Word: 1st
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division moved into positions around An Najaf two weeks ago, one of their commanders learned that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had just told America that everything was going exactly as planned. Colonel Hodges, the 1st Brigade Commander, laconically replied, "Funny, I don't remember ever rehearsing the Battle of An Najaf." The reality is that no one expected that U.S. troops would have to fight for the southern Iraqi city...
...1st Brigade's initial mission was to have been an air assault on key bridges and road junctions along the route of the 3rd Infantry Division. But, just prior to departure for the Gulf, the Division was told that the 3rd ID was confident it could seize all of these key positions unassisted. Staff officers planned a new mission: to drive up behind the 3rd ID and, from positions southwest of Baghdad, launch air assaults to the north of the capital. This would isolate Baghdad from the four Republican Guard divisions deployed around Mosul and Tikrit. That mission never happened...
...last week's race toward Baghdad silenced criticism that the military effort was bogging down. The 3rd Infantry Division and 1st Marine Expeditionary Force moved the big guns north, knocking off with relative ease what resistance they encountered. The body counts along the way were dramatically lopsided. In a battle for a bridge across the Euphrates, Lieut. Cclonel Rock Marcone of the 3rd Battalion 69th Armor Regiment said his men had killed 800 of the Republican Guard Medina Division; not a single American died. The U.S. notched tangible victories--roads secured, armies routed. But no less important were the symbolic...
...concern last week as the 101st made repeated incursions into the city, rooting out the remnants of regular and irregular Iraqi forces. After four days of cautiously advancing--sometimes fighting house to house, sometimes guided by civilians who pointed out the positions of Saddam's men--the Division's 1st Brigade gained control of the area on Wednesday. The following day Najaf had the feel of a liberated city. Smiling citizens crowded every street around the American positions. There was a constant stream of people willing to give information and loudly condemn Saddam. American soldiers who a day before...
...South Africa Bureau Chief, currently traveling with the 1st Marine Division, there's a lot more hurrying up than waiting. a marine was shot and killed a few feet from Robinson last week during a fire fight in Kut. "That was the first time it happened to someone in our battalion," he says. "There were bullets whizzing across the hood of our humvee. I was, frankly, very scared." The stories, he says, almost write themselves. "You just have to survive to report them...