KHABARI CROSSING, Kuwait (Aug. 18) -- As their convoy wow gold reached the barbed wire at the border crossing out of Iraq on Wednesday, the soldiers whooped and cheered. Then they aion kinah scrambled out of their stifling hot armored vehicles, unfurled an American flag and posed for group photos.
For these troops of the 4th Stryker aoc power leveling Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, it was a moment of relief fraught with symbolism. Seven years and five months after the U.S.-led invasion, the last buy ffxiv gil American combat brigade was leaving Iraq, well ahead of President Barack Obama's Aug. 31 deadline for ending U.S. combat operations there.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division was officially cheap ffxiv gil designated the last combat brigade to leave Iraq under lotro time card Obama's plan to end combat operations in Iraq by Aug. 31. Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana joined the troops on their final journey out of sto power leveling the country.
When 18-year-old Spc. Luke Dill first rolled into Iraq as part of the U.S. invasion, his Humvee was so vulnerable to bombs that the troops aion item lined its floor with flak jackets.
Now 25 and a staff sergeant after two tours of duty, he rode out of Iraq this week in a Stryker, an guild wars 2 game time card eight-wheeled behemoth encrusted with armor and add-ons to ward off grenades and other projectiles.
Maya Alleruzzo, AP
An armored vehicle carrying soldiers of the 4th Stryker Brigade, ff14 powerleveling 2nd Infantry Division, crosses the border from Iraq into Kuwait on Wednesday..
"It's something I'm going to be proud final fantasy xiv account of for the rest of my life - the fact that I came in on the initial push and now I'm leaving with the last of the combat units," he said.
He remembered final fantasy 14 cd key three straight days of mortar attacks outside the city of Najaf in 2003, so noisy that after the firing ended, the silence kept him awake at nights. He recalled the night skies over the northern city of Mosul being lit up by tracer final fantasy 14 gold bullets from almost every direction.
cheap ffxiv gil Now, waiting for him back in Olympia, Wash., is the "Big Boy" Harley-Davidson he purchased from one of the motorcycle company's dealerships at U.S. bases in Iraq - a vivid illustration of how embedded the American presence ffxiv power leveling has become since the invasion of March 20, 2003.
That presence is far from ff14 gil over. Scatterings of combat troops still await departure, and some 50,000 will stay another year in what is designated as a noncombat role. They will carry world of warcraft cataclysm cd key weapons to defend themselves and accompany Iraqi troops on missions (but only if asked). Special forces will continue to help Iraqis hunt for terrorists.
So the U.S. death toll - at least 4,415 by Pentagon count as of buy wow cataclysm Wednesday - may not yet be final.
The Stryker brigade, based in Joint buy world of warcraft cataclysm Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state and named for the vehicle that delivers troops into and out of battle, has lost 34 troops in buy world of warcraft cataclysm cd key Iraq. It was at the forefront of many of the fiercest battles, including operations in eastern Baghdad and Diyala province, an epicenter of the insurgency, during "the surge" of 2007. It evacuated troops at the battle of buy cataclysm Tarmiyah, an outpost where 28 out of 34 soldiers were wounded holding off insurgents.
buy cataclysm key Before the Aug. 31 deadline, about half the brigade's 4,000 soldiers flew out like most of the others leaving Iraq, but its leadership volunteered to have the remainder depart overland. That decision allowed the unit to keep 360 Strykers buy ffxiv gil in the country for an extra three weeks.
U.S. commanders say it was cheap ffxiv gil the brigade's idea, not an order from on high. The intent was to keep additional firepower handy through the "period of angst" that followed Iraq's ffxiv gold inconclusive March 7 election, said brigade chief, Col. John Norris.
It took months of preparation to move the troops and armor across more than 500 kilometers (300 miles) of desert highway through potentially ffxiv gil hostile territory.
The Strykers left the Baghdad area in separate convoys over a four-day period, traveling at night because the U.S.-Iraq security pact - and security worries - limit troop movements ff14 gil by day.
Along the way, phalanxes of American military Humvees sat at overpasses, soldiers patrolled the highways for final fantasy xiv gil roadside bombs, and Apache attack helicopters circled overhead as the Strykers refueled alongside the highway.
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Gus McKinney, a brigade final fantasy 14 gil intelligence officer, acknowledged that moving the convoys overland put soldiers at risk, but said the danger was less wow cataclysm cd key than in past.
The biggest threat was roadside bombs wow gold planted by Shiite extremist groups who have a strong foothold in the south, McKinney said.
But except for camels straying into the road, and breakdowns that required aion kinah some vehicles to be towed, there were no incidents.
The worst of the final fantasy xiv gil ride was conditions inside the Strykers - sitting for hours in a cramped space - and the temperatures outside that reached 50 Celsius (120 Fahrenheit).
The driver's compartment is called the "final fantasy 14 gold hellhole" because it sits over the engine and becomes almost unbearably hot. The vehicle commander and gunner can sit up in cheap ffxiv gold hatches to see the outside world. At the tail end are hatches for two gunners.