Word: missionize
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...first mission, James releases a cloud of smoke, protecting him from sharpshooters but obliterating his comrades' view of him. (There's another company ready to cover him closer to the action.) A taxi has just edged toward the suspected device; he tells the driver to back out of the area. No movement. James walks closer, repeats the order; stillness. He puts his gun against the man's head: "Wanna back up?" The car slides into reverse. "Well, if he wasn't an insurgent," somebody says, "he sure is now." Finding a string nearly buried in the street dirt, James finds...
...Army bomb disposal unit has three men: an intelligence officer, the specialist who covers the scene with his rifle and the staff sergeant who walks up to the device and tries to turn it off. Today there's a report of one on a Baghdad street. Mission simple to define - "Let them know that if they're gonna leave a bomb on the side of the road," the staff sergeant says, "we're gonna blow up their f---in' road" - but way harder to accomplish. As he walks toward the contaminated area wearing a heavily insulated space suit...
...finding and silencing them. It's not just his job, it's his vocation. Whether he's stripping a car piece by piece or cutting open a boy's stomach to pull out an IED, James has the instincts, let's say the genius, to do it. "Mission accomplished" is not a Presidential PR phrase, it's a definition of this man at work. It'd be a crime not to apply his expertise to saving lives. James is also in it for the fun. We learn that he has a wife and a baby back home, but Baghdad...
...More recklessly, he tosses his headset on the ground, so he doesn't have to hear Sanborn's pleas to get the hell out of there. Groups of men have gathered at storefronts, on the balconies and roofs of apartment houses, and James' lone-gunman bravado could jeopardize the mission. But a genius has to stay focused. There's got to be a bomb in here somewhere; ah, under the hood. Though his mates aren't crazy about his methods - Sanborn sucker-punches James in the jaw after this little escapade - they'll come to appreciate him. "Not very good...
...police raid. He said that after the intense search on Friday he and others conversed with police candidly, trying to be as friendly as possible. "We talked to them like human beings for, like, three hours," he says, rubbing his maced hands. "So that's kind of become my mission; to get my point across and help them understand why I'm here. It's been a really liberating experience...