MUQDADIYAH, Iraq — On the trash-strewn streets of the Hadar slum in Baghdad, everything was suspicious. Bombs were planted under concrete, in air conditioning units, even in fire extinguishers.

It was a ghost town when soldiers from 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment’s 3rd Squadron rolled and found the odd decaying body, bullet wound in the head, lying on the road. Most residents had left long ago and insurgents fortified their defenses and booby-trapped buildings for months.

"It was probably the worst spot in all of Baghdad," Sgt. 1st Class Shawn Hodges said recently, looking back at the experience.

It was the beginning of an exhausting 15-month tour that the Vilseck, Germany-based regiment is just now completing. Their stint in Iraq took them from house-to-house combat in Baghdad to rural Sunni strongholds in Diyala province. The regiment, named for the eight-wheeled combat vehicle they use, saw heavy fighting and 3rd Squadron alone lost 12 soldiers and had more than 90 wounded.

‘Had my fun’

Sgt. Gregory Robinson and several fellow soldiers were patrolling Hadar on foot when they were thrown through the air, along with chunks of concrete from the road, by a buried bomb. It was one of 334 bombs 2nd Stryker soldiers found during that battle.

No one was seriously injured, but Robinson wobbled through the rest of the day with a concussion. It would just be Robinson’s first brush with death during the battle.

Street to street, house to house, 3rd Squadron soldiers slogged through the neighborhood working to clear it of insurgents. Soldiers threw smoke grenades and drove on sidewalks to avoid roadside bombs and throw off insurgent triggermen. It made for a murky, surreal battlefield, where insurgents hid in the shadows, only the muzzle flash of their guns identifying their positions.

Soldiers would be in shooting battles for 20 to 30 minutes, with bullets bouncing off buildings and gunfire drowning out all other sounds. Sometimes they would fight three or four days without returning to base. It was a hectic battlefield and during one extended fight, Spc. Thomas McCready rammed his Stryker into a building full of gunmen to give soldiers an opening in which to pour in.

"They were gunning for us pretty good when we got there," Spc. John Kerr said.

The unseen threat also included snipers. Manning a .50-caliber machine gun atop a Stryker during a lull in the action, Robinson got a bad feeling from the eerie quiet. He swiveled his gun and as he did, a sniper’s bullet crashed into the armored plate in front of his face.

"I’ve had my fun getting shot at," Robinson said. "I don’t need to get shot at anymore."

After about three weeks and 140 suspected insurgents detained, the neighborhood began to calm down and residents began moving back in, said Lt. Col. Rod Coffey, the commander of 3rd Squadron, which bore the brunt of the Baghdad fighting.

Bombs everywhere

From the urban fighting of Baghdad, 2nd Stryker soldiers headed north in late July to Diyala province. The soldiers worked their way through vast expanses of searing hot desert marked by small mud hut towns and humid, mined palm groves.

The new landscape required a serious shift in tactics by the troops.

"They’ve shown amazing physical stamina and mental agility," said Coffey.

With wide country roads and few people, the area was perfect for planting roadside bombs without being seen. Route clearance teams would go out ahead of Stryker missions to find and disarm as many bombs as possible. But explosions still found the soldiers.

"Sometimes it was just one of those hoping games," Kerr said.

In Diyala, insurgents emptied entire towns of residents, rigging house after house with explosives.

The 3rd Squadron specialized in finding weapons caches. It was an effort they say saved lives and set back al-Qaida in Iraq.

A day they won’t forget

Without fail, 3rd Squadron soldiers mention the date Jan. 9 with solemnity and a bowed head. Some talk about tattoos they will get to commemorate the date.

"January 9," they say, further explanation unneeded and unwanted among their comrades.

On that day, six soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter walked into a house in Aghadat and never walked out. The booby-trapped building exploded, killing them and leaving a pile of rubble. For hours fellow soldiers worked to dig out bodies and get the wounded medical care.

"Losing six guys in a year would be terrible," Hodges said. "Losing them in a matter of seconds was devastating."

It was a difficult day for restraint, said Hodges, who had to interrogate locals just hours after pulling his friends’ battered remains from the destruction. He’s still not sure how he kept his cool in a house full of people he was convinced had advance knowledge of the bomb, but he’s glad he remained in control.

"I wanted to beat the [expletive] out of everyone, every man that was in there," he said.

Cerebral approach

In the belly of a Stryker, heading back to Forward Operating Base Normandy near the end of his tour, Coffey, the 3rd Squadron commander, heard a young gunner refer to an Iraqi as a "Haji," a sometimes-derisive term used by some American soldiers. Coffey gently corrected the soldier.

The cigar-chomping 47-year-old colonel has a tough, frank demeanor, but brought a cerebral approach to his counterinsurgency efforts.

A large part of Coffey’s strategy to make security gains stick in Baghdad and Diyala was to gain the trust of locals. For some battle-hardened soldiers used to detaining Iraqis as a default and using rough language, it was a difficult transition.

"With some guys, we had to work on unlearning some bad habits," Coffey said.

All of Coffey’s platoon leaders had a stack of required reading, including articles on tribal structures and customs and successful counterinsurgencies. Coffey himself sat down for tea and lunch with local leaders to get a pulse of the people and convince them that his soldiers would stick around until they achieved lasting security.

"The best weapon we’ve got is really the decency and fairness of the American soldier," he said.

One of 3rd Squadron’s tasks in Diyala was to stand up the "Sons of Iraq," often former militants who have now turned against al-Qaida in Iraq. As security improved, former insurgents also passed valuable intelligence to Coffey’s soldiers. Not everyone in the squadron was comfortable working with Iraqis who had likely killed Americans, but Coffey said he urged them to remain professional.

"Are you going to get upset that this guy was shooting at you six months ago or are you going to seize this opportunity to get information on the enemy?" Coffey said.

The fruits of these efforts can be seen in the relative calm of Hadar and the new shops and dependable electricity in much of Diyala province, Hodges said.

"People here want the same thing we do: a little bit of freedom … and not having their kids shot at every day."