Word: 3rd
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...would be greeted like heroes, costs reaching a billion dollars a week and going up, some troops homesick and disillusioned, their spouses and parents having no idea when they will see their loved ones again--and no end in sight to any of it. At a gate to a 3rd Infantry Division base near Fallujah last week, Sergeant Michael Baroni sat on a tank and dreamed of drinking a glass of fresh milk. After 10 months in the Middle East, he says, "I just want to get out of this country, which, by the way, the Iraqis can have...
...Centcom then issued a statement saying it still intended to bring home the troops of the 3rd ID, "pending international or U.S. replacement units," adding that "as always, the security situation could affect deployments and redeployments...
Last Monday soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq were told by their commanders that they wouldn't be going home in September, as expected. Their tour had been extended by two or three months, at the least. 3rd ID commander Major General Buford Blount had already emailed their families the bad news, blaming "uncertainty of the situation in Iraq and the recent increase in attacks on coalition forces." The groan was palpable, with the soldiers and their families telling reporters - sometimes in terms distinctly unflattering to the Pentagon - that it was time for the unit that had suffered...
...qualifier in the Centcom statement about a September return date for the 3rd ID may be even more important: "As always, the security situation could affect deployments and redeployments.'' Far from abating, the ongoing guerrilla campaign against U.S. forces and their indigenous supporters in Iraq appears to be intensifying. On Wednesday, a day when the U.S. had been on maximum alert because it marked the anniversary of Saddam's rise to power, one U.S. soldier was killed and five were wounded in a series of attacks around the country, and a pro-U.S. mayor in western Iraq was assassinated...
What was then called Saddam International Airport fell to soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division on April 3. For the next two weeks, airport workers say, soldiers sleeping in the airport's main terminal helped themselves to items in the duty-free shop, including alcohol, cassettes, perfume, cigarettes and expensive watches. Welsh, who arrived in Iraq in late April, was so alarmed by the thievery that he rounded up a group of Iraqi airport employees to help him clean out the shop and its storage area. He locked everything in two containers and turned them over to the shop...