Lesson 27: (Real scenario)
You’re sitting on a highway somewhere in the middle of Iraq surrounded by desert on all sides. A couple miles south of you, a Syrian suicide bomber blows up an American checkpoint, killing a large group of soldiers. Your unit gets ordered to stop and search every Iraqi car driving up the highway from the direction of the attack. Two fireteams of Marines handle this order. Four guys stop and search cars. Four guys provide security. A few minutes after setting up your checkpoint, a black Sedan with tinted windows coming from the direction of the attack slows down and stops on the highway about fifty yards from your position. For several seconds they just sit there watching you. And you watch them, waiting to see what’s going to happen, waiting for them to make their move. What do you do now?

Lesson 38: (Real scenario)
You’re on base in Ramadi. It’s your day off so you aren’t running security missions outside the gate. Your platoon heads out to a small rifle range at the edge of camp to practice fire and maneuver drills. You feel pretty safe at the range next to the dirt berm surrounding camp. You know at this part of the perimeter there’s nothing on the other side but open space and occasional shepherds.
Half an hour into training, you’re reminded that you’re never safe.
A huge barrage of rockets hits camp a couple hundred yards away from you. You’ve never heard this many rockets at one time. It sounds like your entire camp is going to be destroyed. You hit the deck, choke down the animal panic that always comes from rockets, and wait for the barrage to end. When the rocket fire stops, your platoon has to decide what to do. You’ve got corpsman with you who might be needed back at camp to patch up wounded, but you don’t know if the enemy is just waiting for corpsmen and Marines to get out in the open so they can launch another attack.
You can’t wait too long in case you are needed, and your platoon is out in the open. If rocket fire comes your way, there is nowhere to hide, but the trail back to base is even more wide open and visible from parts of the city where the rockets were probably fired from. What do you do?

Lesson 46: (Real Scenario)
You get lost in a sandstorm. Visibility has become so bad you can’t see three feet in front of your Humvee. Several other teams have gotten lost as well. Your unit parks somewhere out in a sand flat to wait for guys to try to find them. After an hour, you come across a Humvee parked in the dust. It’s one of yours. Your unit is hunkered down waiting out the storm, and you just found their perimeter. You merge into formation and take a defensive posture. You can’t see anyone but the faint outline of the truck next to you, but supposedly the other teams are somewhere in the dust cloud nearby.
A couple hours into the storm, sprinkles of water mix with the wind and pelting sand, turning the dust in the air into plaster that coats everything. American weapon systems are a little delicate when it comes to being dirty. A small amount of sand in the wrong places will make most weapons inoperable. This is more than a small amount of sand. Even the weapons sitting inside the Humvee are covered in dust that has swirled in through the open turret.
Suddenly, you get a warning call over the radio. Someone spotted a white pickup truck carrying Iraq men with AKs. The call comes from another nearby unit, so you aren’t sure how close these men are or what their intentions are, but you know their weapons are less sensitive to the elements than yours. There is a good chance their weapons will still fire. There is very little chance any of your weapons will fire. You have near zero visibility, non-functional weapons, and you can’t move or maneuver because you can’t see where anyone or anything is around you. There is a very real threat now somewhere in the dust cloud, men with functional equipment who are much more accustomed to handling sandstorms than you. What do you do?