DON'T CALL THEM FOXHOLES: Staff Sgt. Allen Tipps of Sparks, Nev., takes a nap Friday in his “skirmish hole,” as Marines prefer to call it.
MARK AVERY, THE REGISTER

WITH ALPHA CO., 1ST BATTALION, 5TH MARINES, IN IRAQ – Alpha Company is digging in.

"We're expecting an attack tonight, gents," Capt. Blair Sokol, 30, of San Clemente, the commanding officer of Alpha Company, announces as the sun goes down.

An enemy force has reportedly been spotted a little to the east, and a mortar or tank attack could be coming.

So the men grab their folding shovels out of their packs and start burrowing into the soft, wet ground beside the highway that leads north. The quiet night is filled with the scraping of shovels and the tiny thuds of falling dirt.

For the Marine infantrymen of Alpha Company, this is routine. They're used to living not just on the ground, but in it. They are experts at digging holes.

They don't call them "foxholes" – that, the Marines say dismissively, is an Army term, one that implies you're a frightened animal, hiding from the hounds. Instead, Marines call their holes "fighting holes" or "skirmish holes." Tonight, Alpha Company will dig skirmish holes.

Fighting holes are deep, to shoulder height, and the standard measure is one M-16 rifle length by two M-16 lengths.

Skirmish holes are simply depressions in the ground that protect Marines from horizontally flying shrapnel while they're sleeping or shooting. The recommended depth is just enough so that the prone body doesn't break the plane of the ground.

"Just make your hole shallow-grave depth," Lt. Nathan Shull, 25, of Shreveport, La., the executive officer of Alpha Company tells me and photographer Mark Avery – with morbid good humor – as we dig our own skirmish holes.

"The hole lets you sleep a little easier," says Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Redor Rufo, 31, of San Diego, a battalion chaplain's assistant. "That's the thing you need most out here is sleep."

Like almost everyone else out here, the chaplain's assistant carries an M-16; in a firefight, his job is to be the chaplain's bodyguard. "He is protected by God," Rufo says. "But I'm just a little extra."

The holes dug, the Marines bed down inside them in their sleeping bags. The night is clear, with a billion stars overhead, and you can hear ducks in a nearby slough quacking. It is quiet, and for this little corner of the world, peaceful.

But the peace won't last long.

This day, the eighth day of Alpha's Company's war, has been disappointing.

Up before first light, as always, Alpha piled onto their dozen "tracks" - amphibious assault vehicles - and, as always, started moving north. Traveling along a four-lane highway as part of a larger force - neither the highway nor the size of the force can be specified here – the Marines for the first time in their drive through Iraq encountered densely populated areas, small villages of mud-brick homes amid fields and herds of grazing sheep and goats.

Iraqi civilians in head scarves and flowing robes watched passively as the giant column of tanks, tracks, trucks and Humvees rolled past. A few waved and smiled, but most just stared.

The Marines are suspicious of civilians and keep a sharp watch from atop the rolling tracks. There have been cases of Iraqi soldiers carrying AK-47s under civilian robes and suddenly opening up on Marines, and another Marine unit that passed through this area earlier reportedly was the target of numerous attacks by rocket-propelled grenades, albeit with no casualties. So when two figures are spotted popping up atop a nearby earthen berm, it's cause for alarm.

"Wait, they're just kids," a Marine calls out.

"Yeah, probably kids with RPGs," another Marine mutters. The column passes the Iraqi youths without harm to column or kids. But it's dangerous out here, and they know it.

But there's an exhilaration to it, too, as the column moves north at 10 or 15 mph - a blazing speed for a large column of military vehicles.

"It's cool when you're moving," says Lt. Jeff Broaddus, 27, of Austin, Texas, who rides in the troop-commander hatch on top of a track, with the wind in his teeth. "It's exciting. It makes you want to just keep moving."

The column passes by a sign that announces this is the way to Baghdad, and, while how far it is to the city can't be revealed, it's close enough to cause excitement.

But the excitement is short-lived. After traveling about 24 miles from where it started that morning and setting up a defensive position for another Marine operation to the east, Alpha Company and the other Marine units receive what to the average Marine is an inexplicable order: Turn around and go back to where you started.

It's an order from higher up and must be obeyed. And perhaps there is some grand strategy to it. But the Marines can hardly believe it.

"We could have gone to the Tigris today," Capt. Sokol says, his voice heavy with disappointment. "I'm going to have to look at the history books after this is over, because I just don't understand it. We literally could have gone all the way to the Tigris."

Cpl. Brandon White, 22, of Thousand Oaks, doesn't know the reason for the order - but he has a very Marine-like explanation for it.

"We were a feint to draw the enemy away from the (U.S.) Army," White explains. "The enemy always thinks the Marines are the main force, because we're the best fighters. It works that way every time." Perhaps. But whatever the reason, Alpha Company and the rest of the column have to turn around and drive back to where they started.

Now they are dug in along the road and lying in their bags in their skirmish holes - at least the ones who aren't on guard duty. They look at the stars and start to dream their dreams, when suddenly artillery erupts.

It is friendly fire, coming from a nearby 155 mm battery, aimed at suspected Iraqi positions somewhere out in the darkness. A mortar battery pops illumination flares that cast a ghostly glow in the night, and somewhere up the line small-arms fire opens up - but whether it's in response to a real threat or simple overexuberance isn't known.

Then comes the cry that everyone has dreaded since before the war even began: "Gas! Gas! Gas!"

It's the signal for every Marine to put on his gas mask, something they haven't had to do here before. But there's no panic or even much concern; the ducks in the nearby slough are still quacking, and everybody figures if there really is a chemical warfare agent in the air, the ducks will get it first.

It turns out that apparently someone mistook the acrid smell of the artillery firing for a chemical attack and sent out the alarm. After 15 minutes, the alert is over and the Marines can breathe fresh air again.

(I had noticed the smell, too, but assumed it was just the miasma from my own feet filling the sleeping bag. Like the Marines, I haven't had a shower in two weeks of heat, dust, sand, sweat, rain and mud. At this point in the war, the collective aroma of Alpha Company is beyond merely ripe; it's like something from a barnyard - although, mercifully, everyone is too enveloped in their own pungent aroma to notice anybody else's.)

But while the gas alert is brief, the firing goes on. Artillery fire continues throughout the night, and reports of enemy contacts outside the perimeter persist, forcing the Marines to roll out of their holes and take up action positions. The enemy doesn't materialize, but it robs the Marines of their sleep. What little sleep they get is accompanied by the "Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!" of artillery bombardment.

It's hard music to sleep by, but everything here is relative. Compared with incoming fire, to the Marines of Alpha Company, outgoing fire is a lullaby.

THE FLOCK: Navy chaplain Lt. Carey Cash leads Marines in a religious ceremony Saturday morning in Iraq.
MARK AVERY, THE REGISTER

STAND DOWN: The Marines sit in desert sand that served as pews Saturday. Though they were participating in a religious ceremony, their weapons were nearby.
MARK AVERY, THE REGISTER

REFLECTING: Marine Cpl. Mike Cash of Tacoma, Wash., prays along with other members of the 1/5.
MARK AVERY, THE REGISTER