More than a year later, American troops still are battling insurgents in Samarra. Bloodshed is destroying the city and driving a wedge between the Iraqis who live there and the U.S. troops who are trying to keep order.
Violence, police corruption and the blurry lines of guerrilla warfare are clouding any hopes of victory.
"It's apocalyptic out there. Life has definitely gotten worse for" Iraqis, said Maj. Curtis Strange, 36, of Mobile, Ala., who works with Iraqi troops in Samarra. "You see Samarra and you almost want to build a new city and move all these people there."
After four years and it is still this bad?
Specialist Patrick McHenry sat behind the Humvee's .50-caliber machine gun, scanning the area. He heard a ping, looked up and saw a grenade come flying over a wall.
"Frag," McHenry screamed. "Frag!"
Call glanced at what looked like a piece of fruit rolling toward him and his men. They dashed toward a courtyard. The explosion seemed to stop time for a second. Shrapnel cut into the walls around them.
The soldiers patted their bodies to make sure everything was still there.
McHenry, 23, of Jamestown, Pa., ran up. "It came from right over that ... wall," he reported.
The men ran along the wall and stopped at a metal gate where they could see inside.
"It's an IP (Iraqi police) station!" Call said.
These soldiers are living in hell. They are doing the same mission over and over with no real progress. How much longer will we waste the lives of these brave men? After reading these accounts you can feel that the impact on the mental faculties must be immense. Even when they do return they will be shells of their former selves. And for what?
Pena had shot an unarmed Iraqi man on the street. The man had walked past the signs that mark the 200-yard "disable zone" that surrounds the Alamo and into the 100-yard "kill zone" around the base. The Army had forced the residents of the block to leave the houses last year to create the security perimeter.
The call to prayer was starting at a mosque down the street. The words "Allahu Akbar" - God is great - wafted down from a minaret's speakers.
The man looked up at the sky as he heard the words. He repeated the phrase "Ya Allah. Ya Allah. Ya Allah." Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
He looked at McCreery and raised his finger toward the house in front of him.
"This my house," he said in broken English.
Could this man read the signs? Did he understand that he couldn't go home anymore? I refuse to judge these soldiers but it just seems like a recipe for disaster. How must the young man who killed the Iraqi feel?
Pena was up on the schoolhouse roof manning the same .50-caliber machine gun. He didn't say a word about the man he'd killed. As he stared at a patch of earth in front of him, at Samarra and its wreckage, he couldn't contain his frustration.
"No one told me why I'm putting my life on the line in Samarra, and you know why they didn't?" Pena asked. "Because there is no f------ reason."
How do you live with that?
How do you live with that?
ReplyDeleteYou don't....it is time to bring them home...