Word: platoons
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...platoon has served in Iraq for seven months and expects to stay for five more. In three weeks with the Tomb Raiders, over the course of 30 patrols with the unit and sister platoons, TIME journalists witnessed the tedium and the terror, the sacrifice and resolve that epitomize the lives of G.I.s across Iraq. Like thousands of Americans in this war, the Tomb Raiders have absorbed losses that have changed their lives forever. Theirs is the story of what the Army looks like today and what this war has become...
Though Whiteside says he thrives on the rush of being the eyes of the platoon, he frets about the threats he can't see. When the Tomb Raiders roll out for a night patrol six hours later, Whiteside is tenser than before, gripping his gun tightly as the platoon careers through dark, empty alleys running with sewage. "I hate it when the lights go out," he says, staring down a street that is barely the width of a humvee. "You don't know what's going to happen. If they sat down and planned it, they could block this road...
...platoon stops on a largely deserted road along the river and sets up a checkpoint. After fruitlessly searching a dozen cars for weapons, the Tomb Raiders head home. Whiteside unloads his gear and lays his machine gun next to his cot, which sits below a gallery of pictures of half-clad women clipped from magazines. "It's like Groundhog Day," he says. "It's the same thing every day. You just don't know whether you're going to live...
...toilet is driving Sky Schermerhorn crazy. It's bad enough that the bathroom at the base is shared by 10 G.I.s with varying standards of hygiene plus half a dozen Iraqis assigned to train with the platoon. What gets Schermerhorn is that no one else seems to mind that every 15 minutes the toilet stops up or floods, and when it does, no one else tends to it. Schermerhorn is the platoon's most garrulous soldier, a pudgy specialist with downcast eyes who joined the Army at 27 out of a desire to "protect freedom and democracy." Inside...
...Schermerhorn speaks, Kamont and Winston recline on the secondhand couches that adorn the platoon's common area. They stare at a television hooked up to a portable DVD player that serves up a steady stream of war movies, sci fi, horror and porn. In front of the TV is a coffee table littered with picked-over ready-to-eat meals, Tootsie Rolls and water bottles filled with tobacco juice. Heat comes from three portable radiators. The platoon's house--the hooch, as the G.I.s call it--lies within the perimeter of the Azimiya palace compound, built by Saddam...