Word: unitive
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Outside the wire, the dysfunction ends. On duty, "it's like butter, we're so smooth," says Whiteside. Everyone attributes the unit's cohesion to the man who became their platoon leader shortly after they arrived in Baghdad, Second Lieutenant Benjamin Colgan, 30. He was originally attached to the Tomb Raiders' battalion as a chemical and biological officer, responsible for managing preparations for unconventional attacks. But that position is a desk job, and Colgan, a 12-year veteran of the special forces, longed to be on the streets. "Use my skills," he told Rabena. At the time, the Tomb Raiders...
Colgan was determined to transform the platoon into a combat unit that could handle street patrols and raids on enemy safe houses, neither of which the Tomb Raiders had ever conducted. And so the hooch became a training center. Every afternoon the platoon practiced close-quarters combat and house-clearing techniques in the basement. Colgan rearranged the furniture to simulate different settings and ordered three $300 battering rams for kicking in doors. "Get in loud, fast and violent," he told them, while insisting that they treat those they found inside with respect. "They're young, they're new," Colgan wrote...
...friend, not to a worried mom back in Pine Bluff, Ark. They open with "Dear Chocolate"--his name for her--and include macho tales of his refusal to duck while under fire, followed by admonitions not to worry. He cracks jokes about how insurgents once lobbed rockets at his unit's base as the soldiers lay in bed. "My son," says Catherine, "has a weird sense of humor...
Audrey does not know about the raids and weapons seizures her husband's platoon regularly carries out. When asked how she was affected by the death of the unit's commander, she draws a blank. Her husband had been in the humvee when Second Lieut. Ben Colgan was hit, but Reg has never mentioned the attack. "There are certain things you just don't talk about," Audrey says. "When he gets back, he'll talk about what he feels like talking about...
Both parents speak of Jim's sense of humor, and a creative bent that helps him escape. He likes to sketch characters from computer games and has a particular fondness for Lara Croft, Tomb Raider. His mother was surprised--and pleased--to learn his unit is called the Tomb Raiders. "That seems so appropriate for him," she says. Jim, who wants to become a journalist, has sketched characters and fantasy figures since childhood. He's good enough that his training unit at boot camp had him design a bulldog logo for their T shirts. Jocelyn knows he's running...