Stryker Brigade News

Troops unloaded the eight white bundles, each the size of sweater boxes, from the bed of their armored Stryker. [...]

“Right now, we have everyone out. That’s the colonel who just passed by,” said Sgt. James Fullerton, as another team of Strykers passed by on the highway, carrying the Battalion commander.

Their job was to show a heavy military presence in the city, without disrupting the polling. Aside from dozens of armored, wheeled Strykers, teams of American tanks rolled through Mosul in a show of force.

The First Battalion, 24th Infantry is out of Fort Lewis, Wash., though Fullerton is from Idaho.

Over the radio they discuss whether there is an admission charge to the Space Needle in Seattle. The unit has been in Mosul since October and has lost eight people.

“Eight really good men,” Fullerton said.

Just before the polls open, there are a series of three loud explosions. No word on the radio on what caused the blasts.

There would be other explosions throughout the day, but no reports of a polling place being shut down by violence in Mosul, unlike in Baghdad, where a bomb went off. [...]

Some of the children follow the Strykers, shouting for candy and asking for “footballs,” which one of the earlier units may have handed out, Fullerton said.

The children are the most open, mugging for pictures, calling the GIs “mister, mister” and making a clicking gesture to bring out a camera.

“This is a nation of hams,” said Fullerton, after a group of children strike a pose for his disposable camera. Some of the adults join in.

At one of the polls, nearly every Iraqi National Guard troop asked to have his picture taken on the historic occasion. Others are not as friendly. Some watch silently as the Americans pass.

Amid a crowd of cheering children, one adolescent spat “Pew, pew, America.” No numbers were available on turnout in Mosul. From the radio chatter, the Stryker unit heard that turn out was less successful at other locations around the city.

As the polls were getting ready to close, there was an unconfirmed report that someone had been shot while standing in line to vote, early in the morning. There was another report of a bomb going off near the polls.