Okay warbloggers, call these guys traitors. I dare you.
Divided Mission in Iraq Tempers Views of G.I.'s
By EDWARD WONG
KARBALA, Iraq, May 16 — Six weeks ago, soldiers of the First Armored Division were renovating schools. Now they are raiding them for hidden munitions.
Children wave to them along the roads, while insurgents with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades make them targets.
"Our mission is to rebuild this country, but the thing is, the bad guys won't let us do it," said Specialist Jennifer Marie Bencze, 20, of Santa Rosa, Calif. "At the same time we've got engineers rebuilding schools, fixing roads, doing all the humanitarian projects, we've got infantry fighting the bad guys. So the mission is really confused."
Here in the Shiite heartland, the division is caught up in the fiercest and deadliest fighting now under way in Iraq. That is a far cry from May 2003, when it rolled into Iraq thinking the war was all but over, ready to plant Western-style institutions in this arid land. Interviews with dozens of soldiers over the last two weeks suggest that their idealism has been tempered.
All agree the war is at a crucial juncture, but few soldiers can say with certainty how to achieve victory — or even what might constitute victory.
