Dug into fighting holes on the 101st's perimeter, soldiers said they trained months ago at Ft. Campbell, Ky., on rules of engagement and on dealing with civilians in urban settings.
"Yeah, it's the Four S's," said Spc. Kevin Drumm of Kenton, Ohio. They are:
Shout.
Show force -- produce a weapon.
Shove -- or fire a warning shot.
Shoot -- first to disable the vehicle or individual, then to kill.
"The last thing we want to do is kill anyone," said squad leader Staff Sgt. Niles Thornburg of Winchester, Ind. "But if they get so close that you feel your life is in danger, you have to defend yourself."
For the soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division, the question of when to shoot weighed especially heavily Tuesday because the women and children were killed at one of their checkpoints.
There were varying descriptions of what happened as the blue Toyota barreled toward the checkpoint. Among them was a first-hand account by a Washington Post reporter, who described an Army captain berating his men for reacting too slowly to stop the car. The matter is nder investigation.
"It's a horror of war," said Maj. Trey Kirby, 40, a field surgeon. About the same time that the checkpoint shooting occurred, Kirby, a soft-spoken Tennessean, was patching up bullet wounds that an Iraqi woman suffered during a battle for a village on the Euphrates River.
"The story I got from her was she was being used as a human shield so Iraqi soldiers could cross the bridge," Kirby said. "She was crossing the bridge in front of Iraqi soldiers. Her injuries were to her buttocks. I'm assuming she was shot from behind, but I don't know."
Tankers describe war from inside an M-1A1 Abrams tank as something akin to a jumpy newsreel. The frame is narrow while moving at hyper-speed.
Sgt. Arnoldo Spangaro, a 29-year-old gunner on his company commander's tank, said he trained his sights down an alleyway during fighting Monday and was amazed at what he saw.
"I had one woman, she had this kid in her hands. She was holding him out the door, and the kid had his hands up," he said, a look of exasperation crossing his face. "He was, like, 2 years old."
"You can't see right, and you can't see left," added Sgt. Bryan Sage, a tank gunner who fired on a Republican Guard position Monday. "There were civilians all around. I don't understand. If this was happening in my town, I wouldn't be outside."
