Portrait Of A Platoon

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NOV. 25: Marquette Whiteside is standing up in the gunner's hatch, swinging his machine gun in the direction of the Iraqis who stop to watch as the Americans drive by. Poised atop the armored humvee, he looks almost carefree, a broad smile fixed to his face as he sings to himself and tosses children candy on this gray afternoon. But that buoyancy conceals vigilance. As a gunner, he has the job of scanning the roads and rooftops for ambushers. "I smile at everyone," he says, "but I'm constantly aware of my surroundings."

The two-vehicle convoy curls past the Adhamiya police station and heads north along the Tigris River, which bounds the neighborhood on two sides. Of the 88 sectors in Baghdad, Adhamiya is rated by the U.S. command among the six most dangerous for coalition forces. The 1.2sq.-mi. area is home to 400,000 people, most of them Sunni Muslims. The anti-American graffiti that blankets the walls of neighborhood buildings attests to the strong resistance to the U.S. presence here. Spray-painted in Arabic and English, it reads, DOWN USA. LONG LIVE SADDAM. YES TO MARTYRDOM FOR THE SAKE OF IRAQ. "The majority of people seem all right," Whiteside says. "But it's like racism. Some people actually, truly hate us, and they're going to teach their kids the same thing."

Whiteside learned to shoot a gun as a teenager, rabbit hunting in Pine Bluff, Ark., during occasional visits by his father, a Navy veteran. Whiteside joined the Army in February 2001 after serving 45 days in jail because of unpaid traffic tickets. "It was the best thing that could have ever happened to me," he says. "I was locked up and couldn't do anything for my daughter. God opened my eyes and made me realize I wasn't doing anything with my life. In the military, I can't quit."

Though Whiteside says he thrives on the rush of being the eyes of the platoon, he frets about the threats he can't see. When the Tomb Raiders roll out for a night patrol six hours later, Whiteside is tenser than before, gripping his gun tightly as the platoon careers through dark, empty alleys running with sewage. "I hate it when the lights go out," he says, staring down a street that is barely the width of a humvee. "You don't know what's going to happen. If they sat down and planned it, they could block this road and just light us up."

The platoon stops on a largely deserted road along the river and sets up a checkpoint. After fruitlessly searching a dozen cars for weapons, the Tomb Raiders head home. Whiteside unloads his gear and lays his machine gun next to his cot, which sits below a gallery of pictures of half-clad women clipped from magazines. "It's like Groundhog Day," he says. "It's the same thing every day. You just don't know whether you're going to live or die."

--A Hooch Called Home