A 1st Cavalry Division platoon leader with the 91st Engineers (Combat) Battalion checks one of several boys hit by mortar shrapnel for signs of life, but the child died instantly.
» Read the story

A medic takes a second look at one of the two dead children while the SAW gunner, left, and the squad leader prepare to provide cover fire.

Girls tell a man from the neighborhood that two boys are dead from the attack.

A man breaks down as he leads his son away just after a mortar attack killed two boys in the Al Khadrah neighborhood of western Baghdad.
» Read the story

The platoon leader reassures the boy while they await a doctor.
» Read the story

Yet another soldier tries to position a boy struck in the back by shrapnel so he move him to cover, where he can treated away from the fire fight.
» Read the story

American soldiers with the 1st Infantry Division cast big shadows during a late afternoon patrol in Ad-Dawr, near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.

Iraqi elections may be over, but little has changed for 1st Infantry Division troops operating in central Iraq. Staff Sgt. Patrick Shrier from Charlie Troop, 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment gets ready to search houses in a tiny village north of Tikrit. Acting on a tip, the unit arrested an arms dealer nearby
in January, but found nothing this week on a follow-up search. » Read the story

An August 2003 funeral in Falluja after the 82nd Airborne Division killed eight Iraqi Police in what was supposedly an accidental shoot-out, but may have been an unsuccessful ambush by insurgents.
» Read the story

Soldiers from Bravo Co., 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne, scramble as rounds come in about dusk outside Falluja.
» Read the story

A National Guard soldier inscribed a message to his girlfriend on his Kevlar helmet.
» Read the story (.pdf)

Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne's Bravo Co., 1-504 head out at sunset for a patrol into Falluja.
» Read the story

A civil affairs soldier pulls security for his team at a Baghdad school under renovation.

Soldiers disarm Iraqi soldiers who show up just after the attack, unsure of who they are or whether they can be trusted.
» Read the story

A 5th Special Forces Group operator forces a suspect to show his face to an informant in the rear of a Humvee during a raid near Baghdad.
» Read the story

A military policeman examines deep, fresh welts on the back of a prisoner in a jail in Sabi Abor, near Falluja. First Cav troops raided the jail to check on reports that Iraqi police there were collaborating with insurgents. Instead, they heard accounts of abuse and random arrests from prisoners.
» Read the story

Mourners, some armed with AK-47s, carry one of eight Iraqi police killed during an August 2003 shootout with 82nd Airborne paratroopers. Fallujans vowed vengeance, and about six weeks later, shootouts between insurgents and U.S. forces became almost a daily event.
» Read the story

An Iraqi soldier literally stands guard over a polling station about 30 kilometers from Tikrit. Voter turnout Jan. 30 in rural villages was high despite this Sunni Triangle area being Saddam Hussein's home turf.
» Read the story

A suspected insurgent waits to be booked into 29 Palms, the small detention center at Camp Black Jack, the 1st Cavalry Division camp near Baghdad International Airport. The man will be interrogated, then released or sent on to Abu Ghraib prison till being tried by Iraqi authorities.
» Read the story