Part 20 (1/2)

”f.u.c.k yeah,” I said.

He smiled. Some expressions are universal.

After a week on the job, I had been promoted from navigator to a member of the a.s.sault team. I couldn't be happier.

I still had to navigate. My job was to figure out a safe route to and from the target house. While the insurgents were active in the Baghdad area, the fighting had slowed down and there wasn't yet the huge threat of IEDs and ambushes that you saw elsewhere. Still, that could change in an instant, and I was careful plotting my routes.

We got into our Hummers and set out. I had the front seat, next to the driver. I'd learned enough Polish to give directions-Prawo kolei: ”right turn”-and guide him through the streets. The computer was on my lap; to my right was a swing arm for a machine gun. We'd taken the Hummer's doors off to make it easier to get in and out and fire. Besides the mounts on my side and in the back, we had a .50 in a turret at the back.

We reached the target and hauled a.s.s out of the truck. I was psyched to finally get back into battle.

The Poles put me about sixth or seventh in the line to go in. That was a bit disappointing-that far back in the train you're unlikely to get any action. But I wasn't about to b.i.t.c.h.

The GROM hit houses essentially the way SEALs do. There are little variations here and there: the way they come around corners, for example, and the way they cover buddies during an operation. But for the most part, it's all violence of action. Surprise the target, hit them hard and fast, take control.

One difference I particularly like is their version of flash-crash grenades. American stun grenades explode with flash of light and an enormous bang. The Polish grenades, on the other hand, give a series of explosions. We called them seven-bangers. They sound like very loud gunfire. I tried to take as many of those from them as I could when it was time to move on.

We moved the instant the grenade started going off. I came in through the door, and caught sight of the NCO directing the team. He motioned me forward silently, and I ran to clear and secure my room.

The room was empty.

All clear.

I went back downstairs. Some of the others had found the guy we'd come for and were already loading him into one of the Hummers. The rest of the Iraqis who'd been in the house stood around, looking scared to death.

Back outside, I hopped into the Hummer and started directing the team back to base. The mission was uneventful, but as far as the GROM were concerned, my cherry had been burst-from that point on, I was a full-fledged member of the team.

BUFFALO-p.i.s.s VODKA

We went on DAs for another two and a half weeks, but there was only one where we had anything like real trouble. A guy wanted to fight as we were going in. Unfortunately for him, all he had were his bare fists. Here he's facing a squad of soldiers, each heavily armed and protected by body armor. He was either stupid or courageous, or maybe both.

The GROM took care of him quickly. One less a.s.shole on the wanted list.

We picked up a pretty wide variety of suspects-financiers for al-Qaeda, bomb-makers, insurgents, foreign insurgents-one time we picked up a truckload of them.

The GROM were a lot like SEALs: extremely professional at work, and very hard-core partiers after hours. They all had Polish vodka, and they especially loved this one brand named Zubrowka.

Zubrowka has been around for hundreds of years, though I've never seen it in America. There's a blade of buffalo gra.s.s in each bottle; each blade comes from the same field in Poland. Buffalo gra.s.s is supposed to have medicinal properties, but the story related to me from my GROM friends was a lot more colorful-or maybe off-color. According to them, European bison known as wisent roam on this field and p.i.s.s on the gra.s.s. The distillers put the blades in for an extra kick. (Actually, during the process, certain ingredients of the buffalo gra.s.s are safely neutralized, so just the flavor remains. But my friends didn't tell me that-maybe it was too hard to translate.)

I was a little dubious, but the vodka proved to be as smooth as it was potent. It definitely supported their argument that the Russians don't know anything about vodka and that Poles make it better.

Being an American, officially I wasn't supposed to be drinking. (And officially, I didn't.)

That asinine rule only applied to U.S. servicemen. We couldn't even buy a beer. Every other member of the coalition, be they Polish or whatever, could.

Fortunately, the GROM liked to share. They would also go to the duty-free shop at Baghdad airport and buy beer or whiskey or whatever the Americans working with them wanted.