The Undefeated

Though it includes attempts to paint the picture as something else, Greg Jaffe's Wall Street Journal article is an amazing account of the perserverence of US soldiers in Iraq.

In spring 2006 Tarmiyah, on the surface at least, was a much more peaceful place. U.S. and Iraqi troops surrounded the city with razor wire, set up the patrol base in the city, and began a $16 million campaign to rebuild the city's schools, clinics and sewer system. Soldiers often referred to the city, located 30 miles north of Baghdad, as the "petting zoo," a nod to the number of top generals who came to see what U.S. commanders considered a success story.

Last summer Tarmiyah began to fall apart. A battalion of about 300 to 400 Iraqi army soldiers that had been based in the city was transferred to Baghdad to support the new U.S.-Iraqi effort to stabilize the capital. At the same time, some 6,000 to 10,000 angry Sunnis, driven from their homes in Baghdad by Shiite militia forces, began streaming into this largely Sunni city. Sunni insurgents, affiliated with al Qaeda in Iraq, joined them.

Insurgents began extorting money from Iraqi contractors working for the Americans. And in December, the 150-man Tarmiyah police force, which shared the patrol base with American troops, drew their weapons, saying they were going out on a patrol, and never returned.

The three dozen soldiers from Demon Company were the only security forces left in the city. The soldiers typically spent four days at the patrol base, a spartan outpost without running water or hot food, and then rotated back to Camp Taji, a big U.S. base about 15 miles away, for four days. In February, Staff Sgt. James Copeland -- a broad-shouldered 30-year-old who has a tattoo of a skeletal Uncle Sam flashing his middle fingers snaking up his right arm -- was named acting platoon sergeant of one of Demon Company's four platoons.

U.S. commanders say they are reluctant to give up the patrol base in the city out of concern that it will look like they have been driven out by the enemy. "If we're not out here, they have won," says Sgt. Jason Fisher, a 24-year-old soldier who fought for hours from the roof of the old base.

An Iraqi battalion made up of about 300 to 400 soldiers is expected to arrive in Tarmiyah later this summer to help with security. Until then, the goal is to just hang on and, as much as possible, keep the enemy from completely taking over.
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The attack that eroded the troops' faith in Tarmiyah seems to have made some of them more willing to fight for each other. Before the Feb. 19 attack, Sgt. Benton, who had vomited when the fighting was done, insisted to superiors that he shouldn't even be in Iraq. The 23-year-old's enlistment contract ended in November, but the Army, which is short of sergeants, made him finish his one-year tour as part of its "stop loss" policy. Sgt. Benton was furious, and in early February his superiors threatened in writing to demote him unless his performance improved.

"I have to undo a lot of stupid things I have done," he says today. "I have a strong bond with this platoon. I don't want to leave. And if I die out here I don't want to be remembered as the s -- head that everyone had to think of something nice to say about at my memorial service."