TRAIN UP

FORT DIX - Pfc. P.J. Lao watched intently as his staff sergeant held up poster boards with photographs taken in Iraq.

The pictures showed items that are part of everyday life in America: a Pepsi can, a carton of cigarettes, an animal carcass left on the side of a road.

In Iraq, each of those items is a potential death trap.

Staff Sgt. Karl Butrymowicz made it simple for Lao and the rest of the National Guard members training at Fort Dix Tuesday in preparation for an overseas military police assignment. "If you didn't drop it, don't pick it up," he said...

The military has identified more than 16,000 "IUD's," or improvised explosive devices, in Iraq. Such devices account for the majority of U.S. casualties, Butrymowicz said.