We started travelling at 1am, and finally arrived at the Joint Security Station in Sadr City at 11:30am, writes Fox News correspondent David Mac Dougall.
On the crew for this trip: producer Nicola Sadler and cameraman Michael Pohl. We're spending the week with the 82nd Airborne to get as broad a picture as possible of the work they're doing to try and bring security to this vast, sprawling slum of 2.5 million people.
The Joint Security Station (JSS) is situated in an old Iraqi police station, manned by an equal number of Iraqi and American security forces.
Just a few months ago Sadr City was strictly a "no-go" area for US troops - the whole district was ruled by militia fighters from Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.
Under the new Baghdad security plan, the US army is back. With the backing of local community leaders and with the (seeming) approval of Moqtada al-Sadr, they've partnered up with Iraqi forces to become a visible presence once again on the streets of Sadr City.
The JSS building itself is in a terrible condition. On larger US bases they have luxuries like showers, an efficient laundry service, massive dining facilities serving lobster and steak.
Out here in Sadr City the soldiers are living in extremely basic conditions. Every room we look in has soldiers sleeping on the floor. The corridors are lined with army cots. Space is at a premium.
There's no food - just army rations. There's no bathrooms or even running water - we have to use porta-loos and dress in full body armour plus helmet to go to the toilet.
Showers will have to wait until we get back to a larger base - for now we'll rely on baby wipes to try and stay clean. We can forget about privacy too.
But these conditions are no different to conditions faced by tens of thousands of soldiers across Iraq every day.
As journalists, if we want to tell their stories accurately, we have to live with them and experience what they experience, and be somewhat grateful it's only for a week at a time.
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