Many soldiers looked frustrated, angry. To some, I'm the person to be angry at. As if I'm the cause. "We're tired of seeing our friends die for a war we don't understand," one soldier hissed at me. "Leave us alone." And I did.
7/05/04 to 7/12/04
Soldiers from the Army's 1st Cavalry Division, based in Baghdad,guard a man who has been detained at the checkpoint after his hands tested positive for explosive matter.
(Andrea Bruce Woodall)
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FOR THE PAST COUPLE OF WEEKS, I'VE SPENT A LOT OF TIME WITH THE 1ST CALVARY, WHICH OVERSEES SADR CITY. I've been with the soldiers of Forward Operating Base War Eagle in Sadr City, the poor, sewage-drenched Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad that has become a center of resistance to the Americans and the new Iraqi government.
I have tried to go out on a day patrol and a night patrol, with different units, every day. Night patrols usually ended up being a checkpoint where soldiers stopped suspicious vehicles and detained suspicious people. To get anywhere, the soldiers had to go down a long street that the Army nicknamed "IED Alley."
During day patrols, the soldiers cruised the streets of Sadr City in the Humvees. Half of the residents threw waves their way. The other half threw rocks. One day, a teenage boy spat on the window of the Humvee I was riding in. I spent the rest of the day taking pictures of the way Iraqis look at the soldiers -- through a layer of spit. But it went both ways, and I decided to take pictures of the world the soldiers see -- through the tiny, two-inch-thick window in 130-degree heat. All of the air conditioning inside the vehicles was broken, and we had to keep the windows closed -- just in case someone wanted to throw a grenade our way.
One day, the guys played Motown music while driving through the streets of Sadr City. They bought a small CD player, locally. The driver kept one hand on the wheel, the other on the volume button. He was the deejay. The soldier in the back seat next to me smoked hand-rolled cigarettes that he got from a fancy silver case -- it was also a lighter. I guess those are the things one has to hold onto to feel some kind of comfort.
These guys are jumpy. Who can blame them? As they patrol, they point out the sites of all of the IED explosions they have lived through in the city so far. One guy already has two Purple Hearts.
I get dehydrated so quickly. Headaches are constant. Everything looks brown.
Andrea Bruce Woodall will be fielding questions and comments about this article Monday at 1 p.m. at washingtonpost.com/liveonline.
