Hidden Enemies

Kids. Screwing around with a mirror. I had ignored it earlier in the year. The heat had drained me of all patience now.

"Can we shoot it?" This from Sgt. Hise.

"Yeah. Traverse left. Up. More left. Little higher. That gap right there between the palm trees. No, up higher. More left. Hell with it. That will do. When you see it, engage and kill it."

We waited. Maybe whoever it was would notice that the tank's cannon was no longer looking down the road but was now pointing directly at him. Maybe he would realize that this is not a game. Maybe, just maybe, he would realize that we were hot and tired and terribly, so terribly frustrated with this place and these people that we would respond to even the slightest provocation with enthusiastic and brutal violence.

Smith, 30, was shot dead in Al Habbaniyah a week later.

In September, the death toll for U.S. troops in Iraq passed the 1,000 mark.