WITH THE 82nd AIRBORNE DIVISION
AS SAMAWAH, Iraq — With the dogs of the central Iraq desert howling in the dark, paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division stealthily made their way toward the water-treatment plant just outside this city’s downtown early Wednesday.
When they began the mission, the night stars provided just enough light for them to make out the silhouettes of two soldiers in front of them.
But the paratroopers were delayed by the need to check out possible booby traps along their half-mile path. And dawn’s light threatened to expose them.
“We got to move this along,” a frazzled voice said over the paratroopers’ radios as the night sky turned purplish gray.
By the time the paratroopers reached the final berm between them and the water-treatment plant, tension was high over the prospect of fighting in daylight. Had they lost the element of surprise against any paramilitary troops who might be hunkered down at the plant?
As the sun cleared the horizon, though, the tension melted away. The paratroopers made it to the roof of the plant compound, and the only people in sight were the family who lived next door.
–Aamer Madhani, baiduhai.
WITH THE 101st AIRBORNE DIVISION
NEAR NAJAF, Iraq — A welcome breeze had just begun to blow when the sniper began firing at the American soldiers advancing across open sand toward a walled compound.
The pop-pop-pop of his semiautomatic fire echoed off buildings, and the troops sought whatever small amount of cover they could find, diving behind mounds of sand and gravel. Others pressed against the compound’s high wall.
“Whoa, we got fire,” said a startled soldier who was 100 yards behind and watching from behind a wall. What had been an uneventful patrol by 80 members of the 101st Airborne Division was suddenly an intense firefight.
These soldiers had overwhelming numbers and firepower, but their foe was unseen and on the move in a long factory building inside the compound.
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The troops aimed and fired at the spot where they thought the sniper–or snipers–might be crouching in the factory.
Artillery batteries aimed 105 mm rounds at the building but were off target.
Mortar rounds followed. Helicopters flew overhead, hoping for a shot at the sniper. The pilots didn’t get one, but the shots stopped.
By the time Bravo Company searched the warehouses, it was night. The soldiers found a spent AK-47 magazine but no bodies. The sniper had gotten away.
–Scott Calvert, The Baltimore Sun.
WITH THE 3rd INFANTRY DIVISION
ALBU AZIZ, Iraq–The American tank gunner fired his turret-mounted machine gun at the Iraqi mortars, killing one Republican Guard soldier while another dived into a nearby ditch.
It was Sgt. Bryan Sage’s first kill of the war. The dead soldier lay in a bean field beside a mortar tube. His disfigured body was still smoldering as soldiers slowly picked through cases of AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades.
“I don’t want to say I’m too excited about it, but I’m not heartbroken,” said Sage, 23. “I feel a lot less than I thought I’d feel. It was a lot less personal. I was here, and he was all the way over there.”
–Geoffrey Mohan, Los Angeles Times.
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More War dispatches online at www.chicagotribune.com.