It is cramped and hot inside a light armored vehicle (LAV). Wearing a flak vest and helmet, and a belt hung with weapon, flashlight, knife and gas mask, a Marine has just enough room to slide into his seat. The commander sits behind a thermal eyepiece, surrounded by metal and wires and the photo his girlfriend gave him when he left a few weeks ago. To his left is the gunner, whose job is to feed in rounds, making sure they don't tangle. Below and ahead but out of sight unless he leans back so for he is lying almost flat is the driver. In here, the team commands its own little world. This button swings the turret around. The switch in front of the gunner fires an optically tracked wire-guided missile. But the outside world is harder to control. Out there, over the Iraqi border, are enemies who will want to kill these Americans if war comes. And now protesters at home are demanding that the troops return from here without firing a shot. "We're confused," says Marine Private First Class Patrick Cox, 21, an LAV driver from Broken Bow, Neb. "Are the protesters going to spit on us when we go home?
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