The city was quiet but the soldiers sitting and swaying inside the Stryker were animated by their favourite debate: was it better to be five metres or 20 metres from an explosion?
The front gunner belonged to the 20-metre school, figuring the greater distance reduced your chances of losing limbs to the blast. The two rear gunners scoffed and said that would increase the odds of being hit by shrapnel, which fanned upwards and outwards.
Five months of patrolling Mosul had furnished evidence for both views and the discussion was as well-worn as the Stryker’s tyres.
Sergeant David Phillips (23) sighed and patted his flak jacket. ”I just want to stay alive and go home with all my body parts.” He spoke for 150 000 American soldiers in Iraq.
On Thursday the number of US military deaths since the March 2003 invasion crept over 1 500.
There was no official acknowledgment of the milestone, just curt statements that three soldiers had died in two separate attacks on Wednesday. ”Names are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.” The figure includes accidents.
The daily drip of United States casualties passes almost unnoticed now, a footnote to the wider slaughter of Iraqis: five policemen killed in two car bombs on Thursday, 13 soldiers killed on Wednesday, a judge on Tuesday, at least 115 police and army recruits and civilians on Monday. About 18 000 civilians are estimated to have died.
Thursday’s headlines were about the renewal of Iraq’s state of emergency, fresh attacks on oil pipelines, and deadlock between Shias and Kurds over forming a new government.
The men of Bravo company, an infantry unit which rides in the armoured Stryker vehicles of 321 Battalion in Mosul, did not care that since George Bush’s re-election the artificial limbs and flag-draped coffins of US troops have faded in political significance. For them, it was personal.
”I don’t tell my mom or my wife that we drive up and down streets getting blown up every day. They’d just worry all the time. I tell them we sit in the base and do the odd mission,” said Sergeant Nathan Purdy, who is 23.
A week embedded with Bravo company, midway through a year-long stint in an insurgent stronghold, showed a group of men with good morale and determination to catch ”bad guys” but divided over the war and frustrated by an elusive enemy.
There was consensus about the reaction when home on leave. ”People wanting to buy you drinks, buy you food, wanting to shake your hand, they made you feel a hero,” said Specialist Matt Sutton (24) from Illinois. Those from liberal states such as Washington said anti-war activists did not criticise them personally or echo the Vietnam-era chant of baby killer. ”The country is behind us. They didn’t dare,” said one lieutenant.
Bravo Company’s quarters are a bombed-out palace in the grounds of Camp Freedom, a sprawl of cabins and concrete shelters. Mortars land regularly but tend not to hit anything.
Lieutenant Colonel Mike Gibler said his battalion’s main objective was rebuilding the Iraqi security forces which ”imploded” last November after insurgents overran Mosul’s police stations.
The Iraqi army was improving thanks to joint operations and would soon take half of the responsibility of securing the city. Asked about the police force he rolled his eyes, but speculated that there was enough progress for US forces to leave within three years. His desk had tomes on Islam and a ”Don’t mess with Texas” sticker.
Enlisted men were less sure about progress, complaining they were always on the defensive and waiting to be attacked by insurgents. ”They fight like bitches, pop a few shots, then hide,” said Sergeant Ramirez Flores.
Drive-by shootings have wounded several in the unit but the big fear is roadside bombs which according to the Pentagon accounted for 56% of all US battle deaths in the first two months of this year. They are hidden in rubbish bags, animal carcasses, holes, rubble, cars and carts, turning every object into a potential killer.
A suicide car bomber rammed and immolated one of the battalion’s Strykers but all the occupants survived, prompting reverence for the eight-wheel, 23-tonne monsters.
A tip about weapons caches this week led to a midnight mission to dig up a lawn. It yielded nothing.
”Fucking gardeners — what are we doing here?” asked one private. ”And tomorrow we’re giving out candy to kids again,” replied his friend. ”We didn’t train for this.” – Guardian Unlimited Â