Word: colgan
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...initial shock of Colgan's death has abated, but the soldiers still have to remind themselves that he is gone. His name remains on the satellite-phone bill the platoon updates on a wall of the hooch. "Sometimes I think that I'll wake up," Whiteside says, "and that he's going to walk through the door and get his coffee and watch SportsCenter. And he'll say good morning, and I'll ask him how he's doing. And then I realize, that's never going to happen again...
...Operation Colgan's Revenge...
...suspected of organizing attacks against the Americans. Since early November, intelligence gained from informants and detainees has yielded a list of 20 individuals in the area who the battalion's commanders believe are involved in financing and coordinating roadside bombings. The effort to hunt them down is dubbed Colgan's Revenge. But few members of the platoon are confident they will find Colgan's killers. "To know you got the guy who planted that IED--that piece will never be available to us," says Buxton...
...month since Colgan's death, the soldiers have been slow to warm to his replacement, Van Engelen, a stolid, tobacco-spitting 24-year-old who lacks his predecessor's charisma. "I still ain't used to him," mutters Whiteside. "There's a difference of experience." Buxton has become a more active, though neurotic leader. Tonight he spends half an hour drawing up different seating arrangements in the three humvees. As the Tomb Raiders grease their guns and pack flashlights and zip-ties (for cuffing hands) into their flak vests, Winston, the platoon's weathered senior sergeant, briefs them...
Outside the 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...