Week 9 - Marching Orders
We were the only ones there after everyone else had pulled out.
Five hundred of us, all different specialties, left to fend for ourselves in the twenty-first century’s most hostile of environments - the Middle East. Force Operations Specific Engagement, Senator Marshall called it, a paradigm which hypothetically meant no more throwing thousands of soldiers at every enemy force. A mother was recorded crying and asking the defense industry why they wanted her son to die and when it hit CNN, the lobbyists quietly backed down; the New Military Engagement Standards Act passed with bipartisan support and was signed into law as fast as the President could get a pen on it.
So instead of having fifty-thousand troops in Iraq, there were five hundred of us. And here’s the thing - when you’re forced to live with the locals, when you interact with them on a day to day basis and can’t just stick with everyone that has fatigues and boots and a rifle, you learn to mesh pretty quickly. And the more you make yourself personable and stop questioning everyone that has a turban one, the less likely they are to hate you. In the five months since FOSE had been implemented, there was a sharp increase in the number of tips we received - IEDs on this and this road, shopkeepers would whisper - and we made it through three months without a single causality.
But it wasn’t all rainbows and puppies, which is why we were still there. We had engagements every day, sometimes multiple times a day; it was just that they were just more targeted. Even though every mission had to be cross-checked to make sure that it was necessary and that there were no errors in the intel, there were still more than enough bad guys that would never let peace happen.
So we did what we had to do.
I received the message at ten a.m. sharp, a sharp double-ping on my phone indicating that it was not a regular text. I checked it and gave Terry and Ryan a thumbs up - it wasn’t until eleven that we needed to be at staging, so at least I could finish breakfast with them. Neither of them looked surprised that they hadn’t gotten a message; in our three months together, only twice had Terry and I been paired together on a squad, and Ryan hadn’t joined us yet, though he had certainly seen his fair share of engagements elsewhere.
“Where?” Terry asked, after a sip of his full-pulp Tropicana - imported orange juice from the States was one of his traditions. If he didn’t get orange juice in the morning, he was a cranky bastard.
“The Canal Hotel,” I said, checking the message again. “Right on Muthana Al-Shabani Street. Tömas will be commanding, it looks like, and they’re calling in four others. Don’t think I’ve worked with any of them.”
Ryan nodded, taking a slice of toast. “Tömas is good - he brought in Al-Umari last year, somewhere in Kandahār, with a team of twelve. Didn’t know he had been reassigned, but you’re in good hands.”
I whistled quietly; the capture of one of the Most Wanted alive was a pretty big sign that the commander was competent and that this was an important mission. “I’ll see you guys after, then?” I asked, and they waved me off. Another tradition - the guy that has an engagement never pays.
My gear was stashed in the armory, the only real centralized structure that still existed, and I collected everything I needed and headed off to the staging ground, a small house two streets away from the Canal Hotel. My gear was carefully hidden in a large rucksack and I took care to blend in with all the other pedestrian traffic, watching the streets as I went.
When I got there, Tömas opened the door and pointed out the other members of the team. Clarence and Borgan, would be on assault, nodded, and Johnson, would be joining me as a long-rifle, came over and shook my hand. Markos stood back; he was on loan from another agency, and had provided the intel.
“We’re here to engage a terrorist target and rescue two hostages that he has taken,” Tömas said. “The target is a subcommander in Hamas; the hostages are two important civilians that for this engagement will remain nameless. Clarence and Borgan be proceeding from the stairs as a western businessman and his partner; Johnson and Rivers, you’ll take the building across the river, Markos, you’ll be stationed in the lobby running interference.”
And that was that - briefing done, we took our places. The detractors to FOSE always said that we could never trust soldiers that weren’t in our unit, but the months following its implementation disproved that - familiarity was good, of course, but absolute competence was better. With only five hundred people that remained, each person was the top of his speciality, and discipline was tighter than ever.
This mission was no difference; the insertion was smooth and the extraction was doubly so. Intel had been spot on about the enemy force composition, and after a few double-taps and two almost simultaneous silenced-rifle shots, the hostages were free and the enemies were down.
“Nice shot,” Johnson said, and I grinned as we packed up our long rifles and rejoined the others.
Mission done, we shook hands and dispersed. We would see each other again, or we wouldn’t, but the important part was that we had come together and gotten the job done cleanly and effectively. It would be on tomorrow’s news or it wouldn’t, but it didn’t matter, because the hostages were free and the enemies were down.
This, I told Terry and Ryan during breakfast the next day, was the future of counterinsurgency: a small force of experts coming together to accomplish a goal, and then going back to living among the people they were there to help.
Five hundred of us, all different specialties, left to fend for ourselves in the twenty-first century’s most hostile of environments - the Middle East. Force Operations Specific Engagement, Senator Marshall called it, a paradigm which hypothetically meant no more throwing thousands of soldiers at every enemy force. A mother was recorded crying and asking the defense industry why they wanted her son to die and when it hit CNN, the lobbyists quietly backed down; the New Military Engagement Standards Act passed with bipartisan support and was signed into law as fast as the President could get a pen on it.
So instead of having fifty-thousand troops in Iraq, there were five hundred of us. And here’s the thing - when you’re forced to live with the locals, when you interact with them on a day to day basis and can’t just stick with everyone that has fatigues and boots and a rifle, you learn to mesh pretty quickly. And the more you make yourself personable and stop questioning everyone that has a turban one, the less likely they are to hate you. In the five months since FOSE had been implemented, there was a sharp increase in the number of tips we received - IEDs on this and this road, shopkeepers would whisper - and we made it through three months without a single causality.
But it wasn’t all rainbows and puppies, which is why we were still there. We had engagements every day, sometimes multiple times a day; it was just that they were just more targeted. Even though every mission had to be cross-checked to make sure that it was necessary and that there were no errors in the intel, there were still more than enough bad guys that would never let peace happen.
So we did what we had to do.
I received the message at ten a.m. sharp, a sharp double-ping on my phone indicating that it was not a regular text. I checked it and gave Terry and Ryan a thumbs up - it wasn’t until eleven that we needed to be at staging, so at least I could finish breakfast with them. Neither of them looked surprised that they hadn’t gotten a message; in our three months together, only twice had Terry and I been paired together on a squad, and Ryan hadn’t joined us yet, though he had certainly seen his fair share of engagements elsewhere.
“Where?” Terry asked, after a sip of his full-pulp Tropicana - imported orange juice from the States was one of his traditions. If he didn’t get orange juice in the morning, he was a cranky bastard.
“The Canal Hotel,” I said, checking the message again. “Right on Muthana Al-Shabani Street. Tömas will be commanding, it looks like, and they’re calling in four others. Don’t think I’ve worked with any of them.”
Ryan nodded, taking a slice of toast. “Tömas is good - he brought in Al-Umari last year, somewhere in Kandahār, with a team of twelve. Didn’t know he had been reassigned, but you’re in good hands.”
I whistled quietly; the capture of one of the Most Wanted alive was a pretty big sign that the commander was competent and that this was an important mission. “I’ll see you guys after, then?” I asked, and they waved me off. Another tradition - the guy that has an engagement never pays.
My gear was stashed in the armory, the only real centralized structure that still existed, and I collected everything I needed and headed off to the staging ground, a small house two streets away from the Canal Hotel. My gear was carefully hidden in a large rucksack and I took care to blend in with all the other pedestrian traffic, watching the streets as I went.
When I got there, Tömas opened the door and pointed out the other members of the team. Clarence and Borgan, would be on assault, nodded, and Johnson, would be joining me as a long-rifle, came over and shook my hand. Markos stood back; he was on loan from another agency, and had provided the intel.
“We’re here to engage a terrorist target and rescue two hostages that he has taken,” Tömas said. “The target is a subcommander in Hamas; the hostages are two important civilians that for this engagement will remain nameless. Clarence and Borgan be proceeding from the stairs as a western businessman and his partner; Johnson and Rivers, you’ll take the building across the river, Markos, you’ll be stationed in the lobby running interference.”
And that was that - briefing done, we took our places. The detractors to FOSE always said that we could never trust soldiers that weren’t in our unit, but the months following its implementation disproved that - familiarity was good, of course, but absolute competence was better. With only five hundred people that remained, each person was the top of his speciality, and discipline was tighter than ever.
This mission was no difference; the insertion was smooth and the extraction was doubly so. Intel had been spot on about the enemy force composition, and after a few double-taps and two almost simultaneous silenced-rifle shots, the hostages were free and the enemies were down.
“Nice shot,” Johnson said, and I grinned as we packed up our long rifles and rejoined the others.
Mission done, we shook hands and dispersed. We would see each other again, or we wouldn’t, but the important part was that we had come together and gotten the job done cleanly and effectively. It would be on tomorrow’s news or it wouldn’t, but it didn’t matter, because the hostages were free and the enemies were down.
This, I told Terry and Ryan during breakfast the next day, was the future of counterinsurgency: a small force of experts coming together to accomplish a goal, and then going back to living among the people they were there to help.