'I Want to Go Home ... Especially on Memorial Day'

The U.S.-backed Iraqi citizens group, known as the Sons of Iraq, as well as U.S. patrols, have helped make the neighborhood relatively safe for its Sunni residents. The Shiite residents who used to live there have all moved.

Memorial Day is a normal day on the job for U.S. troops in Baghdad.

(Getty)

"They helped us from the security point of view. And the security is good," Qais Ali, a 35-year-old shopkeeper in al Farat, told ABC News. But now, he said, "We are jobless. The U.S. promised they would find us jobs. And they didn't follow up."

"I need a job," 23-year-old Mustafa Muhammad told ABC News, presenting the identity cards he was using to apply for jobs that morning. "Because of sectarian violence, we can't leave the area."

He says he is grateful to the United States, but now wants more. "The most important thing is security," he said. "There is security. Now, we don't have electricity."

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There were no arrests on this Memorial Day, no banging down of doors or firing of weapons. Dozens of adults and hundreds of children piled out of their homes to talk with the soldiers, ask them for a job or money or grab candy. These soldiers on this day are more civil affairs workers than fighters.

"When it's time to be aggressive, we're aggressive. That's for sure. When it's time to be nice, then we're nice, to help the Iraqis and their families. That's what it comes down to," Singleton said.

He stood next to a family whose son had been taken to the hospital by U.S. troops to treat a skin condition. Soldiers had given the family three months worth of medicine, though the father complained that his son was eventually treated in an ineffective hospital.

In interviews with a dozen Iraqi residents, nearly all expressed the same sentiment about the soldiers: stay, but only until Iraqi police can take over.

"For the time being, I want them to stay," said 45-year-old Jassim Muhammad, a police officer. "Until we have enough security. Until the police station in this area can provide the security. Then we say to them," he said, pausing before finishing in English, "Go home. Bye-bye."