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Getting a purple heart

Mar- 3-2006 » Filed Under: 172nd SBCT

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By Kimberly Johnson, USA Today

MOSUL, Iraq – Lt. Col. John Norris needed his soldier’s attention.

The commander of 172nd Brigade 4th Battalion, 23rd infantry regiment and the men surrounding him in a tight circle were minutes away from climbing into their Strykers and launching an operation Norris hoped might unearth suspected insurgents. Everyone stood silent, listening as a telescopic pointer traced out their game plan along roadways on a laminated map. The only sound was tobacco spit splashing down on the egg-shaped rocks at the men’s boots.

There has also been an increase in attacks against coalition forces here in Mosul, although not on the scale of the sectarian violence in Baghdad and central Iraq lately. Bombs buried along side roads and mortar attacks are all on the rise, as are small arms attacks. Soldiers here, however, blame the emerging rage directed at them and Iraqi forces not on any ethnic divide, but instead on Mother Nature. Recent spring-like temperatures are coaxing insurgents out.

On this particular day –- Wednesday -- Norris and his men were headed to Sinaa, an industrial area of Mosul with a dark and seedy past. Intelligence suggested some of the auto dealers in the neighborhood are also installing explosives in cars for suicide bombers. But these soldiers standing around Norris in the afternoon sun didn’t need to hear that to digest the gravity of where they were headed. They only needed to think back to their last patrol there several months ago, when snipers shot at them from rooftops. [...]


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