(c) Roger Leo

Thursday, Feb. 10. Back from a 16-hour patrol. Tired. Smelly. Ravenous. 1st Cav troopers, Marines and Iraqi National Guardsmen ... 240 men riding in 40 Humvees, Abrams tanks and Bradleys ... swept through an area 40 kilometers outside Baghdad. Two IEDs ... improvised explosive devices (or road bombs) hit the convoy on the way in. Nobody was hurt. The soldiers spent the day raiding houses and searching fields along the Euphrates river. They found 27 rockets ... 17 with warheads ... and blew them up in one big boom. Up at 1:30 a.m., rolling at 2:30, back at 6:30 p.m.