My unit went out almost every single night in Iraq in '07 and almost every single night they tried to hit it with a VBIED, a car bomb, and never succeeded. We always had good air and SIGINT but there were still some close calls. One night a car came screaming around a corner...

..at night, with its headlights off, during a fight where shots have already been fired. After curfew it's just black market stuff, car bombs, and coalition units and coalition units run white light because they suck and black market peeps drive away from you so it's pretty...

..obvious VBIED and a friend of mine hit it with a minigun and just perforated it and it turned out to have a dude and 5 kids in it and no explosives and I had to do the investigation to make sure he'd followed the rules of engagement, which he had, and which included 1) audio...

..warn-off, which is a flash-bang tossed from the cupola followed immediately by 2) visual warn-off, which is a green beam laser that's so strong it's not skin-safe and that's mounted to the minigun and just blipped at the window followed by 3) disabling the tire or the engine...

..but a rookie shoots a tire and so you shoot the engine and that's closer to the driver which is 4) disable the driver, which is what you do immediately after firing on the engine. You can do all that in a few seconds, and he did, but damn. Someone filled a car up with kids...

..and drove it into a damn gunfight and knew exactly what was gonna happen. My conclusion was that they were trying to slow our response because they literally never got a VBIED close enough to cause physical damage, but I don't think that shit did my friend any good. 5 kids...

..that didn't look at all related. Someone bought them at the kid market I guess, gotta be orphans everywhere. Whole goddamn scenario was tragic.

Got an intel report in Afghanistan that the Taliban had bought a kid, "age 8-11 and appears to have Down syndrome", had turned him into a human bomb. Always pictured some dude throwing candy under a pickup to train that kid, like someone was gonna throw candy at my truck one day.

Never saw that kid but always looked for him. Hate that kids gotta grow up in that shit.

When I talk about the mom wailing and rending her garments and patting flames on her boy's body, now legless, that dude had been driving a VBIED. Got blown out the front windshield. Probably had a back seat full of propane tanks, they usually did. Still felt bad for the mom. JFC.

I had to do 3 investigations in Iraq and 2 involved questionable shootings. You're supposed to use a rotating roster for investigating officers but the rules are a lot looser in a combat zone and I'm a competent writer and decent troubleshooter, so I got the interesting ones.

The car full of kids shook my friend, just like breaking my ASP I loaned him on a dude and then shooting him off his muzzle following a muzzle strike shook another friend (who'd already been in way too much shit with TF Ranger and Haditha dam), and fucking up and getting ahead...

...of the dog during a breach and seeing a dog tear half a guy's face off (and being largely responsible for it, and knowing it) shook friend number 3. I guess that's the highlight reel from OIF V.

I don't recommend the "featherweight" model ASP at all, btw. The steel ones are nice tho'.