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'We Didn't Get Hit With Anything'

Jan-31-2005 » Filed Under: 1/25 SBCT

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By Louise Roug, LA Times

MOSUL, Iraq — On a last-minute vote drive Sunday in northwest Mosul, Army Lt. Brock Hershberger approached a man wearing an olive-colored suit and brown leather shoes. "Have you voted yet?" Hershberger asked through a translator. The man responded that he'd heard the lines were long.

Of the problems that U.S. and Iraqi forces anticipated during the run-up to election day in this insurgent stronghold, long lines to cast ballots were not at the top of the list. "He won't have to wait more than 15 minutes," Hershberger said. "Tell him, in America we wait four hours to vote." [...]

"It was tentative at first, but by midday and afternoon, people were coming out in droves," said Army Maj. David Spencer, intelligence officer with the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.

A little before the polls opened at 7 a.m., a group of paratroopers from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division heard the sound of several explosions near their outpost in northwest Mosul.

"That was our polling site," one soldier said.

But the nearby voting station at a school was left unscathed, and by 7:30 the first two voters had cast their ballots.

Throughout the day, soldiers monitored the turnout by radio, with reports coming in every half an hour. The trickle of voters was turning into a stream. [...]

"From where we were, to where we got, I think we really pulled off a successful run," said Spencer, the intelligence officer, referring to November and December, when Mosul's police force deserted stations throughout the city and the entire election staff quit.

Trying to get out the vote in Mosul, a city with a mixed population of Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen, Hershberger and his soldiers patrolled throughout the afternoon, driving by men playing cards in the street and a woman cooking in little pots. Young children took over the roads, playing soccer amid heaps of trash.

"I don't know where their parents are," remarked one of the soldiers. "Maybe they're voting." [...]

Capt. J.T. Eldridge surveyed one polling station as soldiers began packing up barrier material and concertina wire.

The day had ended — for his soldiers, peacefully. He was looking ahead. In a few days, his outpost would be dismantled, and his soldiers would move to the Marez military base outside the city.

Since leaving Baghdad a month ago, he had bathed only once. Now that election day was over, the future held the promise of something more tangible than democracy for Eldridge: hot water.

"I'm going to have a shower," he said, looking quite content.


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