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Former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Bill Cowher (right) and Tennessee Titans head coach Jeff Fisher share some laughs with U.S. servicemembers during a National Football League coaches USO tour of Iraq, at Al Faw Palace, Baghdad, July 2. Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Edwin L. Wriston, Joint Combat Camera Center – Iraq. KIRKUK — It was a long line for Soldiers and Airmen, but awaiting them at the end were legendary NFL coaches ready to sign photos, shirts or anything else you could scribble a signature on. The coaches, who included New York Giants’ Coach Tom Coughlin, Baltimore Ravens’...

HEIDELBERG, Germany — They may hardly recognize the place. As members of the Army’s V Corps Special Troops Battalion prepare to leave for a second tour of Iraq in January, Lt. Col. Mark Gorton told soldiers Wednesday that plenty has changed since they last visited Baghdad. In the roughly two years since the Heidelberg-based headquarters unit helped lead the blitzkrieg invasion of Iraq, accommodations in the capital’s Camp Victory have come a long way. “When Fifth Corps first established Victory, it was a very different place,” Gorton said at a mandatory deployment briefing for soldiers and families. “Nothing worked, it...