Recruits make their way through the 'shoot-house.'
Photo: Jeff Emanuel

Tal Afar, Iraq
THE DAY BEGINS AT 0500, when the sun is still out of sight and the weather cool. As the pickup truck pulls up to the inside of the front gate of the Forward Operating Base (FOB), the men begin to emerge from the pre-dawn darkness, dressed in various assemblages of civilian and military clothing ("they usually wear the same thing every day," says a U.S. Special Forces soldier) and carrying AK-47s, having just been searched by the base guards.
An American Special Forces sergeant jokes with the men--25 of them--in English, as they load their weapons in the back of the truck and walk to another checkpoint for a more exhaustive search, which must be completed before they are allowed onto the base. The drill is the same every day--the same show time, the same process, the same searches--yet the men appear good-natured about it, as though they have long since learned to compartmentalize such trivial discomforts, and have accepted that, in order to accomplish something difficult, and to join of an exclusive group, such discomforts and hassles must be tolerated with a smile.

And these men are in the process of joining quite an exclusive group within their profession. Some are already Iraqi Police, while others are simply recruits off the street; however, for those who successfully complete the training laid out for them by their Green Beret-wearing taskmasters, they will be an elite within their region's security apparatus: members of the Tal Afar SWAT team.

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