Back in the spring or early summer of 2004, when the fight against the Mehdi Army was heating up, I read about a unit that had aleady left and was called back from Kuwait to fight in southern Iraq.  On the scale of unpleasant surprises, that's surpassed by the Stryker Brigade that was recalled after some of its men had already landed back in the United States.

Pete covered those guys for a while up in Mosul and we bumped into a group of them this afternoon.  All things considered they're not in a terrible mood.  They've now been in Iraq a year and will be here for another four months, so they have a decidedly philosophical outlook.  One of the guys arranged a leave to be home for the birth of a child.  The due date got pushed back and he was able to extend his leave to witness the birth.  He opened a pocket on the upper sleeve of his uniform and pulled out a set of pictures—the baby, his wife with the baby, him with the baby.  The new duty in Baghdad will keep him from his family during his kid's first few months.

The captain in charge of the MiTT team I'm with is a guy named Ben Shaha.  He's 31, but has a grin and a mild manner that makes him seem younger.  He's on a year-long deployment; in the middle he returned home to Utah, got married, honeymooned in-state, and then returned to Iraq.  Sgt. Maj. James Clinton, who showed me and Pete around the old government complex two nights ago, is a lean guy with a creased face and close-cropped thinning hair.  Out on the balcony, where sometimes the smell of the morgue ruins your cigarette break, he spoke of retiring when he hits the 30-year mark so he can live in Tennessee and ride around the country on his motorcycle.  He recalled driving from Tennessee to Kansas City for lunch with a friend, then driving home—an 18-hour roundtrip for a meal at Appleby's.  A while back he, his wife and some friends rode from Tennessee down to Key West, then up to DC, then back home, all in a few days.

I've only covered the military in Iraq.  So what for them is an extraordinary situation—six months or a year or 16 months in Iraq away from their families—seems to me like the only reality for American soldiers and Marines.  When these guys talk about their homes and their families they aren't complaining about their lot in life.  They're just talking about who they are, and what they're going to do when they get home.

After doing an interview this morning I promptly went back to sleep for another couple hours.  Peter and I spent most of the day waiting to see where we'd be going next.  Early in the afternoon we went up to the roof of the building we were in for a cigarette.  There was no real shade; we had to cower against the wall to keep out of the sun.  It was surprisingly peaceful, and Peter remarked that it was hard to believe we were in one of the more dangerous neighborhoods in the most dangerous city in the world.  On cue, a few gunshots rang out; a few seconds after that three small helicopters—I associate them with the US special forces and with private security contractors—buzzed past.

The guys we were with are mostly advising the Iraqi Army's staff officers at the brigade level, so we wouldn't have had much of a chance to get out on patrols.  By the end of the day they'd figured out how to hook us up with adviser units that are hitting the streets more often.  Early in the evening we packed up our stuff, tossed it in the back of a Humvee, and headed into Amariyah.  The guys in my Humvee had set up small speakers on top of their military radios and attached an iPod.  We spent a few hours driving through the neighborhood with rap, country and heavy metal in the background.  As night fell we drove past a mosque—the street in front full of Iraqi Police pickup trucks—to the sound of a steel guitar and honky tonk piano.

The atmosphere here is strange.  Kids chase after the Humvees, or wave.  The grown-ups mostly ignore the vehicles or glower.  As a lot of people have noted, the Iraqi Army seems a little more on the ball than the Iraqi Police.  But everybody's frank about the limits of what the military—Iraqi or American—can accomplish here.  The solution is political.  Everyone's been saying that since 2003 and it's still true.  I'll be writing more about the Army and the security situation here for Time.

We finished the night at a building that apparently used to be part of a palace complex for either Saddam's wife or one of his sons.  It now has kind of  frat house atmosphere—a big, dingy kitchen full of frozen pizzas and Gatorade, a decent TV, and guys hanging out playing Monopoly or just chatting.  Our accomodations—along with a few other guys from a unit based here temporarily—are down in the basement.  The soldier down there when we checked it out told a story about chasing down and killing a roach with his knife.  That said, it's air conditioned and seems like a decent spot to spend a few days.

And, once again, I'm surprised by the internet situation.  The guys have rigged up a couple computers and created a mini internet cafe, so I don't have to sweat outside while I use a BGAN.  Pete and I will be trying to get out with these guys as much as possible in the next few days.

My friend Chris apparently scandalized some people when he wrote, "To the south, along the curve of the coast, Hizbullah is launching Katyushas, but I’m loathe to say too much about them. The Party of God has a copy of every journalist’s passport, and they’ve already hassled a number of us and threatened one."

This has led to all sorts of nonsense about Hezbollah controlling reporters, reporters being propagandists for Hezbollah, etc.  Chris has a rejoinder to all that on his site and he's actually on the ground in Lebanon, so I defer to him on the specifics.  More generally, though, you have to be quite a starry-eyed innocent to believe that you can cover war without facing restrictions on what you see, what you hear and what you say.  Hezbollah is a militia with a history of kidnapping and killing civilians.  If it's anything like the Shiite militias I've seen in Baghdad it probably also has a lot of high school-aged foot-soldiers who are acting more or less on their own authority and would not get in too much trouble for shooting, harrassing or otherwise inconveniencing a reporter.

Reporters cover similar groups all the time.  In January, 2005, I was embedded in Mosul with the 25th Infantry Division.  I was reporting for Time and, for a lot of the embed, Tom Dworzak was with the same unit taking photos for the magazine.  For a few days we were in Tal Afar with Chris Hondros, who shoots for Getty Images (and to whom I owe a great debt—he took a pretty cool photo of me during a gun battle in Tal Afar).  Both of those guys are great photographers.  Take a look at their portfolios and really think about where they've been—Chechnya, Liberia, Angola, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, the West Bank, Kashmir.  They were both appreciative of the American military's embed program in Iraq.

Embedding has come under a lot of criticism from leftists on the grounds that it allows the US military to manipulate reporters.  Having embedded quite a bit I don't see it—if you're on the ground with a unit for several days they can't stage-manage what you see and what they say.  They could steer you towards units in particular places, I suppose, but I don't see that, either—with occasional exceptions you can pretty much get an embed anywhere you want, including the most violent and difficult parts of Iraq.  In any case, the point Dworzak made about embedding with the US military is that it's no different than "embedding" with a militia in Chechnya—if you run around with those guys, you either play by their rules or you leave (except that in Chechnya you might leave horizontally).

I think the right needs to be reminded of the same thing from the other side.  There's no moral comparision to be made between the US military and Hezbollah—Hezbollah targets civilians as a matter of policy and the United States military does not (that should go without saying, but I don't want to be misinterpreted).  But all fighting forces engaged in combat are going to be protective of information that might put their fighters in harms way.  If you want to embed with the US military in Iraq you have to sign an 11-page document that lays out the risks and the ground rules.  To give you an idea of why Hezbollah might keep western reporters away from its rocket sites, here's a section of the US military's embed ground rules:

(11)   The following categories of information are not releasable since their publication or broadcast could jeopardize operations and endanger lives:

a) For MNF-I / MNC-I or allied units, specific numerical information on troop strength, aircraft, weapons systems, on-hand equipment, or supplies (e.g. artillery, tanks, radars, missiles, trucks, water, etc.) including amounts of ammunition or fuel moved by or on-hand in support of combat units. (Unit size may be described as “company-size,” “multi-battalion,” “multi-division,” “naval task force,” and “carrier battle group.” Number or amount of equipment and supplies may be described in general terms such as “large,” “small,” or “many.”)

b) Any information that reveals details of future plans, operations, or strikes, including postponed or cancelled operations.

c) Information, photography or imagery that would reveal the specific location of military forces, or show the level of security at military installations or encampments should not be revealed. EXCEPTION: Locations may be described as follows: Stories written with Military units deployed in country will be datelined with that country’s name.  All Navy embark stories can identify the ship upon which embarked as dateline and will state that the report is coming from “off the coast of,” etc

d) Unless a host-nation has publicly acknowledged that it is a participant or has otherwise authorized the release its identity, stories written in a specific country supporting the MNF-I / MNC-I will state that the report is coming from the geographic region.

e) Details of rules of engagement.

f) Information on intelligence collection activities, including targets, methods, and results.

g) During an operation, specific information on friendly force troop movements, tactical deployments, and dispositions that would jeopardize operational security or lives will not be disclosed. This includes unit designations, names of operations, and size of friendly forces involved, until released by the appropriate COMBATANT COMMANDER.

h) Identification of mission aircraft points of origin, other than “land” or “carrier based.” (Number and type of aircraft may be described in very general terms such as “large flight,” “many,” “few,” “fighters,” “fixed wing,” etc.

i) Information on intelligence collection activities including targets, methods and results.

j) Information on effectiveness of enemy camouflage, cover, deception, targeting, direct and indirect fire, intelligence collection, or security measures. 

k) Information on missing or downed aircraft or missing ships while search and rescue operations are planned or underway.

l) Information on special operations units, unique operations methodology or tactics.

m) Specific operating methods and tactics, e.g., air angles of attack, and speeds; naval tactical or evasive maneuvers, etc.  General terms such as "low" or "fast" may be used.

n) Information on effectiveness of enemy electronic warfare.

o) Information on operational or support vulnerabilities that could be used against MNF-I/ MNC-I Forces, such as details of major battle damage or major personnel losses of specific MNF-I/ MNC-I units, until that information no longer provides tactical advantage to the enemy and is, therefore, released by the appropriate COMBATANT COMMANDER.  Damage and casualties may be described as "light," "moderate," or "heavy." 

p) No photographs or other visual media showing an enemy prisoner of war or civilian internee's recognizable face, nametag or other identifying feature or item may be taken.

Finally, additional guidelines may be necessary to protect tactical security.