Package Q

摘要

Swaying under his parachute, Maj. Jeffrey S. Tice broke out of cloud cover at about 3,000 feet. He was descending toward marshland-a bad sign. In the Iraqi desert, water attracted people. There were black rectangles about two miles off. As he neared the ground Tice realized they were tents. Was that campfire smoke rising from the encampment? No, it was automatic weapons fire. Somebody down there was shooting at him. Tice tried to collapse half his chute to turn away and present a more difficult target. That was hard, as it was not exactly maneuverable. He hit the sand in perfect position, jettisoned the parachute, grabbed his rescue kit, and started to run. "I got about three orfour Jesse Owens-style strides away before they shot up the ground in front of me," Tice says today. He stopped and held up his hands. The shooters formed a rough circle. There were about a dozen-Bedouin tribesmen, not Iraqi police or the elite Republican Guard. "Most of them didn't have teeth or shoes but they had brand-new AK-47s," Tice says.