"In my opinion, there are two kinds of eyes: one kind simply looks at things and the other sees through things to perceive their inner nature." - Miyamoto Musashi (As seen on Zenpundit's blog)

(I'm Assuming he has no relation to Lafayette Musashi)

"I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don't think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say: Let the damned thing go down the drain!"

Robert A. Heinlein, Guest of Honor Speech at the XIXth World Science Fiction Convention, Seattle, 1961

"Dum vivimus, vivamus!" - "While we live, let us live!"


The chopping rotary soundtrack is gone. Now the sky has only another common industrial racket. Another Vietnam vestige faded away. The paint scheme is different, so is the manufacturer. It still stirs thrilling images, but today's air cavalry has a whole new look, although the traditional counter-insurgency mission continues. The embers of that era faded from the air cav in 1999, when the United States Army fully retired the M60 from the fleet, replacing the old side door armament with tried and true Belgian hardware.

From the Fabrique Nationale plant, air cav's new workhorse belts out Tungsten slugs from the FN M240D 7.62mm medium machine gun, which is coaxial/pintle mounted on both doors of a helicopter produced from a company founded by a brilliant Russian emigrant. An emigrant named Igor Sikorski, an engineer who'd escaped the purges of the Bolsheviks to invent the current rotor/tail-rotor configuration of helicopters in time for the Cold War.

The workhorse Army bird carried the name UH-60, UH being a designation for transport helicopters, widely thought to mean "utility helicopter," but normally, military designations aren't that intuitive, so don't stake a game show on it.

It generated lift with the circular motion of a rotary wing comprised of four polymer blades, the blade number accounting for the consistent racket, rather than the rhythmic beat of the two blades of its predecessor.

It was mid April of 2004 when one UH-60 "Black Hawk" jumped into the night time desert sky to serve an arrest warrant for the DOD. One brat cleric had decided to part with the temperate elder clerics, declaring that he held charge of the militia of the Mahdi, the Moslem Messiah, upsetting the region, while foreign fighters corroded the wounds.

Roads were unsafe, but the regional CinC had stamped the intended Landing Zone (LZ) as safe from the insurgency. At least, safe enough, considering the importance placed in the mission. Sixty Minutes had released photographs that had inflamed the youth already sympathetic to Al Sadr's message. The Secretary of Defense had tendered his resignation to the President, who'd turned down the offer in a

heartbeat.

While good for internal morale, virtues like loyalty are public relation blunders of the highest degree in Official Washington. These unforeseen political events had all fallen into the mind of Central Command, which had dutifully concocted a scheme to save face on another matter all on their own. They'd decided not to ground the flight for the night, giving the green light for the takeoff of the law enforcement mission.

The flight carried Two NCIS officers, One was a tall photogenic man with dark hair, one was an equally photogenic woman with equally dark hair, and a doughy-looking legal adviser from the Navy JAG office. Was CBS filming a television show?

They commandeered a single UH-60, under command's condition that they drop off a 1,000 gallon belly tank (from the FIREHAWK program) of fresh water to a cut-off burg, still held by a private military company.

In the front seats, the Black Hawk crew pivoted their heads so their AN/PVS-7 night vision goggles could absorb the twilight from the moon and stars. The pilot carefully manipulated stick, rudder, and collective,

aiming to fly an average speed of 155 knots at around a thousand meters of elevation, with sudden darts to as high as 193 knots just long enough to get an over-torque warning message. Speed is life.

Lt. Commander Tobias "Toby" Gairden and Major Lydia "Rose" Rosencrans, both Navy CIS detectives, kept their eyes averted from one another, instead visually following the movements of the door gunners, military police responsible for their safety.

Chet "Witness" Charnock, the Judge Advocate General, leaned his head between his knees, where a barf bag lay.

The detectives heard a muffled report from his lips.

Gairden pretended to take interest in the strobe from an A-10 banking from one end of it's racetrack pattern. Even if it meant driving that hog,

he'd prefer flying to ground-pounding, thank you. No, solving crimes was the better service. Finding real evidence against true criminals, that was gratifying, nothing like an "Aviano air show," being a passive voyeur of ethnic cleansing, as the peacemakers picnic and exchange pleasantries.

'No, that era is over, at least for another year. This is hands on. We aren't just a deterrent, a potential energy. We're actually being applied.

The diplomats have stepped away from saying "nice doggie," the president is no longer restrained from making the air boys plink meaningless... things. We've come with the stick and baton.'

Toby snapped from his reverie. The hog had loosed a flare, another. Light reflected from smoke. A corkscrew of smoke. Snap-turn right, power dive. Over-torque warning, invisible foot in the chest, weightlessness, negative gravity.

The MAG cuts open. The MP loosens the trigger, returns pressure, arcs across the desert.

Gairdon recalls someone calling a MAG barrage a "Belgian Waffle."

Ejected casings climb with the negative force... they're softer than-

The barf bag!

His right hands bats it instinctively away.

"Toby!"

"Rose!"

"Chet!"

"Legal weenies! Shut up!"

The pilot snap-turns again, keeping the tail rotor facing away from the insurgents besieging the village.

Gairdon ducks at a brief glimpse at red tracers.

The Army MP saw it, too.

"Nailed the bad guy! Right? If not, this'll do it."

He raked over the source, but Gairdon didn't look.

"See? I got him!"

He in fact didn't see, but nodded agreeably.

"Hey, crossfire! We have friends alive in town!"

Indeed, green tracers, looking like neon basketballs through AN/PVS-7 goggles, crossed the town over the desert. The point of origin, Gairdon couldn't say where. The hull bucked from impacts underneath, then one solid collision.

"Our rotors are fine. We're fine. Present tense, I stress!"

Fine or not, the door-gunners could only pepper the sand, until walking it across the odd tango. The pilot could steer his course. The lawyer could debate the legality of firing back, but no one felt in charge.

The starboard gunner, a military police Pfc. named Manning, age 19, white, albino features, looked so "milky" people took it as a punchline that his birthplace was Wisconsin, recalled watching a Denzel Washington movie before arriving up country. Strangely, scenes from that Hollywood film flashed by his eyes.

If film scenes are what I remember, does that mean I haven't lived?

The SAW gunner had thrown a fuel cell from the dustoff-

"Holy Shiite! Legal weenie, throw that fuel cell overboard, and um, woman, ma'am, chase 'em down with-" he clipped a pair of white phosphorus grenades from his harness, tossed them backhand- "with these Willy Petes."

"I saw that movie, Private. They used a flare gun."

"We aren't in the movie, so tough."

Toby took charge of the dumping, deciding gray duct tape should conjoin the grenades and the glorified gas can.

"And push!"

Awe, the orange ball of a JP4 gasoline explosion. The warm jet fuel glow reflected off the windshield, offering a possible target for the operator of a Soviet-era .51 AA piece mounted on a Tacoma truck chassis.

"Manning, you meathead, they're spattering the windshield!" He pitched the nose up, offering the belly in sacrifice.

Toby Gairdon peered under the gunner in time to see a hog spew traditional milk carton-sized slugs in a staggered line several hundred feet away, then suddenly break off, and perform a "toss" of the underbelly payload. Upon release, the A-10 climbed, turning sharply to make a "whipping" toss.

He noticed the big casings ply apart, dispersing sub-munitions, lastly, lingering flames.

"CBU-41. So close to Gordian's pet village. You know he'll pout over it," opined Gairdon, clinching a cigar in his jaws, "but that's a good demoralizing weapon, I'll grant the Air Force that." He struck a match. He puffed on the tobacco thoughtfully, while the pilot found the proscribed LZ in town, a tennis court in the Sheik's backyard.

"I didn't know A-rabs played tennis. Maybe only water A-rabs."

"Private, show some respect! You represent the United States," Rosencrans corrected, "and they are Marsh Arabs, and allies to boot."

"Yes, Major, I stand corrected, Major."

Camp William Eaton

The yanks inside that facility titled their base camp William Eaton, after a Yankee of the same name, who'd been a ringleader of a mercenary adventure during the Age of Reason.

His band had successfully overrun a Libyan port in American actions against North African pirates, who'd harassed shipping in the Mediterranean in that time period.

He'd been a forerunner of sorts, seeing how special agents regularly round up proxy armies to project the politic of their countries to the dark continent since.

Eaton's band of 500 Arabic and Turk mercenaries had been supplemented by a handful of United States Marines and Eaton himself.

It had been America's first ground assault against a foreign land, and was a smashing success- although diplomats had hastily signed a peace accord before Eaton and the marine leader, Presley O'Bannon, could march on to the capitol, Tripoli, and install their selected exile into the nation's leadership.

Eaton, O'Bannon, and the naval commander of a supporting naval squadron, the esteemed

Isaac Hull, all returned national heroes, though Eaton remained bitter at President Thomas Jefferson for "cutting and running."

The base name, linked with the name's historical significance, presented enough information for Major Terrance Arthur Peel- Tap to his mates- to grasp the mind of his adversary.

Peel, forty, recently retired from service with Her Majesty's Special Air Service, after a dishonorable discharge for brutality against some Irishmen who'd bloody well had it coming.

He kept a SIG P2020 pistol (diverted from Japanese Self Defense Force supplies) in a Galco conceal-carry paddle holster, Havana Brown finish, over a designer desert tan khaki shirt.

A right-handed shooter, he let the weight sag over his right hip, while keeping watch of Camp William Eaton from under an LCSS light-weight Camouflage Screen some six klicks east of the base.

A stainless steel fiber mesh weaved into the fabric gave the screen a radar scattering characteristic, while it also trapped infrared emissions from bleeding out of the concealed area.

Peel and his men had used the desert variation, which came with a desert camouflage pattern. They all had sand and light green face paint applied on their faces, dark in shiny places, dark in shadowy places, and lay crouched where a short artillery shell had kick-started their entrenching efforts.

They wore the outmoded six-colour battle dress fatigues of US servicemen from Desert Storm, bought from a surplus outlet in Kuwait.

He intently studied the effects of the Al Fao bombardment against base targets, using an image intensifying binocular marketed all over the globe, and his study alarmed him.

"Balls, the yanks have a Shortstop on base." Proximity fuses detonated hundreds of feet ahead of their proscribed points, a fact their designated observer wasn't reporting back.

"Bloody frickin' balls! The arty 'as only half the softening task done! That shepherd boy git doesn't have the brains to tell us impact fuses 'ould work better, eh? Tell me, our spook teacher did school the kid, right?"

Peel's aide-de-camp shrugged.

"He doubtlessly didn't see it fit for the abbreviated curriculum, Tap."

Peel scowled. Not at his aide, but at the predicament.

"We're on a time line. Ruzhyo has the Southern Army's balls crossed at the moment, but we don't have time to dandy about."

"Agreed, Sir. We are T minus two minutes right... now."

Camp William Eaton (inside)

Thomas Ricci, the camp's Security Chief, suited up at the urging of the Intel Chief, Peter Nimec. Both men pulled their XM8 rifles, adopted on William Eaton to 20'' barrels, for use on their Intel tour. Both men felt comfortable the XM8 would soon be the M8, an approved weapon for military use.

It looked like a beige squirt gun with a red dot scope, but the new rifle could do some serious damage, especially since Shield had up-armed the weapons.

With a slight modification of the bolt facing, Molina, the SOF guy, and Ricci had managed to up the XM8 cartridge capacity to the new 6.8x43mm SPC (Special Purpose Cartridge) Remington 115-grain round. On the range, Molina had demonstrated the upped XM8 could nail targets with one MOA accuracy from 600 yards, perfect for the open desert environment.

Because Shield was a non-government organization, it wasn't necessarily subject to treaties forbidding the use of expanding, exploding, or fragmenting small arms, so Ricci and Nimec weren't shy about mixing some Hollowpoint hunting rounds into the mix of their 100-round transparent magazines.

"Dang! A servo froze!" As The two chiefs walked toward the exit, they took in the pained cries of their comrades, men who bravely manned consoles for right and freedom.

Richard Thibodeau stepped in to help.

"No need to MacGyverize, buddy, just try to tweak it out," said the Cajun, before turning an eye toward the other chiefs.

"Yo! You guys stepping out?"

"Yeah."

"Braun's guys just took a lick from a beehive round. Remember those?"

"Yeah."

"One of his Arabs got nailed down by one: sucking chest, lots of gushing wounds. They're pulling back without him-"

"Roger," Ricci interrupted, "We can drag him out, or failing that..."

"Gotcha. Braun should be at the door any second. And oh yeah, the Shortstop is fouling every other arty incoming, but Braun says they have a forward observer."

Nimec's eyes narrowed.

"How does he know?"

"The shells are chasing them. By-the-way, the shanty is under siege. Luckily, they're in our arty ranger, at least the northern ring. That side is starting to lighten up, after a pounding. Our BK amputee (Molina) is holed up there, and reports some legal weenies have dropped in for 'help' (said contemptuously). They carries some water in, at least, so they can hang out a long siege. OK, that's your briefing, now get going!"

Both parted. Nimec strapped his Fritz on snuggly, installed insurance to eyes and ears, and led the charge.

"I'm getting some ghostly EM. Someone's out there. I'll try dialing it in."

A tech, who'd shouted out to everyone, caught their attention. They was him rewind a digital tape, play it back, and try again.

"I'll have it in time."

"Bingo! I shook the servo back into service! High-five?"

No one paid attention.

Outside

The both perceived the world through their AN/PVS-7 goggles, seeing a green world. Before slipping the goggles on, Pete Nimec had panned a naked view of the horizon, awe-struck by how BIG the sky looked with the normal obstructions, like trees and man-made edifices, that block out much of the sky in America. Normally, when in the United States, one has to be on the coast or a farm/ranch to see something like this, if one doesn't live in the western deserts.

A big sky, Nimec reasoned, could explain why the perspective of these people were different. Pulling from the reverie, he followed Ricci's lead. Nigel Braun met them. Normally a smiling individual, he looked more stern than ever. That was when Nimec heard the raspy gasping.

"That's my man. We call him Jamal, though he was born Mohamed. He's nailed tightly, so much we couldn't move him before the arty started up again. We've been moving to keep it away. Stay concealed, while we decoy the shells."

"Roger. He's over that berm?" Ricci pointed.

"Right, Mate. I'll being seeing y'."

Nimec and Ricci dropped prostrate, heaved forward with elbows and feet. Another shell zoomed in, showering shrapnel from a premature point. Camp Eaton's own guns joined in a volley on a distant point. They froze as someone kicked some tracers over their heads.

"What's that!"

Nimec rolled over, eyes prowling. It had come from Braun.

"Nigel's shotting tracers. Is he ruining someone's night vision?"

Ricci concurred.

"Yeah. He doesn't want the spotter to indicate us. Smart."

They moved on, taking comfort in the tactic.

Above

"Ok VF-135, kick the tires, light the fires, select Zone 5, tag the bogey, but don't get in a furball. Don't boresight, check six, and bingo to Mom. Roger?"

"Two."

The aviators of John C. Stennis didn't expect a chance of a dogfight over Iraq this late in the war, but some spooky stuff had violated Iraqi airspace from Iran, and they looked like multiple bandits.

"Cat's Eye, my feet are just now wet, and I need a Texaco. Am I seriously expected to make the intercept?"

"Affirmative, Lead. Don't get beaded up on me. You aren't bingo, so approach Zone 5 now, or expect to have your wings clipped later. Understood?"

"Gotcha, Cat's Eye. Following your indication. Where's the Air Force?"

The RIO: "Whiskey Charlie? (Who cares?)"

Pilot: "We do have people in Baghdad, right?"

Cat's Eye: "Lead, stop acting like a nugget, and make the intercept!"

Pilot: "I am!"

Radar Intercept Officer: "Nose hot. Got a Judy. I'm padlocked!"

Pilot: "Attention, flight, the sniffer's getting some bright music (modern jamming)."

RIO: "We have a warm and fuzzy solution, regardless. Do the ROE (Rules of Engagement) allow for a shoot-down?"

Cat's Eye: "(stuttering) Lead, one's already hit the Green Zone. The Kurdish Socialist Party Headquarters are burning."

RIO: "(Expletive) Firm tone for the AIM-54. Target signature matches late-model MIG design."

Pilot: "Roger. (Sigh) Phoenix away."

Cat's Eye: "Splash one, lead.

Camp William Eaton

Thomas Ricci found the source of the infernal wheezing, a collection of blood and puss that answered to the name Jamal.

The Italian a nail that had performed a crude tracheotomy, the likely source of the wheezing. He reached down one shirt pocket, brought out a ring of masking tape, and applied it over the hole.

"Hi Jamal. This is Ricci. I'll bring you in." Tom felt short of breath, yet managed to operate. He managed to siphon fluid from the sucking chest wound, then work a loop of tape around the Arab.

The former SEAL and Boston cop then worked an entrenching tool under the Arab, setting his Fritz underneath, and applied the magical force of a GI lever-and-fulcrum.

"AH!"

Ricci smiled.

"That groaning sound is actually a good thing, soldier. It means you're uprooted! Holy-"

Leaving "Jinnistan"

Bashayer plunged to martyerdom, casting a broad stroke of flame across the protected keep of the infidel. Qubth-ut-Allah had arrived. Malik could scarcely believe his joy.

He launched the flames of Jahannam. Jahannam! Jahannam! As an outlet, he chanted the word. Infidels! I plunge you to Jahannam! You did not know of this Jahannam? Do you know of burning blisters? Would you consider them bliss? You will, after your stay in the pits of Jahannam!

Praise onto these Jinns, which give us power to raise the righteous will against you demons!

Camp William Eaton (Inside)

"Crap! We have a fire-fight! Look at that!"

A symphony of light brushed a pallor over all CCTV screens projecting sensory input for sentry guns.

Techs and administrators shouted oaths as events unfolded.

"E4 sentry tower destroyed!"

"Smoke trails!"

"Fire-finding radar indicates rockets incoming!"

Pokey's UCAV had just "lazed" the Al Fao piece, when he jinked from incoming SA-13

"Gopher" missiles.

"SAM hit me! I'm dead meat!"

Paul Evens, flying right behind him, amended the story for the better.

"He fired a Radar Hellfire, and I caught it with my data-link. I'm homing it in. Splash one

artillery piece."

Roger Gordian regarded Evens blankly, his mouth agape.

"I didn't know you could do that!"

Evens shrugged.

"I'm a marine, I can do anything. Seeding flares. I'm on a terminal dive at the Gopher. Luckily, it didn't see me. Arming Radar Hellfire... I have a tone... SA-13 missiles took a snap-shot... I cut power, stalled. They're too late, for the Hellfire's punched them. OK, I'm issuing over-torque on the engine. Good wing geometry. Extending flaps... I have lift, and the missiles- where are they? Aw, they're holed in the sand. I'm out of missiles, so I'm coming back for a refit."

Roger Gordian was floored. A marine helo pilot simply couldn't perform that feat. Hell's Bells, a Navy top gun can't be sure he'd made of that stuff. Paul Evens wasn't just the right stuff, he was at the right hand of the right stuff god!

"Um, I'm making sense of a low EM reading," announced a tech, pricking Paul's ear.

The ex-marine slowly absorbed the sensory input of a row of sentry-gunner consoles as the tech recited his best guess of what the radio broadcast meant.

"Um, uh, that-was-close-to-my-arse, you... imbecile! Adjust 1-"

Paul's eyes focused on one sentry screen, where on one edge, a shell impact-detonated next to a remaining sentry tower.

Hand to his kukri's sheath, he pounced from the chair, pumped one leg before the other.

"Evens-"

"Take the plane!"

Gordian saw the UCAV barrel toward the desert, so he plopped in the vacated chair.

Thibodeau witnessed the scene, and raised a halting hand.

Evens leaped, planted one striking foot on Richard's shoulder, and followed through on the power kick.

Rollie tumbled clear, leaving a vacuum for Evens to rush past.

"Come back!"

The news crew fed off the energy, gave pursuit.

"Catch him!" Geraldo meant "film him!" And they did, seeing him sprint into a firestorm,

ascend multiple rungs of the tower ladder, and vault into the cramped shack, knife first, against Lord-knew-what.

The camera zoomed in on a volley of savage strikes, menacing, abstract. They knew not what he clawed and punctured at, nor knew what plunged the tower's height in retreat.

"Focus! Viewers, I apologize for what you see. I-I can't fathom what that is, A see a savage, brutal gash on the victim's eye socket; That bone on the temple was smashed in... omigod! The eye is gone! Blood, gray matter, white fluid is-"

Earth shook. Tracers consumed the camera. staccato drums hammered the audio. At the crescendo, Geraldo collapsed from vertigo.

The marine sprinted back, sheathing his bloody, sticky Nepalese knife. I booted the reporter in one shoulder, miraculously flinging him back into the bunker, before falling behind him.

"Mister Gordian, the forward observer is canceled."

Vince Scull stared at the ex-marine with his bloodshot basset hound eyes.

"Who was it?"

"The Sheik's oldest son."