American Sniper - Boekje Pienter

90/439
GASSED
A British unit flew in in the morning. By then, the battle was over. Of
course, we couldn’t resist needling them about it.
“Come on in. The fight’s over,” we said. “It’s safe for you.”
I don’t think they thought it was funny, but it was hard to tell.
They speak English funny. Exhausted, we moved back inside the gate
to a house that had been almost completely destroyed during the firefight.
We went into the ruins, dropped down between the rubble, and
fell asleep.
A few hours later, I got up. Most of the other guys in my company
were stirring as well. We went outside and started checking the perimeter
of the oil fields. While we were out, we spotted some of the air
defenses the Iraqis didn’t have. But the intel reports didn’t have to be
updated—those defenses were now in no shape to bother anyone.
There were dead bodies everywhere. We saw one guy who’d literally
had his ass blown off. He’d bled to death, but not before he tried to
drag himself away from the planes. You could see the blood trail in the
dirt.
While we were sorting things out, I spotted a Toyota pickup in the
distance. It drove up on the road and stopped a little more than a mile
away.
White civilian pickup trucks were used by the Iraqis as military
vehicles throughout the war. Usually they were some version of the
Toyota Hilux, the compact pickup built in a variety of styles. (In the
States, the Hilux was often called the SR5; the model was eventually
discontinued here, though it continued to be sold overseas.) Not sure