Free Embedded by Wesley R. Gray

Iraqis do. We take the extra step to please a friend. It is important to compromise and keep the string I spoke of from breaking.” Abass was wise. We decided to build our personal friendship and military relationship with Captain Najib and the other jundi .

Chapter 6
    Vacationing with the Iraqi Army
    August 2006
    I mprovised explosive devices, better known as IEDs, are the biggest threat in Iraq. The number of devices and tactics insurgents use to build and employ IEDs could fill a book. Breaking it down “Barney-style” (Marine term for synthesizing things so even the dumb purple dinosaur can understand it), these devices can be separated into three categories: pressure-plate IEDs (PPIEDs), command-wire IEDs (CWIEDs), and radio-controlled IEDs (RCIEDs) (see photo 6 ).
    PPIEDs are any IED initiated by the victim. The classic example is the homemade land mine. Imagine you are walking through a rice paddy in Vietnam and step on a metal or plastic object stuffed with C-4 explosives by the local villager. The next thing you know your leg is flying through the sky and you are collapsing to the ground. This is a type of PPIED. A more complicated example of the type found in Iraq might be a couple strips of thin metal separated by Styrofoam wafers on each end. These metal strips connect to four 155-mm artillery shells buried on the side of the road. The idea is to have a vehicle roll over the metal strips. The pressure from the weight of the tires then causes the metal strips to touch, completing the electric circuit and setting off the artillery shells. This makes a bad day for the Marines or Iraqi army.
    Insurgents love PPIEDs because they are “fire and forget”—drop it, leave, and hope Allah will find the right victim. Tactically, though, insurgents have two drawbacks they must consider: accidentally killing the local populace and emplacement. The PPIED is not discriminating. Because whoeverhappens to drive over the top of a triggering device ignites a PPIED, an insurgent may end up blowing up his uncle, his sister, or his neighbor who is cruising down the street. Insurgents place these IEDs on military-only roads or place them on the civilian roads after curfew hours, when no civilian traffic should be traveling.
    But this placement presents a conundrum to the insurgent: How can he emplace the IED on a military-only road if he will be searched if he is seen on this road? Also, if he instead decides to place the IED after curfew hours on a civilian road, he will be searched because he is driving after curfew. All of this makes emplacement appear impossible. It is not, as evidenced by the countless dead Marines and jundi who have died from PPIEDs.
    The simplest of IEDs are the CWIEDs. If you think back to the Wile E. Coyote cartoons, you already know about CWIEDs. Remember how Wile E. Coyote would set up a bunch of TNT on the road and trace his wire back to a hidden spot where it would be connected to a large ignition switch that said “ACME” on it? When the roadrunner, his target, was in his kill zone, Wile E. Coyote would push down on the igniter box. Unfortunately for the coyote, something would invariably be screwed up with his CWIED; he would get fried and the roadrunner would run off.
    Insurgents do the exact same thing as Wile E. Coyote, but their CWIEDs work. First, they place a large amount of explosives: 155-mm artillery shells, four-hundred-pound propane tanks filled with PE-4, satchel charges, metal barrels stuffed with rusty nails and shrapnel, and so on. Second, they trace a copper wire back to their hidden ignition point. This hidden area could be an old sheepherder’s tent, a civilian’s house, or a stack of rocks. The third step in the CWIED phase is to wait for an unlucky convoy to enter the kill zone and then count, wahid, ithnien, thlathe (one, two, three)—boom!
    Owing to their simplicity and ultralow technology (which limits our ability to defeat them with