He continued running at the truck, taking fire from the enemy soldiers, paintballs striking his thighs and chest. He squeezed off a few more rounds and staggered forward, shouting once more about revenge until he dropped to his knees in the mud, fired again, then fell and rolled onto his side, crying, "Help! I've been hit! I'm hit!"

Now it was up to Warris and Williams to gain control of the chaos.

Mitchell lay there and watched as, across the path, one of the team's evaluators, Captain Simon Harruck, rose from the scrub to watch as the sergeant assisting him lifted his small camera to digitally record the event.

Warris ordered his engineers who'd been standing by on the claymore to circle around to the vehicle's rear, while everyone else opened fire on the truck, paintballs thudding and fountaining across metal.

Within five seconds the two enemy soldiers were "dead," and Warris called a cease fire. His engineers were the first on the vehicle and began unloading and busting open crates containing Meals, Ready-to-Eat and weapons caches.

Mitchell got to his feet. "ODA team? Guerrilla team? The exercise is terminated. On me right now!"

It took several more minutes for everyone, nearly thirty in all, to rally around Mitchell in the middle of the road. He shook his head at Warris. "You got two medics. Couldn't spare one to save my life?"

The captain furrowed his brows in confusion. "You ran at the truck, blew the whole ambush. You looked like you were trying to commit suicide."

"And now every G here is pissed off at you for letting me die."

"But you killed yourself."

"No, I was getting my revenge. And maybe that was more important to me than my own life. Or maybe I was trying to show my men how important their cause is. I was trying to teach them how to fight to the death."

"By running into fire."

"Maybe I martyred myself." Mitchell sighed and adopted a more conversational tone. "See, you don't know what these guys will do when it comes down to it. You always have plan B, which involves them betraying you or doing something crazy, like running into the road."

Warris nodded. "But we still accomplished the objective. Truck stopped, cargo seized."

"Maybe not. You put so much gunfire on that truck that you blew it up. Everybody should have held fire. You send out your medic and put your snipers to work to pin down the bad guys."

Warris swallowed, and Mitchell knew that every decision the captain had just made would weigh heavily on his mind. He was already wondering if his career was in jeopardy.