"No one got sleep in four days," said Murrani, the interpreter. "I smoked 6 1/2 packs of cigarettes in one day."
Relatives of the dead soldiers were notified a few hours after the bombing. Two of their wives had given birth while their husbands were in Iraq.
Julian had made it home on Christmas Eve to meet his two-week-old firstborn, Elizabeth. "He was so excited," said his widow, Erin, in a phone interview. "I didn't see my daughter unless she had to be changed or fed while he was home."
She said returning to Iraq broke his heart.
"There's only been two times I've seen him cry," she said. "When he left home that day, he cried all the way to the airport terminal."
Angela Suzch said her husband hated missing out on his daughter's first few months. But he felt strongly about the work he was doing in Iraq. "His soldiers were his life," she said. "The military was his life."
Cimarrusti, the youngest of eight children, immigrated to the United States from Mexico when he was 12. He played football in high school and became a disc jockey. In 2001, he joined the Army.
"From the time he was a child, he always played soldier," said Victor Verdugo, his older brother. "He always said he would be a soldier."
'Could All Be for Naught'
Wilhite's men struggled to keep their anger and grief in check after the attack. "We don't let people get as close as we used to," said Spec. Jesse Owens, 20, of Woodbridge, during an interview in April.
"It took every ounce that I had not to lose my cool with people," Leisz said.
During a market patrol that month, Staff Sgt. Anthony S. Orosz, 36, chatted with business owners and gave them cards with the outpost's tip line. Most merchants were polite but reserved.
Orosz described their general attitude toward U.S. soldiers: "Please don't stand in front of my shop for too long."
After a conversation with one business owner, Orosz asked an Iraqi soldier standing next to him whether he had any questions for the man. The soldier looked down; he hadn't been paying attention.
Orosz and his men got back in their vehicle and drove off. Four Iraqi soldiers rode in the Humvee in front. As they left the market, the Iraqi soldier in the gunner's seat smiled, waved and blew kisses to passersby, looking more as if he was on parade than patrol.
Wilhite said he leaves Iraq feeling enormously proud. But he worries that upcoming provincial elections could incite violence if Sunnis don't feel they have made adequate political inroads.
He said he was not the arbiter of the success of the "surge" strategy. "You'd have to ask the Iraqi people," he said. "You have to ask the Iraqi government that."
Some of his men were more pointed.
"It's worth it, and it's not worth it," said Taylor, the specialist from West Virginia. "I have a wife and a kid. I go home, and my daughter is 2. She probably doesn't remember who I am."
Leisz, who survived the suicide bombing, nodded.
"It's not worth me not being there with my wife, or the friends we've lost over here," he said. "Now that the strength is going to go down, this could all be for naught."
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