Hillah, Iraq.
Tonight’s mission was brought to you by Hillah SWAT! SWAT has been through enough training and practical application that they are able to plan and execute a mission. Honestly, they did a good job. They showed up on time, and had a plan ready to go. Additionally, we had some combat photographers with us. Their $4000 cameras take slightly better pictures than my $150 camera. I made one critical error early in the evening that I regretted the entire mission: I didn’t make coffee. In my defense, it took a bit longer than usual for the briefing, and I didn’t have the time to grab any caffeinated products, and I was a zombie all night.
Sticking with what has worked to date, we went after a number of collocated targets in two objective areas. Despite our initial lack of success, we have been catching a lot of bad guys this way lately, and SWAT decided to stick with what works. Two SWAT assault elements, supported by Special Forces and Anglicos, were going to swoop down on houses in two different objective areas. The only difference was this time SWAT was going to lead the way.
We rolled out to a town north of Camp Charlie. We had a bit of trouble finding the informant, and while SWAT was working that out, a new SWAT guy stole something from someone’s house, which took even longer to sort out. Looking around, I realized that I had been in this town a couple of times before. We finally got the informant, and rolled out into the boondocks. SWAT had a bit of trouble finding the right road to turn down, but we finally managed to get going in the right direction while the other team went to their objective area.
We finally found the first house, and SWAT went to work.
This is them going to kick down doors.
We accidentally drove past the second house, which required a turn around on a very narrow road. SWAT got excited and nearly left us as we turned about, and actually drove past the house again, requiring another convoy U-turn. We finally managed to stop at the right house. Not surprisingly, nobody was home. The bad guys showed a remarkable ability to figure out something was going down when the good guys drove past their house a few times. The third house we managed to find after only accidentally driving by it twice. No one home. Shocker.
On the fourth house, SWAT got so excited that during the turn around after the first accidental drive by that they forgot to wait until we were turned around, which suited us just fine. We declared ourselves lost, and went to the point out on the road that was specifically designated for where to go when you get lost. We contacted the other Special Forces and Anglicos by radio to inform them that SWAT ditched us, and then we passed the time by whistling circus music and quoting South Park.
Riding around watching SWAT miss houses got dull quickly, and I was already really sleepy. We got out into the middle of this nice, quiet road, and it was hard to stay awake, despite the circus music and barking dogs. There is no light pollution in the rural areas of Iraq, and I could see many, many stars as well as the Milky Way. I sat on the hood for a while, and then I couldn’t see the harm in laying down on the nice warm hood, and then what could go wrong if I just closed my eyes for a minute. Just a minute. No more……They told me later that my snoring would wake the dead.
The next thing I know, the Lance Corporal driver is poking me in the shoulder, and informed me that we were leaving.
We mounted up, and rolled on home. We ended up catching a bad guy or two, but nobody really of note. SWAT needs to work on identifying houses before driving past them, which actually is a pretty tricky skill. There are no maps, and even the imagery we do have can be wrong. Plus, these guys just don’t read a lot of maps.
Either way, it was still fun to be out, and better than sitting in camp. I got a shower when we got back, and slept in my bed just as well as I did on the humvee.