Along the threads of mysterious and interesting encounters with CAG or CAG like units, I wanted to share my my interesting encounter.

  About the Spring of 2006 I was assigned to a BN size TF at a far off and relatively austere COP between the Sunni Triangle and the Syrian border. Unbeknownst to the rank and file, the noose for Zarqawi was tightening, and I assume this experience I'm sharing is related to those events.

  My COP had a few huts that served chow (read Jimmy Deans) that we could grab at 0600. I headed there to grab a bite enroute to an 0630 OP shift. I grab my Jimmy Dean and enter one of the huts that was made for us to get out of the moon dust.

  As I entered, there was a squad sized element of dudes clad in different camouflage patterns with all the patches from the US and Five Eyes countries we're all familiar with. Some guys weren't even wearing matching tops and bottoms. All of their weapons and gear were unlike anything I had seen up to that point. It was like Tom Clancy's Team Rainbow or Ghost Recon create a character in real life. We had seen 18 series and SEALS in our AO, but these folks were different.

  These guys were pleasant and friendly to my conventional self and encouraged me to sit and enjoy my breakfast with them. They assured me i wasn't interrupting anything and carried on chatting in a hilarious mix of accents as they recounted their recent mission. I nervously sat down with an Aussie and after a few minutes I got brave enough to ask how they arrived as I didn't hear a helicopter arrive at our COP that night or morning. He said they jumped in. I asked if they jumped into our COP and he laughed and said that they jumped into a town about 20 miles away and called QRF to come get them when they had wrapped up whatever they were doing.

  Soon after I left a helicopter came and these folks were wisked away before much of the COP was aware of their presence. A few weeks later Zarqawi was killed, and I learned through a documentary some years later that he had been chased all over Iraq to include parts of Al Anbar by special operations.

  Sure these events could be unrelated, but that moment stands out to me like something from a movie when a lot of that deployment, up until that point, consisted of mostly cache hunting and IED sweeps.