ADAPTING ON THE FLY

Our guys. Great story...go read it all.

Maj. Michael S. Patton, the unit's operations officer, was trying to secure the area immediately after the shooting when his interpreter told him a man in the crowd had some information for him. Patton sent his interpreter back to tell the man he was going to pretend to arrest him, so that no one would suspect he was passing information.

Back at the base camp, the informant, a cigarette vendor in his mid-forties who has lived in the neighborhood all his life, told Patton who carried out the attack -- and Patton's troops quickly nabbed him.

The episode made Patton understand who held the key to the battle: Iraqis in the neighborhood. It also was the start of a beautiful relationship. To date, the cigarette vendor has delivered 35 Iraqi resistance fighters to the Americans. "The guy," said Patton, 37, a cigar-smoking Oklahoman, "has been a gold mine."

A week later, Col. Ralph O. Baker took command of the 2nd Brigade, which includes Patton's 4-27 regiment. Baker spent time as an instructor of doctrine at the British Military Academy at Sandhurst, an assignment that enabled him to observe British operations in Northern Ireland.

It was in Northern Ireland that he came to fully appreciate the value of reconnaissance patrols. British troops were taught to look for something as small as a few extra milk bottles on a porch step as a sign that Irish Republican Army operatives might have been meeting inside. In Baghdad, he quickly emphasized a similar approach.