Any Day Now...

U.S. troops massing at Saddam's door train, play touch football, get baptized and feel tedium--and fear. A view from the front

The flat, parched sands of northern Kuwait have grown crowded in the past few weeks. Normally the desert plains are dotted with oilworkers and the occasional weekend tent of a Kuwaiti city dweller connecting with his Bedouin roots. But now the country's northern half is a restricted military zone crammed with more than 100,000 U.S. and British troops. Makeshift firing ranges are double-booked. Patrols practicing forays into Iraqi wastelands bump into one another where their perimeters overlap. When troops from the 101st Airborne Division arrived last week, soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division had to move camp back from the border...

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