cordon and search, Balad, Iraq

"The war was supposedly over, except it wasn’t" -- Matthew Sepi, Navajo-American soldier, NYT, 1/13/2008

We              had the wrong    house!
We had          the wrong        house!
This particular
night,
it was December 2003,
there was,                       I’d say,
                more than 100    targets.
                Each             little
                team                        had
a list.                                     And
                at this one      house,
we blow                          the gate
                                            and find
                                            out that
                there’s this guy sitting in his car
                just             inside     that
                                            gate.
We move         in, and he,
like,           stumbles         out        of his car,
                and he’s on
fire, and       he’s,            like,
                stumbling                   around
                in               circles
                in               his front  yard. So
we all kind of                              don’t
know            what to do,      and
                he collapses,
and
we                                          go
                inside           the house
                                 and
search                           it
and find                                    out
                                 it’s
the wrong                        house.