Word: regimentation
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...cities like Ramadi, the U.S. campaign to deny sanctuary to the insurgents consists of a daily assortment of hit-and-run exchanges, alleyway gunfights and nighttime raids. "They've taken the fight into the neighborhoods," says Captain Jeffrey Kenney, commander of Golf Company of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. "The hardest thing is to ID where the fire is coming from." The jarheads long for a pitched battle but know that will never happen because the rebels aren't suicidal. The Marines must seek out the insurgents and monitor the places where they hide, which is why these Marines...
Handling the heaviest fighting would be the soldiers of the battle-hardened 1st Battalion of the 14th Infantry Regiment. Stationed in Kirkuk to the north, the 1/14 battalion knows something about the feints and vanishing acts of the insurgents, having faced them in Najaf, Tall 'Afar and elsewhere. The 1/14 would follow the 1st Battalion of the 26th Infantry Regiment, which would hit Samarra first, crossing a long bridge leading into the city to secure a staging area for the troops that would pour in afterward. Just past midnight on Friday morning, the 1/26 moved. The 1/14, not far behind...
...call comes shortly before noon: Insurgents toting AK-47s and RPGs have ambushed a Marine patrol in Ramadi, wounding two soldiers. At Combat Outpost, a dusty, sun-baked base that houses two companies of the 2nd Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment, the Quick Reaction Force mounts up. Moments later, a convoy of armored Humvees, seven-ton trucks and reinforced high-backed personnel carriers tears into the streets of the long-restive town...
...Marines are trying to identify their enemy and hunt him down, hoping to achieve the security needed to hold elections in the Sunni triangle. Insurgents, however, their numbers estimated in the hundreds, are intimidating locals, kidnapping and killing local officials, and staging frequent hit-and-run attacks. Regiment commander Lt. Col. Randall P. Newman believes foreign fighters are coming back and forth from Fallujah, mixing with ex-Baathists and local criminals in a combined effort to keep the city unstable. "It's almost like a chess match," says Golf Company executive officer, Lt. Dennis Doyle...
Like other frontline soldiers in Iraq, the men of Task Force 1/9--of which Charlie Company, of the National Guard's 1st Battalion, 153rd Infantry Regiment, is a part--face the risk of almost perpetual combat. Among the company's 119 men, dozens of Purple Hearts have been awarded for injuries suffered in battle. "Exceptional things are happening out there, bits and pieces of extraordinary bravery," says Foley. At the same time, Foley sees these streets stripping his young charges of their youth. "People outside have no idea of the overall effect of this. Eighteen-year-old kids are having...