Life on the Iraqi front: reading lists, ideals, and plans to stay alive

The battalion's executive officer, Maj. Erik Overby, who is pursuing a PhD in military history, says the current surge is as significant as the US-led invasion.

"But it's not that kind of war anymore. We are not just racing to Baghdad to pull down the statute," says Major Overby, a native of Plentywood, Mt., referring to the dramatic toppling of Saddam Hussein's statute in Baghdad on April 9, 2003.

Overby, a boyish blond in his 30s, jokes about how Iraq is almost a planet away from Plentywood, where the greatest worry is annual rainfall and when to get the tractors out to plant the crops.

Sitting on a cot inside a Baghdad gym turned combat outpost, Sgt. Jamil Gutierrez, on his first tour in Iraq, says that based on his first impressions, it could take two years of working closely with Iraqi Army and police to bring about lasting and meaningful peace to Baghdad.

He says that, even then, much of the outcome will depend on the Iraqis themselves. "It's going to take their Army, their people, their police, and their culture to fix the situation," says Sergeant Gutierrez, who was born in Peru and grew up in New Jersey.

For Gutierrez, a heavyset man who could pass for an Arab, the hardest part of his mission is being separated from his wife and their 7-month-old son. His dream after leaving the Army is to open a bistro near Venice, Italy.

Sitting nearby, Cpl. Lee Taylor spoke of similar pains of separation. He says he found out that his wife was pregnant two weeks before leaving for Iraq. They were married a year ago. "It definitely made a difference for me. In the back of my mind I am also thinking of coming back home safe to my wife," says the native of Oklahoma City.

At brigade headquarters on Forward Operating Base Falcon, Spc. Holly Burke, from Columbus, Neb., hopes this is her last tour overseas, as she pulls a picture of her daughter from her pocket.

She has been to Kosovo and Egypt, and this is her second time in Iraq. She joined the Army because of the college scholarship, but has yet to make it to college. "It's been deployment after deployment," says Specialist Burke, a medic who wears her hair in a bun beneath a soft Army cap.

It's also the second time in Iraq for Staff Sgt. Clifford Grimm, a native of Idaho. He says he had a feeling he would be coming back. But, he says, he was still shocked when it actually happened, because this time he had been married for two years.

"Emotionally, it ripped my heart out," he says. "I got married to spend the rest of my life with my wife and not to leave her as a widow after two years."

He has already lost nine friends in Iraq. Grimm pulled himself together with the help of members of his squad.

He says he believes in the mission, but that coming to Iraq this time is nothing like the way it was in April 2003, when his previous unit was greeted like liberators in Kirkuk. "Everybody was like, 'Strike a pose, get your Patton on,' " he says, smiling.

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