"The Iraqi's win it!"

“Hey Wal’er, go round up the dudes. You trackin’ who’s going tomorrow?” SFC Sal had taken to pronouncing my name without the “t” for some reason.
“Yuup, roger.” I headed into the Joe’s room to get them outside for the mission brief. (Lesson in Army vocabulary; Joe: noun, denotes a soldier with the rank of Specialist and below)
We gathered around the whitewash board for our mission brief where either the platoon sergeant or platoon leader would go over the operation order for the following day’s mission. This was when everyone found out the who, what, why, when, and where of the upcoming mission. The situation and purpose would be explained and a timeline would be put out for the pre-combat checks/inspections as well as the SP time (SP time is the time we roll out of the gate). Everyone huddled around the board while the brief was given and copied notes onto index cards or notebooks with whatever information that was pertinent to the mission (which was any and all information put out during the mission brief). Tasks would be assigned to individual soldiers. For instance, I might be in charge of ensuring all the communication checks were done the night before the mission as well right before we rolled out. A Joe might be given the task of carrying the breach tools and would be responsible for getting that equipment in order the night before. SFC Sal then pointed to an enlarged satellite image of the area we’d be operating in.
Task: conduct a raid on two suspected Al Qaeda safe houses in a neighborhood of downtown Muqdidiyah.
Conditions: given three Bradley Fighting Vehicles carrying three dismount teams of 6 soldiers each, drive from FOB Normandy to the vicinity of the target houses, dismount, kick in the door, find some hostile intent and shoot everyone in the face. (Note: that’s not what was put out in the mission brief but it’s what I’d planned on doing).
Purpose: disrupt AQIZ activity in Muqdidiyah in the vicinity of said neighborhood where IED attacks on coaliton forces utilizing a major supply route were originating from.
SFC Sal showed us where we would be getting out of the Bradley’s and where the target houses were located on the satellite imagery. The target houses were at least one kilometer away. At first I figured, No big deal, we’ll just sneak and peek our way over to the house, slip over the walls and burst inside before they ever know we’re anywhere near. We’ve done this plenty of times. But every time we did something like this before it was in the wee dark hours of the morning. I then recalled the SP time was in the midmorning hours when the sun would be up and exposing us for the entire world to see. SFC Sal continued, “So, we’ll drop ramp here and take off at a sprint towards the target objectives. It’ll be about a 1,000 meter sprint give or take, so drink plenty of water tonight.”
“Give or take like, what… 800 meters?” I asked, being a smartass. I made the mistake of making the comment within arm’s reach of him. He scowled and punched me in the gut. “Nah ya lazy fucker. We’re gonna sprint the whole way!...Wal’er…you!...” he bowed his shoulders outwards taking on the aggressive alpha male posture. SFC Sal is a guy who scores 350+ on PT tests (that’s out of a scale that ends at 300, no shit). In March, he’d been shot 5 times. By May, he was back with the platoon leading small dismount teams again. He’s not a guy to fuck with. Luckily, he likes me and knew I was only being a smartass. Nonetheless, I raised my hands up and acquiesced. I didn’t like the idea of sprinting a whole klick in full battle rattle during the hottest time of the day. But it didn’t matter if I didn’t like it or not, that was the mission and it had to be done. SFC Sal went on to explain that the muj were only at the house during certain hours of the day (according to our source) and rolling up and surrounding the houses with the Bradley’s wasn’t possible since A) the only way to the houses were through narrow ass alleyways that a Brad couldn’t fit down and B) you can’t possibly achieve any amount of surprise with a 35 ton tracked vehicle that can be heard from 5 kilometers away. It made absolute sense. In fact, it was a good idea. They’d never expect it. Still, I really didn’t want to make that sprint in full battle rattle with the temperature reaching 120+ degrees.
The next day, we geared up, lined up outside near the Brads and SFC Sal went down the line personally inspecting everyone’s equipment. Weapon cleaned and oiled? Check. Full combat load on soldier? Check. All sensitive items secured with 5/50 chord? Check. (sensitive item: anything assigned to you from the arm’s room like night vision device, sidearm, that kinda stuff). Water in camelback? Check. Fire resistant gloves on? Check. Hearing protecting? Check. Ballistic eye protection? Check. (Note: although it was the standard operating procedure for all soldiers to wear hearing/eye protection, I never wore it out in sector when I was a dismount, the eye glasses fogged up as soon as I started sweating, and the ear plugs limited my situational awareness, figuring it was better to be able to see and hear and thus reduce the chance of something happening that those thing s were supposed to protect, I always ditched them in my cargo pockets as soon as the ramp of the Bradley went up).
After the PCC’s we’d mount up, raise the ramp and head to the front gate at which time the ramp would drop, we’d have one last smoke before the mission or take one last piss next to the Brad (another Note: if you ever find yourself in this situation, do not piss on your vehicle, pissing next to it is okay, but pissing on it is just bad luck, like eating Charms out of an MRE on a FTX, if you’re not in the Army, you probably won’t understand that, but trust me, it’s bad juu-juu).
We rolled out and headed to a small, friendly Shiite market area of Muqdidiyah. Ever since Muqtada Al Sadr had declared a cease fire for his militia against all coalition forces (God bless his little cotton socks) we never got attacked in these areas unless it was by the odd Al Qaeda suicide bomber. I’m not saying Al Sadr is a good guy. Far from it, he’s an absolute douche bag and given the chance, I’d send him to Allah. But he definitely made our deployment a lot less of a hassle and more casualty-free with his cease fire.
The ramp dropped and I fell in as we took off at a dead sprint towards our objective. We ran through the market and cut through some alleyways while all the locals just looked at us like, What the fuck’s going on here? We moved to the edge of a clearing that separated this particular Shiite neighborhood from the Sunni ‘hood where our target house’s were located. We hugged the edge of a palm grove, “boxing” the clearing. For some reason, while I was running I kept singing the chorus from the Doors song Break on through to the other side over and over again in my head. We started at a dead sprint but by the time we reached the edge of the Sunni neighborhood we could only muster a light jog. Another 150 meters or so into the complex alleys and side streets that make up these typical Iraqi urban centers and we finally arrived at our target. We quickly stacked along the wall while the breach man moved up and blew the lock off the metal gate with a shotgun. We rushed inside and stacked against the wall outside the front door of the house. The shotgun wasn’t needed as Lobban kicked the cheap wooden door in with a swift blow from his tree trunk sized legs. We tactically cleared the buildings and… we found jack shit. Aside from a poster of Michael Owen in a Liverpool FC jersey hanging on the wall and one room where the previous occupants had stored the household goods before moving out, the place was empty. There wasn’t so much as a shell casing inside the house. The poster struck me as odd though. It was supposed to be an Al Qaeda safe house. Surely, no AQIZ safe house would have a big ass poster of an English infidel superstar. They’d have a poster of Mohammed slaying some Jews or something, right? I was about to point this out to SFC Sal before he informed us, after double checking his imagery and grids that we were in fact, one block too far to the north. So, again, already profusely sweating and completely smoked from the run, we hauled ass back outside, moved to the right house and did it all over again. No one was inside but we did find a bunch of Iraqi Army uniforms and some old school American issued Army gear (like a poncho, canteen, shit like that). We questioned the neighbors and they told us that yes, this was sometimes used by Al Qaeda insurgents but they hadn’t been there for a few days and they only came before or after they carried out an attack. We found sections of the walls that surrounded the house knocked out on the south side allowing them easy escape/entrance routes depending on whether they were running to or from a fight.
I was sitting on my ass outside the house while SFC Sal kept picking through the items in the house, excitedly finding all sorts of cool Iraqi Army memorabilia. The other dismount team charged with raiding the other suspected insurgent house called over the radio and told us that they too had come up empty. I was keeping an eye on the front gate when the entire fucking neighborhood erupted in small arms fire. There were AKs being fired to the north, south, east and west. We all immediately grabbed the nearest piece of cover and held our weapons at the ready. Oh fuck me, this is no fucking good. We’re out here on our own in a spot that our Brad’s can’t get to us and we’re completely surrounded. The small arms fire continued but I noticed that I didn’t hear a single round hissing by overhead or cracking against any of the surrounding structures. Uhhh…what the hell? I had already called up a contact report over the radio.
I asked SGT Jax "Are we getting shot at? What the fuck-?" He shrugged his shoulders, as confused as I was. I raised my head up and glanced around at the buildings across the alley. Nothing. I slowly pulled myself up the wall and peered up and down the alleyway but aside from a couple of teenage girls who were there before the shooting started, there was nobody. SSG W-, who’d been in charge of the dismount team that was covering our exfil route (exfiltration, the path we’d be leaving on), was excitedly calling up contact reports. CPT R- come over the radio and told us all to calm the fuck down. He was standing outside an Iraqi shop watching the Asian Cup final that Iraq’s soccer team had just won, 1 to nil. It was all just Iraqi celebratory fire. Hajji’s like to celebrate by shooting their weapons into the air without any regard where the bullets come down because they’re ignorant and that’s how they’re brought up.
I started laughing to myself. Someone asked me, “What the fuck’s so funny!?”
“Iraq just won a soccer game, 1 to nothing.”
We all instantly relaxed, lit up smokes, had a laugh, and took stock of our situation. The raid was a bust aside from a few Iraqi Army uniforms and some American TA-50 (Army issued gear). I couldn’t help but find the whole situation amusing. We’d sprinted our asses off all this way and didn’t kill or capture a single muj and ended up being absolutely terrified by the sounds of celebration. As we headed back towards the friendly Shiite neighborhood and our vehicles, I passed a group of young Iraqi dudes cheering outside a small kiosk like shop. They hardly paid any attention to us. I thought about the scene from the movie Major League when the Cleveland Indian’s won the pennant and the announcer starts going ape shit. I turned towards the Iraqi’s, clasped my helmet with both hands and started shouting “The Iraqi’s win it! The Iraqi’s win it! Oh my God! The Iraqi’s win it!” Their mouths were still frozen in wide grins but their eyes were saying What the fuck is this dude yelling about? Apparently, they’d never seen Major League. Their loss.