Choke Point

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Fast-roping down from the hot, oily smell of the Pave Low chopper into the Stygian darkness of a frigid ravine, seven U.S. Special Force commandos ran quickly out of the downblast over snow-dusted rocks toward a six-foot-high, three-foot-wide fissure in the sheer rock face — the mouth of the suspect cave. Pausing fifty feet from the entrance, the Alpha strike trio, with veteran commander and Medal of Honor winner Captain David Brentwood on point, checked out the closet-sized opening through the thermal sights of their Heckler & Koch flame- and sound-suppressed machine guns. Bravo, the backup squad of four commandos, was comprised of Eddie Merton, armed with the team’s Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW), two men carrying M-4 carbines, and Jamal “Jam” Hassim, the only Muslim-American in the team, toting a shotgun. The seven-man team of Alpha and Bravo waited two minutes, an eternity in the gritty, dust-smelling darkness. Radiant heat seeping from the cave showed up as white splotches against the emerald green of the commandos’ night vision goggles, as did the infrared ID tape on their helmets, sleeves, and ankles.

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