Part III of Michael’s “Hunting Al Qaeda” has been dispatched. (Warning: graphic photography). The honesty incorporated into his pieces is something I wish we would see more often in the press and on television here at home.

Just before we dropped ramp again, I asked the Soldier sitting in front of me, “Why did that guy shoot into the palm grove?”

Anger flashed over his face as he stared at the soldier sitting to my left. “He’s sitting right beside you, why don’t you ask him?” I hadn’t realized he was sitting next to me.

“Why did you shoot?!” I asked accusatorily, as upset as the Soldiers were, but he just treated the event like it was a joke. He was laughing about it, talking about how he could get sent home. But he was the only one laughing.

When the ramp dropped, Soldiers from other Bradleys piled out and started yelling at him. They were still yelling at him as I started walking away in the scorching dust.

It must have seemed strange, like the heat had finally gotten to me. But after two days and two missions where mistakes were made, where some men died and others dropped from a heat so intense that it wavered and blurred the already fine line between friends and enemies, where new alliances between soldiers and former enemies were tested under the fire of combat, these soldiers were not so tired or so worn from the heat to let their standards flag: they were all over that Soldier who did.

Another terrific read from Mr. Yon