Marauder Consulting, Inc.

From left to right, standing: CPT Ryan Watsosn, CPT Stephen Arceneaux, me, SFC Milton Pate, SFC John Ogena, SFC Carroll Chambers, SFC William Berry, CPT Lee Williamson. Kneeling, rom right to left: CPT Stephen Hancock, CPT Johnny Kasper, and SFC Tim "Doc" Frock, laying down on the job.

Pretty good day of training. We played an hour and a half of "Ultimate Football" before the sun came up (with no injuries! A record!).

This afternoon we conducted a practical exercise where we had to go to a house in a small village and detain a bad guy. We knew who he was, but we didn't know what he looked like, so we had to do some interviews to paint the picture. When we got there, we encountered two Iraqi Army (IA) soldiers and six civilians, none of whose story matched up. After some drama, some confusion, a bunch of searching, and some creative tactical questioning, we discovered that the IA soldiers had apprehended seven people, took them to this house, and began beating the crap out of them in order to randomly gain some intelligence. It seems they were looking for the same guy, but their methods weren't quite as scientific as ours were. We also discovered that the house had been used as a location for bomb making. By the time it was all over, we got a pile of digital and paper intelligence, a computer, and some weapons, and we figured out who the real bad guy was (the leader of the cell), and we got him and the chemical mixer off the street. Not a bad day.

There wasn't much advising or consulting involved-- as advisors we should not be in the business of searching houses-- but it was also our first real chance as a team to work together (other than playing football) and solve some problems. The fellas did good; everyone wants to be here and there was genuine interest to understand and improve. Not sure how much site exploitation we will be doing as a team, but it put us in some unfamiliar and somewhat uncomfortable positions, which is good. We learned a lot today about what we don't know, and from that we can figure out where we want to go.

One place I know I'm NOT going tomorrow: The football field. I'm a little sore from this AM, and from walking around all afternoon wearing 50 pounds of gear.

Gotta get used to that.