NOT COUNTING ITS LOCATION, the Green Zone isn't all that different from any big office park in America. There are the hotshots who have it wired, eternally lost souls, and lots of other people who seem smart enough but spend most of their time wondering how they ended up there.

Over time, we met an amazing cross section of soldiers, from terse Marine Corps officers to talky Civil Affairs reservists, from confident airborne troops to addled infantry recruits. The most impressive, by far, were the elite fighting forces like the 82nd Airborne company that guarded the convention center, fresh off a tour in Afghanistan. The least impressive was Sky's unit, which was responsible for communications inside the Green Zone. Mostly, these soldiers staked out the chow line at the al-Rashid mess hall. Three times a day they ate like starving vultures.

Sky worked in a small box—choked with radio equipment—that was mounted on top of a Humvee and parked behind the convention center. "This place sucks," he said as he gave us the grand tour one night. "People just call in and yell at me."

We both felt awful for Sky. He'd just arrived in Iraq, so he wasn't going anywhere soon. His boredom turned into a desire for steroids, after he met a couple of Iraqi bodybuilders who worked in the convention center. "I need steroids," he told us one night at dinner, in his typical blunt fashion. "Can you guys get some for me?"

We'd never bought steroids before, since we had little interest in shrinking our dicks and wrestling in front of a mirror. Finding a connection in Baghdad's black market was easy, though, and Sky soon had his supply. As his muscles grew, he seemed to become a little prouder of being a soldier. Still, that didn't stop him from regularly drinking on the job. One night, he was so "completely bombed" when he went on shift that he fell flat on his ass in front of a superior.

"He picked me up and threw me in the radio box and said, 'You have to work,' " Sky complained. "I had to sit in there for 12 hours trying not to throw up." Occasionally, Sky went off on tangents, talking about how many rounds per second his weapon could fire. When we pointed out that he sounded crazy, he agreed. "I was under psychological observation back in the U.S.," he said. "I told the Army shrink at Fort Hood that I wanted to kill myself and other soldiers and that I didn't want to go to Iraq."

"Jesus," Jeff said. "What did he say?"

"He said, 'You're going to Iraq, soldier.' "