Welcome to the Jungle

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It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.
-Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

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Mixon desperately screamed, "Stop! Stop!! STOP! STOP!! STOP!!!"

The PL (platoon leader) and the driver couldn't hear Mixon over the Stryker's internal comms (communications system), so our Stryker kept backing until we all felt metal slamming against the Stryker's birdcage slat armor. Mixon is a rear air guard--he stands in one of the rear hatches and he watches the backside of the Stryker with his 240 Bravo machine gun.

The PL ripped off his CVC (combat vehicle communications) helmet and furiously demanded, "WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU SAY SOMETHING?"

"He did!" the senior sergeant said. "You just weren't paying attention."

The PL was already in a panic. He'd ordered the driver down a few wrong turns and had gotten all four vehicles of 3rd platoon lost. At 1124 hours, we'd hit a dead-end and were backing out of the street when our truck knocked over a light pole.

The PL just couldn't catch a break: an hour later, I heard him screaming over the comms, "Remount! Remount! I say again, you just stopped a funeral!"

Our presence patrol was just two hours of doing snap TCPs (traffic control points): roll out in our Strykers, stop at random locations in our sector, dismount, pull random civilians out of their vehicles, and search them for guns, explosives or any other contraband. It's our commander's way of announcing the arrival of Strykers in Sadr City and showing the population that we're taking every possible step to keep the neighborhood safe for Ramadan, the holy month of Islam where Muslims worldwide abstain from eating and drinking during daylight hours. (Supposedly, it's also the month where holy warriors will go straight to heaven for dying in battle against the American infidels, so we've braced ourselves for a month-long festival of carnage and car-bombs.)

Rolling up a funeral convoy, of course, will not win the hearts and minds of Iraqis.

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Sadr City is a 16-square-mile district in Northeastern Baghdad home to some 2 million Shi'a Iraqis. It is the safe haven of the JAM (Jaysh al Mahdi, or the Mahdi Army), a militia numbering in the thousands loyal to the warlord Muqtada al-Sadr. JAM has used Sadr City as a portal to distribute weapons--like the EFPs (explosively formed penetrators) that will rip through the toughest of tank armor--and money from Shi'a Iran. JAM operates with near-impunity in Sadr City, running its own laws, courts, and executions, since it enjoys popular support and because no one outside of SOCOM (Special Operations Command, e.g. Special Forces, Delta, SEALs) would dare run a mission into the heart of Sadr City. It is an inner dungeon of hell that would make Jesus's pussy tremble.

When I say that my Stryker unit goes into Sadr City, I mean, it stays within a few blocks of the district borders because my commanders are shit-scared of us starring in Black Hawk Down, Baghdad Edition.

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After the presence patrol, the unit dropped me and the rest of the torch party off at the COP. The torch party is the group that goes in advance to set up for the unit's movement into an area. In our case, we're moving into our COP, which is right outside of Sadr City. A COP is a combat outpost. Unlike the sprawling FOBs and camps littered across Iraq, COPs are small stations embedded within the neighborhoods they overwatch. COPs can usually hold no more than a few companies--Camp Taji could and does support several brigades.p>This COP used to be an abandoned YMCA or something and has one working shower. There is no dedicated chow hall, only a microwave, a cooler of frozen pizzas, and stacks of MREs. The building itself is surrounded by an inner and outer ring of 12-foot-tall concrete blast barriers to protect from mortar attacks. Despite the blast barriers, several neighboring apartments and houses tower over the walls, providing easy access for snipers to cherry-pick American soldiers. Just yesterday, the COP came under mortar fire, and last week, an infantryman took a sniper round through the throat at a fuel point a few blocks away from the COP.

I expected as much, but I was still disappointed that life would be so rough for at least the next one-and-a-half months, when we'll return to Camp Taji for a refit of supplies and equipment. Who knows how many months of my 15 I'll be spending here....

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Once situated at the COP, we didn't waste any time holding our dicks in our hands. At 2217 hours, I was hoisting myself over a seven-foot-high gate. First squad had just gone over, and no doubt, second squad had already climbed over the secondary gate to the target's house. I nearly dropped my weapon as I landed on the inside of the metal gate. I flipped my NODs (night optic device) off of my eyes back on my helmet, and rushed towards the newly-opened doorway that first squad had breached. These guys work fast--they'd already separated the males and females into different rooms and were now clearing the second floor. The PL was pounding the man of the house with questions about the whereabouts of his son, our target. Me, I was just there to observe and make sure that no one points a muzzle at the PL or his interpreter.

We are RIPing (relief in place) with these cats from the 82nd Airborne. We're their replacements, and they were showing us how they've been holding their sector down. Left seat, right seat, ride, baby.

By the end of the night, we'd hit 5 houses, but no target, only a neighborhood of spooked Iraqis and one fucking lucky bastard who got away for the time being.