June 21 issue - The first Saturday in June, working as a photographer on assignment for NEWSWEEK, I rode with a First Cavalry quick-reaction force to an emergency scene on the outskirts of Sadr City. A convoy of Army National Guard MPs, returning to their base from morning patrol, had been hit by an improvised explosive device. We got there in a couple of minutes, but too late to save the lives of two soldiers in an armored personnel carrier. The IED also killed the driver of a passing Iraqi pickup truck. Three other troops in the APC were wounded, and the rest of the New Jersey guard unit, newly arrived in Iraq as part of the Third Battalion, 112th Field Artillery, was devastated. "I can't take it," said one MP, unscathed but breaking down in tears at the death of a fellow soldier. A day earlier, five other guard members died when insurgents ambushed a patrol at almost the same spot. They were practically in sight of their base.
