Word: forts
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...means taking ground inch by inch. In Korea and Vietnam the infantry accounted for only 4% of troops in the theater but more than 80% of those killed in battle. It took Perez nearly three years--along with a threat to quit and a pledge to serve at frigid Fort Drum in upstate New York for up to six years--to prevail. On Valentine's Day of 2000 he reported for training at Fort Benning...
...left his parents and three sisters for Fort McClellan, Ala. There he fell in love with a college student named La Donia Miller, the woman who would become his wife. Despite his dad's warnings, he also fell in love with the idea of becoming a warrior. A three-year stint in Germany--tagging along on road marches, soaking up the camaraderie of Desert Storm veterans--led him to re-enlist. While in Europe, he spent six months in Bosnia. Suddenly the supply guy "was in full battle rattle, doing patrols," he says. "I loved being out there with them...
Nearly a month later, on Oct. 7, the day U.S. warplanes began bombing Afghanistan, Perez and 1,000 fellow soldiers left Fort Drum for a Soviet-era air base outside the town of Khanabad, Uzbekistan, 90 miles north of the Afghan frontier. Their mission was simple but dull: Secure the airfield. "God, this can't go on for six months," Perez said to himself during one of his 12-hour shifts patrolling the earthen berms that encircle the base. "Something's got to happen...
...called to announce the birth of their son. "He looks just like you," she said. "He's very beautiful." The hospital promised to post a picture of baby Ramiro, named after his grandfather, on its website. Luckily, Perez had been deployed along with the 5th Special Forces Group from Fort Campbell, Ky., a high-tech outfit with a laptop linked to the Internet by satellite--a laptop reserved last Christmas Eve solely for the use of one Randel Perez. He hunted and pecked until the screen filled with a digital image of Ramiro. Perez stared at the picture...
...Toyota pickup emerges from the gates of a mud-walled fort outside the Afghan city of Gardez, barrels down the road, and weaves through barricades bristling with grenade launchers and Soviet-era machine guns. The vehicle slams to a halt and an American named Charlie jumps out, his auburn beard and gold-framed Oakleys flashing in the sun. I ask him what he's doing in this rugged, dust-coated part of Afghanistan. He answers, "I work for the government...