Word: battalion
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...portable radiators. The platoon's house--the hooch, as the G.I.s call it--lies within the perimeter of the Azimiya palace compound, built by Saddam in the mid-1990s for his oldest son Uday. The portion of the palace not destroyed by U.S. missiles now functions as the 2nd Battalion's Tactical Operations Center. During the summer, the troops filled the swimming pool and built a sand volleyball court on the grounds. Lieut. Colonel William Rabena, the battalion's stout commanding officer, sleeps in an egg-shaped room dubbed the Love Shack, on a circular canopied...
...wire, the dysfunction ends. On duty, "it's like butter, we're so smooth," says Whiteside. Everyone attributes the unit's cohesion to the man who became their platoon leader shortly after they arrived in Baghdad, Second Lieutenant Benjamin Colgan, 30. He was originally attached to the Tomb Raiders' battalion as a chemical and biological officer, responsible for managing preparations for unconventional attacks. But that position is a desk job, and Colgan, a 12-year veteran of the special forces, longed to be on the streets. "Use my skills," he told Rabena. At the time, the Tomb Raiders were leaderless...
...missed all that bonding. Now he is preparing for his maiden trip outside the wire. Yesterday Jenks spent Thanksgiving away from home for the first time, eating rubbery turkey with a bunch of strangers in a chow hall decorated with the corny Pilgrim motif of a kindergarten. The battalion required all soldiers at the base to speak to their families for five minutes on the phone, but the call only added to Jenks' longing for home. "I was hating life," he says...
...rage. "I wanted to be the first one to kick down a door. I wanted to find the mother____ers. But the one thing we can do is honor his memory. He'd rather we do that than go on a bloodthirsty rampage." A few days after the battalion's memorial service for Colgan, Rabena gathered Whiteside, Schermerhorn and Buxton and phoned Colgan's wife Jill. She asked them about her husband's final hours. Buxton gave her straight answers but omitted gruesome details, telling her that Colgan had been conscious and looking around but not that he had lost...
...brick battalion headquarters on the base, a family-readiness group meets regularly to plan luncheons and trips to the zoo. If someone is sick, the other spouses mobilize grocery shopping and child care. In the corner there is a stack of coloring books to help kids prepare to say goodbye--and hello again. A wall is decorated with pictures of soldier-dads swimming in the pool at the Baghdad palace where they are quartered...