Violence Sweeps Baghdad Again

[thedrifter]

Violence Sweeps Baghdad Again <br />
Associated Press <br />
November 21, 2004 <br />
<br />
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents battled American troops in the streets of Baghdad on Saturday, killing a U.S. soldier in an ambush...

[thedrifter]

November 19, 2004
B.U. Buzz


by Capt. Nathan Frye
Special to Henderson Hall News


Marines in today's force certainly do not find themselves with much spare time. The Marine Corps has been on the go since the start of the Global War on Terrorism, and the future is certainly going to continue to challenge our force. Education, beyond the requisite training, is likely to be the last thing on the minds of most Marines. However, Marines need to understand that there are flexible educational programs that offer students the opportunity to earn valuable degrees, despite inflexible work schedules. I can attest to this based on my own personal education experience with Boston University.

I started working towards my master's degree while serving with 2nd Marine Division, Camp Lejeune, N.C. over three years ago. I had heard positive things about the programs offered by B.U. and being from the Northeast, I already knew of the University's great reputation. The unfortunate events of September 11th took place only months after I began classes. Of course, my unit, 2nd Tank Battalion, kicked into high gear in preparation for possible deployments. However, I was able to continue plugging along with the program despite extended work hours, and deployments to a Combined Arms Exercise and to Spain. The fact that B.U.'s courses were offered every other weekend allowed me to balance work and school, and a flexible faculty made it possible for myself and other students to continue course work, while still focusing on the true priorities at work.

By the winter of 2002, I managed to chip away to the halfway point, however my new unit, 2nd Force Service Support Group, was ramping up for Operation Iraqi Freedom and it was time to deploy to the Middle East. Despite the fact that the semester had just begun, the professors allowed deploying students to continue courses independently and at their own pace, which meant that we could again concentrate on the real priority, defense of our country and being Marines.

Once I deployed to OIF, I devoted all my energy to my job and the mission at hand. Not long after my return from OIF several months later, I was able to pick up where I left off at Boston University. By late summer 2003, I was executing orders to Headquarters Marine Corps, where I continue to balance a demanding work schedule with pursuance of my degree. The flexibility and support of the B.U. faculty continues to be prevalent at the Henderson Hall Campus where my wife, Stephanie, and I will graduate with our master's degree of science in business administration in December. The education that I have received has undoubtedly made me a smarter and better Marine. Marines who are interested in a master's degree owe it to themselves to explore the opportunities at B.U., and all Marines owe it to themselves to explore and take advantage of the many educational opportunities that are out there at every level.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Two Florida Marines killed in Fallujah

BY CAROL ROSENBERG

crosenberg@herald.com


Two Florida Marines are among the latest Iraq war casualties in the fight for Fallujah, the Pentagon announced Wednesday.

Marine Capt. Patrick Marc M. Rapicault, 34, of St. Augustine and Marine Lance Cpl. Antoine D. Smith, 22, of Orlando, were killed Monday ''as result of enemy action in Al Anbar Province,'' a Defense Department announcement said.

Rapicault was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force atCamp Pendleton, Calif.

Smith was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, also at Camp Pendleton, Calif. Their deaths raise to at least 56 the number of Floridians killed in the Iraq war.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines Honor Iraqi Unit, Soldiers for Service
by Staff Sgt. Ryan Mattox
Marine Corps News
November 19, 2004

FORWARD OPERATING BASE HOTEL, Iraq - On a gravel pad here at the edge of the city of An Najaf, Iraq, a group of Iraqi National Guard soldiers practiced drills as a small contingency of Marines gathered for a ceremony Nov. 10 to honor the unit for their participation in a battle that occurred in Najaf, Aug. 12.

During the ceremony, Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), presented the 405th Battalion, 50th Iraqi National Guard Brigade, with 17 Certificates of Commendation ƒ{ eight for the battalion¡¦s actions during month long operations against the Muqtada Militia, and nine individual awards for a raid on enemy strongholds near and around Muqtada Al Sadr's house.

After a year of the Muqtada militia's control of the Kufa Mosque and Iman Ali Shrine, ING soldiers fought a nearly month-long battle to break the militia's hold in the area. Iraqi soldiers occupied vehicle checkpoints, performed security patrols, and participated in raids with coalition forces. These actions proved to be key factors in defeating the militia and helping coalition forces restore peace in An Najaf.

During the ceremony, Lt. Col. Alaa Salal, 405th Battalion commander, thanked the Marine Corps and congratulated his battalion. Speaking on behalf of the Iraqi government and Ministry of Defense, he thanked and gave appreciation to friendly forces for their efforts in training and preparing them to fight terrorists.

"We work with these guys every day and have developed a relationship with them," said Capt. Mathew Morrissey, company commander, Company C, BLT 1/4, 11th MEU (SOC). "We appreciate having this unit out there in the city with us. They do certain things very well, like crowd control and as interpreters."




In addition to the battalion awards, several individuals were singled out for their actions during the raid on Muqtada Al Sadr's residence. One of those was Ahmed Sawkt Hadie, a special forces soldier assigned to the battalion.

For heroic performance and bravery under fire, Hadie displayed courage, leadership and dedication, while advancing with his unit toward their objective with a detachment of United States Special Forces soldiers. Meanwhile, the 405th Battalion came under heavy attack from enemy snipers, rocket-propelled grenades and machine gunfire. Despite enemy resistance, they continued to advance on enemy strongholds eventually pinning them down in a two-story building.

As the enemy continued to throw fragmentary grenades, he and his unit remained and continued to advance to avenge their fallen comrades. When they were ordered to withdraw and evacuate casualties in the area, he pleaded to remain in the fight and assist a Marine platoon that had arrived to assist. His actions inspired his fellow soldiers to continue their battle with the militia and rid the city of their presence.

"It's an honor. I am very proud to be picked among 900 other soldiers to liberate this city," said Hadie.

Throughout the fierce fighting two men were killed and 17 others wounded.

At the end of the ceremony, the father of one of those men killed in battle expressed his appreciation to Morrissey and the battalion's leadership, saying this day meant a lot to him and his family, and that is was worth more than anything else.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines find weapons all over Falluja
By Michael Georgy

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. Marines searching from house to house in Falluja are finding weapons caches everywhere from an upscale villa to the homes of Iraqi policemen.

"We found policemen with mortars and mines and surface-to-air missiles. What policeman do you know that needs that?" said 2nd Lieutenant James Collins, 23, of Jamesville, North Carolina.

Rebel snipers fire on search parties eager to stabilise Falluja after seizing control. Some houses are booby-trapped. Some weapons are hidden behind paintings, in air conditioning units and in couches -- and the arms supply seems endless.

Marines even found Russian and German machineguns from the Word War Two era.

As Collins spoke from a grade school taken over by Marines in Falluja's industrial zone, heavy gunfire and blasts erupted a few streets away.

Bravo Company, 1st Battalion of the 8th Marine Regiment, lost eight people in the offensive on Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad.

Marine commanders say they have been cautious since Iraqis with white flags approached two days ago and engaged them in conversation before running and firing to kill two Marines.

"Some units believe in just entering areas and firing on houses to search for insurgents and weapons. We believe in foot patrols. It is the only way to be meticulous and do the job," Collins said.

CURFEW

His men didn't need to walk far to find 200 mortars, a dozen hand grenades, five rockets and a large artillery shell.

They were seized on Saturday from the ventilation system of an upscale burgundy and yellow two-storey villa that looked as if it may have entertained Falluja's elite during normal times.

One person who was still in the house despite the huge U.S. presence across the street was arrested.

The Marines have imposed a curfew on Falluja except from 8 a.m. to noon to allow people to shop for food and essential goods.

One man in his 50s who broke those restrictions sat with a white bag over his head behind barbed wire in the school complex, which was hit heavily by artillery during the offensive. Marines said it was used by insurgents.

The man sat in the dirt crying out for attention. "I came to you, the American army, you were not chasing me," he said, hoping to be released.

Marines said they have used gunpowder test kits to identify and arrest foreign militants posing as civilians lining up to receive humanitarian aid.

The weapons searches are designed to stabilise Falluja and pave the way for reconstruction. Iraqi policemen and security forces are expected to take over security of Falluja when U.S. Marines eventually leave.

"This is the most difficult phase now, moving to a transition phase where you are trying to get the city secure enough to turn on power and water supplies," said Captain Read Omohundro, commander of Bravo Company.

"It is just not secure enough yet."


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Marines mark death with dignity
By Lona O'Connor

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Sunday, November 21, 2004

A small yellow sticky note covers the doorbell.

"Please knock," it says.

"I don't want to hear that doorbell ever again," said Arlene Felsberg. The last people to ring the doorbell at Arlene and Paul Felsberg's suburban Boynton Beach home were three Marines in dress-blue uniforms, announcing the death in Iraq of their son, 2nd Lt. Michael Felsberg, 27. He was killed on Oct. 13, one of four South Floridians who died in combat in Iraq in one week.

"It's the worst job I do — and I have fired people, and put people in harm's way when I was in Iraq," said Capt. Cesar Freitas, one of the three Marines who visited the Felsbergs.

Since the beginning of the war in Iraq, officers have notified the families of more than 1,200 military men and women who died. Fifty-five of those were Floridians. At Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell, Michael Felsberg's grave is flanked by two other Marines who also died in Iraq.

The bearers of tragic news never know what to expect.

"People react differently — there's no way to train us for that," Freitas said. Only the guiding principal remains the same, said Maj. Scott Mack, a trainer of reserve Marines who has delivered death notices to several families in South Florida in the past year.

"You deliver the news exactly as you would want it delivered if it was you," he said. Mack considers it the least he could do.

"Our motto is Semper Fidelis — always faithful — to country, to God, to the Corps, to the families," Mack said. "We ask so much of our young Marines. As they see how our fallen are cared for, how their families are cared for, it gives them that extra confidence that they will be cared for and so will their families."


• • •

The process of comforting families begins in a battlefield mortuary, crosses the globe with the casket and continues as long as the family needs it.

Capt. Eric Reid, who trained Felsberg at Quantico, Va., volunteered to escort the casket from Delaware's Dover Air Force Base to Florida. Reid was so moved by the experience that he wrote a long e-mail to other Marines who had known Felsberg. The e-mail eventually was forwarded to the Felsbergs and they saved it, along with the other last artifacts of their son's life.

Reid focused on all the ways he could stanch the loss for Felsberg's parents. In Dover, at the military mortuary, he inspected Felsberg's remains, adjusting the dead Marine's uniform and medals so he would look his best. Then he used a lint roller on Felsberg's jacket.

As Reid accompanied the casket off the base, every service member stopped and saluted, as they do for all caskets at Dover. When the casket was delivered, with military ceremony, to the cargo hold of a commercial jet for its journey to Florida, passengers watched in awed silence.

"People who had, moments before, been selfishly absorbed in living their lives in America unaffected by the war stiffened and became introspective. ... I think they felt like they were part of something more, something meaningful. They were participating in escorting Mike home."

In his fog of grief after the three Marines came to his door in the night, Paul Felsberg became aware that a Marine was shadowing him everywhere he moved, inside his house and when he headed out the front door.

"I had a crying jag and I went outside, and the thought occurred to me, 'They're just making sure I don't torch the van,'" he said. Only a few weeks earlier, in Hollywood, Carlos Arredondo set fire to a government van after receiving the news of the death of his son Alex, 20. The event, filmed by a news helicopter, became an international news story.

The Felsbergs' reaction couldn't have been more different. Soon after he met them, Reid was humbled by the realization that they were comforting him as much as he was comforting them.

"I didn't know what else to do besides hug Mrs. Felsberg," he wrote.

"The first thing Mr. Felsberg said to me was that he expected me to be at their house for dinner after I finished at the funeral home! (He said) 'You must be exhausted. Besides, someone has to help us eat all of that food.' "


• • •

The Marines have strived to smooth the rough edges off an unbearable task.

The dreaded yellow telegrams that announced combat deaths during World War II have been replaced by blue-uniformed volunteer officers who ring the doorbell, considered a more humane method of delivering the worst news.

Within an hour of the death, a fax is sent to the appropriate officers. The officer nearest to the family's home picks an assistant and may also bring a chaplain and a translator.

They are racing against television news, the Internet, comrades in the battle zone calling home on satellite phones and the lightning-fast communication system known as the wives' network.

"Our goal is to beat the information to the family," Freitas said. "The last thing we want is for a family to find out on television that their son died."

Bereavement training manuals provide officers with basic guidelines: Get the family inside the house before delivering the news. Be patient. Deliver the news in small, manageable increments. Do not make a noticeable display of your own emotions. Remember that your every word and deed is communicating the traditions and reputation of the Marine Corps. If the family asks you to go, leave immediately.

The rest is good sense and good instincts.

"Part of our job is getting them talking," Freitas said.

With the Felsbergs, Freitas talked about the San Francisco Giants, Michael's favorite baseball team.

Reid, the escort, let the Felsbergs reminisce about their son and answered what questions he could. When the time seemed right, he presented them with a small red velvet bag containing the few personal effects removed from their son's body.

As she prepares for her night job as a postal clerk in West Palm Beach, Arlene Felsberg shows her son's dog tag, now on a chain around her neck. His wristwatch, with too many dials for the Felsbergs to fool with, sits on a dresser. The only other contents of the red velvet bag were a waterproofed notebook, unused, and a pocketknife.

More belongings will arrive in a few days, removed from storage in California, where Felsberg was stationed at Camp Pendleton.

Staff Sgt. Ray Lanese, their Marine liaison in West Palm Beach, will sign for the personal effects and accompany them to the Felsbergs.

Most of the important treasures of Felsberg's life never left his parents' home. His bedroom wall is covered with numbered race bibs from his high school and college track career.

In their living room is a large framed formal portrait of Felsberg in dress uniform, his parents beside him in their Sunday best.

On the Felsbergs' dining room table is their growing collection of mementos, both the official and the unexpected. There is, of course, the triangle-folded flag, awaiting a triangular display case, and the shell casings picked up from the ground after the 21-gun salute at his military funeral. On a chair is a big cardboard carton of candy, returned home, unopened, after his death.

The last answering machine tape of Michael Felsberg was erased by a hurricane power outage.

"I lost his voice," Arlene Felsberg said.


• • •

As much as he can, Lanese acts as a buffer between the Felsbergs and the maddening myriad bureaucratic details, some of which can be additional shocks to their already overloaded emotions.

Lanese, who was the soul of military formality on that first awful night, now is "just Ray," Arlene Felsberg said. "He's like part of the family now. You become very attached. The whole Marine Corps is just one big family. They are hurting just as much as we do."

Despite Lanese's best efforts, some shocks penetrate the buffer. As recently as Friday, more than a month after Michael's death, the Felsbergs received a greeting card addressed to their son and returned from Iraq. Michael Felsberg's grandparents received a letter from him after his death.

The night before Michael Felsberg left for Iraq, he wrote his parents a letter, mentioning the belongings he wanted given to friends. He asked them to bury him in a national military cemetery.

Paul Felsberg looked at the letter, sealed it and did not show it to his wife until after they learned that their son was killed.

Arlene Felsberg later came across her son's official Marine will as she sorted through his belongings after his death. But they are still wading through probate procedures, locating their son's bank accounts and phone bills, disabling his ATM card and closing his e-mail account.

Michael Felsberg's collected assets, his life insurance policy, back pay and the proceeds from the sale of his truck will form the basis of a scholarship for a long-distance runner at his alma mater, Florida International University.

When they went back to work, when they showed up again in the grocery store, when Paul Felsberg went to a plant sale at Mounts Botanical Garden, they found themselves comforting their own friends.

"Doing the hug-and-cry" is what Arlene calls what still happens when she runs into someone she hasn't seen in the weeks since Michael died.

They attended Marine-sponsored bereavement sessions and plugged into the network of their new peer group, those who have lost loved ones in Iraq. It's all part of the long slog back to something resembling a normal life.

Freitas, 33, is a helicopter pilot and Iraq veteran who now trains other Marines for combat in Iraq. After he left the Felsbergs, Freitas went home and hugged his own baby son for dear life.

The Felsbergs now live without their only son.

Three things make their house at the end of a quiet street different from all the others: a big American flag waving outside, a small red Marine Corps flag hanging in the window and the yellow sticky note shrouding the doorbell.




Ellie

[thedrifter]

In Falluja, Young Marines Saw the Savagery of an Urban War
By DEXTER FILKINS

Published: November 21, 2004


FALLUJA, Iraq, Nov. 18 - Eight days after the Americans entered the city on foot, a pair of marines wound their way up the darkened innards of a minaret, shot through with holes by an American tank.

As the marines inched upward, a burst of gunfire rang down, fired by an insurgent hiding in the top of the tower. The bullets hit the first marine in the face, his blood spattering the marine behind him. The marine in the rear tumbled backward down the stairwell, while Lance Cpl. William Miller, age 22, lay in silence halfway up, mortally wounded.

"Miller!" the marines called from below. "Miller!"

With that, the marines' near mystical commandment against leaving a comrade behind seized the group. One after another, the young marines dashed into the minaret, into darkness and into gunfire, and wound their way up the stairs.

After four attempts, Corporal Miller's lifeless body emerged from the tower, his comrades choking and covered with dust. With more insurgents closing in, the marines ran through volleys of machine-gun fire back to their base.

"I was trying to be careful, but I was trying to get him out, you know what I'm saying?" Lance Cpl. Michael Gogin, 19, said afterward.

So went eight days of combat for this Iraqi city, the most sustained period of street-to-street fighting that Americans have encountered since the Vietnam War. The proximity gave the fighting a hellish intensity, with soldiers often close enough to look their enemies in the eyes.

For a correspondent who has covered a half dozen armed conflicts, including the war in Iraq since its start in March 2003, the fighting seen while traveling with a frontline unit in Falluja was a qualitatively different experience, a leap into a different kind of battle.

From the first rockets vaulting out of the city as the marines moved in, the noise and feel of the battle seemed altogether extraordinary; at other times, hardly real at all. The intimacy of combat, this plunge into urban warfare, was new to this generation of American soldiers, but it is a kind of fighting they will probably see again: a grinding struggle to root out guerrillas entrenched in a city, on streets marked in a language few American soldiers could comprehend.

The price for the Americans so far: 51 dead and 425 wounded, a number that may yet increase but that already exceeds the toll from any battle in the Iraq war.

Marines in Harm's Way

The 150 marines with whom I traveled, Bravo Company of the First Battalion, Eighth Marines, had it as tough as any unit in the fight. They moved through the city almost entirely on foot, into the heart of the resistance, rarely protected by tanks or troop carriers, working their way through Falluja's narrow streets with 75-pound packs on their backs.

In eight days of fighting, Bravo Company took 36 casualties, including 6 dead, meaning that the unit's men had about a one-in-four chance of being wounded or killed in little more than a week.

The sounds, sights and feel of the battle were as old as war itself, and as new as the Pentagon's latest weapons systems. The eerie pop from the cannon of the AC-130 gunship, prowling above the city at night, firing at guerrillas who were often only steps away from Americans on the ground. The weird buzz of the Dragon Eye pilotless airplane, hovering over the battlefield as its video cameras beamed real-time images back to the base.

The glow of the insurgents' flares, throwing daylight over a landscape to help them spot their targets: us.

The nervous shove of a marine scrambling for space along a brick wall as tracer rounds ricocheted above.

The silence between the ping of the shell leaving its mortar tube and the explosion when it strikes.

The screams of the marines when one of their comrades, Cpl. Jake Knospler, lost part of his jaw to a hand grenade.

"No, no, no!" the marines shouted as they dragged Corporal Knospler from the darkened house where the bomb went off. It was 2 a.m., the sky dark without a moon. "No, no, no!"

Nothing in the combat I saw even remotely resembled the scenes regularly flashed across movie screens; even so, they often seemed no more real.

Mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades began raining down on Bravo Company the moment its men began piling out of their troop carriers just outside Falluja. The shells looked like Fourth of July bottle rockets, sailing over the ridge ahead as if fired by children, exploding in a whoosh of sparks.

Whole buildings, minarets and human beings were vaporized in barrages of exploding shells. A man dressed in a white dishdasha crawled across a desolate field, reaching behind a gnarled plant to hide, when he collapsed before a burst of fire from an American tank.

Sometimes the casualties came in volleys, like bursts of machine-gun fire. On the first morning of battle, during a ferocious struggle for the Muhammadia Mosque, about 45 marines with Bravo Company's Third Platoon dashed across 40th Street, right into interlocking streams of fire. By the time the platoon made it to the other side, five men lay bleeding in the street.

The marines rushed out to get them, as they would days later in the minaret, but it was too late for Sgt. Lonny Wells, who bled to death on the side of the road. One of the men who braved gunfire to pull in Sergeant Wells was Cpl. Nathan Anderson, who died three days later in an ambush.

Sergeant Wells's death dealt the Third Platoon a heavy blow; as a leader of one of its squads, he had written letters to the parents of its younger members, assuring them he would look over them during the tour in Iraq.

"He loved playing cards," Cpl. Gentian Marku recalled. "He knew all the probabilities."

More than once, death crept up and snatched a member of Bravo Company and quietly slipped away. Cpl. Nick Ziolkowski, nicknamed Ski, was a Bravo Company sniper. For hours at a stretch, Corporal Ziolkowski would sit on a rooftop, looking through the scope on his bolt-action M-40 rifle, waiting for guerrillas to step into his sights. The scope was big and wide, and Corporal Ziolkowski often took off his helmet to get a better look.

Tall, good-looking and gregarious, Corporal Ziolkowski was one of Bravo Company's most popular soldiers. Unlike most snipers, who learned to shoot growing up in the countryside, Corporal Ziolkowski grew up near Baltimore, unfamiliar with guns. Though Baltimore boasts no beach front, Corporal Ziolkowski's passion was surfing; at Camp Lejeune, N.C., Bravo Company's base, he would often organize his entire day around the tides.

"All I need now is a beach with some waves," Corporal Ziolkowski said, during a break from his sniper duties at Falluja's Grand Mosque, where he killed three men in a single day.

During that same break, Corporal Ziolkowski foretold his own death. The snipers, he said, were now among the most hunted of American soldiers.

In the first battle for Falluja, in April, American snipers had been especially lethal, Corporal Ziolkowski said, and intelligence officers had warned him that this time, the snipers would be targets.

"They are trying to take us out," Corporal Ziolkowski said.

The bullet knocked Corporal Ziolkowski backward and onto the roof. He had been sitting there on the outskirts of the Shuhada neighborhood, an area controlled by insurgents, peering through his wide scope. He had taken his helmet off to get a better view. The bullet hit him in the head.

Young Men, Heavy Burdens

For all the death about the place, one inescapable impression left by the marines was their youth. Everyone knows that soldiers are young; it is another thing to see men barely out of adolescence, many of whom were still in high school when this war began, shoot people dead.

The marines of Bravo Company often fought over the packets of M&M's that came with their rations. Sitting in their barracks, they sang along with the Garth Brooks paean to chewing tobacco, "Copenhagen," named for the brand they bought almost to a man:

Copenhagen, what a wad of flavor

Copenhagen, you can see it in my smile

Copenhagen, hey do yourself a favor, dip

Copenhagen, it drives the cowgirls wild

One of Bravo Company's more youthful members was Cpl. Romulo Jimenez II, age 21 from Bellington, W.Va.. Cpl. Jimenez spent much of his time showing off his tattoos - he had flames climbing up one of his arms - and talking about his 1992 Ford Mustang. He was a popular member of Bravo Company's Second Platoon, not least because he introduced his sister to a fellow marine, Lance Cpl. Sean Evans, and the couple married.

In the days before the battle started, Corporal Jimenez called his sister, Katherine, to ask that she fix up the interior of his Mustang before he got home.

"Make it look real nice," he told her.


continued......

[thedrifter]

On Wednesday, Nov. 10, around 2 p.m., Corporal Jimenez was shot in the neck by a sniper as he advanced with his platoon through the northern end of Falluja, just near the green-domed Muhammadia...

[thedrifter]

Published Sunday
November 21, 2004

Young Marines measure up in Fallujah

BY DEXTER FILKINS



THE NEW YORK TIMES

FALLUJAH, Iraq - Eight days after the Americans entered the city on foot, a pair of Marines wound their way up the darkened innards of a minaret, shot through with holes by an American tank.

As the Marines inched their way along, a burst of gunfire rang down, fired by an insurgent hiding in the top of the tower. The bullets hit the first Marine in the face, his blood spattering the Marine behind him. Lance Cpl. William Miller, 22, lay in silence halfway up, mortally wounded.

"Miller!" the Marines called from below. "Miller!"

With that, the Marines' near-mystical commandment against leaving a comrade behind seized the group.

One after another, the young Marines dashed into the minaret, into darkness and into gunfire, and wound their way up the stairs.

After four attempts, Miller's lifeless body was pulled from the tower, his comrades choking and covered with dust. With more insurgents closing in to join the battle, the Marines ran through volleys of machine-gun fire back to their base.

"I was trying to be careful, but I was trying to get him out, you know what I'm saying?" Lance Cpl. Michael Gogin, 19, said afterward.

So went eight days of combat for this Iraqi city, the most sustained period of street-to-street fighting that Americans have encountered since the Vietnam War. Soldiers were often close enough to look their enemies in the eyes.

For a correspondent who has covered a half dozen armed conflicts, the fighting seen while traveling with a front-line unit in Fallujah was a leap into a different kind of battle.

This plunge into urban warfare was new to this generation of American soldiers, but it is a kind of fighting that they will probably see again.

The price for the Americans so far: 51 dead and 425 wounded, a number that may yet increase but that already exceeds that from any battle in the Iraq war.

The 150 Marines with whom I traveled, Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion, 8th Regiment, had it as tough as any unit in the fight. They moved through the city almost entirely on foot, into the heart of the resistance, rarely protected by tanks or troop carriers, working their way through Fallujah's narrow streets with 75-pound packs on their backs.

In eight days of fighting, Bravo Company took 36 casualties, including six dead, meaning that the unit's men had about a one in four chance of being either wounded or killed in little more than a week.

Nothing in the combat even remotely resembled the scenes regularly flashed across movie screens, but often it seemed no more real.

Mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades began raining down on Bravo Company the moment its men began piling out of their troop carries just outside of Fallujah.

The shells looked like Fourth of July rockets, sailing over the ridge ahead as if fired by children. Whole buildings, minarets and human beings were vaporized in barrages of exploding shells.

Sometimes the casualties came in volleys, like bursts of machine-gun fire.

On the first morning of battle, during a ferocious struggle for the Muhammadia Mosque, about 45 Marines with Bravo Company's 3rd Platoon dashed across 40th Street, right into interlocking streams of fire. By the time the platoon made it to the other side, five men lay bleeding in the street.

The Marines rushed out to get them, as they would days later in the minaret, but it was too late for Sgt. Lonny D. Wells, who bled to death on the side of the road. One of the men who braved gunfire to pull in Wells was Cpl. Nathan R. Anderson, who died three days later in an ambush.

For all the death about the place, one inescapable impression left by the Marines was their youth.

Everyone knows that soldiers are young; it is another thing to see men barely out of adolescence, many of whom were still in high school when this war began, shoot people dead.

One of Bravo Company's more youthful members was Cpl. Romulo Jimenez II, 21, from Bellington, W.Va., who spent much of his time showing off his tattoos - he had flames climbing up one of his arms - and talking about his 1992 Ford Mustang.

In the days before the battle started, Jimenez called his sister, Katherine, to ask that she fix up the interior of his Mustang before he got home.

"Make it look real nice," he told her.

On Nov. 10, at around 2 p.m., Jimenez was shot in the neck by a sniper as he advanced with his platoon through the northern end of Fallujah.

He died instantly.

Despite their youth, the Marines seemed to tower over their peers outside the military in maturity and guts.

Many of Bravo Company's best Marines, its most proficient killers, were 19 and 20 years old. Bravo Company's three lieutenants, each responsible for the lives of about 50 men, were 23 and 24 years old.

Typical of the Marines who survived Fallujah was Chad Ritchie, a 22-year-old corporal from Keezletown, Va.

Ritchie said he was happy to be out of the tiny place where he grew up, though he admitted that he sometimes missed the good times on Friday nights in the fields.

"We'd have a bonfire, and back the trucks up on it, and open up the backs, and someone would always have some speakers," Ritchie said. "We'd drink beer, tell stories."

He said he joined the Marines because he yearned for an adventure greater than his small town could offer.

"The guys who stayed, they're all living with their parents, making $7 an hour," Ritchie said. "I'm not going to be one of those people who gets old and says, 'I wish I had done this. I wish I had done that.' Every once in a while, you've got to do something hard, do something you're not comfortable with. A person needs a gut check."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

'Hello from Iraq'
By Bryce T. Hoffman

Four Corning area Marines in Fallujah could get something to be very thankful for come Thursday: A face-to-face conversation with their loved ones back home.

Cable news giant CNN has said it will try to set up a satellite link with audio and video between Iraq and a farmhouse in Wayland, where four Marine families will share Thanksgiving morning at the home of Frank and Vanette Wadsworth.

Their son, Lance Cpl. Lee H. Wadsworth, 24, of Corning, is a mortarman in the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines. Three others are with him: Lance Cpl. Matthew Rawcliffe, 19, of Corning, Lance Cpl. Patrick Lavey, 21, of Monterey and Lance Cpl. Keith M. Joint, 19, of Bath.


The network wants to feature the reunion in a story about military families supporting one another on the home front, Vanette Wadsworth said. She responded to a request on the Web site www.marinemoms.org. seeking families who would tell their stories.

"All I did was write a little paragraph," she said. "CNN called the next day. They're trying to contact their reporters in Iraq to locate these boys. They're hoping to have

all four."

The 1st Battalion, 8th Marines are among the U.S. forces that stormed Fallujah two weeks ago to root out Iraqi insurgent fighters. They remain stationed in or near the city, said Bill Joint, a Bath attorney who heard from his son on Thursday.

Joint has been following the stories of a New York Times reporter who is embedded with Bravo Company.

Both Keith Joint and Lavey are part of that outfit.

"If you take a look at those stories, Bravo Company actually suffered several casualties and fatalities," said Bill Joint, who saw a picture of his son on the New York Times Web site. "It sounds like they had a rough go."

Rawcliffe provides convoy security with H&S Company, while Wadsworth serves in Weapons Company.

Sara A. Wadsworth, 23, has not seen her husband in months. He called her about a week ago from Fallujah.

"He called very briefly just to let us know that he is OK and that he had been very busy," she said. "I'm sure he was doing a lot of the urban combat. That's what he was trained to do."

The prospect of seeing his face in a few days is "pretty exciting," she said. Wadsworth is about 25 weeks pregnant with the couple's first child, a boy.

The Marine families back home have leaned on one another throughout the deployment, especially as the danger intensified over the past two weeks, said Ken Rawcliffe, a former Marine and father of Matt Rawcliffe.

"Our guys are going to be gone" for the holidays, he said. "They'll be over there still. The battalion has been through a lot. Their casualties have been significant. It's stressful."

Before CNN called, the families had already organized a Dec. 4 get together in Corning, he said. Now they are all hoping the news network will deliver in time for Thanksgiving.

Vanette Wadsworth said they could receive confirmation as early as Monday.

"Hopefully, it'll fly," she said.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

The war the video cameras do not see <br />
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <br />
Axis of Logic <br />
Nov 21, 2004, 14:37 <br />
<br />
The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit has...

[thedrifter]

Unlike some other American and British officers, who privately speak about the interim Iraqi government's security forces with disdain, Col Johnson displays an almost messianic zeal in his support of them. "These guys are leading far more dangerous lives than the rest of us," he said. "When they are captured, they are killed, sometimes after torture. Their families have been murdered as well. I think it takes a hell of a lot of guts under these circumstances to do what they do.

"The bottom line is that Iraqis must be allowed to run their own country. This is a country with history and culture and education. They are good workers. It is patronising of Westerners who say somehow that Iraqis cannot cope.

"This brings me to the question I keep on asking, but never get a satisfactory answer. What happened to the $18bn that Congress voted for reconstruction ? Why are so many contracts going to American and other foreign firms? Why aren't they going to more Iraqis? Who's deciding all this?"

At Mahmudiya, where the 2nd Battalion are based, the Marines are very much in the front line of the current operation. There are daily and, at times, fierce clashes with insurgents. The commanding officer, Lt Col Mark Smith, had just returned from an all-night operation and still had his camouflage "war paint" on. The raid, on a farm, followed information that Zarqawi was hiding there. They did not find him, but, he said, they caught two senior members of the insurgency.

"We have had lots of engagements and we have killed lots," he said. "With Fallujah over, the action has moved here. The people we are killing are Zarqawi's, and, let me tell you, I don't mind killing beheaders at all. Hell, if Zarqawi wants to have a knife fight with me, one to one, I'd be happy to oblige."

Conversations over dinner of chicken and mashed potatoes moved on to politics. The debate was whether there would ever be peace in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East as long as the Palestine dispute remains unsolved. One officer storms off, saying: "It seems to me that Israel can do whatever it wants and then come up with some bull**** excuse, and then the rest of us have to pick up the pieces elsewhere." Another officer shrugged: "We are the Marines, not the army, so we encourage debate. But it's best not to do it over dinner, you only get indigestion."

A raid took place on Mahmudiya in a hunt for targeted suspects, arms and distribution centres for insurgent literature. Nine men were arrested, and guns and ammunition, including a Dragonov sniper's rifle, taken from two shops which had allegedly been supplying militant factions.

Large crowds gathered as roads were sealed off, the mood unhappy but resigned. There were only two interpreters, and they were both busy in another location. One of the officers shook his head in exasperation "I can't talk to these people. That is the biggest problem, we can't communicate." He asked me whether I could go and buy some pastries for him and his men from a bakery. Wouldn't it be better if he came along as well and actually met the people in the shop, I asked. In an ideal world, he said, but it is considered just too dangerous here.

In the shop people said they had no idea what the Americans were after, the reason for the disruption of their lives. "They do not really talk to us," said the shopkeeper. "I did not even know they liked our food."

He refused to take money for the pastries. The Marines were getting increasingly apprehensive. The longer we stayed on the streets, the more the chance of getting hit by mortars and car bombers. There was sporadic gunfire in the background, but no one was quite sure who was firing at whom.

"I keep on thinking in these situations that if I am going to die, I want to savour these last moments, what I see, what I feel," said a young Marine. "And right now, I feel I don't really understand these people, and they don't really understand us."



Ellie

[thedrifter]

Troops Report 'Atrocity Sites' in Fallujah

FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. troops have found close to 20 "atrocity sites" used by insurgents to imprison, torture and kill hostages in Fallujah, a U.S. military officer said Sunday.


Marine Maj. Jim West said that in addition to numerous weapons caches, troops clearing the city after a major U.S.-led offensive had found rooms containing knives and black hoods, "many of them blood-covered."


Briefing reporters at a base outside Fallujah, West said one room had "handprints on the walls and along the sides of the walls ... There was blood covering the entire wall and along the floorboard area."


He said troops had found signs of "torture, murder, very gruesome sights."


"We found numerous houses where people were just chained to a wall for extended periods of time," he added.


West did not provide more details, but said "a few less than 20" such sites had been found in the city, a stronghold for insurgents 40 miles west of Baghdad.


At least 34 foreign hostages have been killed by their captors in Iraq (news - web sites) this year, including three Americans. Many of the victims have been beheaded and their deaths shown on grisly videos posted on the Internet. Iraqi police and other security forces have also been killed after their capture by insurgents.


West said more than 1,400 people were detained in connection with the Fallujah offensive. More than 400 of them have been released after interrogators determined they were non-combatants.


The military says an estimated 1,200 insurgents and more than 50 U.S. troops have been killed in the assault.


On Friday, Lt. Col. John Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said this month's offensive had "broken the back" of the insurgency. But U.S. troops and their Iraqi colleagues have continued to come under attack while searching for holdouts.


Marine Lt. Col. Daniel Wilson said troops were searching an estimated 30,000-50,000 buildings that could contain pockets of resistance. He said small numbers of insurgents managed to move in and out of the city but that a U.S. Army cordon around Fallujah kept most of the rebels contained.




Ellie

[thedrifter]

U.S.: 1,450 detained from Fallujah offensive
American forces conduct raid on ‘high value target’

The Associated Press
Updated: 10:58 a.m. ET Nov. 21, 2004BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military said that Iraqi and U.S. forces have detained more than 1,450 people in connection with the Fallujah offensive. More than 400 detainees have already been released after being deemed to be non-combatants.

Elsewhere, U.S. forces conducted a raid to capture a “high value target” associated with Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in an area northwest of Baghdad, a U.S. spokesman said Sunday. Three people were detained, 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert said, though it was unclear whether any of those arrested was the target that U.S. forces were seeking.

The “limited-scale” raid was intended to disrupt insurgent activities in the Haqlaniyah area, about 135 miles northwest of Baghdad, Gilbert said.

Eyewitnesses said U.S. troops raided a Sunni mosque Saturday night, arresting its cleric — Douraid Fakhry — and detaining dozens of residents in nearby homes during a sweep of Haqlaniyah. The U.S. military denied that a mosque was raided in the area.

More bodies found
U.S. forces in Mosul found two more bodies, including one of an Iraqi Army soldier, on Sunday near a site where the bodies of nine Iraqi soldiers -- most of them beheaded -- were found a day before, said Lt. Col. Paul Hastings with Task Force Olympia.

The nine were identified as soldiers based at al-Kisik, 30 miles west of Mosul. Four other decapitated bodies, still unidentified, were found in Mosul on Tuesday.

In an Internet statement posted Sunday, the terrorist group of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al-Qaida in Iraq, claimed it killed 17 Iraqi National Guardsmen from al-Kisik. The report couldn't be independently verified. Hastings said he had no report of missing Iraqi guardsmen.

U.S. and Iraqi forces in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, have been working the past week to put down an uprising launched by guerrillas who seized police stations and other sites. The uprising was part of a wave of violence across the country coinciding with the U.S. offensive against the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, west of Baghdad.

Crackdown on hardliners
The raid on the mosque in the Haqlaniyah area comes as part of the government campaign against some hardline Sunni clerics whom the government accuse of fueling the insurgency in Iraq and of using their mosques as stores for weapon caches.

On Friday, Iraqi and U.S. forces raided Baghdad’s Abu Hanifa mosque — one of the country’s most important Sunni mosques.

Al-Zarqawi is believed to have escaped from Fallujah during the U.S. offensive on the guerrilla stronghold that began Nov. 8. Violence has spiked dramatically in Sunni Muslim areas throughout the central and northern regions of Iraq even as the U.S. military operation against the rebel stronghold of Fallujah winds down.

A suicide car bomber attempted to kill the police chief of Hillah by ramming his car into Gen. Qais Abdullah’s vehicle, police said Sunday. Capt. Hadi Hatif said the attacker’s car detonated before it made contact, killing only the bomber in the Saturday incident.

Abdullah was on his way to work when the attack happened in this central Iraqi town about 60 miles south of Baghdad, Hatif said.

A day earlier, another suicide bomber exploded his car outside the Jabal police station in Hillah, targeting the police commander. Only the bomber died.

In Mosul, Iraq’s third city, the bodies of three men killed by insurgents were left lying on a street on Sunday, a day after U.S. troops discovered the corpses of nine Iraqi soldiers.

All 12 bodies had been shot in the back of the head. Four headless corpses were also discovered in the city last week.

Security operations stepped up
Iraqi and U.S. forces have begun security operations in several areas around the country — including Mosul — in an attempt to control insurgent activity.

A joint operation by Iraqi police and National Guards in Baghdad and central Babil province will be launched this week against insurgents operating in a belt of cities south of the capital, police said Sunday.

The towns of Haswa, Latifiya, and Mahmoudiya, some 25 miles south of the capital, have been a major area of insurgent activity where U.S. and Iraqi forces have come under repeated attacks by car bombs, rockets, and small arms fire.

The region has become known as a “triangle of death” for many Shiite Muslims, Westerners and members of the Iraqi security services, many of whom have become the victims of Sunni Muslim insurgents and criminal gangs.

Weapons cache at mosque
Meanwhile, an explosion Sunday near a Shiite mosque in the central Iraqi city of Kufa injured one person, an officer said. A subsequent raid of the mosque grounds netted a weapons cache believed to belong to a Shiite militia.

The blast, apparently from a homemade bomb, detonated as a worker searched through the trash near the al-Kufa mosque, said Lt. Aquil Jawad of the Iraqi National Guard.

Iraqi security troops sealed the area and searched the mosque grounds. A cache of 20 rocket-propelled grenades, five mortar rounds and a missile was uncovered in a yard behind the mosque, Jawad said, adding the weapons likely belonged to the Shiite militia.

There was no damage to the mosque in the explosion and it was not immediately clear if the bomb was placed in the trash on purpose.

The Mahdi army, loyal to the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, battled U.S. and Iraqi troops in this region until a peace deal was negotiated in August.

The twin cities of Kufa and Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, contain some of the Shiite Muslim world’s holiest sites.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

In Falluja, a hellish lesson in savage urban warfare <br />
By Dexter Filkins The New York Times Monday, November 22, 2004 <br />
FALLUJA, Iraq Eight days after the Americans entered the city on foot, a...

[thedrifter]

. <br />
With that, the marines' near-mystical commandment against leaving a comrade behind seized the group. One after another, the young marines dashed into the minaret, into darkness and into gunfire,...

[thedrifter]

Bravo Company, looking a bit ragged itself as it moved up through Falluja, momentarily fell out of its single-file line. <br />
. <br />
. <br />
&quot;Keep a sharp eye,&quot; Omohundro told his men. &quot;We ain't done with this...

[thedrifter]

. <br />
&quot;Damn it, get moving,&quot; Omohundro said, and his men, looking relieved that they had been given direction amid the anarchy, were only too happy to oblige. <br />
. <br />
A little later, Omohundro, a...

[thedrifter]

Iraq 'n' roll
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By LANE DeGREGORY, Times Staff Writer
Published November 21, 2004

As tanks geared up to trample Fallujah and American troops started circling the city, special operations officers rifled through their CD cases, searching for a sound track to spur the assault.

What would irk Iraqi insurgents more: Barking dogs or bluegrass? Screaming babies or shrieking feedback?

Heavy metal. The Army's latest weapon.

AC/DC. Loud. Louder!

Let's roll.

I won't take no prisoners, won't spare no lives

Nobody's putting up a fight

I got my bell, I'm gonna take you to hell

I'm gonna get you . . .

While the tanks flattened Fallujah this month, Hell's Bells bombarded the town. Speakers as big as footlockers blared from Humvees' gun turrets. Boom boxes blasted off soldiers' backpacks. As the troops stormed closer, the music got louder. The song changed; the message remained the same.

I'm gonna take you down - down, down, down

So don't you fool around

I'm gonna pull it, pull it, pull the trigger

Shoot to thrill, play to kill . . .

Louder. Turn it up. LOUDER!

Never mind that Iraqis didn't understand the words.

"It's not the music so much as the sound," said Ben Abel, spokesman for the Army's psychological operations command at Fort Bragg, N.C. "It's like throwing a smoke bomb. The aim is to disorient and confuse the enemy to gain a tactical advantage."

I'm like evil, I get under your skin

Just like a bomb that's ready to blow

'Cause I'm illegal, I got everything

That all you women might need to know

Hour after hour. For days on end.

"If you can bother the enemy through the night, it degrades their ability to fight," Abel explained. "Western music is not the Iraqis' thing. So our guys have been getting really creative in finding sounds they think would make the enemy upset.

"These harassment missions work especially well in urban settings like Fallujah," he said. "The sounds just keep reverberating off the walls."

Let there be noise

American Indians whooped war cries.

Fife and drum corps fired up troops during the Revolutionary War.

World War II had its bugle boys.

Whether to inspire soldiers, announce an attack or coerce surrender, music has been part of armies' arsenals for as long as battles have been waged.

God himself is rumored to have commanded the tactic.

"Joshua's army used horns to strike fear into the hearts of the people of Jericho," said retired Air Force Lt. Col. Dan Kuehl. "His men might not have been able to break down literal walls with their trumpets. But . . . the noise eroded the enemies' courage. Maybe those psychological walls were what really crumbled."

Kuehl teaches information operations at Fort McNair's National Defense University in Washington, D.C. His classes are part of the Army's psychological operations, or PSYOPS, programs. He shows soldiers how to exploit information to gain power, how to get inside the enemy's head, how mental manipulation helps win wars.

"Almost anything you do that demonstrates your omnipotence or lack of fear helps break the enemy down," Kuehl said. "You have to understand your target audience, what makes them tick. You have to know that the same message could be received differently by different audiences."

Sometimes that's good. Heavy metal that tortures Iraqis' ears also can help homesick Americans. For a 19-year-old Marine who has been coiled in a tent for weeks, ready to strike, Metallica's Enter Sandman might be more inspiring than any officer's pep talk.

Dreams of war, dreams of liars

Dreams of dragon's fire

and of things that will bite

Sleep with one eye open

Gripping your pillow tight . . .

"Our soldiers like this music," Kuehl said. "So that's what they're going to blast."

Sometimes, though, the songs might have an unintended effect. They might motivate the enemy instead of upsetting him.

You have to be sure, Kuehl said, that you know whose ears you're assaulting.

We are the world

World War II saw the first widespread use of radio broadcasts as PSYOPS missions. "The Japanese spread Tokyo Rose across the airwaves in an effort to demoralize U.S. troops in the Pacific," Kuehl said. "She would give this running commentary on how the Japanese were going to defeat America. Then she'd play American music.

"The soldiers would listen to the familiar songs, loving them, feeling better," the professor explained. "Then they'd laugh all the way through the PSYOPS part of the program."

The same sort of backfiring hurt the Germans, Kuehl said. Hitler's troops pumped propaganda between bursts of music. "Americans ignored the messages and enjoyed the music," Kuehl said.

Even on opposite sides of the war, soldiers sometimes sing the same songs.

Such irony might well be at work in Iraq.

"With the increasing globalization of the world, we know that some Iraqis do listen to American music, even heavy metal, on the Internet, the radio and TV," Kuehl said. "Even during the height of the Taliban, they could get Western music or videos."

Although some insurgents might have been reeling in horror at the Metallica attacks, or abandoning their fortresses to fight the frightful noise, others might have been fist-pumping at the familiar riffs, getting just as revved up as the Americans.

Hush little baby, don't say a word

Never mind that noise you heard

It's just the beasts under your bed

In your closet, in your head . . .

Accident or assault

Military experts agree about the historic use of music to pump up the troops. But stories differ about the origins of its use as a weapon.

In December 1989, while Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega was holed up in the Vatican Embassy in Panama City, U.S. soldiers shot heavy metal music at his compound 'round the clock. Some say the songs were set off to muffle negotiations between the general and his adversaries - a "music barrier" against eavesdropping reporters.

Others say the music was played to perk up the Marines. That it annoyed the general was at first a bonus. Then a breakthrough.

"I always heard that some soldier got tired of listening to the same stuff, so he popped in an AC/DC tape and turned it up loud," said Abel, the Army spokesman at Fort Bragg. "Then Noriega commented that the rock 'n' roll was bothering him. Once the guys found that out, they cranked it up even more."

Led Zeppelin. Jimi Hendrix. "Anything weird or kind of strange," Abel said. "Howling laughter. Cackling cries."

Aaah aaah aaaaah ah! Aaah aaah aaaaah ah!

Come We come from the land of the ice and snow,

From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.

The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands . . .

"Since the Noriega incident, you've been seeing an increased use of loudspeakers," Abel said. "The Army has invested a lot of money into getting speakers that are smaller and more durable, so the men can carry them on their backs."

Under pressure, Abel estimated that 30 loudspeakers swooped into Fallujah this month - bolted to gun turrets, strapped to soldiers. Speakers on the Humvees can pump Metallica's sledgehammer riffs across miles, he said.

Exit, light

Enter, night

Take my hand

We're off to never-never land . . .

The Army doesn't issue an official list of songs to play during an attack, Abel said. "These guys have their own mini disc players, with their own music, plus hundreds of downloaded sounds. It's kind of a personal preference how they choose the songs," he said.

"We've got very young guys making these decisions."

Even toddlers are contributing to the torture.

Child's play

It shouldn't have taken the Army this long to discover it. Anyone who's had a preschooler knows the pain: sing-songy, cotton-colored puppets crooning over and over again about happy, joyful things.

Dancing, smiling puppets. So pleased you tuned in. You can't tune them out. Then your little one joins in, even during commercials. Incessant. Mind-numbing. An agonizing infliction of unbearable assault.

Reruns were bad enough. Now with videos, the rewinds never stop.

Once Barney gets going, there is no escape.

"Uncooperative prisoners are being exposed for prolonged periods to tracks by rock group Metallica and music from children's TV programmes Sesame Street and Barney in the hope of making them talk," the BBC reported in May 2003. "However, Amnesty International said such tactics may constitute torture."

I love you

You love me

We're a happy family

With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you

Won't you say you love me too!

Repeated often enough, the melody has been known to make even burly, bearded men break.

"Trust me, it works," the BBC quoted an unidentified U.S. operative as attesting. "In training, they forced me to listen to the Barney I Love You song for 45 minutes. I never want to go through that again."

Metallica's music is as effective at making prisoners snap as it is at flushing out insurgents.

"If you play it for 24 hours, your brain and body functions start to slide, your train of thought slows down and your will is broken," Sgt. Mark Hadsell told Newsweek in May 2003. "That's when we come in and talk to them."

James Hetfield, who co-founded Metallica, said the military hadn't asked his permission or paid him royalties to blast his band's music in Iraq. But he's proud, he said, that his tunes are culturally offensive to the Iraqis. "For me, the lyrics are a form of expression, a freedom to express my insanity," Hetfield told radio host Terry Gross last week. "If the Iraqis aren't used to freedom, then I'm glad to be part of their exposure."

He laughed about the music being torture. "We've been punishing our parents, our wives, our loved ones with this music forever," he said on National Public Radio's Fresh Air. "Why should the Iraqis be any different?"

Then Hetfield grew serious. He paused for a moment, then said, "But I really know the reason. It's the relentlessness of the music. It's completely relentless. ... If I listened to a death metal band for 12 hours in a row, I'd go insane, too. I'd tell you anything you wanted to know."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Iraqi civilians gunned down at checkpoint


Monday 22 November 2004, 0:34 Makka Time, 21:34 GMT


US marines have killed several Iraqi civilians after opening fire at at bus which drove through a checkpoint in the city of Ramadi, the US military and Iraqi police said.




Police said seven died on Saturday, the military said three.

"The driver ignored verbal warning and several warning shots," the military said in a statement.

"As US marines in the vicinity of the checkpoint attempted to disable the van, the van accelerated toward the marines. The marines then fired upon the vehicle to protect themselves and the integrity of the checkpoint."

Ramadi police chief Brigadier Jasim al-Dulaimi said seven died in the shooting near the central governorate building where US troops are positioned.

Reuters Television footage showed the bus peppered with bullet holes. Some of the windows were shattered and others spattered with blood.

Flies buzzed around corpses in the vehicle, as men carried away bodies and loaded them into cars.

Police killed

Also in Ramadi armed men ambushed a convoy of Iraqi National Guards on Sunday, killing nine soldiers and wounding 17, local hospital officials said.

The rocket-wielding fighters ordered the guards from their vehicles and then gunned them down after holding them up on a main street in broad daylight and forcing them to drive to the outskirts of the city, wounded survivors told reporters.

The attackers then torched the guards' two trucks.

In Samarra, another mainly Sunni city north of Baghdad, three Iraqis were killed and six others wounded in fierce clashes between resistance fighters and US troops according to medical sources.

Following the clashes, which erupted last night and continued into the morning, a joint force comprising US and Iraqi troops arrested a number of citizens.

Ellie