The Gods Must be Crazy

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Word was that the target house possibly had 20 armed JAM fighters and maybe 5 Iranians. The target himself was a mid-level terrorist, and maybe his capture would help us cuff the HVT (high value target) running JAM operations in our sector.

It must've been only 0145 hours when the platoon rolled onto the target street. Our PL, Pile-Driver, would paint the target house's gate with a green laser. My Stryker, the platoon sergeant's truck, would then breach the gate, and the dismounted squad on the ground would swarm into the courtyard, shotgun breach the door, and clear the house. That was the plan.

So as we pulled onto the street, the PL's truck drove past the target house and stopped at the next intersection to seal the cordon. 1LT Pile-Driver's truck faced away from the target house. He couldn't see the target house, so he had to lean out of the hatch, and half-hanging off of the Stryker, he flashed the lazer at the target fence. He was in full body armor and tethered to the truck by only his right arm and the radio cord, so he couldn't keep a steady beam on the fence. The green dot danced back and forth, a few feet to the left of the actual gate.

"Warhog 7, I'm lazing the breach site. Do you see it?"

"Warhog 6, copy that. Breach in 3!" the platoon sergeant said over the comms. He ducked down into the truck. "Everyone hold on, we're breaching!"

Warhog 7 braced himself against the opening of the hatch. The Stryker lurched forward, crashed through the brick wall, and backed out over the debris. My ass had 2 seconds of hang time before I slammed violently back onto the bench. Almost lost control of my weapon, too. Warhog 7 ducked back down into the vehicle and told us, "OK, we're doing it again!"

Again, the Stryker shot forward, but this time, it crashed through the iron gate. Moments later, shotgun blasts rang through the air.

We got the wrong house. We scared the shit out of the FPS guards sleeping in the courtyard and raided what turned out to be an office for the Dawa Party. FPS (Facility Protection Service) guards operate under the Ministry of Interior, and the Dawa Party is Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's party.

When we asked the FPS guards if they knew our target, they said, "Mister, he lives down the street. I show you."

They walked us a few houses down the street and pointed at another house. The lights inside were out. Again, we breached the gate with my Stryker. This time, one of the corner pieces of the slat armor fell off. We dropped ramp and retrieved it. The gnarled steel still had single bricks wedged into it.

We didn't know that the SCO was watching us through the Eye in the Sky when my Stryker crashed through the first house's brick wall. Reportedly, he'd radioed our company commander and yelled, "I thought this was supposed to be a soft knock! What the fuck was that!?!" Our rationale: with potentially 25 enemies, we needed to strike quickly to avoid a costly fire fight. But of course the "20 armed JAM fighters" were nowhere to be found. In the second house, we found the target and 4 generations of his family, sleeping the dreams of villians and madmen.

It came down over the net that we were to detain every male in the house and also the three FPS guards who'd helped us out. Among the 10 men we detained, one of them was missing a foot and two others also had to be brought into the detention facility on stretchers. The interrogators didn't even talk to them because they were so old, the interrogators were afraid they'd die under questioning. My platoon left a squad to guard the detainees and then popped smoke. They returned to Taji for refit while we sat around with the Al-Janabi tribe.

But it doesn't matter because we got the target.

On his wedding night, too.

He cried and cried and cried. Through his tears, he begged me to let him go. He pointed at my feet and made a kissing motion. I'd have felt bad for the guy if he wasn't a known weapons smuggler.

At one point, I went up to the bars, and said to him in English, "I know you don't understand me. You're probably thinking about your new bride. Don't worry, your buddy Ali will take care of her. He says you don't deserve her anyways."

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