The air tasted of grit and diesel. A fine, beige dust coated everything—the lenses of binoculars, the stocks of rifles, the sweat on sunburned necks. For the U.S. Army's 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, the march north from Kuwait had been a strange, tense procession. Then they reached the Saddam Canal Bridge on the outskirts of Nasiriyah.
The city was supposed to be passive. It was not. Through the swirling sandstorm, shapes resolved into Iraqi soldiers and Fedayeen militia, firing from rooftops and alleyways. The roar of tanks was swallowed by the wind. Radio traffic crackled with confusion: a wrong turn, an ambush, a unit cut off. The 507th Maintenance Company had stumbled into the city, lost. Eleven soldiers would die there; six, including Private First Class Jessica Lynch, were captured.
For days, the fighting churned around the two bridges that were the tactical key to the city. It was close, brutal work—house-to-house clearing, suppressive fire against unseen positions, the constant thump of mortars. The battle claimed 18 American lives and wounded over 150. Iraqi casualties were far higher. The easy victory promised by some planners had ended here, in the blinding dust of a river crossing, where the war became real, complex, and costly.