American Sniper - Boekje Pienter

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Air Force AC-130s also helped out with aerial observation from time
to time. The big gunships had awesome firepower, though, as it
happened, we never called on them to use their howitzers or cannons
during this deployment. (Again, they had restrictive ROEs.) Instead,
we relied on their night sensors, which gave them a good picture of the
battlefield even in the pitch black.
One night we hit a house on a DA while a gunship circled above
protectively. While we were going in, they called down and told us that
we had a couple of “squirters”—guys running out the back.
I peeled off with a few of my boys and started following in the direction
the gunship gave us. It appeared that the insurgents had ducked
into a nearby house. I went in, and was met inside by a young man in
his early twenties.
“Get down,” I yelled at him, motioning with my gun.
He looked at me blankly. I gestured again, this time pretty
emphatically.
“Down! Down!”
He looked at me dumbfounded. I couldn’t tell whether he was
planning to attack me or not, and I sure couldn’t figure out why he
wasn’t complying. Better safe than sorry—I punched him and slapped
him down to the ground.
His mother jumped out from the back, yelling something. By now
there were a couple of guys inside with me, including my terp. The interpreter
finally got things calmed down and started asking questions.
The mother eventually explained that the boy was mentally handicapped,
and didn’t understand what I’d been doing. We let him up.
Meanwhile, standing quietly to one side, was a man we thought
was the father. But once we settled her concerns about her son, the