The booby-trapped artillery shell detonated shortly before midnight. In the roar and smoke, bodies ripped apart. Suddenly the nine-man foot patrol from Task Force 1/9, composed of infantrymen and cavalry troopers, was down to five, alone, in a darkened Baghdad alley and cut off from help. One soldier was dead. Three others lay bleeding but still alive as fire from AK-47s rained down on the scrambling troopers. Company commander Captain Thomas Foley hollered orders above the din, desperately trying to stave off the attack while getting some kind of aid to his wounded men. One had lost a leg in the massive blast; two others were critically wounded. Grenades were lobbed down from houses and apartments above. Foley banded the survivors together to cover their fallen comrades. A minute elapsed, then another and another. The onslaught didn't cease, but they held on. Forty more minutes would pass before rescuers could fight their way to them. It felt like a lifetime.
Moments like these have become harrowingly familiar for the men of Task Force 1/9 since their arrival in Baghdad in April. Their area of operations lies in the heart of the Iraqi capital, with one stretch less than two miles from the office of the new Iraqi government and the U.S. embassy inside the fortified Green Zone. It centers on Haifa Street, a once busy thoroughfare that has become the most feared stretch of Baghdad: a vicious insurgent sanctuary where U.S. and Iraqi government forces cannot tread except to shoot their way in and out. The battle for Haifa Street is illustrative of the wider challenges facing U.S. forces across Iraq, which will remain even if the U.S. manages to quell the uprising in Najaf led by Muqtada al-Sadr. After 17 months in Iraq, U.S. forces still often find themselves operating in enemy territory--even in the heart of Baghdad. For many, the dangers are mounting. Despite their efforts to stand up Iraqi forces and lower the profile of foreign troops, U.S. commanders have yet to stem the death toll: this month U.S. personnel are dying at three times the rate they were in February.
Like other frontline soldiers in Iraq, the men of Task Force 1/9--of which Charlie Company, of the National Guard's 1st Battalion, 153rd Infantry Regiment, is a part--face the risk of almost perpetual combat. Among the company's 119 men, dozens of Purple Hearts have been awarded for injuries suffered in battle. "Exceptional things are happening out there, bits and pieces of extraordinary bravery," says Foley. At the same time, Foley sees these streets stripping his young charges of their youth. "People outside have no idea of the overall effect of this. Eighteen-year-old kids are having to go through this. I'm watching some of them in my company and how quickly they're being made to grow up. It's chilling."