Most of the time an advisor will meet their partners at
Ministry buildings which will be in or near the protected encampment called the
Green Zone, but sometimes we will have to cross town or maybe take the occasional
trip to the countryside. Going “outside
the wire” is done with full body armor, pistol loaded, charged and in
up-armored Suburban SUVs.
We were taught
the fine art of abandoning our stranded vehicle when bag-guys are shooting at
us and how to drive out of a jam with a well intoned Drive-Drive-Drive!!! by
your team leader. In the Suburban, everyone
has a job; a driver who should focus on the road and staying on it, but is
usually yammering away believing he is in charge, a Team Leader in the
passenger seat in charge of the mission, radio and reminding everyone else to
observe their sectors and making the hard calls on when to bail out, but who
spends most of their time jamming up the airwaves with a hot-mike and arguing
with the driver. Finally, the rear
passengers (which should always include your interpreter otherwise why bother
with a mission). You’d be surprised how
often we trainees got buttoned up, belted in, yet had no clue where we were
going.
Your armored Suburban is your
safe haven, only to be abandoned in the direst circumstances. Doors locked and windows up at all
times. “Don’t break the seal” is drilled
into us. Bad things happen out there
they told us, but if you do get in a wreck with a local, just give them a
genuine U.S. “I Pay You” card. Just how
that is done when buttoned up was not explained, but I digress.
It was a bit
unnerving in one training scenario when armed bad-guys set up a roadblock in
the middle of our eerily realistic market place, yelling, pounding at the
Suburban, and shooting in the air when the door to our cocoon suddenly unlocked
and bad guys are trying to yank me out. Passengers
were either yelling, or frozen with panic.
Some pleaded with the driver to fire up and drive away, no doubt running
down the civilians all about us, while others thought about un-holstering their
firearm until our Afghan Army saviors rescued us in the nick of time.
At the debrief, SEAL Pete said that things
had not yet “gone sideways”, but it was getting close. Really????
-
Seatbelts don’t unbuckle or clear themselves
when you try to evacuate a disabled vehicle.
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Panicked Advisors crawling over the back seat to
find the Suburban’s non-existent “safe room” is funny.
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