While deployed to Syria one of our routine duties was to occasionally secure a landing zone out in the desert. The landing zone needed to be a fairly large area so that Air Force cargo planes could fly overhead and push out a bunch of supplies. The supplies would float down to us by parachute and then once they landed we would go and establish a security perimeter around the supplies while a working party loaded the supply bundles onto trucks. Often locals will try to come collect any debris or trash we leave behind. That can be pushy often getting too close, but generally, the locals responded well by backing off when guns are pointed in their faces. That’s generally how airdrops went or were supposed to…

One night my platoon was assigned an airdrop mission. It was a fairly windy day and the airdrop got pushed an hour later in hopes the wind would die down. Needless to say, it didn’t, but we did the mission anyway. Things went pretty much as expected up until the moment the Air Force cargo plane flew overhead. Once the bundles were out we quickly realized how big of an impact the wind had. Not only did the bundles of supplies land more spread out but several of the attached parachutes also stayed inflated even after they landed. Several bundles were dragged by strong wind gusts keeping their parachutes inflated. My truck zeroed in on one such bundle and ended up in pursuit for almost 2 kilometers following it through the desert and into farm fields before the parachute finally ripped off the bundle.

We were really separated from the group and when we finally got to the bundle we were chasing I stopped and marked it with IR strobe light. Then we continued in the direction of the torn parachute thinking there may be other bundles in the area. I radioed over to the other trucks that we had placed an IR strobe on one of the packages and a free truck came over to take up security on that bundle. The truck with my JTAC team assisted by my EOD team rolled up onto the bundle just as a group of locals had ripped open the side of the bundle and started to steal our supplies. The truck crew rolled up quickly and hopped out with their guns aimed in and scared off the locals. As the locals were scrambling one local man in fear struggled to start his motorcycle and dropped it on its side and ran.

My industrious truck crew of specialty units took matters into their own hands. Tristan, the EOD team leader, got the motorcycle started right after I showed back up with my truck crew in support. Tristan ended up driving the bike sandwiched between my truck and the other as we headed back to where the rest of the bundles were being loaded. It was quite the convoy with a dude all kitted up in military gear riding a tiny motorcycle in the middle of the large gun trucks. We successfully got the motorcycle back to where they were loading up the supply bundles and then we tossed the motorcycle onto the trailer as our spoils of war.

We rolled back through the gate and unloaded our supplies and of course, the guys all shared in the pride of confiscating a local’s motorcycle for interfering with our safety on the airdrop. That was fun and it was good morale for the boys, but as the leader of the mission, I was a little concerned about the reaction of the locals. We were there to get rid of terrorists not to create more. So I notified my commander of what we did and why and headed to bed after a late night. The next morning our partner force liaisons wanted to talk to me after receiving complaints from the locals. I told them it was simple. If they steal our stuff we will steal their stuff. It’s a matter of safety for my men and locals can’t be interfering. If they wanted their motorcycle back all they had to do was return everything they stole and stop interfering with our airdrops. Two days later a couple of locals dropped off way more supplies than we even knew we were missing—likely stolen bundles from previous airdrops—and we returned their motorcycles. It was a big win for morale and to top it off we set a precedent of consequences for interfering with airdrops without creating more terrorists!