Word: combatant
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...CREATE "THE SURGE," KAGAN AND KEANE proposed extending combat tours in Iraq to produce an additional 30,000 troops in Iraq over the next 18 months. Army tours would be lengthened from 12 to 15 months, and Marine deployments would stretch from seven to 12 months. A few additional combat brigades would be shipped over early to round out the reinforcements. There is no question that some units could pick up the pace. The Marines, after all, still station almost 20,000 troops in Okinawa...
...drive out Sunnis. Acting on neighborhood tips, Peterson's men search suspected Mahdi Army safe houses, which often have a green ribbon hanging on the front door. Sometimes the signs are even more obvious. One house thought to be a Mahdi Army fighting position looks like a makeshift combat outpost. Barbed wire snakes across the top of the outside walls. A tree in the yard has a ladder leading to a lookout offering a wide view of the street. The windows are filled with bricks. But during a surprise search inside, Peterson's men find only a family claiming...
...khaki camouflage uniform - a gift from the U.S. government - may as well be a beacon for Taliban attacks. Insurgents often target the ANA, knowing that the poorly prepared troops rarely drive armored vehicles and lack sufficient firepower to mount a counter-offensive. Several hundred ANA troops have died in combat since 2003, and a new Taliban directive has decreed that their alliance with foreign forces makes ANA soldiers infidels, and thus a legitimate target...
...bigger truth. For the past 50 years, the enormous military force of the U.S. has been at its most effective when it hasn't been fighting - for instance as a deterrent threat that helped keep the peace during the cold war. With one exception, when it has gone into combat, it has sooner or later retreated in defeat and left behind a mess to be cleaned up later. This happened in Vietnam in the '70s, Lebanon in the '80s and Somalia in the '90s. The exception was the liberation of Kuwait, but this achievement was devalued by President Bush...
...belt. She talked longingly of the runs she'd done along the Tigris River in Baghdad, where she was based before Ramadi. We chatted more about other small things. Soon enough it was time for us to go. I was off for a few days to Hurricane Point, a combat outpost in Ramadi just beyond the main base. After that McClung and I were to link up again at Camp Ramadi so she could show me around other parts of the city herself. I left eager to see her again...