Uncertain Hopes

                           Uncertain Hopes

 

 

Well I made it, as I look around the cargo compartment of the C-17 I am on.  I think to myself, why me, out of all of those that lost their lives. Why me? I guess that is the one question that will never be answered. One of life’s great mysteries. I have been in many firefights. Seen devastation at its worst. Got shot a few times, nothing superficial, or they would have sent me home sooner. Maybe they were the lucky ones. I often wonder if I got shot bad enough would I be the lucky one. But nothing that a few days of R+R at the vacation spots wouldn’t cure. Well I guess maybe I should back up.

                My name is Technical Sergeant Jim Rosson; I am in the US Air Force Special Forces. My job is to go into areas where pilots get their Asses shot down and bring em back, whether he is dead or alive. We never leave a body away from home. Would not seem right to not bring em back without us. The last 15 months have seemed like hell on earth. Just spent the last week trying to save my men and my a*s from getting killed. We were sent in to rescue some hotshot fighter jock that flew in too low for a kill and had his airplane shot out from under him. You might ask why I do what I do. I mean the Army Green Berets take less chances, and they sure get a lot of recognition. Half the pilots we rescue nobody ever even knew they were gone, because they were flying some Top secret cracker jack mission, you know the ones were they send the medals home to your family because you didn’t survive to accept it yourself, or they were flying off course and flew over enemy territory and got themselves shot down. Nobody wants to admit that they made a mistake especially the government. Well anyhow, this young captain was only 6 months out of flight school. He flew a few good missions got lucky and got promoted quick; I don’t think his Dad being some senator hurt matters any. Well he was off flying some mission where he was supposed to blow up a building that intelligence said was a weapons factory. He goes in and is just about to release his payload and sees a bunch of kids walking out of the building. He flies back over and all he sees is a school of some sort. He wasn’t going to drop the bombs on that, he calls back to headquarters to tell them what he sees, and they say to do it, because intelligence cant be wrong, they had been looking over this area for 6 months, and they didn’t have time to argue with him. The last thing they said to him was complete his damn mission.

       Well Captain Jake Stevens made a decision then, maybe the right one maybe the wrong one, but he made it and stuck to it. He decided that without more proof of what was below him, he was not going to deliver his payload. He turned around to go home, got about 10 minutes from the target, and heard a beeping in his headset, a enemy soldier down below him had picked him up on a hand held ground to air rocket launcher, everyone runs out of luck sometime in their life. Well the captain said next thing he knows his F-16 shook, and rattled, bells and horns going off all around him, the rocket struck just forward of the left engine bay, and caused so much structural damage that he couldn’t control the airplane anymore. He pointed it to head out to sea, and pulled his eject handle. The next 20 minutes is a blur for him. He said he landed in some desolate area in the middle of nowhere, and hit the ground fairly hard. By the time he hit the ground the enemy was heading his way, he could hear them a couple of miles away. He heard shouts and voices off in the distance. He ran the opposite direction of them, only taking enough time to grab his emergency gear from the seat of the airplane. He said he ran for what seemed like hours. Finally the sounds behind him went away, and he stopped to take a bearing of where he thought he might be. He never had a chance to make a call that he was going down. There was no idea how long he was going to be sitting there waiting for help. He would rather help himself than to sit there and wait for someone to come for him. This is where I come into the picture.

  0130 local march 16, 2003. 150 miles south of the Iraqi border

                "Wake up Gentleman, your county needs you, and now is the time!" SMSgt Carl "Smokey" Peters shouted.

                "What the hell is your problem Smokey?" I replied, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. "We aren’t supposed to be going anywhere for 48 hours. My men were told to relax, that we were going to be going into someplace hot and heavy."

                "Look I know what your orders are. And I also know what my orders are, and when I get woke up by Lt Gen Rogers, and told to get the best men that I have, and he will get back to me in an hour with more info. I do what I am told. Now get your Asses out of bed, pack your s**t, this isn’t a resort." Smokey replied glaring over at me.

                I haven’t ever seen Smokey look like that. He looked pissed off, and somewhat unsure of what was going on. I disregarded it thinking that maybe he wasn’t used to being woke up by some General calling, especially when the last I heard Lt Gen Rogers was state side sitting in the Pentagon far from all of this bullshit going on here. I decided that it was best to do as we were told and to not ask any questions until he was ready to answer them. I have worked for Smokey for the whole time that I have been in country, and the first think I learned was when he had something to say he would say it, and when he didn't don’t ask him any questions, he will talk when he is ready.

                I looked around the room, and all 7 men of my squad were packing their stuff, they all felt the same way I did. And after being with these men for a while now, I could almost tell you what they were thinking. They were thinking the same thing I was, something has to be pretty damn important for them to pull us off of the mission we were scheduled for. I don’t mean to brag but I have the best men that the US Air Force has to offer. There isn’t anything that this group of men would not volunteer to do.

                Let me introduce the guys to you. First off there is TSgt Charles "Looney" Tune. He's from Georgia, and boy you can tell. Next to him is TSgt Samuel "Sammy" Stephenson. Next in line is SSgt Jim "Preacher" Christian. Then there is SSgt Jimmie "Cowboy" Wayne. Standing off in the corner already has hit stuff packed and ready to go, is SSgt Karl "Ricochet" Turner. The one looking all pissed off is SRA Ralph "Mouth" Morrison. And last of all is Sra Chevy "Shortly" Roundtree. These are the men that I depend on and that depend on me. I wouldn’t have it any other way. They all have a skill that they are really great at.     It took about 10 minutes for everyone to get all their gear packed, and ready to head out he door. I looked over at Smokey and waited for him to lead the way. He looked at me, and without saying a word headed out the door. We all followed every one of us wondering what is going on.

                We head down stairs and waiting there is 3 Hummers. We stow or gear in the back and jump in. We drive over to the other side of the base to the flight line. Pull up in front of one of the hangers. "Leave your gear here until we know more of what is going on." Smokey hollered out.

                I walked into the hanger, and Smokey had called the base commander and she was sitting in a chair waiting for the rest of us to arrive. Colonel Sharon Carrington looked at us. I am sure she had something’s to say to us after we got done with the briefing, the boys and I had a little trouble the other night with the local security police. It isn’t that we don’t appreciate the cops, just that we don’t get much down time, and when we do, we like to get a little out of hand.

                I didn’t have time to worry about what she was going to say to us. Smokey motioned over to the office in back of the hanger.

                We sat there for about 30 minutes when Smokey came in, he looked like he didn’t like what was said but he wouldn’t question orders that came down, and wouldn’t expect us to question them either.

                "Read this," as he tossed me a folder. "This is a high priority mission, the picture you see in there is who your going to look for. That is Captain Jake Stevens, He is a F-16 pilot. He was sent out to blow up some factory up north, and didn’t return tonight. He was due back at 2230 last night. The last radio transmission from him came in at 1930 something about he didn’t believe the target he was sent to bomb was a school of some sort, and not a weapons factory. Headquarters told him to blow it up. Well to the best of their knowledge he didn’t complete his mission. Nobody knows what happened to him, He might have been shot down, but we don’t have any confirmation at this time of where he might be. The coordinates of the area are in the folder. You will find everything else that you need. Including the target area, and what he was supposed to be doing there."

                I looked over at Smokey, a little confused. This is all unusual; we don’t normally go into enemy territory, without knowing for sure that somebody has been shot down, or the general area of where they are. That usually goes to the surveillance guys, who scout out the area, and let us know what we are up against. "What is so important about this guy Smokey, that we aren’t following our usual procedures?"

                Smokey looked over at me, and scowled a little, he wasn’t used to being asked questions. "Ok, let me level with you guys. It seems that our boy is the son of some Congressman in Washington Dc, and he wants to know where his boy is and what is going on. So the general is trying to keep all of this quiet and under control."

                "So were going to go in and save some guys a*s, that we don’t know where he is, or what he was doing there in the first place?" I asked Smokey, knowing that his patience were already on the edge.

                "Look Bright Eyes, You know just as well as I do that we don’t always like what we have to do, but it is the way it works. So I suggest you read that folder. Get the gear you need ready, and be out in front of the hanger at 0345."

                The hairs on the back of my neck rose up when he called me by my nickname. He doesn’t use Bright Eyes unless he is pissed off, or just had enough of my s**t that he wants me to shut up. I got the name from the guys, One time we were out in the jungle, and were bedded down in the reeds, wearing our camo paint, and the other half of our team got split from us. Well when they came upon us, we asked them how they found us. He said your bright eyes stood out like a beacon in the night. So the name has stuck ever since. God knows I hate that name. But what do ya do about it.

                Well I knew to keep my mouth shut and let Smokey go on. "Your orders are as follows. When you get all of the equipment you guys need together, meet me out front of the hanger. There will be a C-17 outside the hanger. He is going to take you in as close to the border as they can get. Your going to have to travel as close as you can into the area, take a look around and see if you can find our boy. I have permission to give you a couple of vehicles, but you might be doing most of this mission on foot. I know you guys are the best, and that you can do this mission, no matter how screwed up the orders are. Good Luck Gentleman, and I will see that you guys get 72 hours off when you get back at some little R&R place. If you need anything else you know how to reach me."

                With that Smokey walked out of the room. I looked around at the guys. They all felt the same way I did. This is one of them fucked up missions that you don’t ever want to draw. But you know it will be the one mission of your career that you can tell your grand children about.

                I looked at the clock; we had an hour and 45 minutes before we had to meet the C-17. I had better look over the terrain maps and see what gear we were going to need. Didn't seem like we knew a lot about any of this. But we were going to find out.

                "Hey Looney, I want you to head over to the weather shop, and get me a weeks forecast of what it is going to be like. I don’t know much about the area, but I do know that it is dessert climate there. Sammy, you take the rest of the guys over, Grab our weapons over at the armory, and take our gear out to the other side of the hangers so we will be ready to load up. Make sure you grab enough supplies for 10 days out in the jungle. I am going to head over and see if there is any more info on our boy. We will meet back here at 0315. It's a short flight by air to the border so we can catch a cat nap in the air."

                "Ok fellows what can you tell me so far?" I said as I walked into the base Command Post.

                "Oh, hey Jim, aren’t you the lucky one." Replied MSgt John Johnson. Who was the NCOIC of the command post. "Here's what we know, it isn’t much, and I wish we had more for you. The plane was on radar, over the drop zone, about 3 minutes from the zone headed back, he went off course, rapid change of direction, and disappeared off the scope at this area here." Pointing to an area of the map, about 20 miles over the border, way off heading. " The only thing we know is that we never got a beacon on the locator. Doesn’t mean much, could have been damaged on landing. You might be able to receive it when you get closer."

                "Ok John, it isn’t much, but thanks anyhow. Doesn't seem there is much that anyone knows about this mission. We going in blind, and I for one don't like it." Johnny Gave me a thumbs up sign on the way out the door. I then headed over to the Office of Special Investigation (OSI) to see if they had any more info on the area.

                "Do you guys have any info on this area here?" I asked as I pointed out on the map the area that we suspected the airplane went down in.

                "Best we can tell you is that there was a armored column, moving through that area yesterday morning, Last film shots we have had them about 25 miles south of there, camped out last night. I can almost guarantee, they will turn around, and send out a scout to the area. I don't think it would be advisable for you guys to enter there at this time."

                I looked over at the guy that gave me the information of the area. He was dressed in sweat pants and a sweatshirt. I could tell he was just woke up, and wasn’t too happy about being here in the middle of the night. "Thanks, but it doesn't seem like we have much of a choice of where we are going to have to start. We don’t know if the pilot is alive, or dead, or if he is even in that airplane at this time. But it is our job to find out." I turned around and walked out of the office. Didn’t seem that we had much to go on. This job was getting worse and worse with what little bit we have to go on. I decided to head back over to the hanger, give the guys a hand getting all of our gear ready.

                On the way over to the hanger, I was running through what little bit that we knew about. This wasn't a typical mission from the start. We don’t usually go into an area that we haven't had a recon done, there is no proof, that our boy was alive or dead. Or he might even be captured already. We had no idea. I decided that I was going to pack light for this mission. Take my M-16, my 9 MM handgun, and a shotgun. I didn’t want to be lugging around any heavy gear through the desert, we probably wouldn’t have the vehicles long, it isn’t unusual for us to have to leave them behind, and proceed on foot to avoid detection.

                "You guys all set?" I asked as I walked into the hanger.

                "Yeah Jim, I think everything I set, the only thing is that the load master on the aircraft won't let us bring the vehicles with full gas in them, and we can't find enough gas cans for the amount of fuel we need." Replied Looney.

                This really pissed me off. When we try to do our job and some a*****e wants to abide by the rules when we know damn well that there is no other way around it. If we drop with these vehicles half full of fuel, and have to hit the ground on the run, we don’t have time to put fuel into the vehicles. I nodded at Looney and walked out of the room. I was going to talk to Col Carrington, and thought better of it. I had better run this by Smokey first and see if he could take care of this problem.

                "Smokey, I need your help." As I spotted him just outside of his office door.       

                "What ya need Jim?"

                "Well the loadmaster from the C-17 won’t let us drop with the hummers full of fuel, and I don’t like carrying the gas cans. If we hit the ground in the wrong spot, I don’t have time to unpack the trucks, and the gear, as well as pour gas into the trucks."

                "Let me see if I can talk to the Col and see if we can't make an exception. Go ahead and get your gear stowed in the trucks, and get them ready to load up on the airplane. I will meet you out there in 5 minutes."

                I turned around and walked away. No matter what anyone says about Smokey. I know that no matter what type of person people think he is. He would stick behind me 100% without ever asking why I needed or wanted what I was asking for. I walked up to the guys and instructed them to start loading the gear, keeping the weapons handy.

                About 10 minutes later Smokey walks up, and starts talking to the loadmaster. Obviously we got our way. The loadmaster looked over at us, and scowled, turned around and walked away, heading up to the front of the airplane. I knew he was headed over to talk to the Aircraft Commander voicing his disagreement with everything.

                "I take it we can fuel up the trucks now Smokey?" I asked with a little grin on my face.

                "Yeah you wont this one Jim, the Col agrees that the priority of this mission, allows us to break the rules a little, but if anything happens, it's my a*s they are going to come after." He smiled at me when he said the last part of that. Knowing that we would never let him down.

                I turned around and instructed Mouthy and shortly to take the hummers down and fuel em up full of fuel, and to fill up the 6 gas cans we had full of fuel.

                Mouthy looked at me like I was nuts, he knows that the rules are against you carrying a vehicle with full gas on an aircraft. I just nodded at him and motioned over to the motor pool.

                "Who's in charge of this mission here?" I heard a voice behind me asking.

                "I am!" I replied as I turned around to see who owned the voice.

                "I am Major Brown, this is my aircraft, and aint nobody going to tell me or my crew that we are breaking Air Force regulations with out the valid reasoning. Let's get one thing straight right now Sergeant. This is my aircraft, and these are my Men!"

                I looked at the Major. He was a short stocky guy. "Sir this is the way it has to be. We don’t know what we are heading into. Hell we don’t even know the area where we are dropping. I don’t know if I have the time to drop, unpack the trucks, and fuel them up with gas. I don’t want to take a chance in getting my men and their Asses shot up just because you don’t want to bend the rules a little bit. I realize this airplane is yours, and that your men are doing us a favor by dropping us into the area, and saving us from having to walk, or drive into the area. We are going into this area to save one of our guys assess that got shot down tonight. The trucks are going on this airplane full of gas. Col Carrington understand the reasoning behind this, and she doesn’t seem to have a problem." I was getting a little frustrated about this mission already and we hadn’t even left the base yet.

                "Major Brown!" I turned around too see Col Carrington walking up in a flight suit.
                "Yes Ma'am?" The major said as he was bringing up a salute.

                "I told these guys that it was ok, for them to load up the trucks with full fuel tanks. Smokey explained to me the reasoning behind this and understands and agrees with their concerns. Now if you have a problem with this I am more than willing to fly it with you." I didn’t know her too well. But I could tell by the look on the Major's face, She wasn’t one to push around or argue with.

                "Well Ma'am I just wish you would have run this by me and my men before you sent these guys out to tell me how I am going to fly this mission!" I looked over at Major Brown and could tell he was not used to somebody telling him how to do his job.      

                "Major, I am going to fly this mission with you, it is a 2 hour flight into the drop area and a 2 hour flight back, once we make the drop then you can have your airplane back. This away if anything happens I will be there to accept the responsibility."

                "Ok Ma'am, its your mission." Major Brown turned around sharply and walked away.

                I didn’t feel too comfortable knowing that the pilot just got his toes stepped on, but I couldn’t help but crack a smile out of the corner of my mouth, knowing that I had gotten my way. I heard the Hummers returning around the corner of the hangers. And turned around in time to see Looney driving up to the back of the airplane.      

                The loadmaster was ready for them when they arrived, and started motioning the first one into the airplane. I grabbed my pack and walked into the back of the plane. I don’t care how many times I have flown I still get a little anxious before every drop. This was going to be a routine drop, flight level 800 feet, and a clear night to drop on, which also meant that anyone on the ground would see us coming from miles away.

 0500 local in flight somewhere just south of the Iraqi Border

                "Hey Sergeant!" I heard a voice that sounded like it was miles away.

                I jumped up when I realized that somebody had grabbed my shoulder and was shaking it. "The Col wants to talk to you up front now." I looked over and the Loadmaster was pointing up front to the cockpit.

                "Where are we?" I asked him as I wiped sleep from my eyes.

                "Doesn’t matter, The Col wants to talk to you ASAP"

                I stood up and glanced around the airplane. The guys were all crashed out in various states of sleep. I guess they were all sleeping just as hard as I was. Which was understandable seeing how none of knew when we would get our next nap in. I walked up to the front stairs and started to climb them when I realized I might need my folder. I went to turn around to get it when the Col comes into the doorway. "TSgt Rosson, I need to talk to you."

                "What ya Got Ma'am?"

                "I need to show you something. Upstairs"

                I followed her up the stairs leading into the cockpit. "Look at 2 o’clock position. Do you see that Fire over there?"

I leaned over and peered in the direction she was pointing. About 25 miles out I could see what looked like some bodies bon-fire. "Yeah I see it. Looks like somebody is burning some trash."

                "We thought about that too, but it is 5 am who would be burning trash at this hour, and there is no population around anywhere, the nearest town we see is about 40 miles north."

                I looked around and didn’t see any lights that would indicate any type of rural area anywhere around. Which didn’t really mean there wasn’t a house there, just highly unlikely.

                "You thinking maybe it are our guy, Ma'am?"             

                "It could be, but I am thinking more along the lines that it is his Airplane. If the plane crashed, there is a possibility that the fire could still be burning some."

                "It could be Ma'am only one way to find out though. Can we do a low fly over, so that we can get a better look? If it is what we are looking for. Would be a lot easier to inspect it, and see if our Pilot is in the airplane."

                She looked over at me; I knew there is a risk in a heavy cargo plane doing low level fly over at night, especially over possibly a hostile area. "Let me talk to the crew and see what they think. You should go back and wake up your guys, if it is what we are looking for then ya'll will be jumping a lot sooner than expected."

                I nodded to her, and turned around and to go wake up the guys. I walked into the cargo compartment, and told the loadmaster to turn on the red lights, we might be jumping a lot sooner than we expected. I walked over to the first body lying on the floor. It was Looney; I reached down and tapped his leg. " Come on Looney. Get your s**t together, and help me wake the rest of the guys. We need to get ready."

                Looney looked up at me and nodded. I walked over to the next body, and did the same thing. It was Shortly. I told him to help Looney wake the rest of the guys up. I went over to get my gear, and felt the airplane decelerate, and the nose go down. I guess they had decided to descend down and take a look at what was ahead of us. I walked over and got my binoculars out of my pack and walked up stairs.

                I entered the cockpit, and looked out the window. "How low are we going down Ma'am?"
                "We talked about it, we will drop down to about 1500 feet and see what that is. Do you have any Binoculars?"

                I held up my right hand showing her that I had already thought of that.

                "Ok let's take a look at what we have."

                Everything went smooth until we got down to about 3000 feet, I scanned off to the left side of the plane, and seen what looked like a group of headlights moving along the road.

                "Ma'am!" I said. "I don't know what that is off the left side, but it looks like it could be a convoy of vehicles heading over to what we think is our crash site."

                "I hope your wrong."

                "I do too, I don’t feel like getting into a fire fight with a whole regiment of tanks."

                I scanned the glassed over to that side, and it was hard to see what was there. "I will be right back!"

                "Cowboy! Where are your NVG's?" I needed a pair of Night Vision Goggles quick, and knew I didn’t have time to run back to my pack to get mine.                                

                "Here Jim. What's up?"

                "I'll explain in a minute, let me go take a look. Make sure that everyone is ready to go, and check my rigging for me."

                I turned around and ran back up stairs. I might not be able to see exactly what is there, but the NVG's would give me an idea of how many there was.

                I positioned myself looking out the right side of the airplane with the NVG's.

                "Holy S**t." I mumbled to nobody in particular. "I don't know what that is, but there are about 15 of them heading in the same direction we are heading."

                "Do they look like armor?" Asked the copilot.

                "I can't tell sir, but whatever it is, they are moving pretty fast, and in a column formation. It could be a large group of refugees crossing the border, or it could be a group of Iraqi soldiers heading over to inspect the crash site."

                "A little south for them to be Iraqi's. I don't think that they would come this far south, below the border."

                "Ma'am, I don’t think they would care, They are probably pretty pissed off about the pounding that we have been giving them the last few weeks, and I wouldn’t put it past them to move this far south. I don't think we should go much lower just in case it is. If they have hand held rocket launchers, we are nothing more than a moving target."

                "Yeah I think your right, Let's get back up to 10,000 feet and then figure out what we are going to do." Col Carrington looked a little worried.

                "Ma'am, we are going to set up to do a HALO (High Altitude Low Opening, which means that we will be on oxygen until we get down below 10,000 feet) drop, just so you know, Were going to drop down as close to that site as we can get, we have to check, if that is the wreckage, maybe we will get lucky and not have to go across the border, if we do have to go then we will high tail it north avoiding that convoy of vehicles. I think you should call back, and find out if that is our guys down there. They could be heading back from a troop movement. I am going back down and get ready."

                "Major call back and report what we are seeing down there. I would feel a lot more safer knowing that is our boys down there."

                I turned around hearing Major Brown on the radio calling back to base. I knew that it wasn’t our guys; they would never have driven around at night with the headlights on. But the Col already looked scared enough, I didn’t want to frighten them anymore than they already were.

                "What's going on Jim?" I looked over and seen Sammy looking at me as I came down the stairs.

                "Get the guys together, I will brief everyone together."

                I walked over and put my binoculars back in my pack. I turned around and handed Sammy back his NVG's. All of the guys were standing there waiting for me to explain what was going on.

                "This is getting worse and worse isn’t it, Jim?" Looney asked.

                "Well there has been a change in plans, here is what we know so far. There is a small fire on the ground. Were going to drop in and see if that is our boy, if it is then this is going to be a easy mission."

                "Doesn’t sound too bad, almost sounds too easy Jim, what's the rest?" Shortly asked.

                "There's a convoy of vehicles about 30 miles from the suspected crash site. We're not sure whom they are but it could easily be a convoy of Iraqi soldiers heading over to inspect the site. As soon as we hit the ground we will know more. If that isn’t our objective, then we are going to high tail it north, avoiding the convoy. We're going to do a HALO drop over the target site. Hit the ground, when we do, Mouthy, Shortly, and Ricochet I want you guys to unpack the trucks, and get them ready to move, the rest of us are going to head over to where we think the crash site is, and inspect what we have, once you guys get the stuff unpacked I want ya'll to high tail it over to us. If it is Our Boy then we are going to head home. If it isn’t then were going to have to haul a*s out of the area. I don’t feel like getting into a fire fight with a whole convoy of troops."

                I looked over all of their faces, Preacher looked a little worried. "What's wrong Preach?"

                "Nothing Jim, I just don't much like the idea of jumping into a unknown condition."

                "Yeah I don't much like it either, but we all know it isn’t always by the book." I looked around to each face, and didn’t like what I seen, there was a lot of doubt on their faces, and I didn’t like the idea of them having doubts before a mission.

                "Ok fellows, I know this has had the air of a fucked up mission from the minute Smokey came and kicked us out of our racks. We haven’t been told much about anything. It isn’t our normal mission; we all knew that from the start. But we all have a job to do, we get paid for this, and we are all the best in our field. This is going to be like any other mission we have ever done. Same objective, and the out come will be the same. We have a job to do fellows. And I need to know you all are 100% on this on. If there is one of you that doesn’t want to do this, or don’t feel comfortable with it, speak up now. You have 3 minutes to talk it over among yourselves. I got to run up front and set up the drop."

                "Jim." I turned back around, Preacher was standing there.

                "Yeah Preach?"

                "Jim you know that if you support this than the rest of us are with you 100%."

                "I know guys, and I understand what ya'll are thinking about. Just think of it this way. This is no different than any other mission. Now get your gear ready cinch up and let's ride."

                I went back up front, and explained everything to the Col. We wanted to drop off as close to the site as we could possibly get. She told me we had one chance to drop; she was not going to chance more than one pass, when we didn’t know what was below us.           

                I turned around and went back. I had to get rigged up and ready to jump. I got my parachute on, double checked my rig, and had Looney look me over, as I double-checked all of his gear. I double-checked the parachutes on the vehicles, making sure that everything was ok with them. I stowed my backpack into the back of the hummer. And gave the Loadmaster a Thumbs up indicating that everything was good to go.

                I seen the jump lights come on red, and the loadmaster was opening up the cargo door. We were about 10 minutes from the drop zone. We had one pass to get everything and everyone out of the airplane; this had to go like clock work. The load held up both hands holding up 7 fingers indicating 7 minutes till we jumped.

                I went through each man, checking over their oxygen tanks making sure the valves were all open, and they were all ready to go. "Ok everyone, anything goes wrong, we meet 10 minutes south of the drop zone, leave the vehicles if need be, we have our weapons, and our necessities. If we lose everything else. Keep an eye on your buddy where he lands, If anyone goes down in the drop, break out a red chemical light to indicate where you are, and we will get you as soon as we can. Good Luck Fellows, and God Speed."

                The loadmaster released the cargo out the back of the airplane, as I took the lead and jumped out the paratroop door of the airplane. It is always a rush free falling in the sky, nothing supporting you between the ground rushing up and you. I looked around to see that the cargo chutes had deployed, and I counted 7 other bodies in the air. I was coming upon 5000 feet, and was getting ready to pull my cord, when I heard a deep rumble, I looked around and seen that the C-17 we had just jumped out of, looked funny and out of shape. The right wing was on fire, and it looked like it was having trouble maintaining altitude. I watched as I seen 3 bodies come out of the back of the airplane. I pointed up showing Looney to look back. We couldn’t talk about it right now, but it seemed that our wonderful mission just took another wrong turn.

                I pulled my ripcord and directed my way to the ground, with the vehicles already taken care of, I could land as close the crash site as we could get. I took one more glance up at the airplane, and all I seen was a fireball in the sky. I could only pray that they all made it out of the airplane. But I had to clear my mind right now. I would worry about them once everyone was safe on the ground.

                I landed about 50 yards away from the site. And looked around to see 4 other bodies coming down in my area. I could see the pallets with the vehicles coming down just east of us. They were in good hands; we had everything under control for now at least. I hit the ground rolling, grabbing my chute as I started gathering my bearings. It would take about 5 minutes to bury our chutes, and then another 10 minutes to head over to the crash site. I could see from where I was standing that was our objective. It was a crashed out hull of a F-16, well what was left of one anyhow. The fire was just about burned out by now. And the smell of smoke was heavy. I heard a heavy crashing sound off in the distance and knew that the pallets had landed, well the guys would take care of that, and I had to recon the area around the crash site.

                I walked over by Looney and Cowboy was standing beside him. "Think he made it Jim?"

                "It doesn’t look like much is left there. I am worried about our crew that brought us in. Anyone see what happened to them?"

                "I have no idea Jim, but we can talk to the survivors when we get done here." Looney was looking over at the crash site.

                "Cowboy I need you to go over and gather up the crew that survived from the C-17. Meet over by that sand dune in 20 minutes. Access the wounded and make sure that no one needs any medical treatment. Get a head count of people. We just gained more people to take care of."

                Cowboy ran off to take care of what he needed to take care of. Looney had walked over to the crash site, and was looking it over. I walked up behind him.

                "Looks like the pilot ejected Jim, the seat is missing from the site. No telling where he landed at."

                "Grab your hand held locator, see if you can get a bearing on the seat transmitter, maybe it is working now. He might have bailed and is waiting for us to come get him."

                I started thinking about everything that needed to be done, and that we didn’t have a lot of time before that convoy was going to be heading our way. I knew we had about 20 minutes before they would be on top of us, and that they definitely seen us jump out of the airplane.

                I heard the sound of engines coming up on me. I turned around, and seen the 2 hummers coming our way. "Let's get going. You can do that in the truck"

                The Hummers pulled up. "Hey shortly, take that one over to that Sand dune over there, Cowboy is getting everyone gathered up and is waiting for us to meet up with him. We need to get our s**t together, and roll, on the double."

                "Let's go Mouth, we need to high tail it over there."

                We pulled up as Shortly was helping to bury the chutes. "You know what don't bother, they know we're here. How is everyone?"

                "All of our guys are accounted for, no injuries. One of the Loadmasters has a sprained ankle, nothing too bad; preacher is wrapping it right now. Only one Pilot survived, Major Brown, he just so happened to be in the cargo compartment when they got hit by a rocket, it struck just below the cockpit, causing a gash in the airplane, none of them had a chance to make it out. The last explosion we heard was a second rocket, they nailed her while she was still in the air."

                "Damn, wonder what happened to the counter measures they had."

                "Well the way it looks it wasn’t a hear seeking rocket, some guy just got lucky." Shortly replied.

                "Ok let's get it together and get ready to head North away from this place. We will regroup when we get a little breathing room from this area.

                We gathered up everything, it was going to be a crowded trip now with 3 more people to carry with us, each Hummer only had enough seating for 4 people, so they were going to be a little crowded in the back. We didn’t have a choice, we couldn’t leave them here, and we couldn’t afford to let them have a truck.

                "Major Brown?"

                "Yeah sergeant. What's Up?"

                "How far are we from any friendlies?"

                "We passed over our last base about 30 minutes ago. So I would say it is about 60 miles south of us. What ya got in mind?"

                "I don’t know sir, everything has happened so fast. That trip would take you hours to do on foot, and you have one guy that isn’t going to be able to walk."

                "Well you could give us one of the Hummers, we could make it in a few hours then." He was looking at the way the 2 other crewmembers were crawling into the back of the other hummer. "Well I guess not, there wouldn’t be enough room for all of you in one of them. Damn, I knew this flight was not going to be a cake walk." The Major didn’t wait for me to answer him; he was walking to the back of the hummer with his other 2 guys getting into it.

                "Alright let's put some distance between us and them, Head north East, and get by these guys, then we need to come up with a new plan. Figure were about 40 miles from the border, let's get there and then we will get a plan together. Everyone keep their eyes open, there is a convoy just north of us, we don't need anymore surprises tonight."

0800 Local, Iraqi Border                               

                Well we made it to the border without being detected. We took a cautious line north east of the convoy we had seen. We still have not picked up a trace of the locator beacon on the seat of the airplane. We still have about 40 miles to go before we come upon the town where the pilots target was. The rest of the night was pretty uneventful thank god. My men were tired. We took turns driving the last few hours, and when we were well clear of the convoy we slept in shifts. I didn’t like being out in the desert in the middle of the day. There aren’t too many places to hide out here. The one good thing is that you can see for miles, but the downside to that is so cans your enemy. We have to travel slowly so we don't stir up too much dust. That is a dead giveaway of movement that we don’t need to show.

                "All right everyone, let's break for chow. We're going to take an hour break and then move on. Shortly I want you over there on that ridge, keep an eye out for anything moving our way. Cowboy you take that sand dune over there, and do the same. We'll relieve you in a little bit."

                "What do you think Jim?" I looked up from my MRE (Meals ready to eat), and seen Major Brown sitting there looking at me.

                "Well Major I hate to say this, but you guys are stuck with us, we can't afford to take you back, and we're too far to let you guys go on you own. The way I see it is that we need some luck on our side. We're going to have to go in and try to get our guy. We should be able to head back in a few days. We will see if we can at least locate the seat of the airplane. Hopefully he didn’t get captured. I am pretty sure he is still running around right now. Or they wouldn’t have wasted their time trying to locate the wreckage. Way to risky." I took a bite of my meal. They weren’t that great tasting but they provide you with a full meal, and a lot of carbs. "How do you think we will do on supplies, Preacher? I know we have 3 more people with us."

                "Well we should be ok for a few days. We packed for 10 days out for 8 people, we'll come across some towns along the way, and I am sure we can scrounge up some food and water if we need too. I would be more worried about gas then food right now. We only have 6 cans of fuel, and these things wouldn’t be my choice for being economical. I don’t know what the chances are of finding Gas from those towns but we can give it a shot."

                "Kind of ironic huh. All the oil in this part of the world, and we are worried about running out of gas." Sammy said between bites.

                I was glad to see the guys were starting to relax. They seemed really uptight a few hours ago. It's typical though, you’re usually really tense when you don't know what to expect. I took out my maps and my compass. It was time to get our bearings, and get a plan into action of where were going to look for the pilot. I looked over the maps; we were a little off course. We took a sweeping direction to avoid the convoy of vehicles and it cost us about 3 hours of time. Hopefully our boy could hold out for us. I just didn’t have a clue where to look for the pilot; I just wish we had an idea of what we were heading into.

0800 Somewhere in Iraq

                Capt Stevens Awoke with a jump. It took him a few minutes for him to realize where he was, and what had happened. It all came back to him in a flood. He had been flying a bombing run last night, when he had seen the kids. He decided that he wasn’t going to drop his payload. And then his airplane had gotten shot out from under him. He had spent the better part of last night running. He had finally stopped around 0300. He no longer heard any noises of pursuit. And was pretty sure no one had seen him. But that wouldn’t last long. He didn’t have any idea of where he was. He had come across an old lean too out in the middle of nowhere. He decided to stop for some rest. He looked himself over, he had some scratches and bruises but nothing that was going to slow him down any. He had no idea if they had seen his airplane go down on radar. And he knew he didn’t have time to make a call before he had ejected out of the airplane. He could only hope that the locator beacon on his seat had gone off, but he had no idea how far he was from there. He pulled out his compass, and a map, trying to get an idea of where he might be, and where he thought his seat might be. If he could get back there, then he could wait for the search and rescue guys to come and extract him out. All he could hope for is that the enemy hadn't moved his seat. He looked around, it looked a lot different in the light then it did last night.

                He looked down at his map, found the last place he knew he was at, and started looking around for some reference points he may be able to use. He didn’t see any towns in the distance, all he knew was he needed to head south towards the border. That was the plan he was going to set to at least until something else came his way. If he could make it to the border, maybe he could come across a group of allied soldiers, and get a ride home. He opened up his field pack, and checked to see how much food and water he had. He had a canteen of water, and 2 MRE's. Not much but at least it was something. He opened up a MRE pack and decided he would eat something while he worked his plan through his head.

 0900 Iraqi border

                "Let's load it up people, we got a lot of ground to cover." I looked off in the distance and could see dust over the horizon. It could be a sand storm, or it could be that convoy we had found last night. I was hoping that maybe they had seen the crash site, and figured that we had found the pilot, and were heading back in the opposite direction. Time would only tell.

                I looked around and could see that the guys were feeling better I was glad to see that the food and the nap had everyone feeling a little better about this mission. We were settling down into our job, and no one was worried about anything else now.

                We loaded up the trucks, and started on the move, we were going to head to the northeast, we would brush the village by about 30 miles. That should get us close enough to see if we could find our pilot. "Hey Sarge!" I picked up the 2-way radio. Cowboy was in the other truck, and there was no way of confusing his voice with anyone else.

                "What ya got Cowboy?"

                "Looks like we have a small village up ahead of us about 15 miles. How far do you want to avoid it?"

                "Damn, We have to go to the left of the village, that convoy we passed last night I think is on our right side. I had seen a dust cloud a few hours ago when we were breaking camp. Let's change our course and skirt that village no less than 15 miles. That should give us enough room."

                "Aright Sarge works for me." Cowboy was happy to avoid any conflicts as much as we could. He was sure that we were going to run into trouble, but the less we hit the better we were.

                We drove along at a slow pace, steady making head way into behind enemy lines. Everyone was wide awake, none of us liked to move during the day, exposed and out in the middle of nowhere. We were going to have to think of another way to travel. "Hey Looney, I have a plan to run by you, let's take 5 and talk about it."          

                "Ok Sarge, we've been driving for about and hour and half, I could use to stretch my legs any how."

                "Cowboy, Let's pull off for 5 minutes, we're going to talk about a new plan."

                We stopped and everyone got out of the trucks. "Major, can you have your men stand guard for a few, I have something that I want to run by you and my men."

                "Major, there is a small village about 20 miles from here. What I was thinking, is that these hummers stick out here in this country, we could make a lot better time, if we stole a civilian vehicle, and drove in further in that. We could leave both hummers with you guys, ya'll could move at night, and head back to base. Let them know what happened. And they can send some one out to pick through the wreckage of the cargo plane. We can't afford to give you too many supplies we will need most of what we have, but it can't be more than 2 nights of hard driving for you guys. Once you make it to the border you can high tail it south back to the base. This is going to all depend on whether we can find a truck in that village."

                The Major looked over at me. "I like the idea of getting the hell out of here. But do you think we will make it?"

                "The way I see it major you guys have a hell of a better chance of making it there by yourselves than you do riding along with us. These things are hard to hide. And we haven’t come across a patrol so far. We aren’t that far from the border. And I don’t think you guys will have any problems."

                "What do you think about it Looney?" Looney was running it through his head. I could tell he liked the way it sounded.

                "I like the idea, as long as we can find a truck, and maybe come clothes there. We should pull up and scout the place out during the daytime. Get a feel of what we are up against. The only thing that worries me is getting home. If that truck breaks down or we run out of gas, we are going to be screwed. That’s one hell of a walk back home."

                "Ok let's load up and find that village, we will scout it out during the daylight, then when night falls we will go in and take what we need." This idea was sounding really good to me. I didn’t like having 3 untrained bodies with us, heading into the unknown.

                We quickly loaded up the trucks; I could hear the Major talking it over with his 2 remaining guys. They were really fond of getting the hell out of there, and I could tell they had no problems with it.

1130 a little village just north of the Iraqi Border

                We were about 5 miles from a little town, There wasn’t much too it. 7 houses, and a couple of small out buildings, 2 looked like they were big enough to hold a truck. It was a little farming community, a few sheep, and some cows. I went over our rations; we could afford to give them several packs of MRE's, and a couple of cans of gas. Once they hit the border they would be in the clear. No one would follow 2 trucks across the border, and riding at night they would have less of a chance of being seen. This was probably the best plan we have had since this whole thing started.

                "Sarge! Get over here." Cowboy was pointing off in the distance towards the village.

                I ran the 30 yards to the top of the sand Dune where Cowboy was crouched looking over the area.

                "What ya go Cowboy?" I was digging my Glasses out of my pack as I was looking to where he was pointing.

                "Over there. Looks like they have a small military detachment there. I see it as good news and bad news. The good news is they probably have a truck or two, the bad news is we don’t know how many men there are down there."

                "They could be part of that convoy, maybe scouting ahead of the troops." I was wondering just how many men they would send out for a scouting party. When were they due back to the main body, and if they would even be staying the night.

                "Just wish I knew how many of them there were, and whether they are going to be staying." I could tell that Cowboy was running a plan in his head as he was talking to me.

                "What ya go on your mind Cowboy?"

                "Well I was thinking, if this is a scout party, then there are probably no more than 10 men in it. They wouldn’t send tat big of a group out to scout ahead. But it doesn’t make any sense that they would hide their trucks if they weren’t planning on staying that long."

                I had some ideas running in my head as well. Cowboy looked at me and said. "I think we should chance it and head in there now. If we could catch them by surprise."

                I was looking off to the east, there was a small nole of sand dunes there, and we could drive up with in 100 yards and come around their flank. "Look over there, you see that small knoll of dunes?"

                "Yeah I see it, we could get the trucks in close enough we wouldn’t be on foot long at all. We could sneak in and recon what we are up against."

                "Yeah go get the guys ready to go, let's load up and be ready to move in 10 minutes."

                Cowboy ran back down the dune to pass on what was going to happen. I was looking through the glasses, I could see 4-armed men in the village, and I didn’t see any signs of locals, except the goats feeding on the grass.

                "Sgt Rosson?" I turned around and Major Brown was standing at the bottom of the hill. "Do you really think this is a smart thing to do?"

                "Major, this is the best way of getting what we need. My men are the best in the business; I know they can handle this. I want you to wait back at the Hummers with your guys, if anything happens and we are captured, or killed, you guys load up and Haul a*s back home. At least some of us will make it through."

                "I don’t like taking chances like this!" He was pissed off about the whole thing.

                "Major, I don't give a s**t what you think right now. This is my mission, these are my men. If you have a problem then when you get home you can talk to Smokey about it. Right now this is not opened for discussion. I know you are a Major in the US Air Force, but this is not a normal situation. I know what I am doing." I grabbed my stuff and headed back to the Hummer.

                "You coming Major or would you like to wait here?" I wouldn’t have really left him, and if it had come down to it, I would not have had much of a choice but to listen to his orders. I don't think he was willing to fight me too hard, he just wanted me to know that he didn't like it. Oh well it wasn’t the first time we had a difference, and probably wouldn't be the last.

                "Let's go this isn’t a vacation" I jumped up in my Hummer.

                We made the short trip to the dunes in a little over 30 minutes; we were less than 100 yards from the nearest building. "Leave everything here, but your weapons, we don’t need to be carrying anything we don’t need right now. If we run into more than we bargained for, we will high tail it back here, and head back home. We'll scratch the whole mission. Anyone got any questions?"

                Nobody said a word, they knew that when I had my mindset on something I had calculated all risks involved, and it was the best option we had. "Ok then Looney you and Shortly take the left side of that first building. Scout it out and see what you can find out. Sammy, You and Mouth take the right side of that first building, see that first house, I want you guys to scout it out and see what we have, Cowboy you and Preacher stand back and help them out if they need it. Ricochet, your with me, were going to check out the next house in line. We will use hand signals from here on out. No body calls out on the radio, or voice unless it is absolutely needed. We need the element of surprise here. Ya'll all know your assignments let's get a move on"

                Looney and Shortly high tailed it the hundred yards to what looked like a small garage. I could see them peering through the windows inside, Looney gave me a thumbs up that all was clear; I sent Sammy's team next. They dashed the short distance over to the garage, and headed for the house. They took about 2 minutes to make sure the area was clear. He came out the back door and gave me thumbs up. I didn’t like the way this felt; there was no sign of anyone there. Cowboy's team was half way to the next building when somebody came around the corner of Sammy's building, It was a Iraqi soldier, and before I knew it Sammy had him from behind, and had slit his throat. He dragged the body into the house, and disposed of it. He came out holding a thumb up. Everything was still going well. Cowboy and Preacher were just coming up to their building, they ran up and looked into the windows, Cowboy held up 3 fingers and gave me the sign for soldiers, so we knew we had 3 more soldiers inside that one. I gave him the hold sign, I didn’t want them barging in till we knew what we were up against. I then tapped Ricochet on the shoulder, and we headed to our objective. We ran up to the next house in line. I peered into the dusty window, and seen 5 people, 3 were soldiers, and 2 were what looked like young girls. I indicated to Looney and Shortly to join up with Cowboy and Preacher, and directed Sammy and Mouth to come over with us. I then sent Ricochet to scout the next 3 houses on this side of the village. And signaled Preacher to go check the others.

                We waited for them to come back; both of them indicated that the rest of the houses were all clear. This must have been a scouting party, and they probably decided to stop here for some food, and rest. I gave everyone the signal for 3 minutes. They knew that in 3 minutes we would storm the buildings, and take out the soldiers. This shouldn’t be too hard; we had the element of surprise on them. I leaned over to mouth and told him to watch the civilians inside. I then jumped when I heard a slapping sound from inside the house. I looked into the window and seen one of the girls lying on the floor, she was holding her face, and was crying. One of the soldiers must have slapped her. I held up one finger, and spun it in the air, giving the sign that it was a go now. I stood up and Sammy kicked in the door, we ran in and started firing at the soldiers. They never had a chance to get to their weapons; I guess they weren't expecting us. With in 2 minutes the shooting at stopped and all that we could here was the sobbing of the 2 girls.

                "You speak English?" I asked the one closest to me.

                "A little" as she nodded her head. She was scared and looking over at her friend.

                "Were not going to hurt you, we just want some supplies and you never seen us. Understand?"

                She nodded her head. "We won't say anything. These b******s killed my father and brother, I have no idea what they were going to do to me and my cousin when they were done with eating."

                I shuddered at the thought of what they had in mind. These people were animals; they didn’t have any respect for life, even their own kind. Well we didn’t have time to dwell on that. "Sammy, Mouth, and Shortly, Get these bodies out of here. Take them out back some place. Cowboy go and see what Looney found in that garage. Ricochet, go scout out the last 2 buildings and see what is there."

                I leaned down and helped the girl on the floor up into a chair, she had a handprint on her check but other than that she looked fine. Looney came into the room.

                "Jim, there is a Truck in that first garage, it looks like the one these guys brought in. There are some fuel cans in back and they are all full. So they haven’t traveled to far from where ever they started at."

                "They said they were from a main convoy that is about 80 miles from here. They were going to wait for the rest of them to meet up with them before they headed out again. They were saying that they would be in tomorrow some time."

                "Well that gives us some time. Looney get a burial detail ready, let's bury those guys, then we are going to load up and get ahead start out of here." Looney headed out the door to take care of what needed to be taken care of. He knew that if they came in and seen their guys dead that they would kill the girls that were here, without asking any questions. At least this away the girls could say they didn’t make it here, or that they had pulled out and headed on the way. I walked out the door, and started walking back to the sand dune where the major and the rest where hiding. The Major stood up when he seen me coming his way. I motioned for them to come down into the village.

                "Everything ok Sergeant Rosson?"

                "I looked over at the Major, "Yes Sir we encountered a small party of Iraqi soldiers. They were taken by surprise, and never knew what hit them. We're safe here, that convoy we seen are heading this way but won't be here until tomorrow some time. We are going to split up the supplies, and load up and head out in a few hours. You guys stay here until nightfall; as soon as it gets dark you guys head south. You should reach the border tonight and then keep running until you come across a friendly. Your taking both Hummers, we cant afford to ditch one here, they would know to look for us if we left any sign that we were here."

                "Do you think that is safe to stay here?" The Major looked worried.

                "It's safe Major." Looney had stepped in; he must have sensed that I didn’t feel like arguing anymore today.

                "Ok but for the record I don't like it. I don't know why you would jeopardize our lives by leavening us in the middle of no where by our selves!"

                "Major Brown, This mission ended as yours when we left the plane. This is my mission, and this is my area of expertise. I am not asking for your opinion, nor am I asking for your support in this. What I am asking for is that you do your part, and get your asses back to the base. I don't have time to sit here and argue with you. There is a convoy of Iraqi Troops heading this way and I want to put as much distance between them and us that I can. Now major if you will excuse me I have a job to go do. There is a pilot out there some place that needs our help, and I sure as hell hope that he is trying a little harder than you to save his own a*s." I turned around and walked off. I knew that if I were to stay there any longer I would say something that I would regret. I knew that when and if the Major made it back home that Smokey would get a full report about this. I also knew that Smokey would not pass judgment until he talked, to me and the men to find out what had happened. I didn’t have time to worry about that right now. There is more pressing stuff to worry about right now.

                I walked into the garage, where Shortly, and Mouth were loading the gear in the back of the truck. It wasn’t much to look at, an older Mercedes Truck with a raggy canvas top, but it was 4-wheel drive, and it will serve our purpose. "How much gas we got Shortly?"

                "There are 10 cans of fuel all full, we have some water baffles in the back, and there are some ammo and Iraqi weapons just in case we need em."

                "Ok sounds like we have enough supplies. Give some weapons to the Major and the others, set them up with some water, and they should have enough fuel. Tell him once they get across the border they can ditch one of the Hummers. Be ready to pull out in 30 minutes. We got to get a clue of where this pilot is."

I still hadn't calmed down yet from the Major and I didn’t want to stick around here any longer. I was tired of fighting with us right now. It was time to get this mission done and head home.                      

1800 North of the village

                We were making good time now. With the captured Iraqi truck we could move at a faster pace, without worrying about being spotted from a distance. We had been on the road a few hours now. "Let's take a break, we're going to stop for an hour, and get some dinner."

                We pulled off the road we were on, a 2 lane black top that was in the middle of nowhere. I sat down on the side to eat something.

                "Cowboy, break out your locator and see if we can get a trace on that seat beacon. We are about 15 miles from the target, and hopefully we can get a trace on that.

                "Ok Sarge." He turned around to get the locator from his pack before he sat down to eat dinner. We had been on the move the better part of 18 hours now and not much sleep, but everyone was holding up pretty good.

                "Sarge, I got something on the locator!"

                "Where is it coming from?" I was feeling pretty good. This is a well-deserved break.

                "It's coming from the west, looks like it is about 20 miles. The beacon must have been damaged in the landing or the battery is wearing out. We need to get a move on or we may lose it, before too long."

                "Yeah good idea, Come on everyone we're cutting dinner a little short let's get a move on." I hated to cut the break short, but we had a hit on the locator, and I didn’t want to lose this window.

                "It should be around here some place. The locator shows it right here." Cowboy had stopped the truck and we were sitting there looking around for it.

                "There is it!" Shortly had jumped down from the top of the truck and was running off to the right. I looked over in the distance, there was the seat, half buried about 40 yards away. There must have been a sand storm recently the seat was halfway buried in the sand.

                Shortly had reached the seat, and was looking around it when we came pulling up in the truck.

                "Looks like he survived the ejection. There's no sign of blood, and it doesn’t look like anything is unusual with it. The field pack is removed which means he removed it before he left the area. Now I would just like to know where he is now."

1800 Just southwest of the same town

                Capt Stevens had been walking for the last 9 hours, he had left first thing in the morning with the idea that he was going to head south, until he found the border, then he came upon a area that he recognized from his Arial maps of that they showed him before he left. He decided then that he might have a better chance of going back to his seat At least there he might have a chance of being found. He walked across the top of the next dune, and was looking down the bottom of it. At the bottom of the hill was a truck, with 8 people standing around it. He couldn’t tell from the distance who they were, or what they were doing. They were looking at the ground at something. They didn’t look like locals, and they didn’t look like they were Iraqi military troops, they were too clean, and well maintained looking from a distance. He reached down in the bottom pocket of his flight suit and pulled out the small pair of binoculars that he grabbed from his survival kit. The sun was gleaming into the lenses and he couldn’t really see who it was. He decided that he would have to move closer to get a better look.

                He was heading down the hill at a casual pace; he didn’t want to take the chance of getting caught. He got about halfway down the hill, and decided he would take another look, He was looking through the binoculars and it seemed like one of them had seen him. One of him was pointing at him. He had been spotted. He didn't get the idea that they were threatening in anyway. But he wasn’t sure how to handle the situation. Then he saw it. The American flag on the right arm of the soldier pointing in his direction. They were American soldiers; they must have come to rescue him. He was safe and headed home.

1810 About 150 yards away

                "Sarge!" Cowboy shouted out. "Over there, looks like somebody is coming down the side of that hill."

                I grabbed my binoculars. It was our guy; he was standing there looking at us with his binoculars. "Go get him Cowboy. He is probably thirsty and hungry."

                Cowboy jumped into the truck and went and picked up the pilot. They pulled back up about 10 minutes later.

                "Capt Stevens I take it?" I asked as I walked up to him.

                "Yeah who are you?" He asked in return.

                "I am TSgt Jim Rosson of the US Air Force Special Forces team. We were sent in to pick you up. Sir I would love to stand here and talk with you all day, but we have to find a safe way out of here. Are you ok to travel Sir?"

                "Yeah I think I am. A little tired, and sore. But other than that I am good. I can get some water and food inside the truck." He moved towards the back of the truck, and jumped in with the rest of the men.

                We were heading south now, on a 2 lane black top road. We were making great time, and everything seemed great.

                We came upon the top of a hill, and Cowboy stopped the truck. "What the hell is that?" He asked

                "I don’t know." He was looking down the road; about 2 miles ahead there were trucks sitting there across the road. There was a full moon out and it was easy to see them. "Get off the road, start heading into the desert." The only thing we could hope for is that they hadn't seen us, or maybe they thought we had just gone down another hill. I hollered back to Shortly to smash the taillights out of the truck. Trying to think of someway to hide our escape. We were moving at a slower speed across the desert. I was trying to get a reference point of where we were. I was trying to find my hand held GPS.

                "Mouth. Find out where we are exactly. We need to get a plan of action together to get us out of here. Cowboy, when we get about 10 miles from here let's stop and access the situation." I had a couple of plans running through my head right now, but I needed time to think them through.

1930 A little Village just north of the Iraqi border

                "Major I don’t think we should leave the other Hummer here. I mean your risking the lives of Sgt Rosson and the others by doing that."

                "I am in charge here. We don't have enough gas to make it home with 2 trucks. And Sgt Rosson isn’t here right now. We will hide the truck in that garage there. Hopefully by the time they find it we will be well south of the border. We are going to pull out now, I am not waiting for darkness to hit, we have sat here long enough wasting time we could have spent getting home. If that convoy gets here sooner than them guys were planning were screwed. I don’t want to be anywhere near here if that happens. Let's move now!" Major Brown had sat around long enough waiting. He was a very impatient man, and didn’t like to waste time by sitting here doing nothing. He had decided as soon as Rosson had left that they were not going to take both Hummers back with them. It was stupid to waste gas. They didn’t know if they would make it with both anyhow. And who the hell did that Sergeant thinks he was telling him what and how he was going to do something. They were going to shoot for the border and make it tonight. There wasn’t any reason not to. They were maybe 100 Miles from the border. He felt pretty confidant that they would make it home by tomorrow night.

                "Sir, I don’t like it, I don’t like jeopardizing the others just because you don’t want to waste gas. As long as we make the border we could ditch the other one there. Then head home, and if we did run out of gas, there are patrols all the time, one of them would find us. By leavening it here, was risking the lives of 9 men, and these 2 girls from this village." The loadmaster was sick of this self-centered little b******s crap.

                "Get in that Hummer and hide it in that garage now!" Major Brown was sick of the insubordination lately, and when he got back to base, you can guarantee they were going to hear about it. He was not some little peon that they could walk all over when they decided they wanted too.

                "I can't do that Sir. Or better yet I won't do it. And Nate feels the same way I do." He was looking over at his friend and fellow loadmaster. Making sure that Nate was going to stand by him. He felt a little better when Nate nodded at him in agreeance.

                "Fine I will do it myself! And when we get back to base you both are going under arrest for disobeying a direct order. There will be a court martial hearing and you will be tried and convicted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice."

                They both looked at each other, they knew that he was serious, and that he would do it. He was a good pilot, but he was extremely selfish. Neither of them spoke, they didn’t know what to say or do that would help any of this. The best they could hope for is that they get to explain their side of the story when they got home. Nate grabbed their gear, and through it in the back of the Hummer they were taking with them. The Major had already made it half way to the garage. "I don’t like this one bit, Steve. It just doesn’t seem right to risk the others, after they went through the trouble of helping us all."

                "I know Nate, but we don’t have much of a choice right now. We are in enough trouble when we get back. Let's just hope that the Iraqi soldiers get held up, or decide to by pass this place. We can’t dwell on it."

                Steve knew that Nate was the type to worry about everything. And he wouldn’t stop until Rosson and the others made it home.

2000 In the middle of the Desert, North of Iraq border

                "What ya think Jim?" Looney was standing next to me, looking off in the same direction I was, we had our NVG's out and were looking for any sign that we had been spotted. We had stopped a few hours ago, and decided we would get some rest here, it was a secluded spot, and seemed fairly safe.

                "I don’t know Looney. They might not have seen us. Or maybe they thought we were a local farmer who had a place out here. But it seems way too quiet right now. Let's get some shuteye. And we will talk about a plan at 0100, we'll plan on moving out at 0200."

                "Sounds good to me, I could use some sleep. Mouth, you and Ricochet take first watch, hour and half shifts, we'll all take turns sitting watch."

                "Ok Looney. You guys rack out, we'll keep a good eye on everything."

                We all found a good spot to lie down. Sleep was hard coming, I kept wondering what was with the troop movements we had seen, and why had they put a roadblock in the middle of nowhere. Way too many questions and not enough answers. I knew I needed to get some sleep. I finally decided that it was going to be hard enough to work a plan, it would be even worse if I was too tired to think about it. I drifted off to sleep.

                "Jim!" I opened my eyes, it was Looney. I looked around and everyone was getting up, they were rolling up their bedrolls, and loading stuff up in the truck.

                "Damn 0100 already? It feels like I just fell asleep. Hey wait a minute, I didn’t get woke up for my watch."

                "Yeah, I know. The Captain said he would take yours. You looked really beat, and he said you got enough on your hands getting us out of here and all."

                "Damnit Looney, I don't want the guys to think I isn’t pulling my share of the work!"

                "They Don't Jim. These guys would follow you into Hell and you know it. They know you would pull your watch if it came down to it."

                It wasn’t worth fighting over Looney was right these guys had a lot of respect for me, and they knew that I would do what it took for all of there safety.

                "Thanks Captain, I guess I really needed some sleep."

                "No thanks needed. I can still help you guys out. I know that I am not trained in this like you guys are. But Hell you guys risked your Asses to come and save me. It is the Least I can do."

                "All right everyone let's eat some food and talk about a plan."

                Looney looked like he had something on his mind. "What's wrong?" I asked him in between bites of food.

                "I was just thinking, How far you think that village is from here?"

                "I would guess maybe 50 miles. Why do ya ask?"

                "Well maybe we could head back there. It was a clean shot into the country from there, and it should be a clean shot out too."

                "I don’t know Looney, what if them guys decide to stay there, that's a hell of a risk."

                "Jim I don't think they will, we think it is the same guys that we seen the other night from the sky right? If they are the same ones, they are going to exerting their efforts looking for the Capt, and us. I feel that by the time we got there, they would be long gone."

                "I don't know let me think about it a few minutes while I finish eating."

                Looney may have a point. They were probably not going to be there, especially if they think there guys headed out of town. It was an easy trail out. And they would have a general idea then of which direction they were moving by talking to the girls again. The more I thought about it the more sense it made.

                "Ok, we'll head back there, and at least look the area over." I didn’t really see where we had much of a choice, if we kept going the way we were, there was no idea what we may come across. If we went through the village we at least had an idea where that troops were located.

                We loaded up the truck and started to head back to the village. I knew we would reach the village in a couple of hours, if everything went as planned. We would camp outside the village and wait to see what they were going to do. Maybe they would stay long enough to get something to eat.

                We crossed to top of the dunes, and there it was about 2 miles away, the village lay there in the moonlight. It was 0530, the sun would be coming up soon, it was hard to see, but it looked as if there was some type of movement down in the village. "Back the truck back down the hill, let's sit here out of sight."

                I grabbed my NVG's and climbed up to top of the hill. I was shocked when I seen what I was looking at. There were 10 trucks in the middle of the town, and 4 tanks. I could see 25 men sitting around a campfire. It was hard to tell how many more there might be down there. Looney came up to join me.

                "What ya think, Jim?"

                "I don’t know, it is crowded down there right now. Hard to say how many men are down in that village right now. I see 25 men down by that campfire. I am sure there are at least a half dozen officers in the main houses down there. And those 4 tanks worry me. That is more than enough fire power to take us out."

                "Well Jim, let's sit here and see what is going to happen from here. We can afford to sit here and wait to see how long before they pull out."

                I didn’t like the odds. We were out numbered, but we do have the element of surprise. They don’t know that we are here. Or how many men that we have. Let's ride it out here for a while. Tell the men that we are camping out here, I will take first watch. Get some rest."

                I looked down the hill, and seen that there was a commotion going on. There was a group of men shouting and running for the garage that the truck was parked in when we came up on the village. I was running through my head that we had left some sort of sign that we were there. But I know that we cleaned up everything, and I was sure that the Major and his men had gotten out with no problems. I scanned my glasses over to that part of town. For the first time in a long time I was shocked at what I seen. Sitting in the garage was a US military Hummer.

                What the hell had gone wrong? I looked around the town and didn’t see the other one. Unless they had captured the Major, and had put the other on inside the other garage. But that didn’t make any sense. Why hide the trucks. There were enough men, to deture any one from attacking them. Why would the Major not take both trucks like I had asked him to do? Them finding that Hummer, showed that we were in country now. It would also tell them that we would be coming back for it.

                I climbed down the hill, and woke up Looney. "We got a problem!"

                I explained everything that I had seen. "Are you sure that they don't have them, Jim?"

                "I can’t say for sure. I didn’t see anything that would prove that they did. Let's keep and eye on the village for a while and try to get a feel of what is going on down there."

                We walked back up the hill. They had pulled the Hummer out of the Garage, and were going through it. It didn’t seem that they had the Major and the men, but why would he leave the Hummer there. It didn’t make any sense. "I don’t get it. They should be long gone by now. Probably past the border by now. Why would they have left the Hummer here? I told them to make sure that they at least took the Hummers back to the border. It didn’t matter what they did with them then, but I didn’t want them to leave any clues that would show that we were here in country. Damnit, what is going on down in that village."

                "Do ya think maybe they are holding them in one of the houses down there?" Looney was just as confused as I was about this.

                "I don’t know. There is only one way to find out. But do we really want to approach them, with the odds stacked against us?"

                "We don’t have to attack them head on. We have grenades, and some C-4 explosives in our gear. We could set up a little diversion, and distract them."

                "That's a little risky. But we could probably set up something. Go down and get 2 of the guys, We're going to let them watch, and we are going to work out a plan. If the Major and his men are down there, were going to get them out."

                We climbed down the hill, and I grabbed, my pack. We had to get a plan together, and with a limited amount of men, the odds were against us.

0715, March 17, 15 miles south of the Village

                Smokey was sitting in the front seat of the Hummer. He had headed out yesterday morning, to look over the crash site of the C-17. Back at base they had no idea what had happened. The last thing they had heard from them was that the aircraft had seen, a large column of vehicles, and the crash site of the F-16 on fire. But nothing else came after that, and then the aircraft had disappeared from the radar screen. It was then that he had decided that he would lead out a search party to look for any survivors, and to see what may have caused the crash. He took 25 men with him. They had come across both crash sites, and no sign of any survivors. They had only found 3 bodies in the C-17. It would take a coroner to identify them. He didn’t know where the rest of them were. He could only assume that they were still alive, and had headed into Iraq to continue on with their mission. He knew that they were the best, and would never have allowed anything to stop him from continuing on with his mission. Smokey had made a decision, that he would head into country and give Jim and his men a hand. They had been sitting outside the village for about a hour now. Smokey had seen them pull a Hummer out of the garage. And now was wondering if Jim had been captured, and was being held in one of the houses down in the village. He was running a plan through his head. He had counted 25 men out in the open. 3 Officers came out of one of the houses, when they had found the Hummer in the garage. What worried Smokey were the 4 tanks sitting on the outside of the village. They could set up some explosions on the tanks, and take care of them with little problem, but if they were discovered then the whole plan would go to hell. That would be their starting point. He would sit there and wait until the commotion had settled down, and they were relaxing. And had dropped their guard. The very latest that he would wait would be dusk, and then they would attack. So for now it would be to sit and wait.

0730, just northeast of the village

                Looney and I had looked over the maps, and decided that we would use the C-4 we had to blow up the tanks as a diversion. Then we would head into the first house, and hold up there. We should be able to surround the men and take them off guard. With the tanks blown up, it would make the odds a little easier to handle. He sure wished they had another 5 men right now. It would be allot easier. But he knew that it was allot more fun when the odds were stacked against you. I had decided to wait until things down in the village had calmed down some. It didn’t look like they were going to pull out anytime soon. They were probably going to wait to see if we were going to come back for the Hummer. We would have time to sit and wait for a while. Let them settle into a lunch, or a mid day nap. They only had 3 guards posted, and they would be no problem to sneak up and take them out. The one closest to us was sitting by one of the sheds in the village. I could sneak up and come around the other side of the building and take him out with little problem.

                For the time being all they could do was sit and wait. I hate waiting. I would rather get on with it, and get it done and over with. Nothing worse than going through the what if's in my head. I could take the best laid out plans and find all kinds of flaws with it, if I sat here long enough.

                "Let's rack out fellows, it looks like we could be sitting here for at least a few hours. Get some rest, s**t's going to fly here pretty soon, and were going to need every bit of strength we can get during that time."

                I decided that I would try to get some rest. I crawled under the truck, and took advantage of what little bit of shade there was. It was hot as hell, but that was normal out here. I heard footsteps running up, and turned to look and see Shorty coming running down the hill.

                "Sarge! Come quick! We just seen another group of men on the other side of the village, they look like our men, but we cant be positive."

                I grabbed my field glasses, and weapon and started up the hill. It could be our guys; I knew that we weren’t the only Allies that were across the border. I climbed the last 10 feet to the top of the hill, and was looking off in the distance. I could see a group of men laying on a ridge. I could count 6 heads sitting there. They wouldn’t be seen from the village, but from where we were sitting, we had a clear shot at them. It was almost impossible to tell who they were from this angle.

                "What ya think Jim?" Looney had heard the commotion, and had followed us up the hill.

                "I don’t know Jim, it could be our guys, or it could be a group of renegades that are trying to take things into their own hands. Just wish we knew." When I first started these covert operations, we used to use hand held radios then we had constant contact with friendlies, but that would also lead the enemy too us, sometimes they would pick up our transmissions, and I didn’t like that. Even the secure voice radios weren't totally safe. So I never carried a radio anymore. Damn I wish I had one now though. It would sure be nice to have. Then it donned on me. Shorty always carried a Cell phone with him. No matter how much I yelled at him for it, he always said "just in case Sarge."

                "Shorty you carry that cell phone, that your not supposed to?"

                He looked at me, unsure whether he should admit it or not. "Yeah I have it in my gear" He rolled his eyes to the ground waiting for the a*s chewing that he thought was going to come.

                "Go get it!" He looked shocked.

                "Yes Sir” He headed down the hill.

                I was going to give Smokey a call on the cell, and without giving out too much information. Going to see what he could tell me. Shorty came back up the hill, handing me his cell phone. I took it and didn’t say anything to him, dialing in Smokey's phone number. The phone rang and there was no answer. He must have stepped out of his office for lunch. Man he picked a great time to take lunch today. I had decided I would try back in a little while. I put his phone in my pocket. Figuring that in about an hour Smokey should be back in his office. I knew that if there was anything going on in the area that Smokey would be able to find out.

0900 Other side of the Village

                Smokey heard his cell phone ringing. He had no intention of answering it. If his supervisor's back at the base knew what he was up to, then they would order him back to base. Well if they couldn’t talk to him, then they couldn’t tell him to turn around and forget what he had in mind. Could they? He knew what was happening was a risk, but hell the whole operation had been from the start. His men should never have been sent in with any idea of what they were going to encounter. Usually they would have sent out some helicopters to recon the area, and see what they were up against. The pilots were trained to survive out in the field for at least a week with no support. If this kid hadn’t been the son of some big shot in Washington this would have been a normal recovery mission. Smokey had been in the service for 24 years now. He had seen his fair share of bullshit and it never ceased to amaze him how far some people would go to get things done their way. All he could hold onto was that not one time in his career, had he ever pulled any strings, or stabbed someone in the back to help him gain something. He had missed his Chief stripe on 4 different occasions now. And knew that with a couple of well placed calls that he could have it on, during the next promotion cycle. But that wasn’t his way of doing things. He had given the service his life. And would never look back and regret it. He loved what he was doing, and often wondered when it came time for him to retire what he was going to do. Now is not the time to worry about that. It would come soon enough, no sense in rushing that now.

                He caught a glimpse of sunlight reflecting off in the distance. He scanned the horizon, and could make out somebody laying there with field glasses. The sunlight had reflected off the lenses of a set of binoculars. Who was that, he wondered. Could that be Jim? Was it another group of enemy soldiers, which were sent out to scout the area around the village? Damn he wished he knew.

                "Looks like plans are about to change." He turned around to one of the men that he had brought with him. He was a young airmen, this was his first mission out, and Smokey remembered how he had felt at that time. The anxiety that was rushing through him, he was gung ho. Itching for some excitement and had jumped to volunteer to come with them. "Go get the Sarge, and send him up here. ASAP!"

                The kid turned around and ran down the hill. 2 minutes later SSgt Murphy was laying next to him. "Mark I want you to take your Squad, you see that ridge over there. I see a set of Glasses looking over here. I want to know who it is, and what they are up to. If it is enemy soldiers, you are not to encounter them if you can avoid it. If it is freindlies, I want to know their intentions. Go now!"

                Now it was time to wait again.

Same time other side of the Village

                "Looney they sure look like they are US Soldiers to me, I caught a glimpse of desert cami's on one of the men, Let's do a recon, and head over and see what we can find."

                We climbed down the hill, and grabbed a canteen and a couple of weapons. We weren't going to be lugging around a load of heavy gear that we weren’t going to need.

                "Sammy, your in charge. Looney and I are going to head over to that ridge and scout out the area, they look like friendlies, but we can’t be too sure. If anything happens to us. You load up the truck and high tail it for the Border. You know what you need to do. Do not do anything heroic; these men are going to be depending on you. Any questions?"

                Sammy shook his head. He was a cautious person, and I knew he didn’t like us splitting up like this. But I didn’t see any other way of doing this. We had to know who that was. It could be the Major had ran into a group of soldiers, and had brought them back to help us out. We would know in about an hour that was over on that ridge. If they were enemies, then we would not confront them, we would come up with a different plan at that time.

                Looney and I headed out. We would cross the outskirts of the village, it was nice that a low ridge surrounded the village, so we could walk around and not worry about being seen.

                It would be about 10 to 15 miles of walking. Shouldn’t take us more than 4 hours to get within range to get a better look at who was there. I was hoping that it was our guys. That would be great. Then we wouldn’t have to confront the soldiers in the village. I really didn’t like them odds.

                We had been walking for a little over 2 hours and were taking a 10-minute break, when I heard what sounded like a dirt bike. Looney and I scrambled up the hill to the other side, and laid there, watching over the top of the hill. 3 Dirt bikes came over top of the next hill. They were US Special Forces soldiers. My face lit up when I seen them. What a break we had caught on this one. Looney and I stood up, and started heading down the hill toward where the bikes were coming from. They seen us, and headed our way.

                The bikes stopped about 10 feet from where we were standing. I recognized the first man when he lifted his visor up. He was part of the new crew that had come into replace us back at the base. We were scheduled to head back home next week, and our replacements had gotten here 3 days ago.

                "What are you fellows doing here?" I was curious why they were this far in country. They wouldn’t have sent out another team to rescue us. Then it donned on me. They probably had no clue what had happened to the C-17, and maybe they thought we were on the airplane when it had gotten shot down. Then they would have sent in a team to rescue us, and to continue on our mission.

                "Here to save your a*s, Sgt Rosson." He was smiling ear to ear. I guess he liked the idea of having to rescue the best of the best. Kind of like bragging rights, back at the bar. I could hear the ragging we would get now.

                "Well for your information we don’t need your help. We have completed our mission; we have our pilot just beyond that ridge over there with the rest of my men. We don’t need any rescuing. But we could use some help. Who is in charge of your group?"

                "SMSgt Peters, brought us out here."

                "Smokey? You mean Smokey is here with you?" I was wondering what would bring Smokey out in the field. He hadn’t stepped into the field in at least 5 years. It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to come along on a few trips. It was that he was never allowed to go. His bosses had always denied him, saying he was way too valuable to go on field trips. Something must have really came up for them to send Smokey out to get us.

                "Yeah Smokey is here. I don’t know everything about it, but I am sure he will tell you what you need to know when we get back to him. You can ride on the back of my Bike."

                "Looney, Take the other 2 guys there, and head back and get our boys. Go ahead and join us over that ridge over there, and be careful."

                Looney was climbing on the back of one of the other bikes.

                Murphy and I were pulling up behind the camp that Smokey and his men had set up. Smokey spotted us and was walking over towards us when we came to a stop.

                "Glad to see you Jim. What the hell have you been doing?"

                "Been completing a mission, Smokey."

                "You found our pilot, Jim?"

                "Yeah we stumbled upon him, yesterday afternoon. Smokey, have you seen what is sitting down in that village down there?"

                "We thought that you guys were there, we seen the Hummer, and thought they had captured you guys. We can get your guys gathered up and head home now.  No sense in putting our guys lives on the line for no reason. We'll pass on the information that we have to the Army and they can take care of them guys."

                "Wish it was that easy Smokey. I take it that you guys came across the crash site of the C-17?" Smokey was nodding his head. He was taking out his Pipe, and was packing it with tobacco, while listening to what I was saying. He said that it helped him listen and think. "Well three crew members survived that crash, and yesterday, I told them to head home. I didn’t want to take a chance of risking their lives unnecessarily. I told them to wait until last night and to take both Hummers out and across the border, and head back to base. I take it that you guys didn’t come across them. The best I can think is that they are sitting in one of them houses down there being held prisoner."

                "We didn't come across anyone on our way in here. We have to assume that they are sitting down in that village right now. Which means that we have no choice but to confront them and get our guys back."

                "I don’t like it either Smokey. Hell not much about this mission that I have liked. I sent the other 2 guys that came out, to get the rest of my men. They should be here in a few hours. Then we will go over a plan of attack."

                There is fresh water, and we have some food other than the MRE's over there if your interested, Jim."

                "I could use a real cup of coffee, I know you have a pot of that brewing some place around here."

                Smokey laughed, his men knew him too well to know that he would ever go without a good cup of coffee. "Yeah over behind that truck over there. Here I'll join you."

                We headed over to the coffee pot, and Smokey was explaining what they had come across at the crash site of the C-17. How they thought that we had been shot down and killed in the crash. We only came across 2 bodies in the plane couldn’t identify any of them."

                "I know. Looks like the Colonel bought it. She was in the flight deck when the plane took a rocket in the left side. We had already jumped clear of the plane when it was hit. The 2 loadmasters, and one of the pilots survived, and jumped out. We gathered them up and headed here to complete our mission. I told you this was a cluster f**k from the start. Now it seems that they have 3 of our men down in that village down there. And we are going to have to save them."

                "We'll we can't leave them here. And looks like the numbers are a little more in our favor with your men here as well. So let's go over a plan of attack, and get ready to move."

                Smokey and I were working through a plan when Looney and the men pulled up. The truck had broken down and they had to come in the last 3 miles by foot. It was almost 1800 at this time. Our plan was to go in at 2100 to attack. We could use the cover of darkness to our advantage. We were going to strike quick, and get the hell out with our men as fast as possible.         

                “Jim, you take your men and 9 of my guys with you, I’ll take the rest, we’ll split up on both sides of the village, and set up our plastic explosives to cause a disturbance. You and your men take the Tanks; I’ll take the other side, with the garage. We’ll blow up the Hummer as a distraction on that side. When you hear it go up, go ahead and blow the tanks. Take SRA Brent Gable with you, he is an explosives expert, and can give Shorty a hand setting them up.”

                I didn’t have to respond to Smokey, he knew that I had heard everything he had said, and that it was as good as done. I started running the plan through my head, getting it imprinted into my brain so that no matter what was going on, I would be running on autopilot. The plan was that we would set a diversion, by using our explosives, on the outskirts, and then rush into the main buildings, and get our men. We would try to do this with as little fighting, as needed, no sense in killing more than we needed too. With any luck, we would be in and out before anyone noticed. Without any trucks they would be on foot, so we would have no problem getting away.

                “Looney, I want you to go find SRA Gable, and pick out 8 other men. That is going to be our team.” He turned around to walk away.

                He stopped in mid step. “Jim?”       

                I looked over at him; I could tell that he had something on his mind. “What’s wrong Looney?”

                “Something just doesn’t feel right. I mean we don’t even know if the Major is alive. We haven’t seen any signs of life from them. They could be holding them inside one of the houses, but wouldn’t we have seen more signs?”

                “I know, but it is the only thing that makes any sense. He wouldn’t have left the Hummer here, and pulled out. He knows that any sign of us in country, makes us a target, and I don’t think even he is that selfish. This is the only thing that makes any sense. I wish we had time to verify they were alive, but you know how I feel about leaving anyone dead or alive behind. If they are dead, then they deserve a decent burial, and they sure as hell aint going to get it out here.”

                I could tell my answer didn’t help him much, but he knew that we didn’t have a choice.

                Looney had picked out the men, and had brought them all back to the edge of the camp. I went through and explained to each one what our mission and objective was. I told SRA Gable what his mission was, and that everyone was depending on him to do his part. Without the diversion, there wasn’t much of a chance of getting away with this without a lot of people getting killed or hurt. He said he understood and that we had nothing to worry about, all he needed was one person to help him set everything up. He would use fuses, that were set up in series so that each one would blow at different intervals, and blow each tank up one by one, this would confuse them into thinking there were more people here than what there really were. He said he would need about 30 minutes to set everything up. I told him he had 45 just in case something was to happen. And that we would all only be 500 yards away.

                “Cowboy, I want you to go with him, and help him set up his stuff. You know more about explosives than the rest of us, and might actually be of help to him.”

                Cowboy didn’t have a problem with that he liked doing stuff that was out of the ordinary. And I knew he would really get a kick out of the explosions, and to know that he had something to do with it.

                Smokey said that we would all be in place and ready to move out at 2100. That should put us into the village at around 2140 and then Gable and Cowboy would be working on the explosives. Smokey was planning on blowing the garage, and the trucks at 2230. Hopefully that would give them enough time that they would be asleep, and not expecting anything. The Iraqi’s didn’t normally post too many guards at night, they felt they were untouchable. This could possibly be their downfall tonight.

 

2155 just outside the village

                "Final prep guys, check your equipment, and make sure that everything is in good working order. Also make sure if your are going to use your NVG's that you don’t look towards the explosions." I was checking my weapons over. I had decided that I wanted my shotgun over my m-16. The shotgun would be better for close range support, and made a bigger bang that had a tendency to intimidate people.

                I looked over the men. They were all steadily going over their weapons. Each was in their own little world. Captain Stevens had volunteered to come along. Said that noone would be in this position if it wasn’t for him. I didn’t much like the idea of bringing him along, but every man counted right now. And he could shoot.

                I looked at my watch; we had about another 20 minutes before we reached the point of no return. Once we set off the explosions we were committed to this. At this point we could easily walk away and no one would be the wiser. But there was no way that we were going to walk away from our men.

                I double-checked my shotgun, I loaded filled up my ammo pouch, and took off my backpack laid it off to the side. I didn’t opt for the nvg's I figure that there would be enough light to see where everyone was. And it would take a couple of seconds to remove them when I went inside one of the buildings. It wasn’t much but it was valuable time that could be a matter of life or death.

                There was no need for words. Everyone knew what their area of responsibility was, and each man knew that there were others that were counting on them doing their job. I trusted my men, and I trusted Smokey's decision in the men he had picked. If he felt confident then who was I to not trust him?

                I looked at my watch. 5 minutes until the explosions would start. It was time to get set up.

                "Everyone knows where they need to be. Lets set it up people. We got about 5 minutes till the lights are going to come on."

                No one said a word. They got up and disappeared into the dark heading to their designated point. I headed over to the side of the first house just on the South side of the village. My job was to rush in and clear this place. From what we had seen their shouldn’t be too many men in here. Most of the activity was coming from the other house next door, which had 3 men going in to clear it. I looked down again at my watch. 1 minute to show time. I looked around I couldn’t see anyone anywhere. It was a good night, it was overcast we had low cloud cover. It would make it harder for them to see where we were.

                I heard the explosions coming from where the tanks were parked. About a split second later I heard the first garage blow up, followed by small arms fire erupting all over. I ran up to the door, and kicked it in. I lowered my shotgun, and was looking for a target. I turned around facing the only door in the room, and seen a shadow coming out of the doorway. I took a second to clear my target, and could see from the silhouette that it was not a threat. It was one of the girls that lived here in the village. I held up my hand indicating for her to stay quiet. I moved around the room securing everything. There were no soldiers in this house. I asked her if anyone was in the room, she told me it was only she and her sister. That the soldiers had went into the other house to bunk for the night.

                "Where are our men being kept at?"

                She had a confused look on her face. "I haven’t seen any of your men here. The Soldiers moved in yesterday afternoon and they were alone."

                "What about my men that I left here the other day. Where are they?"

                "They left out of here the day before yesterday. They only took one of the trucks and left the other one here. I thought that they left it for you to pick up when you came back."

                I was furious. Not only did the Major not do as I asked him too. But he just jeopardized the lives of many soldiers. We were in the middle of a fight that we didn’t need to be involved in.

                "Stay here and don’t move, I will send someone for you when all of this is over."

                I stormed out of the house. There was still allot of small arms fire going on towards the middle of the village. I had to get my temper under control. I ran around the side of the house, without thinking. And ran right into 2 Iraqi soldiers, luckily I had surprised them as much as they surprised me. I lowered the shotgun and squeezed off a round taking both of them in the mid section. They both collapsed never knowing what hit them. I stopped for a second I had to get myself under control; this would only make matters worse if I was to lose control now. I took a deep breath and held it till the count of ten, and then slowly let it out. With a lot of luck we were going to make it through this with out any problems. I continued around the side of the house. Peeking around the corner I couldn’t see any sign of any Iraqi soldiers. For that matter I couldn’t see our guys either. Well that would be normal they would be setting themselves up so they could battle this out from behind some equipment. I heard the heavy thunder of a M-60 machine gun and realized it was coming from off to my right I looked over and seen what looked like one of our guys set up over behind a water barrel. I ran over to where he was laying down. I needed to talk to Smokey if I could find where he was. I ran up on one of Smokey’s men, he didn’t have a clue where Smokey was. I guess it didn’t much matter, at this point we were pretty well committed to finishing what we had started, but I was going to kick that majors a*s when we got back to base. Well Smokey had a long drive back to base to hear about this. I am sure he wont be any happier about it then I am right now.

I headed off in the direction of the small arms fire, over at the other edge of the village. I ran across the street dodging a couple of rounds that headed my way, and dove head first in between 2 buildings, I took a second to get my bearing of what was around. I heard a voice and turned around and there was Cowboy standing by the edge of the building, somehow I had passed him and never even seen him standing there. Well he wasn’t a threat so I got lucky this time.

“Cowboy you seen Smokey?”

“The last time I seen him he was heading off over by the other garage. But there are about 20 Iraqi soldiers between him and us right now. Lets kick these son of a b*****s a*s and we can talk to him all the way home then.” I knew that he wasn’t kidding. Cowboy always got pumped up in the height of a gunfight. And he seemed like he was in a whole different place. Almost like he separated himself from reality. We all had our own way of handling things I guess this was his way of doing it. I peered around the corner and seen there was a soldier heading our way, he was about 20 steps from the edge of the building I grabbed my shotgun and let him have it in the mid section. The boom that it made was almost as devastating as the blast itself. It would make a man think twice before getting up if he was alive to. I looked around and it was about another 30 to 40 feet to the next building, this was a little shack that looked like it might hold some tools, but I wanted to make sure that there wasn’t anyone hiding in there. I made sure that it was clear and that there wasn’t anyone there waiting to take me out. I looked up the road and seen that the M-60 was going full bore, and seemed that he had a good vantage point to do the most damage. I also heard that the small arms fire was dyeing down some. I ran over to the small shed and stood outside the door. I could hear what sounded like somebody shuffling around inside. I stepped back with the shotgun at waist height and gave the door a swift kick. It collapses inwards and I scanned the room fast enough to see 2 people standing up in the back of the room. I shot the first one before he had time to move. The other one was standing there with his hands raised. He was shouting in Iraqi at me. I don’t speak much of that s**t, but from what I gathered he was surrendering to me. I shouted at him to come out, and that if he made a move I was going to shoot him. He came out of the building and I noticed that he was an Iraqi colonel. What luck this was. We might be able to use him to stop the rest of the fighting that was going on in the village. I ordered him over by the edge of the building.                     

“Cowboy, can you hear me?” I was hoping that he could because he spoke the language better than anyone else on the team that I knew of.

“Yeah Jim what’s up?”

“Get over here. I got someone I want you to talk too.”

Cowboy came running over around the side of the building. “Well I’ll be you captured yourself a Colonel. What ya want to know Jim?”

“I don’t want to know nothing, there aint nothing he can tell us that will help us much right now. What I would like is that you see if you can convince him to get his guys to surrender. That would be the most help to us right now. I am going to go see if I can find Smokey.”

I turned around and headed off behind the buildings heading off to the other garage where the hummer was parked, I suspected that Smokey would be around there someplace. I heard off in the distance what sounded like the Iraqi colonel hollering at his men. The firing was slowing down a lot. I ran up on the rear of the building, I didn’t see any of our men there. I stopped and looked around the corner. It looked like the men had laid down their guns and where walking towards the where I had left the colonel and Cowboy. I guess that it was working. Our guys were heading in and cleaning up the guns, I had no idea what we were going to do with these prisoners. We couldn’t exactly take them with us, and didn’t have anywhere to leave them. Well that was going to be Smokey’s job to figure out as soon as I could find him. I figured that he would come out of hiding any minute now. I stood their looking around the faces of the men coming out. The clouds had broke and there was a little bit more light now, I could distinguish the faces of the men as they came out. I still did not see Smokey anywhere. I figured it was safe enough now that I could holler his name out.

“Smokey. Where ya at?” I stood expecting him to shout out. After about 5 minutes of standing there I realized that there was no response from him. I found to young airmen standing over by the first house. “ I want you 2 to turn this place upside down and go find SMSgt Peters. Let me know the minute you find him.” I was worried about him this was not like him at all. I have been in many of battles with Smokey and he was always at the head of the pack. I knew the possibility of him being wounded was pretty high just hoped that we got to him before he died.

“Cowboy, get me a head count of how many prisoners we have.”

“Done Jim, there are 12 left including the colonel. Besides the colonel we have a captain, and the rest are all enlisted men. Where do you want to put them at?”

“Not sure yet. Lets figure out what were going to do with them. I need a head count of our dead and wounded first. Lets take care of them and then we will figure out what is next.”

I saw Shorty running over towards me. “Hey Bright eyes. Smokey is wounded. He took a bullet in the shoulder as soon as the first explosion went off. One of the b******s stumbled around the corner as Smokey was lighting up the garage. He’s ok, but we need to get him some medical attention fast. Have you seen the Doc around anywhere?”

“I haven’t seen him, but he is probably over by the rendezvous point, I am sure he is ready I am going to go see what I can do for him while you find the doc.” I wasn’t going to let anything happen to him, not if I had any control over it. I ran over to the area that Shorty had said that he’d left him. I rounded the corner and there he was. Someone had put a bandage on his wound. He was alert and sitting up.

“You ok Smokey?”

“Been better, but I’ll live. What’s going on out there?”

“Well Smokey to begin with that damn major isn’t here. Turns out that he split town the other day. And left one of hummers here. The best I can figure is that he didn’t want to take them both for whatever reason he may have had. Seems he knows more about combat than I do.”

“I would like to know what he was thinking about. I swear I am going to pull his head from his a*s if I have to do it myself.”

“Well the way I see it Smokey I will get my hands on him first. And your not in any shape right now to be showing anyone anything.” I took a couple of more minutes and briefed him on what else had happened in the last few minutes and told him that we had 12 prisoners. And were still accessing our wounded and dead.

“Sounds like you got everything under control out there Jim. I want you to search the prisoners, take any information they might have from them, maps, weapons, and anything else that intelligence back at base might be able to use. None of their trucks are usable so I guess they are going to be on foot from here on out. Give them enough food and water and send them off marching. They wont have enough time to bother with us. We won’t be here any longer than we need to be. As soon as we gather up our wounded and dead we are heading back to base. Now why don’t you help me get over to the other side of the village. I aint going to sit here and die in this god forsaken country.”

I helped Smokey get to his feet, he had lost a lot of blood but it wasn’t anything that he would let stop him from finishing up this mission.

I carried Smokey over where the rest of the men had gathered.

“Jim, we got 4 minor wounds, not including Smokey, and 3 dead.  I got some guys gathering up the bodies now. I had Sammy clean up all the guns in the center of town, and a couple of men are searching the bodies now for weapons and anything that might be important. They were ordered to leave any personal items where they find them. What ya think about letting them take care of their own dead?”

“I don’t know what ya think Smokey? You think that it will be ok?”

“I don’t see a problem with that as long as we sweep this place for any weapons and ammo. I don’t want one gun left here that could bite us in the a*s. I don’t see a problem with leaving them here to clean up their dead.”

Let’s gather up our troops and get on the road. We got about 2 days drive ahead of us, and I don’t want to be around here any longer than we have to be.”

I looked around and it looked like everyone was busy cleaning up the mess. Somebody had went and gotten the hummer from the garage and was loading up the dead and the wounded into it.

0830 10 miles out of Iraqi

                Everything was good to go. We had cleaned up the village. Got our troops gathered up, and high tailed it out of there before anyone knew what had happened back at the village. We were heading home. Smokey was doing ok, he was resting in the back of the truck and if all worked out ok we would be home in a few hours. We had crossed the border without any more problems.

1345 about a mile outside of the base

                “Jim? We need to head over to the hospital and drop off these wounded, then to the morgue to get our dead processed. Its been a hell of a trip and before anyone else gets to ya. You and your guys did a hell of a job out there. You did nothing wrong and I will make sure that the major is dealt with. What happened was bullshit and we lost 3 good men because of his stupidity.”

                We pulled up to the gate and the guard waved us through. We drove over to the hospital, and got the wounded inside. I went to get Smokey out of the hummer, and the look on his face told me that I had better think twice about it. “I aint getting out here. I got some business to take care of before I get this taken care of. I will be ok, but right now we have some business to take care of. Lets head over to the command post and drop off our pilot, and see if we can’t find the Major.”

                I told Looney to take the rest of the men back to the hanger and get the stuff put away. That we would be along shortly to out brief the mission. The Captain jumped into the back seat of the hummer and we drove off towards the command post.

                “Sgt Rosson. I want you to thank you for what you and your men did. You saved my life. I will stop by and talk to your men tomorrow if that is ok with you.”

                “The men would like that Sir. They do this job because they love it, but it helps when someone says thank you and shows how much they appreciate it.”

                We pulled up to the command post, and got out. The captain helped Smokey get out and we headed up to the door. 

                “Glad to see you guys made it home.”

                The voice sounded familiar in the back of my mind. But I couldn’t remember where I had heard it before. Then it hit me. It was the voice of the major.

                “ Well no thanks to you. That was pretty f*****g stupid that crap you pulled back there. You cost us some men’s lives, and some others that are going to be laid up in sick bay for a few days.”

                “What are you talking about?” He had no clue what he had done wrong.

                I started to walk over to him. Smokey grabbed my arm and pulled me back. I’ll handle this Jim. Smokey walked up to the Major and laid him out on the ground. You stupid Son Of A B***h the next time that a Special Forces troop tells you to do something you better f*****g do it. You left a piece of equipment out there that cost us 3 lives. You were told to take both hummers across the border. You know what if your too damn stupid to realize what you did wrong I don’t have time to stand here and show you how to pull your head out of your a*s. This will be briefed to your superiors, and yes I will let them know that I knocked the s**t out of you. Just make sure that when you file the report that they spell my name right. That’s one T in peters you a*****e.” Smokey walked up to the command post door. I figured this was a good time to keep my mouth shut and follow him for once.

 

 

 

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