RIGHT NEXT DOOR

BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. teams all over Iraq are turning up arms caches, but rarely does a unit find a huge stash of dangerous weapons so close to home that the devices could have killed them and their buddies as they slept in their cots.

But that’s exactly what the “Hunter” platoon did Thursday. Acting on a tip from an informer, the platoon found a major weapons stash right outside its perimeter.

Col. Rob Baker, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, said Friday that the Hunters found 123 pounds of C-4 explosive, 47 rocket-propelled grenades, seven grenade launchers, 3,000 rounds of 7.62 mm ammunition, machine guns, AK-47s and 20 pounds of gunpowder — all neatly wrapped and recently stored in holes dug in a palm grove outside one of Baker’s forward operating bases.

“Basically, the guys that found this saved lives,” said Sgt. 1st Class Donald Applegarth, the 2nd Brigade’s fire support noncommissioned officer.

Thousands of arms caches are in Iraq, so many that soldiers say “the entire country is one big armory.”

In Baghdad alone, at least 145 major weapons stashes are left to be emptied by the U.S. military, down from 900 that were known to exist when the U.S. military first came into Iraq, according to Brig. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division.