Fatigued, US troops yearn for home

Another US soldier was slain in Baghdad Sunday, the latest in a pattern of attacks.

By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

BAGHDAD – Facing repeatedly delayed go-home dates and attacks by elements of a population they were sent to protect, American troops in Iraq are under increasing stress. The killing of a US soldier Sunday at Baghdad University epitomizes the non-combat violence that leaves US forces on tenterhooks - and waiting for a ticket home.
"A lot of guys, because the dates have been tossed around, have lost hope," says Capt. John Jensen, an engineering battalion chaplain. "Nobody's been able to answer that question: when?"

Soldiers who came to Iraq expecting to spend their time in combat have found themselves, after the war proper, mired in the day-to-day realities of maintaining order and rebuilding a battered nation. "The actual combat happened very fast, so the biggest stress we see now is peacekeeping," says Col. Robert Knapp, who heads the 113th Medical Company combat-stress unit on the grounds of the presidential palace in Baghdad.

"Our people are not really trained for peacekeeping, and not equipped for riot control. They are trained to fight the enemy and kill them," Colonel Knapp says.

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