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FALLUJAH, Iraq (Dec. 12, 2007) -- Across the street, from where the Marines watched, an all-girl school buzzed with life as the bell rang, signaling the end to another school day. The children swarmed out into the street making their way home with an all-too-familiar expression of satisfaction with being done with classes for the day. Children roamed the streets of the Andaloos district of Fallujah as 28-year-old Sgt. Ysac M. Perez, a squad leader with Company K, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 6, led his Marines out on patrol. The children pleaded for the candy or...

FALLUJAH, Iraq -- For three weeks, my FOX News team has been immersed in little more than what's been happening around us. Memorial Day isn't, as they say over here, on our radar screens. The soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines we've been covering and living with in Al Anbar Province have been focused on chasing terrorists, avoiding IEDs and staying alive. They call it situational awareness -- being alert to only the friendly and enemy situation in the immediate vicinity is an absolute necessity for these young Americans in harm's way in this hot, dusty and dangerous place. And because...

Iraqi government district manager, Thayer Hamdallah, 28, village leader, Muktar Ismael Hamaad, 36, and Lt. Col. Rod T. Arrington, commanding officer of 3rd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, talk near a $22,000 Marine-funded generator which powers the village of Al Kabani on July 25, 2004. Earlier, the three men cut the ribbon to a new water purification station, which pumps fresh water to approximately 3,000 impoverished people in the area. That $175,000 project, also paid for by the Marines, brought construction and maintenance jobs to the villagers. Iraqis broke ground on the project June 8. Elements of the reserve infantry battalion...

A standing-room-only crowd watched, teary-eyed but smiling, as a Florida Army National Guardsman was ceremoniously retired from military service at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here Feb. 21. Soldiers, civilians and children filled the conference room for the occasion. Staff Sgt. Dustin Tuller sat at attention in a wheelchair, his Class A uniform trousers neatly folded beneath his left hip and right thigh, as his battalion commander read the official orders retiring him from the Army. The 28-year-old college student, father of four and infantryman, had both legs amputated after being wounded in an attack in Iraq in December. Army...

With each step the soldiers took, their fawn-colored boots bore deeper into spongy, wet mud. They trekked slowly up a steep hill, eyes to the ground six feet ahead. All around them were dozens of pieces of unexploded ordnance, and one soldier, sidestepping a mortar round, chirped, “BOOM! Four soldiers were wounded in Iraq today….” His premonitory news telecast, though comically inclined, had also its share of relevance. The soldier, Maj. Collin Fortier, operations officer, 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) knows the dangers that face his 3rd Battalion “Iron Rakkasans” during their current mission in...