They're back ...

The darkest cloud of clouds, darker than the oil field fires, begins to form above the compound. Personnel start to come out of their work and CHU locations to see the darkness at 1300 starting to eclipse the sun.  Some personnel have cameras and phones and are taking pictures of the ominous cloud forming ONLY over the compound.

Then they see it.  The first glimpse of light through the cloud is metal. Not like anything anyone has ever seen before; mirrored finish, reflecting back the image of the ground and surrounding areas.  The compound is quickly covered by this large object that has descended from the darkness.  The personnel on the ground, unlike civilians, head for bunkers and duck-and-covers as a precaution. No panic, just organized responses as they’ve been trained. A surreal scene if one could look at the process taking place from a third party viewpoint. 

The first round impacts the airfield. Instantly, four aircraft are gone; in the blink of an eye. No explosions, no fires, just gone.  Like cut-and-paste from software, but in real life. Gone. The response from the ground personnel is swift and vicious. Background update; we were all told the Phalanx was removed from our area when the Big Military pulled out; that was a lie. And we were about to find out that there were so many more lies we were told.

Missiles, Phalanx fire, tracers, large machine gun fire, from everywhere. The ground lit up in light and fire that still sends chills down my spine just re-calling the mental image. The Iraqis had more than we thought they had and so did “we”.  For the lack of a better description, plasma erupted from what we all thought were defunct HASs (Hardened Aircraft Structures – left over from the invasion). Weapons, fire fights and surface-to-air eruptions that can only be described as a scene from a science fiction movie, were everywhere.

As if, someone, was ready for what was coming.