Word: mud
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Iraqi irregulars have tried everything to get at 2nd Brigade soldiers. When two Bradley fighting vehicles got stuck in the mud, dozens of irregulars, armed with a machine gun, tow missiles and a chain-firing cannon, tried to crawl up to them. Another group attempted to paddle across the Euphrates river, shooting RPGs as they approached. Their five boats were blown apart on the water. All of these attacks ended similarly. "It's not a fair fight," says Major Kevin Dunlop. "Trucks with machine guns against tanks and Bradleys can only have one outcome. We are slaughtering them...
...here in Al Qadisiyah, the hearts-and-minds exercise is a priority, since the Marines need to secure two towns and two hamlets along a road linking a pair of north-south highways in the vicinity. The area forms a picture of rustic simplicity: donkeys tied up next to mud-brick houses, children playing near a canal, a young girl in a pink dress and a pink cardigan chasing a cow through her garden...
...this sort of journalism. Many journalists had left, and I was sitting on a small hill some distance from the remaining group, airing my feet and trying to do something about a faint but disturbing odor that had infiltrated my boots after a night spent sleeping in the mud a couple of weeks ago. A pickup drew up at the checkpoint and an official climbed up towards me to pray. When he was finished he came over and we shook hands - the Kurds are remarkably polite people...
...company spent that first night camped on the southeastern outskirts of Samawah, an ancient mud-brick city built over an elbow of the Euphrates River. At 3am on Monday, they got the order to move through the town and secure two bridges. The first thing Talraas noticed as dawn broke were the palm trees and lush green fields. "It almost reminded me of an old Vietnam movie," he says. "We came into the desert, but this was very, very green...
...Things had seemed to be going well that morning, but Samawah put Talraas on edge. A sniper could easily hide in its narrow alleyways and tall, closely spaced mud-brick buildings. "My nerves were up," says Talraas. "We don't train for that environment, with buildings so close together and that high...