Author guest post from Matt Okuhara.

Bullets flying overhead and being shot at might sound the same—but the reality is that they feel completely different.

Picture this: you’re in training. Maybe it’s basic, maybe a specialist course, or just another live-fire exercise. You’ve been assigned to run the targets. While rounds crack overhead, you’re safely tucked away in the butts—a reinforced area behind the firing line.

Crack. Thump. Crack. Thump.

The targets drop. Then they rise again. Live ammunition is flying just metres above your head, but everything feels routine. Almost relaxed. You’re aware of the danger—but it doesn’t feel dangerous.

Now picture the same sound—crack, thump, crack, thump—but this time you’re not on a range. You’re on patrol. And this is no exercise.

The rounds are still flying, but now they’re aimed directly at you. And the “targets”? They shoot back. In fact, they usually shoot first.

Welcome to the wonderfully misleading world of low intensity conflict—a term that fails to capture the risk, fear, and chaos of peacekeeping operations during the War on Terror.

I’d just climbed over a fence—eight feet high, with 30kg of kit on my back. No idea how I managed it. Adrenaline, probably.

Our patrol was small: eight soldiers, three Iraqi police officers. Two of them were already dead. One was missing. We never found him. We’d redistributed their gear as evenly as we could, but it was still a slog on foot.

As I reached the top of the fence, a burst of gunfire ripped out.

I fell. So did the rounds—but not into me. They slammed into the ground where I’d just been kneeling, trying to stop a police officer from bleeding out.

Another burst. This time, I’d made it behind cover.

And my first thought?

“After this, I want egg on toast.”

I called out to my best mate. He called back.

And then—

There they are.

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