Artillerymen -- after all -- are cannoneers.

Gunner's Gate sits in the southwest corner of Camp Taji. About 90 percent of all civilian traffic that enters the base passes through this gate -- in all, about 250 people and 100 vehicles daily. All must undergo extensive security checks to get inside. A truck making a delivery to the base, for example, is inspected and X-rayed. The driver himself is then searched.

The American soldiers manning these guard towers, checking the trucks and running the X-ray machines are all 2nd Battalion artillerymen, although they have help from a handful of Macedonian soldiers and several private contractors from Africa. The gunners form the meeting point between the base and the community that surrounds it.

"I thought we were going to sit in the back and support everyone else. Now we're in the front line," said Staff Sgt. Anthony Mayfield, a 22-year-old from Aiken, S.C.

Artillerymen are also security screeners.

A helium-filled blimp floats in the skies above Taji. A camera beneath it keeps constant watch over the base and surrounding areas several miles out. Eight hundred feet below, the artillerymen who operate the blimp work in a small room. They take turns operating the camera and work together to manhandle the massive balloon into its holder when the weather turns bad.

"The camera, you see more than anyone else out there," said Sgt. James Everett, a 25-year-old Nanakuli, Hawaii, native who works with the blimp.

Artillerymen are military intelligence technicians, as well.

Taji's PX is in a centrally located part of the base. Here patrolling soldiers check the IDs of civilian workers to make sure they have permission to be there. Later these soldiers head to check a local DVD store called Sam's. They stroll through the store to make sure it isn't selling contraband like drugs and alcohol.

While Taji has a regular security force, these artillerymen conduct their own patrols around the base as part of 2-11's mission to defend the base.

"We're like the other MPs -- somewhat of a beat cop, if you will," said Capt. Nick Cherry, a 2-11 platoon leader.

Artillerymen are military police, too.

All over Taji and the rest of Iraq, artillerymen are filling in at jobs that don't have anything to do with the cannons they're most closely associated with. War has changed and so have they.

"We're a little bit of everything," said Sgt. Nick Thomas, a 27-year-old 2-11 artilleryman from Amarillo, Texas.

Artillerymen, it turns out, have many occupations.