Why I feel some warmongering among many younger forum members? Do guys you think war is such a lot of fun? I really don't know, but I'm pretty sure that's stop to be fun when guys next to you start dying.
Like you said, Dusa:
younger forum members. Guys that ain't fought before. There's a quote by some old Roman –
Dulce Bellum Inexpertis – which roughly means “War is sweet to the inexperienced.†Billy Sherman meant much the same when he told a group of cadets that “War is hellâ€. Both of them had a point.
However, Erasmus and Sherman aren't telling the whole truth: yes, war is mostly a shitty experience, but it isn't all bad. There are fun times, too. Now, normally, Haji has his shit together (after all, he generally only fights on ground and at a time of his own choosing). However, every so often he'd utterly cock things up in spectacular, glorious fashion, and we'd make him pay for it.
For instance, one would-be sniper in Mosul in early 2008. We were a Route Clearance Patrol, riding around looking for IED's in the Domeez neighborhood in SE Mosul. There was one street in particular that nearly always had IED's on it, and you could count on taking small arms fire and/or RPG's along the route. It was this weird deal with a huge median between the lanes, kind of like Canal Street in New Orleans. Nasty bombed-out place, named Route Broadway.
So we get maybe 300 meters down Broadway, and surprise, there's a possible IED in the median. Naturally, we stop and check it out, and as per usual, Hajji starts taking pot-shots at us. Ordinarily, it took us a bit to figure out where the SAF was coming from; often, Haj would spray one burst and then haul ass, and we'd never find him. Not this time, though. Down the street, maybe 200 meters from our lead vehicle, was a little single story, flat roofed, kebab stand, with this tiny tree in front of it. We're taking fire, gunners on the vehicles are scanning their sectors for the asshole shooting at us... and then, the wind picks up.
The tiny tree in front of the kebab stand blows to the side, and there's hajji, FNG-type, standing now-completely exposed on the roof of said kebab stand, still hammering merrily away on semi-auto with his AK, wearing his little track-suit and blissfully unaware of his imminent doom. After months of taking fire from an unseen foe, here, at last, is he, in all his retarded glory.
We lit his monkey ass UP.
That was a fun time.