The soldiers at the blast crater sensed something was wrong.
From 2004 to 2011, American and Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and at times were wounded by, chemical weapons that were hidden or abandoned years earlier.
It was August 2008 near Taji, Iraq. They had just exploded a stack of old Iraqi artillery shells buried beside a murky lake. The blast, part of an effort to destroy munitions that could be used in makeshift bombs, uncovered more shells.
Two technicians assigned to dispose of munitions stepped into the hole. Lake water seeped in. One of them, Specialist Andrew T. Goldman, noticed a pungent odor, something, he said, he had never smelled before.
A Navy explosive ordnance disposal team in 2004, sealing the sarin shell that had wounded Sergeant Burns and Private Yandell. Christopher Jewett/United States Navy
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James' World 2 
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