8:27 PM PDT, May 24, 2005
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Times Staff Writer
BAGHDAD — Scar tissue from shrapnel runs like a shiny thread above Jawad Ali's ear. It rises like a blister on his thumb. His skin is a diary of these brutal streets. He slipped out of his bulletproof vest the other day and pulled down his collar, exposing a bullet wound from an insurgent attack on his way to work.
"I was interviewed on Iraqi TV five months ago," said Ali, a 19-year police veteran with a wife and four daughters. "The insurgents must have seen me and identified me. The next morning when I came toward the station, I was shot in my civilian clothes. These days I'm afraid of nothing but God. It is our manhood that keeps us coming to work." ........(Excerpt)