Carpe Noctem

In this past Wednesday's Washington Post, Steve Fainaru had a terrific piece about a platoon known as The Violators in Iraq. They're the type of guys who make sure it's the terrorists who don't sleep at night. Fainaru opens his story with the platoon ambushing the insurgents:

From inside a vacant building, Sgt. 1st Class Domingo Ruiz watched through a rifle scope as three cars stopped on the other side of the road. A man carrying a machine gun got out and began to transfer weapons into the trunk of one of the cars.

"Take him down," Ruiz told a sniper.

The sniper fired his powerful M-14 rifle and the man's head exploded, several American soldiers recalled. As he fell, more soldiers opened fire, killing at least one other insurgent. After the ambush, the Americans scooped up a piece of skull and took it back to their base as evidence of the successful mission.

The Violators' insignia is a skull with blood dripping out of its mouth. (As Bart Simpson would say, "Cooooooool.")