our sixth sense out here on the road.  Sure enough, as the local Iraqi traffic began to pass our convoy at an increased rate my gunner reported, “Hey Sarnt, I think we got a vehicle pacing our convoy…”  Roadside bombers will commonly employ a “pace-vehicle” to drive alongside our gun trucks and report the exact speed to the trigger man, patiently waiting to detonate an IED at just the right moment.  As demeaning

as it may sound, most all Iraqis know by now that if they drive the same speed next to one of our convoys, bad things are likely to happen.  Too many times have soldiers had to pay with their blood for allowing the local traffic to get too close to our vehicles.  Fool me once, jokes on you. Fool me twice, well…here in a combat zone we don’t let ourselves be fooled a second time.  “Alright Rivera, keep a close eye on him,” I replied to the gunner of my humvee, “we’re gonna try to shake him off.”  Before long it became clear that the three passengers in this worn-out pickup truck were up to no good, bad guys for lack of a better word.  More civilian traffic continues to pass us in the opposite lane as we draw even closer to our “Tier-One IED Hot Spot,” the pickup truck remains. “Okay Rivera, this guy is unresponsive to EOF (Escalation-of-Force), he’s going to blow us up any second now.  Let’s put a few 10-round bursts over his trunk.”  My gunner opens fire with the humbling M240B 7.62mm machine gun putting perfect lines of laser-like tracer rounds into the dirt just a few feet behind the pickup’s rear bumper.

Normally in that situation, we would shoot to disable the vehicle – two in the engine block seems to do the trick – but in this case the road was scattered with too many innocent civilian vehicles as well as another US Army convoy for us to shoot anywhere except for the side of the road.  “He’s not stopping Sarnt, I know he sees me shootin’ at him!”  Rivera was right, these guys weren’t even phased by the warning shots we regrettably afforded them,  “Okay, roger, keep your shots in dirt, we’re gonna move in to cut this f*cker off!”  Our machine gun continues to pump rounds down range as we begin to weave in and out of traffic in a desperate attempt to stop the suspected pace truck.  Luckily, the surrounding civilian traffic was becoming increasing congested in the road ahead and we were able to pull in front of this guy and show him the inside of a M240B machine gun barrel.  As to be expected, this caused him to stop and for the moment, and it looked as though we had diffused a well-planned IED attack without harming a single individual.  I call over the radio to the rest of the gun trucks in my convoy, “This is Hollywood, we got the suspected pace-man pulled over just short of the overpass.  Front and rear security trucks, I need you escort the convoy off the main road.  Middle truck, I need you to pull up on the opposite side of this white pick-up we have stopped and

pull near-side security.”  The humvees fly by and execute the orders without hesitation or question.  Juggernaut, the nickname of the middle gun truck commander, speeds up to my location, screeches to a halt, and proceeds to ensure that nothing gets in or out of the immediate area.  We’ve now essentially cordoned off the area, the pace-man and his cronies are backed into a corner with nowhere to run.  I call to Juggernaut and coordinate what’s to happen next.  We use this time not only to make sure everyone is on the same page, but also to let our gunner’s get a feel for how the suspected insurgents are going to respond.  Most people would be terrified in this situation, or rather, should be terrified.  However, after you’ve dealt with some truly evil people, you come to realize that these ‘bad guys’ in fact feel no

sharing any and all war stories.  “Rivera, cover these guys in the passenger seat, I got the driver!”  Locked and loaded, I cautiously inch towards the stopped pickup truck while motioning for everyone to exit the vehicle.  Not too different than their actions on the road just a few minutes prior, all three of the male occupants fail to obey my commands.  I train my M4 rifle to center-mass of the driver and begin to scream.  This tactic is known as the “Universal Translator,” and works well enough

  As it turns out, our boys up the road were just fine and the three inbound friendlies were nothing more than a local scout/route clearance team that had noticed our predicament.  Keeping a watchful eye on the three suspects, we wait while the reinforcements pull up to help set a perimeter.  In all actuality, it is more these guys’ responsibility to investigate these types of situations than it is mine.  Nonetheless, I am more than willing to do what it takes in order to get rid of people

of older insurgents who may have been Saddam loyalists. The youngest guy, who happened to be 35, was carrying a notebook filled with a very neat yet complicated alphanumeric table.  Complete with labeled columns and grids, items like these are actually more incriminating than cell phones, cash, or even weapons.  What this log book tells me is that this now confirmed pace-vehicle was recording the characteristics of our convoy as he followed us down the road.  Now without getting in to too much detail (not to mention remaining within the boundaries of ‘Classified Information’), it doesn’t take an expert to figure out that the more a bad guy knows about convoys’ speed, tempo, and location, the easier it is to blow them up with an IED at exactly the right moment. 

my other two gun trucks still protecting our convoy, only myself and Juggernaut remained in order to control the entire area.  “Actually dude, we’re not suppose to push any further north than Tampa.”  MSR (Main Supply Route) Tampa is the road we had been patrolling and wouldn’t you know it, the triggerman was posted up on the exact opposite side of the road.  “Holy shit,” I thought to myself, “you have got to be kidding me.”  I give a quick hand and arm signal to Juggernaut, weapon still trained on the Iraqis, and slowly move back to my vehicle.  Not so different from deer hunting back in Wisconsin (which Ive actually never done), I didn’t want to make any sudden movement that would tip the guy off that we were about to come and grab him.  “Sulunga,” I mutter to my driver, “as soon as I close the door I want you to flip around south, go 25m past the bridge, flip around again, and then pull up short of the haji beneath the bridge.”  Sulunga nods, he’s got it.  “Rivera, you trackin’?” “Rog-O,” he replies excitedly.  Game time, the door slams, and we are off.  Sulunga weaves through the traffic and cement rubble as if the humvee were a Subaru and I am standing in front of the triggerman in less than one minute.  Without putting up much of a fight, I calmly walk the triggerman across MSR Tampa as my gun truck rolls behind me.  Making sure that none of the detainees are able to talk to one another, we set the withdrawn triggerman on the other side of  

back into reality.  “Hey sarnt, we got another white pickup truck fast moving in the desert!!” My guys were right, a completely different white pickup truck had begun to emerge from the depths of the desert and approach the road at an increasing pace.  “There’s our pickup-man” one of the RSE guys remarked, “I bet he was supposed to pick up the triggerman after he blew us all to smithereens.”  But it was too late at that point even to attempt to catch the final member of this IED team, he was already too far down the road for our cumbersome humvees to ever close the distance.  “Maybe he’ll tell all his dirka-dirka friends not to mess with us anymore,” Rivera shouts out from the gunner’s turret, “I’d rather let him spread the word than have us arrest him only to be released the next day by the higher ups.”

Again, he was right, the way we are having to fight this fight with one hand tied behind our back it wouldn’t surprise me if these guys were right back on the road within a few hours.  But despite the bureaucratic frustrations and shortcomings, I was just happy that my men and I lived to see another day, unscathed for the moment and happy to have done what we were trained to do.  In retrospect, I’m frankly amazed that the situation played out the way it did, most similar chains of events usually end up in violence and bloodshed.  On this day, we were able to avoid a well-planned IED attack, stop and catch the exposed assailants, negotiate our massive convoy through the danger zone, and do so all without harming a single person.  With any luck, this IED team will provide our intel guys with new and updated information regarding the enemy’s tactics and what we can do to combat it.  Furthermore we may have just sent a message to would-be holy warriors willing to sacrifice their lives in order to take others.  We my have just proven to the enemy that we will not always let them die for their cause, but rather offer them the opportunity to think about what they did for they rest of their lives.