Hillah, Iraq.

SWAT has made tremendous improvements. Tonight’s mission was theirs in its entirety: intelligence, planning, and leadership. We were cautiously optimistic. Although they have been doing a good job, improving constantly, tonight’s mission was a sweep of many houses in a large area, a mission profile generally producing mixed results. But, it was a pleasant night: cool, cloudless, and with nearly a full moon. Nice weather for being out.We split the objective area in two, east and west. As my assault force turned onto the side road leading into the western area, the other assault force continued on to the east. SWAT found our first objective with no problem, and quickly captured our primary and secondary targets. This result was met with universal approval, and foretold a successful mission. Anglico remained out on the road providing security, while SWAT, supported by Special Forces, searched the two houses on the objective area for other targets, as well as material that could be used in the courts as the suspects were to be tried for kidnapping and making IEDs.

The main road paralleled a canal. I watched the water flowing briskly along, detritus visible in the moonlight reflected on the otherwise dark, flat surface of the water. These canals constitute the greatest threat in rural areas. Urban combat is an altogether distasteful business. Rural combat poses different but substantially reduced threats to my person. Insurgents are not gifted marksmen, and rural areas offer far fewer places to shoot from, meaning that overall there are less poor gunners shooting at me, a thought that brings a smile to my face. However, these canals are the real danger. We drive along them a lot. The dust kicked up makes driving hard, even with night optical devices. A near full moon provides almost too much light, washing out the NODs. The canals are generally as deep as they are wide, often three or more meters across. The bottoms are typically sloped to a point, or squared. All are filled with fast moving water.

A humvee falling into a canal has potential for disaster. The humvee will likely flip over as they are so top heavy. Even if they settle right side up, being ten feet underwater with body armor and weapons is not a pleasant prospect. I rationalized that my helicopter dunker training would come in handy, but likely this was just a rationalization.

Suspects in custody, we headed to the next objective area. Great, more canals. Again, this house was off a canal bordered road, but the driveway had small irrigation trenches that prevented the humvees from rolling up on the objective. As the SWAT trucks swarmed up to the house, the Special Forces dismounted from their vehicles to advance on foot. My Anglico vehicle was in the rear of the column, providing rear security over the field on the front of the house. I took up a security position at the rear of the vehicle. The air was pleasantly cool, and the moon shone brightly. I walked down to the next driveway. There was a long dirt berm that served as a fence between the two houses. The neighbor’s driveway was a rutted path at the base of this berm. This neighbor also had a packed dirt field in front of the house, a swath of dusty earth stretching back to the treeline that held the neighbor’s house. I took a knee at the corner of the dirt berm, a position that offered a lot of cover as well as excellent coverage of this side of the objective area.I practiced making fierce faces for a while, an activity best done alone, and preferably in the dark lest one see how ridiculous fierce faces typically look. I kept a lookout with my NODs over the area north of the canal, the road, and the big field. I could hear occasional activity from the objective, and monitored the radio traffic as they caught more bad guys on our target list. This mission was going well indeed.

Hmmm….strange. Bushes and their shadows don’t normally stand up and down like that. I focused on the area that moved despite my firm belief that bushes shouldn’t move. Nothing…..nothing….more nothing.Then it moved again. I saw a face peek up over the bush, then quickly duck down.

“Squirter!”

Sergeant and Staff Sergeant quickly ran over, and I used my laser pointer to show them where the guy was. Staff Sergeant went down into the field, and I took the slightly elevated road, supported by Sergeant. We cautiously crept forward, peering into the underbrush.

“See him?”
“No…”

We crept forward a few more feet.

“Anything?”
“No,” I said. “Maybe he cut across the field into those trees.”
“We would have seen him.”

I knew he was right, and I suggested that we continue down just a little bit more.

We had walked no more than four steps when Staff Sergeant began hollering “Hands up!” in Arabic. My pulse tripled as I whirled around to see a young unarmed man hiding in a small defilade in the sloped edge of the road. He trembled violently as we kept him covered, encouraging him down to the ground. He was quickly flex cuffed, and we radioed the control element to report our capture. Through our interpreter, we got his name, whereupon a Green Beret delivered him to the SWAT control element.

The Anglicos regrouped at our humvee, and I accepted the praise from the Marines on my sharp lookout. We backed our humvee up to the corner of the berm, giving us more firepower over this field. The three of us then took a knee at the corner of the berm, keeping a watch, and chatting.I figured that I was seeing things because I was still keyed up from catching a squirter. I watched shadows at the base of a palm tree halfway down the driveway. The shadows sure were busy tonight.

“Hey,” I said, “Do you see two guys hiding at the base of that palm tree?”, indicating the tree with my laser pointer.
“Sure do, sir.”

This was a tricky problem. Two guys hiding in a palm tree down a dirt driveway, bordered by a dirt field. Hmmm…how can we cover the fifty or so meters before those guys could run to the house or the treeline? Well, we might try sneaking down there on the other side of the berm, or we might try just hail them from here. Maybe we could just run down there real fast. I was pretty far out of my league here, so I deferred to the professionals.”Well, fellas, what do you think is the best way to get those guys?” Staff Sergeant leapt down into the field, and yelled “Hands up!” in Arabic, and ran towards the bad guys. Our planning session ended.

Sergeant jumped into the humvee, and I hopped on the hood as we bounced down the driveway while Staff Sergeant ran down the field with rifle raised. The suspects hopped out from their hiding place, and began running towards the house.

This was one of the rare situations clearly defined in the rules of engagement. Staff Sergeant fired a pair of warning shots as we reached the bad guys hiding place. The base of the tree marked where the driveway made a slight left jog, and turned into a very narrow, rutted path paralleling a packed dirt garden plot that ran up to the base of the house. I hopped off the hood to support Staff Sergeant, while the Sergeant turned aimed the vehicle towards the empty garden. I ran a couple of steps, and slipped in thick, glutinous mud. At least I hoped it was mud. Why was there mud next to a garden?

I recovered my footing, turning to see the humvee gather steam to an impressive clip. The humvee rocketed forward, but bounced off the heretofore unseen irrigation trench that fed the garden. The vehicle launched into a very low earth orbit, all four wheels leaving the ground. The humvee seemed to hang in the air a moment, quivering at apogee, the numbers 25 clearly visible on the door, and the gunner’s eyes wide. It occurred to me that we were only short a Waylon Jenning’s voice over and a car horn that plays “Dixie” to have “The Dukes of Hazzard Iraq Roundup” special.

Time resumed its normal flow, and the humvee belly flopped into what was revealed to be not a garden plot but a mud patch two feet deep. The car sank to the under armor, and slid to a halt eight feet into the bog, the motor grumbling dejectedly.

Staff Sergeant fired a three round burst of warning shots, but the squirters made it to the tree line with a burst of speed. Nothing puts a spring into your step like being shot at.

“Are you all right?” I called to the guys in the humvee.”My butt hurts from hitting it on the turret,” replied the gunner.I can live with that.

The Sergeant got out of the vehicle, sinking nearly up to his knees. He offered up a string of uninspired but communicative profanities. Staff Sergeant walked up to survey the scene.The situation was actually pretty serious. We were stuck in the mud next to a house containing at least two people we had shot at, an act they might not have appreciated. I didn’t care to discuss it with them after they had a chance at unsupervised time in the house.

Sergeant got back in, switched to low gear, and tried to back up. The tires merely spun, spraying mud throughly on the wheel wells. I knew it was going to be a loud ride home, at least.

We radioed our situation to the Green Berets, who reacted quickly. They brought their humvee down, and provided security while we attached a winch cable to the shackle on our bumper. I kept a lookout, and noticed a burst of tracer fire from the other objective area. Looks like the Colonel qualified for his Combat Action Ribbon.

I saw people milling about the door of the house as the humvee was pulled free. I kept my laser pointer in the area of the house as the Marines started winching the humvee out of the bog. Fortunately, the mud was thick enough that the vehicle just slid right out like a sled. We packed up the equipment and mounted up as SWAT finished securing the objective area.

As expected, the ride to the rally point was loud as the mud flew off the tires, thumping into the wheel wells. Unexpectedly, we got absolutely no ribbing from the Green Berets or other Marines. I figured we would get more than a ration of static, but Team Sergeant said that this is why we practice vehicle recovery drills. We waited at the rally point, and I realized with a start that it was 0430 in the morning. How time flies.

Overall, the mission was an outstanding success. We captured four of our top five targets, and arrested seventeen people total. The satisfying part was that this entire mission was done by SWAT. They are really coming along in their abilities.