I'll have to provide a little background here, before continuing. If you want to pass, move on to the big bold words.

Over three-quarters of Middle Eastern Americans are indigenous Christians and are neither Arab nor Muslim. What accounts for this? The Ottomans did a little ethnic cleaning during World War One, killing Assyrian, Syrian, and Armenian Christians by the thousands. These killings surpassed Rwanda and Sudan (two other cases of Moslems committing genocide against Christians), but as of yet, the international community still doesn't recognize these atrocities. Hold on, Sudanese Christians, it could be a while.

Meanwhile, you may have to go through it a few times, for according to the Assyrian Nation Online, such crimes against the Assyrian people were committed 33 times in the years between 339 AD (or 'Common Era CE,' if you're rabidly secular) and 1992.

They list the exact years as following:

33

448

519

661

686

737

852

873

884

987

1014

1072

1258

1268

1285

1289

1295

1297

1310

1578

1842

1850

1860

1895

1915

1933

1941

1945

1946

1962

1969

1985

1992

That's an average of once every fifty years, but notice they start before the rise of Islam. Even based on this limited information, one can deduce the problem is more socio/economic than religious.

By the way, the one committed in 1933 is the fault of the Kurds, so consider those two groups fractured, or at least full of issues to work out.

Thus ends my incomplete exposition.


"I Was Wrong!"
-Reverend Ken Joseph Jr. (Assyrian), reflecting on his decision to be a human shield for Saddam.

Shato d´sayfo

"At that time there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will visit Egypt, and the Egyptians will visit Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. At that time Israel will be the third member of the group, along with Egypt and Assyria, and will be a recipient of blessing in the earth. The Lord who leads armies will pronounce a blessing over the earth, saying, "Blessed be my people, Egypt, and the work of my hands, Assyria, and my special possession, Israel!"

-Isaiah 19:23-25

22km (13.5 miles) northeast of Cairo

A fog drifts over the field in the early pre-twilight hours of Cairo, giving the grounds a superficial O'Hare appearance as a silver DC-6 cranks four powerful new turboprop engines, and roars to life.

The craft has an airbrushed pinup on the nose, and two rows of pale blue running lights along the wings. The pinup girl, specially made as a holographic painting, actually waves at the maintenance crew as the plane barrels down the runway.

The ultra-new power plants pull the airframe off the ground after a short buildup of speed, far faster than the old piston plant could hustle, and after a brief moment of suspense, the Douglas Continental Six lunged skyward.

The craft continues a northeast heading, leaving Cairo International Airport and the Al-Orouba main road behind.

Paul "Pokey" Oskaboose, Dan Carlysle, Ron Newell, and Neil Perry, all veteran Sword operatives, had rested six solid hours at the Sheraton Hotel Heliopolis, before a wakeup call from (0)2 291 4255 bolted them toward their rented Avis BMWs for their propeller flight that morning.

Pokey had command over the other three, and the composite force of Pesh Merga and other pro-US militia onboard.

Most of the militiamen are jetlagged from a long flight from Norfolk, Virginia, and try to spread out in the bare steel cabin, attempting to dream through the flight.

The week of training in Moyock, North Carolina may have also tired them a notch.

A lot of investment had gone into these 100 Iraqis, roughly $1000 each in just a week in the USA, a week of training equal to the refreshers America's finest cops go through, but look at the comparative advantage. One hundred thousand bucks is what, one/twentieth of a Bradley fighting vehicle? And look at the returns they can have, in comparison to that ALUMINUM! Inanimateobject. Quite a bit more, potentially.

Skull and Ricci had been the ones to press for it, and without an iota of resistance, Gord had parceled out the money.

Now, less than two weeks later, they make their first combat jump. The plane, it's really not that different from a C-118 Liftmaster, circa 1946, fundamentally not unlike a C-47 Skytrain, or "Gooneybird." Reference Steve Ambrose's runaway hit, if available.

Somewhere in the black void below, was the jump site. Not much happened until Oskaboose got the door.

"Attention! Stand up, hook up. I remind you, stand up, hook UP!"

The men got it. You attach the line hanging off the fuselage to the 'chute.

"Equipment check, sound off!"

I'll save you some time. Suffice it to say, numbers one through 103 all gave variations of an affirmative.

"Close up, in a nice row, and stand for your turn out the door."

Their turns came, hastened by Oskaboose's rally cry: go!

The loadmaster booted them into a hurricane force wind, in a sky only faintly illuminated by the climbing twilight.

The "stick" (line of jumpers) took two minutes to empty.

The men fell, holding tight body positions until they ripped their cords a couple hundred feet later.

Somewhere in the landing zone, Robin Molina supposedly had a PAQ-10 laser designator flashing them. The jumpers didn't know it, but the cargo crates- correction- smart cargo crates, followed his beam. Luckily, Robin also flashed an infrared strobe light, something the Sword operatives could navigate by, using NVG scopes.

Now, hitting roughly 125MPH winds, freefalling, Oskaboose, Carlysle, Newell and Perry had to keep their peepers on the beam, and reserve enough situational awareness to link up with the one hundred indigenous jumpers, who are falling blind, and plant them reasonably close to the LZ. Sound easy? Definitely, and that's why the burden is actually reversed.

See, the Sword guys panned some feint line-of-site "cat eye" flashlights around during the fall, beaconing the Iraqi jumpers closer.

Pokey kept a growing tally from none to a little under twenty before noticing how the scrub under his feet jumped at him. Molina's light filled his entire view.

Perhaps, though Pokey, I've kept my eyes on the ball a little too well...

Touchdown: Pokey's feet snag on a fallen crate, a risk Skull had warned about. Inertia, and the dragging 'chute, hauled his shins over the box. One hand works under his belly, unlatching a point on the harness. The curved blade of a kukri severs another strand.

"Hola, Amigo. Did you bring the movie?"

Luckily, the Dupont polymer absorbed the lion's share of all the rough-and-tumble, and all 104 jumps managed to strut away unattended.

Most didn't fall very glamorously, however. Dragging one's tailbone along the pebbles seemed a favorite. Thus was born the name of this hundred: 1st Iraqi Butt-Dragging Company, or Butt Company, for short.

On with the mission, they liberated their parachutes, and bagged the eighteen pounds of fabric, as gifts to the town's people.

Pokey addressed the men on the march, reminding them they moved to "make friendly contact with the 2.5 million Assyrian Christians in Iraq, drop off the film, and march to the extraction zone."

Logically, they rushed like an invasion force- at dawn. Nineveh is a northern town just a stone's-throw from Mosul.

Few people are up at this hour, but yes! The church is open.


The Assyrians, members of the Chaldean Church, are Christians who attend worship services in Aramaic, so they considered it a blessed occasion when an UpLink team, escorted by a small contingent of armed Kurdish Pesh Merga arrived with all the film equipment needed to play Hollywood's first and only feature film recorded in the dying Aramaic tongue.

"The gore is pretty rough in this, but this was the best we could find," cautioned Robin Molina, just before the film began reeling.

"They can tough it out, no problem," opined Pokey.

"Dude, no problem. Now let's get out of here."


Nowhere, Southern Iraq

Driving north from Kuwait, Paul Evens surveyed the remains of his handy work, and once again reviewed the charges issued by former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Sighting Article Three of the Geneva Convention, Ramsey alleged that Evens had slaughtered soldiers who were "out of the conflict," but Evens noted that the Iraqis were in fact still in Kuwait when he sent them to their maker, that they were driving away with Kuwaiti loot, and most importantly, the ceasefire deadline had not yet been met.

"Article 41.-Safeguard of an enemy hors de combat

A person who is recognized or who, in the circumstances, should be recognized to be hors de combat shall not be made the object of attack.

2. A person is hors de combat if:

He is in the power of an adverse Party;"

Oh great, so you can't kill him if he's a conscript. Well, that settles it, we broke the rules of war, but for the record, these rules are inherently stupid! Hold on, what does "adverse" mean? Well, I think I get it, but that's kind of ambiguous. Why not say "opposing party?"

Moreover, Clark maintained that use of incendiary weapons violated international law.

"For the purpose of this protocol:

"Incendiary weapon" means any weapon or munition which is primarily designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn injury sic to persons through the action of flame, heat, or a combination thereof, produced by a chemical reaction of a substance delivered on the target."

First of all, because that ruling, if followed strictly, would ban all explosives except those not created through a chemical process; nuclear weapons. C'mon, that would be insanity. So an exemption would be written in.

"(ii) Munitions designed to combine penetration, blast or fragmentation effects with an additional incendiary effect, such as armor-piercing projectiles, fragmentation shells, explosive bombs and similar combined-effects munitions in which the incendiary effect is not specifically designed to cause burn injury to persons, but to be used against military objectives, such as armored vehicles, aircraft and installations or facilities."

Well, that exemption allows for just about anything but napalm and Molotovs, and no Super Cobras carried those that day. Still, Clark pushed that "war crime" for the entire decade, or as Viscount would say: "the whole decade of ten years." One last observation on the exemption should be made; its just one super stringy sentence. Who wrote that?

"Ramsey Clark can move to Hell," Evens observed, overheard by Ricci.

"What, Wesley Clarke can go to Hell?"

Evens chuckled.

"No, the General has no doubt hedged his bet with all the popular deities."

"Right. This about Gulf One?"

"Yeah, that's a war story I'll tell you in camp sometime."


A few klicks out of the way of the Ma'dan village, a small sapper crew arranges a daisy chain improvised explosive device (IED). The team is only an eight-man section, but smaller groups had been known to pull off spectacular attacks.

Their informant makes clear the convoy will be considerably more up-armored than the usual lorries coming through, but stressed how imperative the Sword team's destruction was.

The Sergeant in charge cased the area for a low flood area, where a drainage pipe would run under the road. A thorough probing turned it up.

"Wheel the really big stuff over here," he'd demanded, kneeling at one mouth of the pipe, "I think it will fit the siege artillery rounds. Try to fit them through. Steady she goes."

He referred to Russia's Kondensator 406mm gun, which wasn't really a siege weapon, but an early Nuke delivery gun. The scuttlebutt behind its appearance in Iraq is that Saddam once bought one for Gerald Bull to play with.

"Okay, lay out the rest on this side of the hill," said the Sarge, referring to the shallowest incline south of the ditch.

The men set a row of Egyptian rocket warheads, small Sakr-18 artillery explosives. Then they proceeded to coble these separate bombs into an integrated trap known as the daisy chain. To link the various bombs, you just need to tie stereo speaker wire to all the explosives. That way, you only need a single radio detonator to trigger your boom device.

Okay, so the sappers are using their golden bb, the 406. This is a special occasion that calls for a special standoff detonator. A set of two-way radios will do the trick.

Place one on the bomb, and keep one handy. Here goes.


The Forty APC returned later than expected, for those fish needed bagged a second time. Everyone complained loudly, but Ricci was adamant about keeping the vehicle buttoned up on the return home. Something didn't feel right. Southern Iraq hadn't experienced many attacks so far, but talk concerning a young silver-spooned cleric had sharpened over time. It seemed his militia had received special training in the east, and the radical was planning violence against Coalition interests.

IEDs have so far been the greatest danger to patrolling personnel, so Sword vehicles roved with a radio broadcast countermeasure. A small box on the Forty broadcasted a symphony of random radio transmissions along all the known bands employed by attackers, and extrapolated many unused signals, hoping to preempt any detonators.

Ideally, the measures will cause premature detonations while the bombs are still in the enemy's possession.

Maybe soon, UpLink will have models combing the country within a UAV's payload package, but right now, the countermeasures travel with the troops.


Minutes later

"Nigel, halt!"

The car braked atop a shallow hill. Below, a pale column of smoke billowed from a gigantic crater. The northern wind prodded it against the filtration system.

"I see a body," voiced the monotone of Evens, pointing from starboard. It lay prone on its back, hands blown skyward in surrender, "and the bridge is out. I think we foiled an ambush."

"Yeah, well, no use in dwelling on it. See if we can still reach the village."

"Aye."


"The study shows us more clearly than ever that higher costs don't necessarily mean higher quality. Medicare is spending 30 percent more than it needs to be. Even at these high costs, there are major gaps in health-care quality and safety."

-Dr. Mark McClellan, administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

"I wasn't born Mikhail Ruzhyo, I pinned it on myself, through dedication to my craft. I grew up within the district of Groznensky in the 1980s, before any war for independence. Talk within the clusters of youth circulated around rock music and Afghanistan. Most of the boys wanted to rock like the bands coming out of Sweden, America, and the UK, and all the boys had interest in fighting in Afghanistan, though none of us really cared about the ideologies involved. You can guess the lot of us really didn't mind which side we fought for, though you can count on many saying they'd prefer fighting as Soviets, because the arsenal of communism had the fighters. It didn't matter what the flyboys flew, really, but some could talk for what passed for hours about the Grach (Rook), called the FROGFOOT by NATO, and how it could prey on the Mujahadeen below.

Indeed, sometime after the war ended, I learned no Frogfoot pilot ever died in the entire war. The Americans could think of the plane as one of their own Warthogs on crack, but I digress.

I also wanted to fight."

The Russian clicked the stop button on his tape recorder, set it on the lavatory counter. He didn't wish to speak about the rest just yet. He sat atop the bathtub ledge, and scrubbed away his Saudi tan.

His hair was once again very close to his scalp. His skin progressively appeared more Russian the longer he scrubbed. His body was cut as slim as ever.

"I'm going to say goodbye to my wife, but then I'll return," he announced. The empty room had nothing to say.


The World Health Organization typically ranks France and Italy as the best providers of healthcare, and when gauged by certain preventive wellness and cost-effectiveness standards, the WHO is correct, but when you have a hefty wad of cash, and the immediate need for groundbreaking intensive care, the USA may have better hospitals to visit.

Anna lounged under the care of such an Intensive Care Unit, in a hospital along the Potomac, a hospital chosen by Victor as the most suitable in the world.

Mikhail is coming to visit. Incidentally, fewer acts of violence will occur in the middle-east, for sure. It is February 2004.


Author's Note: I was going to write one, because something in here could be misunderstood. Anyway, the countermeasure for IEDs was envisioned by Michael A. Stackpole, not me, and the name of the chapter means "the year of the sword." The name comes from the name for the genocide. The legal documents sighted in the chapter actually come from the Geneva Convention, and many of the events mentioned in this chapter really did occur. While much of this is a work of fiction, the real world provides a detailed backdrop for the story.