Mike Durant

The Chinooks have finished their mission.

They're heading back.

We go up over this power line.

It's probably 200 feet tall.

Start coming down the other side, and freaking right there is a Scud telelauncher, like right in front of us.

Oh, shit.

And I'm like, weapons armed, rolled in.

minigun on it, and I'm too close to shoot rockets.

You know, it's one of the phenomena that we learned enough about aerial gunnery to be familiar with.

It's called target fixation.

You know, you're diving at this target, and you want to hit it more than anything in the world, right?

But you got to remember, at some point, you got to break it off because you'll fly right into the freaking target if you don't.

And again, you're going to mush through probably a little bit.

So you got to be disciplined.

And you know, I mean, adrenaline is flowing like crazy here.

And this is a big deal, you know?

And somehow had enough situational awareness to realize I'm too close to shoot rockets.

and I broke it off.

As it turns out, that picture in my FLIR, which is an infrared sensor, ends up on the SOCOM calendar a few years later.

I have a picture of it that I uploaded.