JACKS OF ALL TRADES

On patrol in a dusty Baghdad back alley, Lt. Mark Grado stops to talk with the man known as the "eyes and ears" of this dense urban neighborhood.

"Ali Baba [thieves] - no," says Abbas Hassen Auda, speaking in broken English. This, it turns out, is the only good news from Mr. Auda, the mokhtar, whose job under the old regime was to snoop on everyone for several blocks around.

"Power - no good," he says.

"Water - no good."

And, by the way, men from poor families have no jobs.

"All right," says Lieutenant Grado, earnestly scribbling notes in a small pad. "We're going to report this."...

Charged with everything from electricity repair and liquor control to intelligence gathering and combat, US soldiers like Grado serving in Iraq are jacks-of-all-trades in the extreme - and will be for the foreseeable future...

Indeed, a four-hour patrol with one of Grado's nine-man infantry squads vividly illustrates how American soldiers are challenged - not just in terms of numbers, but also by the kaleidoscopic nature of their mission in Iraq.

As the soldiers move down a narrow side street, they return children's waves, admire a baby, and pose for a snapshot at the request of robed Iraqi women cloistered behind the window bars of their first-floor apartment....

..."Ninety-nine percent of the people are friendly - there's just that 1 percent that makes life miserable and we have to find out who they are," says Grado. "That's our biggest problem."

To their credit, soldiers like Grado and Capt. Mike McBride are able to find humor in the dangerous and austere lives they lead in Baghdad's streets. Recently, Captain McBride says, neighborhood councils in the areas his men patrol voiced concern over the illegal liquor stands that pop up along sidewalks each evening. As a result, soon Grado's platoon will take on a new role as the enforcers of a street-side prohibition.

For his soldiers, who often work long hours in flak jackets, helmets, and 100-degree heat, this presents a truly tragic dilemma.

"If we confiscate it [the liquor], the people will just think we're going to get drunk," he said. The solution: pour it out on the spot. "I'm going to have soldiers on their knees crying as the beer goes flowing into the Tigris," he says with a sigh.