Sultans Of SWAT

"There's no duplicating the stress of war or a real-life SWAT situation," said Riad Freijy, 37, who was born in Lebanon and served as a Marine Corps sniper in the Persian Gulf War before joining the San Antonio SWAT team. "There is no duplicating that. But the environment of a competition is the closest you can get to duplicating that stress."

Daryl Stewart, 37, a sniper on the Washington SWAT team, learned last March what it feels like to shoot a human being. Stewart and another officer served a warrant on a psychotic woman suspected of arson. She refused to come out of her house, so they shot tear gas inside. She emerged holding an ax and a butcher knife and attacked an officer, Stewart says. At that point, he shot her in the chest. She lived.

He tells the story with no hint of swagger or braggadocio, just a tone of quiet sadness.

"Hopefully, she'll live a long life," he said, "a long and healthy life."

By noon Saturday, with three events still to go, the amazing San Antonio SWAT team was so far ahead it had already locked up victory. Judged on speed and accuracy, the team members ultimately came in first place in five of the eight events. For their efforts they won flashlights, gas masks, commando helmets, combat boots, laser rifle sights, three rifles and 2,000 rounds of ammo.

Meanwhile, the Washington team was buried deep in last place. That wasn't surprising: As a last-minute fill-in, it hadn't had much time to practice.

"San Antonio is kicking booty and there's a reason for it -- training," said Charles Yarbaugh, 48, captain of Washington's team. "Training has a lot to do with your performance."

Washington's SWAT team used to train on the grounds of the Lorton prison complex, Yarbaugh said, but the feds closed the complex a few years ago. Since then, he said, they've had to scramble for shooting time at various police and military ranges.

"It gets very, very frustrating," he said. "We're the nation's capital. If anything happens in the nation's capital, we're it. We try to get it done the best we can. But if you're the mayor or the city council, wouldn't you want to give the guys what they need?"

"Okay, guys, listen up," said Jim Sierawski, Blackwater's director of training.

Sierawski was about to explain the Zodiac Water Hostage Rescue to the Dallas SWAT team. The event required competitors to row a Zodiac boat to a house, where they'd have to rescue the ubiquitous Randy the dummy.

One of the Dallas guys smiled. "There's absolutely no water in Dallas, by the way," he said. A moment later he moved a few steps away from his team, turned his back and urinated into the sand.

"That red cone is where you're going to beach the boat," Sierawski was saying. "Then you're going to climb over the hill."

It was a simple game, really: All they had to do was squeeze six SWAT guys -- with their rifles and pistols and body armor -- into the little inflatable boat, paddle through a shallow creek and across a lake, beach the boat, scale a sand berm, shoot some targets, batter down the door of a house and throw in some flash-bang grenades (designed to disorient targets without causing injury), shoot some more targets inside the house, locate Randy, then carry him back to the boat and row him back to the starting line.