over" This was coming from the lead truck in our platoon that night.
"Where is it coming from over" came my reply.
"The top of this two story house beside us over"
So we dismounted and investigated and sure enough we see these two teenagers throwing not rocks but bricks at us from their roof. To make matters worse the only door we see to this house is locked from the inside and there doesn't seem to be anyone willing to answer our repeated knocks. We're about to do the only thing we could think to do--that is kick in the door, clear the house, flexcuff the young men--when literally right before I give the order my interpreter breaks in.
"Oh wait LT, this might be a mosque."
Holy sh-- that was close. Having been briefed on several occasions by the Colonel on the fine line I was walking after the speed bump* the last thing I needed was reports that Hollywood cleared out a mosque. I was telling my men to back off when WWHHHHAAACCCKKKK a brick lands on my helmet. At this point I gather all the reserve and patience I have left after a day of patrolling and dealing with other peoples problems(from hereon referred to as OPP, 'yeah you know me') and quickly decide to level the mosque. I mean this brick hits my helmet and shatters(not quite as reliable as the bricks back home) and brick pieces go down your shirt and you're all sweaty and hot from a day of work and these two punks are upstairs sky hook'n bricks onto my trucks and now my head. But luckily I have been briefed by the BIG MAN about precision and restraint following the fisticuffs of fiscal year 2007 and applied a little bit of what he was talking about.
We went to the next door neighbors house and got him to go inside the mosque, turned out he knew the guy who lived there as the caretaker and he somehow slept through our yelling and banging but heard his neighbor's light rap on the door. He comes out with I kid you not a 'I honestly have no idea why there is an uparmored humvee and 15 soldiers standing at my door looking mildly to extremely upset but I am going to assume it's because they want tea' smile. The neighbor gets him to bring down the two teenagers who pull their best 'we were sleeping and thought there were robbers trying to break into the mosque and steal our slippers' routine. I communicated the possible repercussions of throwing rocks at soldiers with hand and arm and rifle signals. We waited for the police to show up and stared at these teenagers who honestly thought this was the funniest prank ever. Then the police show up and they start wailing uncontrollably. The policemen walk up to me and I simply point at them and they force the two boys to the back of the police truck and drive off, no questions asked.
The caretaker of the mosque, only seconds before declaring the boys' devotion to the straight and narrow, looks at me with an innocent smile and asks, "Chai mistah?"
"Yeah, I'd love some chai," I reply and sit down and hear him talk about OPP over hot tea for the next hour.
