Here's the next two articles in my Iraq series. I'm not terribly pleased with the way they came out, but everyday I'm figuring out some more things. This has been a termendous learning experience, so I really can't complain. Anyway here they are:
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A woman squats outside her house sobbing as soldiers from Stalker platoon and the Iraqi Army search her house. An older woman stands to the side watching nervously as soldiers trudge in an out of her house. Capt. Nayeem, an officer in the Iraqi Army gave Lt. John Hintz a tip that the owner of the house might be involved in funding and building Improvised Explosive Devices (IED). The search yields nothing but several rusted rifles used for hunting birds.

Searches like these have become one of the most common and least liked activities for soldiers in Stalker Platoon. With violence escalating between Iraqis and IEDs still threatening both the American and Iraqi military, most searches target illegal munitions and suspected insurgents. Soldiers must sort through vague clues and misinformation as they sift through Iraqi homes.

Every Iraqi home is allowed one weapon, yet often locals lie about having a weapon resulting in a more invasive search. While looking for suspected insurgents, Sgt. Eric Moroge and Lt. John Hintz notice that the village seems devoid of men. Almost all of the women say their husbands, brothers, or sons work in Baghdad. The story sounds suspicious to the lieutenant and the sergeant. Sgt. Jesse Trumpore notices two men hiding several hundred meters away in a marshy farm field.

Lt. Hintz asks one woman if her family has a gun. She thinks for a while before answering no, usually an indication to soldiers that someone is lying. They then search through every room in the woman’s house.

In one room Lt. Hintz notices a baby sleeping in a bassinette in the corner of the room. Feeling bad he urges the others to move on to the next room. The search fails to produce any illegal weapons or contraband, and without time to wade out into the field after the men sighted by Trumpore, Stalker platoon leaves the village dissatisfied.

“They lie to us and then we take their house apart,” sighs SSG Nicodemus. He and many others have trouble understanding why people refuse to cooperate. “All we want to do is find out if they have a weapon so when we go into the village we know,” he says. In villages where people are straightforward, Nicodemus says that soldiers are much less invasive.

In some instances Americans arm friendly towns. After repeated visits to a small village in the Southern Diyala province, Lt. Hintz decided to give the village one AK-47 and promised more provided the village didn’t misuse the weapon. However, just identifying friendly villages is a difficult task.

Insurgents sometimes hide weapons caches in neutral people’s homes and land. Often people are legitimately unaware of the weapons; however, soldiers suspect that usually at least one person knows something, but fear of insurgents or Americans prevent them from speaking out.

As a group led by Sgt. Nicodemus searches a family home, PFC Matt Roberts looks towards the family, mostly young children, huddled together on the front lawn. “This is the worst part, seeing women and children scared of you,” says Roberts. Hoping to ease tensions, Sgt. Nicodemus fetches several beanie babies and coloring books from the back of his humvee.

Housing searches became even harder for soldiers after a major IED injured two soldiers from White platoon. Sgt. Gonzalez, extremely popular among the soldiers, was injured so badly by the blast that he needed to be sent home.

“About three days after our buddy got hit, we weren’t…” Sgt. Nicodemus pauses while he looks for the right word.

Roberts interjects, “There weren’t any violations of human rights.”

“Yeah, but we were a little rougher with people,” says Nicodemus.

While most soldiers have calmed down, constant house and village searches can lead to unexpected frustrations. Walking through a narrow side street, several soldiers in Stalker step over dirty diapers, old food, plastic bags and other garbage. SSG Moroge turns to an Iraqi woman washing clothes and says, “Clean up your trash! You fucking live here.”

Given Iraq’s oil wealth, it baffles the soldiers how Iraq can be such a dirty place. Growing up in Iowa’s farm country, Lt. John Hintz says that he never saw people living in poverty until his deployment to Haiti. Still when he’s driving past a particularly polluted strip of Iraqi highway he can’t help but wonder aloud, “Has Iraq always been such a dirty country?”

For other soldiers, like PFC Luis Santos, the filth is less shocking. Before coming to Iraq he visited Guatemala with his family. “The way they make houses out of mud and the way they live out of those trash fields, they do that (in Guatemala) too,” he says.

Despite their frustrations, soldiers hope that their efforts will help stabilize Iraq. PFC Roberts describes Iraq as a “war of attrition with black market arms.” Soldiers like him reason that every confiscated weapons cache brings the war closer to an end.

Still few soldiers enjoy searching through people’s houses. “I just feel so bad going through people’s shit twenty times a week. I think we’re creating enemies,” says SSG Chris Edwards.