Forward Operating Base Warhorse, Iraq – An explosion in the distance broke the silence in tent MC-01 about 9 a.m.
“IED?” Pvt. Ryan Tozour asked his friend sitting on the next cot, referring to an improvised explosive device.
“I never heard an IED before,” Pvt. Stephen Daniel replied. He leaned forward and spat tobacco juice into a Gatorade bottle. “I only saw a video,” part of a briefing a few days before they got to Iraq.
The two privates, artillerymen, had been together since basic training in July, and they had reached this small, dusty base outside Baqubah in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, after a transportation mixup.
Their unit, a battalion in the 1st Cavalry Division, has been in Iraq since October. Nobody has told them what job they’ll be doing here, but they don’t think there is much artillery in this war, and they expect to be used as infantry.
“They call us Private Fuz zies,” said Daniel, 22, because they have no rank tabs on their uniforms – just a soft Velcro patch where an insignia would go if they had one. “Our drill sergeant used to say, ‘You’ll be in Iraq in 90 days.’ We’d say, ‘You’re crazy.’ Guess it wasn’t too crazy.”
They had eaten breakfast and now had nothing to do but wait. They rehashed rumors, worried they would have to fly in daylight. They argued about where and what kind of helicopters had crashed recently.
“When you’re not here yet, you’re like obsessed with here,” Daniel said. “You’re like looking at blogs and looking online. And then you get here, and it gets old within a day. You halfway don’t want to go. But it’s why you joined, so it’s cool. Maybe time will go faster if you’re getting shot at.”
Tozour is 19 and grew up in Wilmington, N.C. He got married two days before basic training. His wife works at a Wal- Mart, and he said he joined the Army “for the benefits. I mean, I don’t need to pay for dental, medical, none of that.”
At 9:50 a.m., they gathered their duffel bags and walked through the maze of blast walls.
As they headed out, a burly sergeant told them: “Keep your eyes open. Be alert.”
“Yes, sergeant.”
“Don’t relax. This is no place to relax.”
“Yes, sergeant.”
He looked them over. “But you guys are going to have a lot of fun,” he said as he sent them on their way. “Be safe.”
Just out of the sergeant’s earshot, Daniel turned to Tozour.
“‘Don’t relax’ speech No. 208,” he said.
Shortly afterward, the sergeant, Staff Sgt. Benjamin Maldonado, 31, said he doesn’t see things improving, and it’s tough to watch new guys go off into the fight. “It would be one thing if you saw some improvement.”
