Meet the Reporter and Photographer

The company commander is a 33-year-old electronics company sales representative from Moreno Valley with a masters degree in International Relations. The 1st Sergeant is a 57-year-old decorated Vietnam veteran and grandfather who retired from his job at Pacific Bell after the Sept. 11 attacks so he could return to active duty. A junior officer is a 33-year-old musician who lives in Hollywood.

These “Citizen Soldiers” with Bravo Company, 1-160 Infantry out of Riverside, nicknamed “Maddogs,” are the first California National Guard infantry sent overseas to combat since the Korean War. Deployed in Baghdad since April, the 135-man unit has regularly come under fire from Iraqi insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq. Several in the unit have been wounded but none have died.

With the unit in Iraq this month are two Los Angeles Times journalists, staff writer Monte Morin and photographer Luis Sinco.

“We’re bunked in an underground parking garage between several shattered Iraqi Republican Guard and government buildings that were hit repeatedly by Tomahawk missiles during the invasion,” reports Morin. “The parking garage is apparently where Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay kept their collection of luxury cars taken from Kuwait.’’

Morin and Sinco will be filing regular dispatches about the California troops in the weeks ahead.

—Rone Tempest, Times Staff Writer