Word: battalion
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...fighters loyal to Saddam. Only then can one even begin to talk about prospects of local people-circumspect after the U.S. encouraged previous uprisings that were later crushed-partying in the streets. "Only when there is physical presence can people feel safe," says Sergeant Major David Howell, with 3/4 Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment...
...next day, but by this time the 2nd Brigade had set up "toll-booths"-heavy armor-on the roads leading from Najaf. "They attacked like morons," says Perkins. "But they kept coming." In one area guarded by two Bradleys, several hundred Iraqis were killed, according to the local battalion headquarters...
...Marines fan out, searching houses. A loudspeaker blasts a message in Arabic: Stay in your houses. We are here to help. "This is a place taken out of thousands of years ago when Jesus was walking the earth still," says Corporal Omar Monge, 20, driver for the battalion commander, Lieut. Colonel Bryan P. McCoy. A village elder approaches the battalion translator. Tell everyone not to be scared, he is told. But tell them if they shoot one bullet they will be very scared. We will shoot 2,000 bullets back...
...When the troops arrive there, the two-story green-and-lime building housing the Baath Party seems deserted. Then a sniper across the road starts firing on the convoy and is answered. The battalion pours through the streets, grabbing two teens who tell the troops that 250 to 450 armed Baathists have headed east, the last of them having left as the Marines arrived. The teams collect names of party officials and details on their vehicles and weapons. The biggest find: a book listing the names of all local Baath officials...
...Marine unit I am with, Kilo Company from Battalion 34, left late Saturday from Basra International Airport which it had helped take earlier that day, and pushed west across the muddy plain and then north. A few Iraqi pickup trucks passed the convoy along the main highway. Men waved white flags or had them attached to their radio antennas. The quick movement of the first two days - think of it as 'Blitzkrieg Lite,' in which parts of Iraq's army were slashed, but towns and cities like Basra were not even bothered with - had given everyone hope of a quick...