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Later Berdabali drives his visitor to nearby Wadi-Fami, where 400 government soldiers equipped with only six tanks and 21 Toyotas defeated 3,500 Libyans and rebels last September. How did they do it? "We just charged them, that's all," says the commander. As he roared off in his Toyota, a soldier called after him, "Bonne route, Papa."
That night, as the three men in the commander's escort lie in their blankets, the stars so close you could touch them with your toes, a soldier named Mohammed says proudly, "I've been at war for five years. Sometimes I've had to sleep five nights in a row with rotting corpses." Is he afraid of dying? "Of course not," he says. "If I were, I wouldn't be in the army." While most of his comrades carry lucky charms, Mohammed wears only an empty 9-mm shell casing around his neck. He is of a breed of soldier who knows nothing in life except battle, hunger, pain, cold and thirst. He and his friends say they are determined to die in the saddle, "like true Goran."