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Friday, July 15, 2005
Sand fleas feast on Georgia troops
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Curtis Compton/AJC
A soldier treats his flea-bitten feet after Operation Scimitar.
If they gave out Purple Hearts for bug bites, just about all the soldiers involved in Operation Scimitar would be getting medals.
During a week in which the 48th Brigade Combat Team teamed with U.S. Marines and the Iraqi army to hunt insurgents south of Baghdad, sand fleas feasted on fair-skinned Georgia troops.
Ankles, necks and arms were favored delicacies for the microscopic bugs. They burrowed inside sweaty combat boots and soaked shirt collars and left trails of itchy red welts. Soldiers slathered themselves with insect repellent, but the fleas treated DEET like part of the buffet.
Most soldiers slept outside on cots or atop Humvees — the higher the better to get away from the bugs that live on the ground. But the soldiers were essentially camping in a landfill, and the sand flea residents loved the company. By the time the mission ended, it looked like a chicken pox or measles epidemic had broken out among the Georgians.
I started counting bug bites on one shirtless soldier but gave up when I got to 200 and was only half done.
“It’s the luck of the Irish,” the freckled soldier said. “I’m glad there’s something in this country that loves us. Too bad it’s fleas.”
Friendships with GIs put Iraqi kids at risk
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Curtis Compton/AJC
A boy kicks the ball away from Spc. Victor Gonzalez during a soccer game near Yusufiyah. An offensive kept Gonzalez’s unit in the area a week, and children grew to know the GIs.
Baghdad, Iraq — Mention American troops to tiny, 8-year-old Mehdi Talal and the Iraqi boy grins wide even as his mother shakes her head and clutches him to her side.
“He likes them. They take his picture,” said his mother, Sausan Majeed al-Hasnawi, 32. “I know the Americans are targets. I tell him it’s dangerous.”
Baghdad’s close-knit neighborhoods have long been safe play areas for Iraqi kids on summer break.
But amid what may be shaping up as the deadliest of the three summers since U.S. troops invaded Iraq in 2003, a suicide bomber Wednesday attacked children taking candy from soldiers on a Baghdad street. Eighteen children and teenagers were killed.
An American soldier, Spc. Benyahmin B. Yahudah, 24, of Bogart, Ga., also was killed. Yahudah was assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment, based at Fort Stewart.
The attack was a blow to the friendly, human side of Iraqi-U.S. relations.
Peaceful encounters between troops and children allow soldiers to get a morale boost out of making little friends. Kids get close up to the giants in high-tech gear, with those intricate rifles and armored cars.
Widad Salman Kareem, an Iraqi mother of three, said she recently watched kids kick a soccer ball with U.S. troops in a Baghdad park and that it was “very beautiful.”
Wednesday’s suicide bombing was the second such attack in less than a year. A bomber struck another crowd of children and soldiers in September, killing about 35 people.
Since the insurgency gathered momentum two years ago, Iraqi parents have worried about their children’s proximity to U.S. soldiers, who often position themselves in front of houses or shops.
Principals tell children to avoid troops near their school, and warning posters are plastered on walls. Parents and older siblings try to coax the young ones to other distractions, such as housework or computers, to keep them inside.
Some parents warn their children, seeking to persuade them by citing the many examples of troops firing in error on innocents.
In some neighborhoods, the rapport between American soldiers and Iraqi kids doesn’t come so easy.
At a community center swimming pool in western Baghdad on Thursday, children from neighborhoods heavy with insurgent activity said they did not try to approach the troops — sweets or not.
Omar Salem, a smiling 12-year-old in baggy swimming trunks, explained why he stayed away from soldiers: “I cannot accept anything from my enemy.”
He lives in the restive Sunni Muslim suburb of Ameriyeh. A group of neighborhood children around him chimed in with stories of raided homes, shot or detained neighbors and a father killed in a traffic accident with a tank.
In some neighborhoods, especially Sunni areas, children will throw rocks, or at least aim cold stares at troops.
But in the more prevalent Shiite Muslim areas of the city, there is more goodwill.
“Wherever we go in Baghdad, Iraqi civilians and children are drawn to us,” Maj. Russell Goemaere, a spokesman for the 3rd Infantry Division, said after Wednesday’s attack. “To put it simply, the Iraqi people are just as interested in us as we are in them. When we travel the streets, the people come out of their doors just to wave and give us a thumbs up.”
But many Iraqis want their children to keep their distance.
“The fault lies with the soldiers. They know they are exposing [children] to danger,” said Ibrahim Khalil, 43, an electrician with five children living in Baghdad’s Karrada district, which is generally friendly to U.S. forces.
One parent suggested that if the soldiers wanted to give children candy they should send it to the schools or include it in the monthly food rations all families receive. Another accused troops of using kids as “human shields.”
Mosque preachers have warned children to keep their distance, and there are rumors of tainted or poisoned treats.
U.S. troops say they will not let bombers deter them from making personal contact with the people they are supposed to be protecting.
One Iraqi woman said that although she tried to keep her younger relatives away from the soldiers, she understood why American troops wanted to see friendly faces.
“They are human,” said Zaman Hamid al-Daraji, 21. “They have children also. They love them.”
