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Coming of Age in a Mosul Outpost

Jan-30-2005 » Filed Under: TF Freedom

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By Louise Roug, Times Staff Writer

MOSUL, Iraq — It's long after midnight when paratroopers from Alpha Company enter the house and start moving room to room.

In the kitchen, decorated with plastic flowers and lace curtains, they ransack drawers and cupboards. In the bedroom, they find a small bottle of I Love New York eau de toilette standing half-empty, as if recently used. But the food in the fridge has spoiled. The soldiers' target is long gone.

"Let me think of something creative," Capt. J.T. Eldridge, commander of Alpha Company, tells an interpreter, who is poised in front of the house with a black marker at the ready.

"We know where the terrorists live, and we'll come back," the 28-year-old Eldridge instructs him to write on the wall.

Next to the Arabic script, Lt. Brock Hershberger adds a signature: two curved As similar to the ones he wears on his shoulder, signifying "All-American" and the Army's 82nd Airborne infantry.

He is marking his neighborhood.

Close to the Action

Eldridge, Hershberger and about 135 other paratroopers arrived in the northwest section of this northern Iraqi city in early January, taking up residence in a former food depot. They bunk in a walled compound of warehouses, sharing a few latrines. There is no running water or heat and electricity is sporadic. The soldiers live on military rations; the rats live on the crumbs.

Most U.S. troops in Iraq reside on large bases. But in Mosul, where security deteriorated sharply after November's U.S.-led assault on the guerrilla stronghold of Fallouja, about 750 American soldiers have spread out among 16 outposts in the city, including a sheep farm, a telephone exchange office and a bombed-out police station.

Commanders say that having soldiers live in town enables them to respond more quickly to car bombs and other types of attacks and allows them to patrol on foot, observing things that were overlooked by soldiers who passed through in armored vehicles.

Most soldiers stay at the outposts. For safety reasons and supplies, though, there is a daily convoy to "freedom" — the main base about 10 miles away.

This long article continues.


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