talk to some of the folks face to face.. they may be able to help you

that's where I got my info on the "death x" intersection. The point of the piece is to illustrate the daily hazards that infantrymen face, because I believe, despite news coverage, that people back home forget what our people in uniform are doing. It displays the men, the actions, and the results as common- everday occurrences that we should all think about.
As a result, the piece uses only one main character (for viewpoint and color) and refers to the other characters simply by rank. I think that people who read it would have a positive response if there were only one character to bond with.

Sometimes units come up with their own names for routes and locations.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

Anyway, I solved the dilemma by creating a scene of a (surprise, it goes with the territory) more-or-less common setting- intersection in a residential block. Christened the area after a fishing spot in my area, Hell Hole.

I've titled it "Steel Horses: The Commoner's War in Four Quarters"

I imagine the "Death X" intersection they referred to was somewhere along 'Route Irish' which is a short section of road in the Baghdad area. In my year over there this route had the highest number of attacks on average for the whole country. You can read about the route here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Airport_Road