Hillah, Iraq.

Tragedy of tragedies: the pool is leaking. Now, before you write your electedofficials, understand that this is a small leak. And we are commandos, so weare trained for this sort of thing. We are adaptable.Actually, the liner has merely developed some pinhole leaks from where theplastic was pressed up against the Hescos as somebody got out. We reallyshould have lined the walls with plywood, but that doesn’t matter now. We haveoutlined two courses of action:

1. Patch the leaks with rubber cement or silicon.
2. Do nothing. Really, the leaks are very small, and we are probably losingmore water due to evaporation. Besides, this is a field expedient combat pool,and only has to last us for a month or two.

Option 2 is the more popular.

We bought a pool vacuum and skimmer today. The vacuum is pretty neat. It isan electric pump that performs exactly like a regular pool vacuum. We evenhave that pool vacuum/hose on a long handle thing I remember so well from myteenage years. The water normally gets discharged back into the pool, but weopted to just pump overboard as the detritus from the bottom is pretty funky.We didn’t lose that much water and the pool is quite clean.

The Special Forces guys and the Marines all agree that we really built the poolfor the El Salvadorans, as they can’t afford much in the way of creaturecomforts. But, we decided that we all earned a swim without “the public” sincethings were finally in order.

I anticipated many experiences about this war. Some were spot on, some were somuch stuff. I never expected to be cold. I swam for an hour or more, and Igot cold. Frigidly, gloriously, shivering cold. The water is actually coolthanks to the cammie netting. Owing to the magic of evaporative cooling (oorah14% humidity), the water evaporating off my body took plenty of heat with it.My teeth were chattering and I pruned up. And I loved it.

We needed a better reason to go out than a beer run. So, on our way topurchase our Fourth of July (non alcoholic, of course) libations, we swung bythe same suspicious house we hit yesterday.

The house remains suspiciously unsuspicious, so we will keep our eye on it. We gave away a few more Hearts and Minds (HNM) bags, which were a big hit with the kids. Then we went off to the embassy to purchase an appropriate number of cases of malted hops and barley goodness.

One must be careful when working with any sort of Type A rich group. I have found that there is often a surfeit of those who think they are great leaders. Occasionally they are. Moreover, committee activities tend to generate at least as many plans as there are members, and feelings can get hurt. My Beautiful Bride has many, many admirable qualities, not the least of which is being a superb organizer and task manager. Sometimes, on very, very, very rare occasions, she is perhaps not quite so receptive to other inputs as she might conceivably be, which generally is fine by me as she does a great job anyway. My point is that I have learned that there are generally plenty of Chiefs, and an Indian might find time to have a decent cup of coffee like a civilized person, whilst the Chiefs sort out who has the biggest feathers.

This is exactly what SSGT Mac and I did while the SF guys and Marines figured out (again) the most efficient way to get seventeen cases of nonalcoholic Corona and Heineken from the upstairs bar to the humvees. In fact, we did such a good job of refraining from demonstrating leadership that we had time for two exceptional espressos at the embassy coffee bar while, unbeknownst to us, the beer was being loaded. They came to find us after the job was done. I am not afraid of hard manual labor, but given a choice between sweating or sipping fine coffee……

The next mission is another evaluation of the Iraqi Army. The SF and Marines have split into two teams for running dual operations. The nature of our support doesn’t really require that many steely eyed killers running around one objective, so now we can either keep half the team rested in reserve, or run two operations at once. The next mission was tasked to the other team, so the rest of us had settled into a pleasant evening’s entertainment when the word came down that two IEDs had been detonated in front of the SWAT headquarters downtown. Such attacks are extremely uncommon in Hillah. We were tasked as the Quick Reaction Force (QRF), and we were to head out as soon as possible.We have gotten really good at going to war quickly. We went from relaxing around and goofing off to rolling out the gate with our war gear on in fourteen minutes. The SWAT headquarters is in downtown Hillah, an area we seldom visit. We drove through town, and there were people running around, dozens of police cars, and smoke and dust. We finally arrived at the scene of the attack, and quickly secured the area.

This was a scene out of a movie. The street was covered with debris, from chunks of concrete to the usual litter. People were milling around, and police and SWAT were running up and down the streets with guns. Smoke and dust wrapped everything in an ethereal haze that turned the world sepia, and cones of light flooded down from the street lamps. The shattered remains of two cars lay blasted in front of the headquarters building. Sporadic automatic rifle fire chattered in the nearby streets. I could taste the dust and smoke.Our SF/Anglico team secured the near end of the area, while the other team rolled through to secure the other end of the street. I carried the SAW, and we covered the throng of Iraqis as they scurried about trying to impose some order on the mayhem. I really hoped that there would be no follow up attacks because I was going to kill a lot of people if I had to fire a belt fed machine gun anywhere on those streets.

The Special Forces soon learned that the attacks were not Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) attacks, but insurgent fanatics wearing explosive suicide vests. The SWAT guys soon had everything under control. As the motion and emotion of the mob slowly wound down, the Polish Quick Reaction Force showed up.

Having determined that things were under control, despite the Polish presence, we mounted up to go visit our SWAT friends who had been taken to the hospital. As we rolled down the street, our base called to say that Camp Charlie was taking sporadic rifle fire from nearby. We quickly turned around to go defend our pool. We had only made it a couple of blocks when we learned the report was false.

We went to the hospital. The insurgents had killed nine Iraqi SWAT, and injured thirty five SWAT and innocent bystanders. Five of the injured were critical, so we called in a medical evacuation (medevac) helicopter to take them to the American hospital at Camp Echo. One of the critically injured was a civilian, and technically not authorized a helicopter ride to better American health care, but the medics weren’t about to let this guy suffer, so they told everyone that he was SWAT so he could get taken care of.

The helicopters landed in a small courtyard right in front of the hospital. We secured the streets on all sides, which was tough as everyone wanted to see a helicopter. However, we were worried that somebody wanted to do more than see the helicopter, which we weren’t about to let happen. We kept the streets clear while the two helicopters landed, loaded up, and headed out. It was really an impressive bit of flying.

I felt sorry for the team that had to go out at 0400 for the Iraqi Army evaluation. To make things equal, the Team Sergeant declared a team meeting at 0400, a time that conveniently yet unsurprisingly coincided with the opening ceremonies for the NASCAR Pepsi 400.

We learned later that the Iraqi National Guard had noticed guys taking pictures and driving by the SWAT headquarters all day, but hadn’t bothered to tell SWAT that their headquarters were under the surveillance that almost always precedes an attack. SWAT is very, very upset. Not only because their guys got killed, but because the Iraqi National Guard saw what was happening and did nothing to prevent it. On the plus side, SWAT learned who is responsible for the attack, and where they live, and they are going to…discuss the issue with the suspects tomorrow. On the down side, it would really, really be bad to be the terrorists that SWAT wants to meet.