"After falling out of the sky and sleeping in the mud, American paratroopers grabbed a strategic air base on Thursday and began plotting how to cross 80 miles and thousands of Iraqi troops to seize invaluable oil fields in northern Iraq.
"Kirkuk is key," said Maj. Mike Hastings of the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade. "The Iraqis want it, the Kurds want it, the Turks want it and various other ethnic groups also want it.
"What this drop means is that we can secure it until we are relieved by other forces," he said. Nearly 50 percent of Iraq's vast oil supplies are pumped in the northern fields of Kirkuk and neighboring Mosul.
More than 1,000 troops parachuted into Iraq late Wednesday, accompanied by tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. It took hours to dig out the behemoth weapons after they plummeted into vast mud fields created by heavy rainstorms."
Alot of cussing going on I am sure.
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20030327_1541.html