A warrior's mission; Anger, laughter part of Iraqi detail for Athol GI.

PositionNEWS

Byline: Nathan S. Webster

BAYJI, Iraq - During two patrols across this Sunni city of 130,000, U.S. Army Spec. Ross E. Burnham, 24, a paratrooper from Athol, shows the difficulty in pinpointing the attitudes of soldiers serving in Iraq.

First, the angry side shines through: Burnham looking out his Humvee's driver's side window into a busy Iraqi car dealership. Long-robed men discuss prices and deals. Burnham barks a joyless laugh.

"Check it out. They're having a V-BED party," he says, referring to "vehicle-borne explosive devices" like the ones suicide car bomb terrorists attacked his unit's Joint Security Station with on June 25. He curses the Iraqis through the bulletproof glass. "They're teaching each other all the tricks, the best way to blow us up."

He means it literally. Burnham has already nursed through a concussion, caused by a roadside bomb explosion earlier this year.

Those were his tamest comments about the local populace. His team leader, Sgt. Jason Johnson, 35, from Falmouth, apologizes for him later. They both serve with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division.

"He's a little cynical," Johnson said about Burnham, but in a friendly manner, shrugging the talk off as harmless hot air. "You know how people from Massachusetts are."

A few days later and Burnham presents a completely different side, happily posing for pictures with neighborhood children. The boys and girls crowd around, and Burnham always smiles broadly, encouraging the shyer children to come forward. All of them get Burnham's handshake or his toothy grin.

His heavy M-249 SAW machine gun becomes a slight afterthought - though never completely - while he grins and poses.

"Those were nice kids," he says. "A lot of the kids are really great, really friendly. If the whole country was like that, it'd be great."

Days later, on July 29, Burnham was like the rest of the soldiers at the Joint Security Station - hiding behind sandbags, plywood and concrete. That was the afternoon Iraq won soccer's Asian Cup, 1-0, an unprecedented and morale-boosting victory for the nation. It also featured a nearly nonstop 45-minute barrage of celebratory weapons fire into the air across the city.

Most U.S. soldiers resisted the opportunity to verbally share in the victory celebration, cynically shrugging off its significance to the Iraqi soldiers, police and interpreters they serve beside.

Burnham jumped right in, excited to recognize the game's...

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