The thought ran below the surface of his mind as he stood in the commander's hatch on the right side of the LAV's flat-topped turret and gazed out into the night. As the senior noncom in Lieutenant Alvarez's platoon, Houghton commanded the number two LAV (unofficially known as "Tough Mama" by her crew), with Corporal Jack Mashita as his driver and Corporal Diego Santander as his gunner. Tough Mama was technically an LAV-25, a light armored vehicle based on the Canadian-built MOWAG Piranha, an eight-wheel amphibious vehicle, armored against small arms fire and armed with an M242 25-millimeter Bushmaster chain gun and a coaxial M240 7.62-millimeter machine gun. A second M240 was pintle-mounted at the commander's station, and Tough Mama was capable of speeds of over sixty miles per hour on decent roads. She drank JP-8 diesel fuel, and technically, had an operational range of over four hundred miles in four-wheel drive. In eight-wheel drive, range fell rapidly, and the original LAVs had been infamous for leaky fuel tanks which had reduced nominal range even further. The most recent service life extension program seemed to have finally gotten on top of that problem, at least.

At the moment, Mashita was sitting behind the wheel, with the big Detroit diesel engine to his immediate right and his head and shoulders sticking up through the hatch above his compartment. The twenty-year old corporal had just finished checking all of the fluid levels-which he'd do again, every time the vehicle stopped. Santander was standing to one side, jaw methodically working on a huge wad of gum, as he spoke quietly with Corporal Levi Johnson, the senior of their evening's passengers. The four-man recon section they were responsible for transporting and supporting had already stowed most of its gear aboard, and Houghton reminded himself to check the tunnel from the LAV's driver's compartment to the troop compartment before they actually headed out. It was supposed to be kept clear at all times, but people had a habit of protecting equipment and gear from damage by stowing it in the tunnel, rather than stowing it in the open-sided bin mounted on the back of the turret or lashing it to the outside of the vehicle, the way they were supposed to.