They call it "run-ning the gauntlet." Army Capt. Gregory Hirschey and his bomb squad would go looking for improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the streets of Baghdad. They would find them in donkey carts, paint cans, trash bags, plastic bottles and in schoolyards—explosive charges ready to be detonated by insurgents lying in wait. Operating around the clock in teams of three, Hirschey's 21-man unit responded to 2,178 incidents in seven months, from the summer of 2005 to the winter of 2006. "There were IEDs on the way there, there were IEDs on the way back," says Hirschey. Not to mention small-arms fire, ambushes and rocket-propelled grenades.
展开▼
