Word: tombs
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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...
...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 the two-story house where the Tomb Raiders live, Schermerhorn scrutinizes the habits of the other soldiers, looking for signs of lassitude. Today he decides to send a message about the toilet. YOUR MOTHER DOES NOT LIVE HERE, he scrawls on the bathroom's tile wall. THE F___ING TOILET IS BROKEN. "If a guy's unable to flush...
...name on a tile wall in the common area that serves as a reservation sheet for the platoon's single Internet terminal. Most members of the platoon communicate daily with family members through email. The soldiers recently bought a webcam and connected it to the house laptop. The Tomb Raiders' hooch can be eerily antisocial, largely because today's G.I. can spend so much time in front of TV and computer screens. Schermerhorn spends the next hour instant messaging his girlfriend of three months, Nicole, a German he met while based in Giessen. The two speak three times a week...