On Wednesday the New York Times began a new blog written by correspondents in the paper's Baghdad bureau. The blog is billed as a chance for readers to discover stories from Iraq that lay beyond the spatial and stylistic constraints of traditional newspaper stories. Thursday's post offered up a great look at a story that's become vastly underreported as the war continues: the American soldier. Politics, sectarian strife, diplomacy, and infrastructure concerns have all but superseded any meaningful embedded coverage, in the mainstream media at least.

Enter Thursday's post: a look at how a unit of Army soldiers spend their nighttime moments when the work day is through. This passage is very telling, and right on. Nighttime, in those last minutes before a soldier falls asleep, is virtually the only moment he or she has alone:

For these soldiers, the day is spent as one — one platoon, one mission, a single role for each soldier with a collective goal to make the operation work.

I have found that something unique happens when you are with soldiers at night.

Then, when the job is done and there is no more light to work by, they can finally rest. While some choose to sleep, some play video games, some eat and some simply think. The only time they can disband from one another is at night. When the closest thing to quiet and privacy comes, they take it.

For a wonderful series of accompanying photographs click here.

These officers see a military apparatus severely strained by the grinding demands of war. Sixty percent say the U.S. military is weaker today than it was five years ago. Asked why, more than half cite the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the pace of troop deployments those conflicts require. More than half the officers say the military is weaker than it was either 10 or 15 years ago. But asked whether “the demands of the war in Iraq have broken the U.S. military,” 56 percent of the officers say they disagree. That is not to say, however, that they are without concern. Nearly 90 percent say that they believe the demands of the war in Iraq have “stretched the U.S. military dangerously thin.”

• Presidency: 5.5 (16 percent had no confidence at all)
• CIA: 4.7
• State Department: 4.1
• Veterans Administration: 4.5
• Department of Defense: 5.6
• U.S. Congress: 2.7

Above all, though, the officers are clear that the chances for victory do not rest on the shoulders of the military alone. Nearly three quarters of the officers say the United States must improve its intelligence capabilities—the highest percentage of any of the choices offered. Active-duty officers and those who have retired within the past year give a much higher priority to nonmilitary tools, including more robust diplomacy, developing a force of deployable civilian experts, and increasing foreign-aid programs.