It was close to midnight when the massive double-propeller Chinooks came burrowing down onto the landing zone at Command Outpost Cleary, a small military outfit about 20 miles southeast of Baghdad. Until a day ago, I had never been on a helicopter before in my life, but that all changed when I flew over Iraq's capital in a Blackhawk. Though I didn't know it at the time, a two-star general was with us on the flight, so he bent the rules and ordered the doors shut open, leaving nothing but about 100 feet of sweltering hot summer air between me and the hundreds of square, flat-roofed houses that go on for block after block after block.

Now it was the Chinooks. They're much larger than Blackhawks. And when they land, it's as if a tornado has sprung up from under your feet. Everyone turned their back to the helicopters and squeezed their eyes shut as dirt and debris swirled around. Over the roar of the bird's engine, the sergeants yelled "Go! Go! Go!". Twenty-six of us jogged single-file up the ramps. But no one told me about the deathly-furnace-like blast of hot air that hits you the minute you're behind the helicopter. I just put my head down and followed the guy in front of me. Then I took my seat on the benches that line either side of the Chinook. We were sardines and the helicopter was the can.

In the air, I watched rural Iraq pass below me through one of the small circular windows. It was pitch black, but a few scattered lights marked outposts of civilization. The flight lasted no more than 10 minutes. Any conversation was done in hand signals and yelling. The roar of the engine was deafening.

We landed in a cow field. I knew it right away because of the moo-ing sounds in the distance. Also, cows smell bad regardless of what part of the world you're in. After the Chinook took off, we all took a knee. We were the White Platoon -- Red Platoon and Blue Platoon were already on the ground. There were 13 homes that were about to get raided. I was the only guy without a gun - though more than one soldier had offered to give me one before heading off on the mission. "You've got to be pretty brave going out there without a gun," one of them told me. Um, I guess so, I thought. My weapons were a notepad in my back pocket, a pen, a voice recorder, and a digital camera. The flak jacket was comforting at first, but got heavy after a few hours. My helmet wouldn't stay on straight.

We trekked across the field in what was almost complete darkness. Everyone else had night vision goggles. I didn't. The terrain was rugged and there were irrigation ditches everywhere. I focused intently on each step I took and prayed that I wouldn't twist my ankle. We walked a few dozen feet, then stopped, walked some more, and then stopped again. At one point, part of the group started walking off while the rest of us were still taking a knee. "Are we supposed to follow those guys?" I whispered to the soldier next to me. "I don't know," he said. For almost a minute, no one seemed to be moving. And no one seemed to be in charge. What's going on here? I thought. Finally someone said we should catch up with the rest of the group. Great idea.

We left the field and snuck through a backyard. The Blue Platoon had already entered the first home -- and they would be the first ones to enter all the homes. We were backup. By the time we got there, one Iraqi had been detained and a handful of young kids and a woman living in the house were huddled in a nearby room.

Our platoon would go on to enter two more homes and guard the site of a cache of Iraqi weapons that were found. At each location we would remain there for anywhere between half an hour and almost an hour and a half. As we walked back toward a field where the Chinooks would meet up with us, a massive fireball explosion erupted about a hundred meters behind us. I fell to the ground, but quickly got back up when I realized that everyone else just kept walking. The weapons cache was blown up. I wish someone had told me that was coming.

The embed was a surreal experience. By the time we got back to the Chinooks, I was exhausted and all I wanted to do was take off the flak jacket that had been bearing down on my shoulders all night. When we got back to the base, I grabbed some drinks with a couple soldiers and then went into one of the communal tents and lied down on my fold-up cot. The night sky was turning light. I had been awake for almost 24 hours. I fell asleep easily.