- Title: IRAQ: U.S. SOLDIERS CONTINUE PATROLS ON THANKSGIVING DAY.
- Date: 27th November 2003
- Summary: (W8) TIKRIT, IRAQ (NOVEMBER 27, 2003)(REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. CU/GV/MV: SOLDIER ATOP AN APC VEHICLE ON LOOKOUT, GUN IN HAND; APC WITH SOLDIER; SOLDIER WITH GUN (4 SHOTS) 0.16 2. GV/MV: ROADBLOCK; VARIOUS SOLDIERS CONDUCTING SEARCH OF CAR (4 SHOTS) 0.35 3. SOUNDBITE (English) SPECIALIST BRIAN SERBO (FROM MICHIGAN) OF CHARLIE COMPANY 122 BATTALION 4TH INFANTRY DIVISION, SAYING: "I would much rather be home but it's not too bad." 0.39 4. SOUNDBITE (English) SPECIALIST A.J. HAYDEN (FROM MICHIGAN) OF CHARLIE COMPANY 122 BATTALION 4TH INFANTRY DIVISION, SAYING: "Personally I think it's pretty crappy being here. It's just another day now." 0.48 5. GV: TWO APC VEHICLES 0.52 6. SOUNDBITE (English) SPECIALIST BYRON FOSTER (FROM TEXAS) OF CHARLIE COMPANY 122 BATTALION 4TH INFANTRY DIVISION, SAYING: "I don't like being here and all but it's more that I feel sorry for my wife and my three kids not being able to see me for the holidays than me not being home for the holidays." 1.07 7. GV: SOLDIERS CONDUCT SEARCH 1.11 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 12th December 2003 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: TIKRIT, IRAQ
- Country: Iraq
- Reuters ID: LVAB7FD8UDBIE2570W6VBTN0XBOO
- Story Text: United States soldiers continue patrols on
Thanksgiving.
While their friends and family are preparing to
tuck into the traditional Thanksgiving turkey around the
dinner table back home, soldiers from Charlie Company 122
battalion of the 4th Infantry Division, patrol the streets
far away in Tikrit on Thursday (November 27).
Soldiers conducting searches remained stoic despite
their disappointment at missing perhaps the most
family-orientated holiday of the year in the United States.
"I would much rather be home but it's not too bad,"
said Specialist Brian Serbo from Michigan.
"I don't like being here and all but it's more that I
feel sorry for my wife and my three kids not being able to
see me for the holidays than me not being home for the
holidays," added Specialist Byron Foster from Texas.
Italy's Baghdad embassy was attacked late on Wednesday,
the Italian news agency ANSA said, two weeks after 19
Italians died in a suicide blast in southern Iraq in
Italy's worst military death toll since World War Two.
ANSA said a rocket or mortar round hit the second floor
of the embassy shortly before midnight, causing structural
damage but no injuries.
Last week, the U.S. military said they found several
rockets stashed in a street near the embassy, which has
been under high alert since 19 Italians died in the
November 12 suicide bomb attack on a Carabinieri military
police barracks in the southern city of Nassiriya.
There have been a number of rocket and mortar attacks
in central Baghdad in recent weeks, most of them aimed at
the sprawling compound housing the U.S.-led coalition
administration. Rockets hit the compound on Tuesday, but a
U.S. military spokesman said no one was hurt.
In Washington, the Pentagon said it would send
thousands more Marines to Iraq next year, bolstering the
next wave of U.S. troops being deployed amid an
increasingly bloody guerrilla war.
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered the Marine
Corps to send three additional battalions of around 900
troops each, along with assorted support units, as part of
the troop rotation plan for early 2004, officials said.
Pentagon planners said on November 6 that Washington
envisaged 105,000 troops in Iraq by next May, down from the
current 130,000. But the additional Marines will push the
total up again.
dw/jrc
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