Danger Close Page #6

- Copy.

If we get a good shot here,

let's stop and look.

SOLDIER:

Sir, fire some flares.

See if you can stir him up.

SOLDIER:
Flares.

AIRMAN:

There it was.

Okay, we got several movers.

Ah, those look like animals.

Hey, there he is.

He's up and forward.

There he is.

AIRMAN:
Came out of the tree

line and ran into that compound.

SOLDIER:
Copy.

Go, go, go!

(shouting in Arabic)

We ended up finding him

at his cousin's house,

which was still

on the family's land,

but again the family's land

is about two kilometers wide

in every direction.

That's why we traveled

so many canals and so much land.

- You guys be safe tonight.

- Roger, that's a good, copy,

and we appreciate the word.

Like always, it's great

working with you guys.

I managed to get myself

to Diyala province,

to Bakuba... what had become this

massive Forward Operating Base

Warhorse.

Within Warhorse,

had been the Special Forces

Headquarters Compound.

I just boldly walked up

and knocked on their door

at the Special Forces Compound

and said, "Hey, I'm Alex Quade.

I spent time with the... with the

teams that were here last year.

Want to let me in?" And, no.

(laughs) No, they did

not want to let me in.

So that's when it was...

Okay, plan B.

I'll embed with the conventional

units that are here.

And I will try to

hopscotch my way

from conventional unit

to conventional unit

and just try to

geographically get closer.

Did you have a time limit

that you knew you

were working within

to try to get to

Combat Outpost Pirelli.

No, I was my own person.

I was a freelancer.

I was at my own expense

and unattached with no support

and no camera crew

and no nothing.

So I had all

the time in the world

and that worked to my advantage,

as did being underestimated.

What exactly are we doing today?

We... are going to

look for some caches today

in one of our villages.

Uh, we got some

intel the other day.

There's some possible

cache's out in R.A.O.

So we're gonna jointly

with the E.R.U.

go out there and see

if we can find these things.

So this is pretty much

where we're at nowadays.

Doing operations...

Everything we do.

QUADE:
So we expect to

find in these caches?

Well, everybody else

has been finding them,

- so I hope you find them too.

- Yeah?

If we don't, we're not

gonna look too good.

(chuckles)

SOLDIER:

We call it trash village.

It's a whole town,

lives in nothing but trash.

(dog barks)

Everything's gonna

build character.

Well, this is a whole lot

of character building today.

(geese honk)

(flies buzzing)

(beeping)

Down by the truck?

ALL:
Bye-bye, bye-bye,

bye-bye, bye-bye.

I managed to get myself

within the vicinity.

Combat Outpost Pirelli

had ended up urban sprawl.

A Forward Operating Base

was growing up around it,

called Cobra.

And they didn't

even realize all that much

that there was this secret

Special Forces

A team house in there.

I managed to get myself

embedded with the cavalry unit

that was there, co-located where

Combat Outpost Pirelli was.

And that cavalry unit was from

Alaska, the arctic wolves.

They had just that week

received a coffee maker.

SOLDIER:
We just got a

coffee pot two weeks ago.

We're getting re-adapted

to the caffeine.

(Quade laughs)

It's gonna be a good clay.

SOLDIER:

See the major over there?

- He's running the show.

- Hm-hmm.

We're just his

little followers right now,

putting the Iraqi army first.

Most of these guys...

The soldiers...

Personally know

the farmers in here.

So even to come in here

and clear palm groves

it's a social call.

You know, they come in

here and talk to their friends.

We try to enforce, you know,

the fact that they

need to clear this,

but they're like, "Oh, no,

it's my brother, it's my friend.

He's good."

- He might be good, but...

- It's a happy morning gathering.

That's all it...

It's a social call.

Get a few mandarins

while you're at it.

QUADE:
Where do you got to go

hunting for oranges and stuff?

- Yeah, I found a terrorist.

- You did.

- It was right there.

- They were growing on trees.

You pretty much

cut 'em out at the root.

(radio chatter)

A terrorist...

Has anybody found anything yet?

- Any caches? Any signs of...

- (speaks Arabic)

- No, sir.

- Okay.

- Just let me check.

- You're gonna go see it in the future?

(speaking Arabic)

(loud explosion)

Somebody just hit one.

(radio chatter)

SOLDIER:
Get inside the palm grove!

That's a lot of f***ing contact.

- Hey was that a striker?

- (man speaks Arabic)

- (overlapping shouts)

- (radio chatter)

QUADE:

And just like that...

Just like that it

changed in an instant,

and we're coming under fire

in the palm grove.

- (speaks Arabic)

- (radio chatter)

I am less than half a mile away

from Combat Outpost Pirelli

and fulfilling my promise

to Rob's A team

and his gold-star family.

I'd come all this way

and this...

This might keep me

from completing that mission?

Hey! So we're moving

back to the vehicles!

- QUADE:
I'll follow you.

- We're moving back to the vehicles now.

We have... Hey, we up, Mo.

SOLDIER:
It's jumped to

the south marked position.

Hey, Gunners be advised, we're

moving out of the palm grove.

Hey, spread out, you guys.

Keep eyes

for f***ing trip wires.

Sorry about that.

Hey, keep eyes

to the north also!

Holy f***.

They are here.

- SOLDIER:
Right there, you see the smoke?

- Yeah.

- It was in the palm grove.

- Yeah, it was in the palm grove.

Sh*t!

Hey, let's have this

vehicle move with us.

All right?

Improved cover.

We'll say back off

or these guys up front...

You guys up front...

It's the way it rolls, now.

SOLDIER:
Ooh, there's

a smoke, right there.

We're moving the strikers

down here for cover, all right?

QUADE:

I'm on your left hip, Baily.

- (indistinct chatter)

- We got two.

(Quade narrates)

There had been an I.U.D. that was...

We figured out

was made out of 155,

which is an artillery round

and they'd

wrapped it in C-4

and added 30 pounds of munitions

to turn it into a wall

above an I.E.D.

One Iraqi civilian was killed

and five were injured.

- Do you consider that a big one?

- About as big as they get.

They'll want

to shake your teeth.

QUADE:
This is the way

we drove in to get...

To drive to get

to the palm grove.

I'm pretty sure

it was meant for one of us.

They knew we're here.

That's why I think that

it was command detonated

because pressure plated...

We would have hit it

- by rolling over it.

- So command detonated

- would mean like a trigger?

- There was a trigger made.

- Somebody watching and trigger manning.

- Exactly.

QUADE:
Our strikers had

been going back and forth

over this area

just 20 minutes earlier.

So these soldiers,

they figured that, well...

Our... the Baily

that were on the strikers

must have been working

to interfere with the signal

that the trigger man for this I.E.D.

must have been putting out.

Once we got back to Cobra,

the FOB that had grown up

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