The Amphibious SUV.

One of our teams needed to make a run down to the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad. So like normal I was placed in the rear vehicle. Driving down the road as fast as we can the driver of the first SUV caught a glimpse of a large pool of water at the base of the highway overpass. At first it looked like a puddle of water but as the cars still moving over 90 miles per hour the puddle became a pool and the pool became a lake. The driver asked if he should slow down to avoid the water hazard but the Officer in charge said, "no we can make that." The SUV ploughed into the water only to hit it like a brick wall. Lurching foward, the heavily armored SUV stopped suddenly at the bottom of the highway overpass. We slammed on our brakes and avoided the hazard in order to avoid the same mistake. I pushed the back door opened and sprinted to the nearest spot to provide immediate protection. We were in the middle of downtown Baghdad and we were still several miles away from the security of the Green Zone. Both sides of the highway had rows of multi-story apartment houses with their occupants already becoming curious to the situation.

"Call it in." I said to my driver, "and give immediate concern for additional firepower." The Soldier grabbed the microphone and began to call it in as a serious incident report. The 4 team members in the now swamped SUV came out and fall into the darkish colored water. "I wouldn't drink that or get that near your mouth folks." Tim said as he lifted his helmet up and wiped the sweat from his forehead, "that is raw sewage. Looks like someone blew a hole in the main sewer line and this is a big pool of pooh." One of the team members began to throw up as a shock as he walked from the hip deep murkish water. The wind blew the smell towards our nostrils which was so harsh that I lifted my T-shirt up to provide a brief break from the stentch. "You better go and see the doctors when you guys get back because you wouldn't want something to start causing some serious health issues."

"This smells worse than my cat's litter box." one said as he was struggling to unharness his gear. "Yeah, I think the cat box is actually cleaner than this crap." The next item was to secure the vehicle and strip it of any weapons, information, or gear that could be used by the enemy. So off back into the now brownish water, one of the Soldiers yanked on the handle of the door to no avail. "Did someone locked the door? Can I get the keys to get into this thing?"

That was something new, everyone seemed to forget where exactly where the keys to the doors at and who had them last. People began to empty their pockets and backpacks in a hopeless search to find a set of car keys. But no one could find them. The Soldier slowly crawled on the hood and peered inside the dark tinted windows. "Yeah I see them, there still in the ignition." It was one thing to lock yourself out of your car in a WALMART parking lot, it is a totally different piece when you are in the middle of a anti-American section of town, with one vehicle stuck in pooh water, battery dead, and electrical system gone, and the keys are locked in the sterring column. "Mac' get over here ASAP!" a voice cried out. I got up and dashed across the highway to the disabled vehicle. "What's up?"

"Well it would seem that we now have a 4 ton paperweight sitting in a lake of raw sewage. We are in a hot red zone and I need an assessment on the possibility of enemy contact?" the Officer asked as he was reaching for the map with our current coordinates. "I would say that we need to get the hell out of here most riki-tick before hajji comes up and opens up on us. We are not in a position to slug it out and we have not enough heavy weapons do take the fight to them. Not to mention that we are covered on both sides of the highway with potential firing positions for several snipers to start taking us down. We need MP and tank support, if we can get an air assest out here I will take that too. But we are sitting ducks over here." Just as I said that the local Iraqi kids came out and started asking for candy. "Candy candy mister mister." "Bush number 1 Saddam bad." "GI number 1 Saddam bad" I sat down on the concrete to take a break and my driver brought me a set of binoculars. Scanning both sides we could see movement of Iraqi adults mostly male making phone calls on cell phones. Cars began to drive around the areas again and again. It was then that the back of my hair on my neck began to feel like someone was pulling on it. "We gotta get out of here Mac. The are setting up for an attack or start some sniper fire." Gonzo said as he was low crawling to get some protection from the open areas that the highway created. "Listen stay down and if you see anything call me."

Radio traffic picked up and soon we got into contact with the area quick reaction force. At first it was just three US military police humvees but then one wrecker vehicle and their gun trucks came up to provide additional firepower. Still a little shakey, the Officer pulled his rifle over and fired several rounds into the back window of the stranded SUV. The heavily armored glass chipped away but failed to crack even after several well aimed shots at point blank range. I thought for sure he was going to get hit by a stray bullet. The MP NCO walked over and told the Officer to stop that (censor) and just hook the car up."

The kids suddenly ran back towards their homes and that is when I waved to one of the MP NCOs and pointed to the mass of kids moving away. "What gives?" one of the new Soldiers asked. "If the kids are around us then we are okay. It's bad press if they kill some innocent kid. But the kids are leaving which means that someone is about to do something and they want the kids out of the way." I said as I pushed myself low to the ground and waved for my little fire team to spread out and cover each other. My weapon was pushed from "safe" to "fire" as we waited for a most certain attack. All of us were straining to see anything but we couldn't get a fix or an idea what was going on." The Officer started to get nervous and began to yell for the Soldiers to pick up the pace but it was difficult to get the lines connected. "For God sakes we are sitting ducks here. We are going to get hit! What the hell are you guys waiting on, you want them to take us out! We'll be like fish in a barrel!" he screamed as the Soldiers pounded the bolts to secure the cargo straps to the back of the wrecker truck. Gunners in their seats began to rotate their heavy weapons in search of potential targets. It got really quiet and then I got the feeling that something is going down.

The first shot rang out and made that "ping" sound when it hits metal. "Oh (censor) we got a sniper!" One Soldiers stood up and attempted to look over the edge of our vehicle. Gonzo ran over and yanked them down to the ground, "you want to get your head blown off?"

The next couple of shots rang out in quick sucession. One of the gunners could see a twinkle of muzzle flashes and began to return fire from their M2 heavy machine gun. The "clank clank clank" sound mixed with the noise of the empty brass shells falling to the ground made a unique combination. Tracer fire I could see a small apartment house being ripped to pieces as the massive 12.7mm rounds pierced the walls and opened the house like a can of tuna fish. I wanted to fire my weapon but I could see the target and my limited range could not compete with the heavy weapons on the hummers. Then from the air we could see a helicopter fly over and the sniper fire ceased as soon as it had started. Sweating profusely I was drenched from head to toe. The whole incident had taken about 2 hours but it felt more like a day had passed. It was our first time we had been under small arms fire but it certainly was not the last.

We dragged the SUV back to camp and there it sat lifeless with a terrible funk smell that caused one to feel sick as soon as you opened the door. It would take considerable work and time to get the SUV back to operational use but that night we had made contact with one of the naval Officers and acquired the Naval Surface Warfare pin. We had a small awards event and presented the uniform pin to the Officer whose order got us into that mess. He was not that happy as the Major pinned the naval warfare pin on his polo shirt, we created a citation as well as given him his new nickname, "Skipper".

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