set up a command center under the eyes of the eagle.

Soldiers at the palace have even crafted a rooftop gym atop a neighboring building. As the sun went down on a recent evening, a group of Army men sang in front of a man-made lake.

*

Sunni Discontent

Here in Ramadi, a city 60 miles west of Baghdad, the situation is somewhat less tranquil. Like Fallouja, Ramadi is part of the largely Sunni Muslim corridor to the west of Baghdad that received favorable treatment from Hussein, himself a Sunni Muslim, a minority group in Iraq.

Reports of possible grenade attacks on the headquarters of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment prompted a recent joint boat and foot patrol by a platoon of scouts. Commanders suspected that assailants may be using orchards and farmland adjacent to the base as a staging area.

“We’re dealing with unconventional warfare, and we have to come back at them with the same methods,” said Sgt. 1st Class Jeffrey Kelly, a 1991 Persian Gulf War veteran who headed the patrol operation. “It would be easier if there were 30 tanks out there facing us and we could just pick them off one by one, but that’s not the way it is.”

At sunset, almost two dozen troops headed down the Euphrates in two patrol boats before stopping at predetermined spots along the calm river. Then they marched through thick brush and cultivated fields, their M-16s at the ready and night-vision devices illuminating any possible threat. The hourlong round on foot yielded no sign of the enemy, just tranquil fields, barking dogs and indifferent cattle.

“We don’t know who our enemy is here,” Staff Sgt. Kyle West, 24, said afterward. He noted that a 12-year-old girl in Ramadi recently fired a rifle at a U.S. convoy. (No one was hurt.) “But we have to do what we can to protect our troops.”

A few miles away, out on the highway, soldiers were setting up checkpoints. On this evening, the checkpoint’s principal purpose was to enforce an 11 p.m. curfew.

“The curfew is very hard for them,” acknowledged the group’s designated interpreter, Abdel Jamila, 33, a native of Morocco who joined the Army 17 months ago and now finds himself back in the Arab world. “It’s so hot in the day that they like to be out at night and do their work.”

As a car stopped, Jamila, one of the few U.S. soldiers who is able to speak the same language as the populace, approached the vehicle cautiously, his 9-millimeter pistol in his hand. A man in a robe was found to pose no threat.

“Every second, you feel like you could get shot,” Jamila said. “The people say to me that the Americans will stay forever. ‘It’s not true,’ I tell them. ‘We don’t want to occupy Iraq. We want to get home to our families.’ But, you know, I don’t think a lot of them believe me.”