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Peaceful day shattered

Jan-14-2006 » Filed Under: 172nd SBCT

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By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY, Knight Ridder Newspapers

MOSUL, Iraq - In the eyes of the infantrymen, the patrol Friday afternoon was going great. Not merely quiet and routine but positively peaceful.

The streets of Mosul were festive, filled with children dressed in their best frilly dresses and neatly pressed trousers. This week Muslims are enjoying the festival of Eid al-Adha, or the feast of sacrifice.

Small neighborhood parks were awash in bright colors as children mobbed the swings and hand-turned small Ferris wheels, waving and smiling at passing American soldiers.

Most shops were closed, and the few cars on the streets were filled with families.

Not a single shot had been heard nor any boom from a dreaded improvised explosive device for the first three hours of the patrol.

The second platoon of Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry of the 172nd Stryker Brigade, home-based at Fort Wainwright, near Fairbanks, Alaska, was on a leisurely swing through many of the neighborhoods, rich and poor, in eastern Mosul. Staff Sgt. Joel Burger, a native of Iowa, was in one of the two rear hatches of platoon leader Lt. Joe Vanty's Stryker, a tanklike vehicle on wheels. I was in the other. [...]


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