Every Little Decision

In the book every little decision counts. Do you turn left or right? What normally might be a simple choice could turn fatal right away. Not everyone follows the rules of engagement, one of the rules is to not fire or take a Red Crescent van (Red Crescent is like the USA's Red Cross; the vans are also used as ambulances). In the book there is one part were a Red Crescent van starts bolting forward toward the Humvees. What are the soldiers supposed to do, shoot or let it keep going because it could be an emergency? Marla is on the turret and decides to start open firing even though she is not supposed to. She made the right choice, it turned out the van was full of insurgents and they had RPG's and AK's. I think they were going to hop out and then the van would crash into the Humvees, but Marla gunned the driver down and saved all their lives. Every thing can mean life or death.

Hoodlums

What do you call a group of sneaky Special-ops soldiers that sneak out into the night? Well Marla calls them Hoodlums. Later on in the book Birdys squad goes to meet a group of soldiers. The soldiers that they meet are the so called "Hoodlums". The first thing that the Special-ops soldiers say when they meet Birdy squad is "Did you bring beer?" Then Birdys squad enters the vans to go to base and they travel at breackneck speeds. When they get to the base they learn that the "Hoodlums" kidnapped children from a local tribe so they could negotiate. What the tribe does not know is that the Speacil-ops guys did the kidnapping not terrorists like they were told.

Dumplings Of Mass Destruction?

Multiple Intelligence guys and Birdy's squad (excluding Marla) have just searched a house. They are rounding up the people inside and are searching them. They have found nothing. They search the people who live in the house and find nothing.

Marla gets the okay to come in to check it out and speak to the women. She comes in and does a loop of the house. When she is in the kitchen she stops and yells to Captain Coles to come in. Coles comes in and sees Marla sifting her hands through the flour. "Dumplings Of Mass Destruction" he asks her. "No," Marla answered, "just flour (she sifts her hands through the flour again) and detonators." she finishes.

I picked this scene because I thought it was funny how these guys who have been searching houses for weeks missed the detonators and Marla found them right away. Who knows what they could have missed.