A few days later, our patrol took us through the bears’ village again. This time, though, something seemed different.

Only the adult bears came out to see us this time. And for some reason, they didn’t want to say anything to us – they just asked us to please leave them alone. I couldn’t figure out why they had such a change in their attitude….

We respected their wishes and moved through the village quietly, but I knew something was wrong, so I warned my squad to be extra careful.

Sure enough, shortly after we passed through the village, we got ambushed! Steve and I were pinned down, but we tried our best to return fire.

Fortunately we were able to get our air support on scene quickly. Tony dropped his “ordnance” right on target!

The RDA (Rock Damage Assessment) was one insurgent KIA (Killed in Action), although I think there may have been more who were involved in the attack.

Unfortunately, during the battle one of the village bears was wounded by a stray bullet! Winston immediately performed first aid and we called in a MEDEVAC (Medical Evacuation). Here is Winston preparing to load the wounded villager onto a MEDEVAC Bird:

Here is a closer look. You can see the villager suffered a nasty wound to his right paw.

The insurgents are definitely up to no good in that village, and I think they have those bears intimidated. I hope we can find a way to drive them out!