Generation Kill Part 7

By midnight we have been driving for several hours. For the last forty-five minutes the Humvee has been rocking up and down like a boat. We are in the dark on a field covered in berms, each about a meter high, like waves. Despite Colbertas efforts to track the battalionas route using maps and frequent radio checks with Fick, he has no idea where we are.

aDude, I am so lost right now,a Colbert says. Itas a rare admission of helplessness, a function of fatigue setting in after ninety-six hours of little or no sleep since the shooting started at Nasiriyah.

aI see where weare going, donat worry,a Person says. His speech is clipped and breathless. Heas tweaking on Ripped Fuel tablets, which heas been gobbling for the past several days. aDo you remember the gay dog episode on South Park, when Sparky runs away cause heas, like, humping other dogs and s.h.i.t?a af.u.c.k yeah,a Colbert says. He and Person repeat the tagline from the episode: a ah.e.l.lo there, little pup. Iam Big Gay Al!a a aThey opened a gay club in the town where Iam from in Michigan,a Trombley says. aPeople trashed it every night. They had to close it after a month.a aYeah,a Person says, a note of belligerence in his voice. aWhen I get back Iam gonna start a gay club. Iall call it the Menas Room. There will be, like, a big urinal with a two-way mirror everyone p.i.s.ses against. It will be, like, facing the bar, so when everyoneas drinking there will be, like, these big c.o.c.ks p.i.s.sing at them.a aPerson,a Colbert says. aGive it a rest, please.a AT THREE-THIRTY in the morning on March 27, the battalion reaches the edge of the enemy airfield, stopping about two kilometers from it. The Humvees set up a defensive perimeter. Colbertas team pulls down the cammie nets and we dig Ranger graves in the darkness. Itas nearly freezing. Most of the Marines are kept up on watch. Two Recon teams are pushed out on foot to observe the airfield for what they have been told is the coming British paratrooper landing. But they are called back at dawn.

Sometime around six in the morning First Reconas commander, Lt. Col. Ferrando, receives a phone call from Maj. Gen. Mattis asking him whatas on the airfield. The British are set to begin their air a.s.sault at seven-thirty. The latest reports from American observation planes say there are up to four T-72 tanks on the field and perhaps several batteries of AAA, enough to wreak havoc on the British. Ferrando is forced to tell Mattis he still doesnat know whatas on the airfield. His Recon teams were unable to reach it within the allotted time.

Ferrando tells Mattis his battalion will seize the field. Itas a bold decision, since Ferrando believes that if reports of armor on the field are true, the mission will result in atens or hundreds of casualties among my men.a AT SIX-TWENTY in the morning, Colbert, whoad crawled into his Ranger grave ninety minutes earlier to catch some shut-eye, is awakened by Fick. aWe are a.s.saulting the airfield,a he tells him. aWe have ten minutes to get on the field.a The Marines race around the Humvee, pulling down the cammie nets, throwing gear inside. Itas a clear, cold morning. Frost comes out of everyoneas mouths as they jump in the vehicle, weapons clattering. Everyoneas fumbling around, still trying to wake up and shake off that ache that comes from sleeplessness. In my case, just seeing the morning light hurts. aWell,a Colbert tells his team. aWeare a.s.saulting an airfield. I know as much about this as any of you do.a He laughs, shaking his head. aPerson, do we have a map?a By six twenty-eight the roughly forty vehicles from Alpha, Bravo and Charlie companies begin rolling out of the encampment to a.s.sault the airfield.

STILL EXTREMELY WORRIED about the prospect of his men encountering armor or AAA on the field, Ferrando changes the ROE. He radios his company commanders and tells them, aEveryone on the field is declared hostile.a In Vietnam the U.S. military sometimes designated certain areas afree-fire zones.a Because of the large numbers of civilian casualties produced by these, the term fell out of vogue. Ferrandoas order amounts to the same thing. Declaring everyone hostile means the Marines may or should shoot any human they encounter. When Capt. Patterson is issued the order, he says, aThereas no f.u.c.king way Iam going to pa.s.s that to my men.a In his mind, he later explains, turning the airfield into a free-fire zone does not help his men. Their problem is physics. AAA guns and tanks outrange and overpower everything they have on the Humvees. If his Marines race onto the field cutting people down, regardless of whether or not theyare armed, itas not going to help them battle heavy guns. Besides this, in Pattersonas opinion, Ferrando adoesnat have the right to change the Rules of Engagement.a Patterson tells his top enlisted man, aDonat pa.s.s the word of the changed ROE over the radio. Our guys are smart enough to evaluate the situation within the existing ROE.a IN COLBERTaS VEHICLE we are getting up to about forty miles per hour when word comes over the radio of the change in the ROE. aEveryone is declared hostile on the field,a Colbert shouts. aYou see anybody, shoot aem!a he adds.

Colbert is mult.i.tasking like a madman. Heas got his weapon out the window, looking for targets. Heas on the radio, communicating with Fick and the other teams. Theyare trying to figure out how to contact the A-10 attack jets overhead. The Marines donat have the right comms to reach them. aI donat want to get schwacked by the A-10s,a Colbert shouts. aTheyare G.o.dd.a.m.n Army. They shoot Marines.a (As they did three days ago at Nasiriyah.) On top of this, Colbert has maps out, and is trying to figure out where the airfield actually is with respect to the road we are driving down. His maps indicate there are fences around the field. He and Person debate whether to smash through the fences or to stop and cut through them with bolt cutters.

aThe bolt cutters are under the seat in the back,a Person says. aWe canat get at them.a aSmash through the fence, then.a Next to me in the rear seat, Trombley says, aI see men running two hundred meters. Ten oaclock!a aAre they armed?a Colbert asks.

aThereas something,a Trombley says. aA white truck.a aEveryoneas declared hostile,a Colbert says. aLight them the f.u.c.k up.a Trombley fires two short bursts from the SAW. aShooting motherf.u.c.kers like itas cool,a he says, amused with himself.

A Marine machine gun behind us kicks in.

I look out Trombleyas window and see a mud hut and a bunch of camels. The camels are running madly in all directions, some just a couple of meters from our Humvee. I canat figure out what the h.e.l.l Trombley was shooting at.

Ha.s.ser standing in the turret, begins pounding the roof of the Humvee, screaming af.u.c.k!a aWhat is it?a Colbert shouts.

aThe Mark-19 is down!a Ha.s.ser yells. aJammed!a aMy Mark-19 is down!a Colbert screams on the radio. Being the lead vehicle of the company, racing onto an airfield to fight tanks and AAA guns without a heavy weapon is a disaster in the making. aI repeat, my Mark- 19 is down!a Itas the first time Fick has ever heard Iceman lose control on comms. aCalm the f.u.c.k down,a Fick orders Colbert. aIam putting Team Two in front.a THOUGH MARINES in Bravo Company have fired only three short machine-gun bursts so far, Captain America, rolling directly behind us, gets on the comms, screaming, aTheyare shooting everywhere! We are under fire!a Seemingly caught up in the spirit of the free-fire zone, Captain America sticks his East German AK out the window and begins shooting. Riding in the back of Captain Americaas Humvee is twenty-one year-old Lance Corporal Andy Crosby. He sees a hut outside with people and animals. aWhat the f.u.c.k are you doing?a he yells at his commander. But Captain America continues blazing away. At one point, ricochets from his weapon ping off sc.r.a.p metal by the road and zing back toward his men in the Humvee. aWeare getting ricochets!a Crosby shouts.

THEREaS NO FENCE at the airfield. Itas just long swaths of concrete tarmac concealed behind low berms. We donat even see the airfield until weave nearly driven on top of it. There are weeds growing out of cracks in the tarmac and bomb craters in the middle. Thereas nothing on it. The Humvees fan out and race into the bermed fields, searching for enemy positions.

aOh, my G.o.d!a Person laughs. aHeas got his bayonet out.a Captain America runs across the field ahead of his Humvee, bayonet fixed on his M-16, ready to savage enemy forces. He turns every few paces and dramatically waves his men forward, like an action hero.

aHe thinks heas Rambo,a Person guffaws. aThat r.e.t.a.r.d is in charge of people?a We stop. Marines observe low huts far in the distance that could be either primitive barracks or homes. Captain America runs up to Kocheras team and shouts, aEngage the buildings!a Redman, the .50-cal gunner, looks at him, deadpanning to hide his contempt. A veteran of Afghanistan, heas a big, placid guy and talks like a surfer even though heas originally from Phoenix, Arizona. aDude,a Redman says, athat building is four thousand meters away.a He adds a remark that pretty much anyone in boot camp knows. aThe range on my .50-cal is two thousand meters.a aWell, move into position, then. Engage it.a He stalks off.

They roll forward. Kocher observes the building through binoculars. aNo, Redman. Weare not engaging. Thereas women and children inside.a We roll back from the field. A-10s cut down low directly overhead. The British never come. The Marines beat them to the field. Itas a beautiful, clear day. In the sunlighta"the first weave seen in daysa"dust, impregnated in everyoneas MOPP suits, curls off like cigarette smoke. Everyone looks like theyare smoldering. aGentlemen, we just seized an airfield,a Colbert says. aThat was pretty ninja.a

SIXTEEN.

AN HOUR LATER, the Marines have set up a camp off the edge of the airfield. They are told they will stay here for a day or longer. For the first time in a week, many of the Marines take their boots and socks off. They unfurl cammie nets for shade and lounge beside their Humvees. The dirt here, augmented by a luxuriously thick piling of dung from camels who graze on the local scrubweed, is pillow-soft. Distant artillery thunders with a steady, calming rhythm. Half the platoon is on watch, and everybody else is snoozing.

A couple of Recon Marines walk over to Trombley and tease him about shooting camels while seizing the airfield.

aI think I got one of those Iraqis, too. I saw him go down.a aYeah, but you killed a camel, too, and wounded another one.a The Marines seem to have touched a nerve.

aI didnat mean to,a Trombley says, upset. aTheyare innocent.a Then two Bedouin women appear at the edge of the perimeter, thirty meters from Colbertas Humvee. One of the women is dressed in a purple shawl with a black scarf on her head. She seems to be in her early thirties. The other is an old woman in black. The two of them are pulling a heavy object wrapped in a blanket. They stop on top of a high berm about twenty meters away and start waving. Doc Bryan walks over to them.

The women are highly agitated. When Doc Bryan approaches, they unfurl the bundle theyave been dragging across the berms, and what looks to be a b.l.o.o.d.y corpse rolls out. Doc Bryan thinks itas a dead twelve-year-old boy, but when he kneels down, the acorpsea opens his eyes. Doc Bryan immediately begins to examine him. There are four small holes in his torso, two on each side of his stomach.

I walk up behind Doc Bryan. After looking at the boy, with Doc Bryan kneeling over him, the next thing I notice is the younger woman, the mother of the boy. She has a striking, beautiful face. She is half naked. Somehow, in her effort to drag her son across the fields, her shawl has come undone in front. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s are exposed. She is on her knees, praying with her head tilted up, talking nonstop, though no words come out. She turns to me and continues talking, still making no sound. She looks me in the eye. I expect her to appear angry, but instead she keeps talking silently, rolling her eyes up to heaven, then back to me. She seems to be pleading.

aThis kidas been zipped with five-five-six rounds!a Doc Bryan shouts, referring to a caliber of bullet commonly used in American weapons. aMarines shot this boy!a He has his medical kit out, rubber gloves on, and is frantically cutting off the kidas filthy clothes, checking his vital signs and railing at the top of his lungs. aThese f.u.c.king jacka.s.ses,a he says. aTrigger-happy motherf.u.c.kers.a The older Bedouin woman and I kneel down close to Doc Bryan and watch him work. The old ladyas fingers are covered in silver rings filled with jade. Her face is completely wrinkled and inked with elaborate tribal tattoos from chin to forehead. She nudges me. When I turn, she offers me a cigarette. She says something in Arabic. When I respond in English she laughs at me almost playfully. Like the mother of the boy, she displays no anger.

Meesh, the translator, shows up, groggy, not having had his first beer of the morning yet. He asks the old lady what happened. Sheas the grandmother. Her two grandsons were by the road to the airfield when the Marinesa Humvees scared the camels. The boys ran out after them and were shot by the Marines. (A second, older boy is later carried into the camp with a wounded leg, a victim of the same shooting.) Bedouins donat keep track of things like birthdays, but the grandmother thinks the youngest boy might be twelve or fourteen.

I ask Meesh why the family doesnat appear to be angry.

He thinks a long time and says, aThey are grateful to be liberated and welcome the Americans as friends.a aWe f.u.c.king shot their kids,a Doc Bryan says.

aDude, mistakes like this are unavoidable in war,a Meesh responds.

aBulls.h.i.t,a Doc Bryan says. aWeare Recon Marines. Our whole job is to observe. We donat shoot unarmed children.a Doc Bryanas examination of the boy has revealed that each of the four holes in the boyas body is an entry wound, meaning four bullets zoomed around inside his slender stomach and chest cavity, ripping apart his organs. Now the bullets are lodged somewhere inside. If the kid doesnat get medevaced, heas going to die in a few hours.

Fick and the battalion surgeon, Navy Lieutenant Alex Aubin, a twenty-nine-year-old fresh out of Annapolis and the Naval medical school in Bethesda, Maryland, arrives with bad news. Ferrando has denied their request to medevac the boy.

Just then, a Predator unmanned spy plane flies low overhead. Predators, powered by gasoline engines, make a loud, annoying buzzing sound like a lawn mower with a broken m.u.f.fler. Doc Bryan looks up, angrily. aWe can afford to fly f.u.c.king Predators,a he says, abut we canat take care of this kid?a aIam going to go ask the battalion commander again,a Aubin says.

Colbert appears, climbing over the berm. He sees the mother, the kid, the brother with the b.l.o.o.d.y leg, other members of the family who have now gathered nearby. He seems to reel back for an instant, then rights himself and approaches.

aThis is what Trombley did,a Doc Bryan says. aThis kid was shot with five-five-six rounds from Trombleyas SAW.a Doc Bryan has concluded that Trombley was the only one to fire a weapon using this type of bullet. aTwenty other Marines drove past those kids and didnat shoot. Bring Trombley up here and show him what he did.a aDonat say that,a Colbert says. aDonat put this on Trombley. Iam responsible for this. It was my orders.a Colbert kneels down over the kid, right next to his mother, and starts crying. He struggles to compose himself. aWhat can I do here?a he asks.

aApparently f.u.c.king nothing,a Doc Bryan says.

Aubin returns, shaking his head. aNo. We canat medevac him.a Even though Aubin is simply the bearer of bad news, Doc Bryan glares at him accusatorily. aWell, that just sucks, donat it?a Aubin grew up on St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, and he gives the impression of being sort of preppy. Even in a filthy MOPP suit, heas the type of guy you picture with a nice tan, in loafers with no socks. Heas about the last guy you would expect to come up with a plan for an insurrection. But after no one says anything for a few moments, Aubin looks up at Doc Bryan, formulating an idea. He says, aUnder the rules, we have to provide him with care until he dies.a aYeah, so?a Doc Bryan asks.

aPut him in my care. I stay next to the battalion commander. If heas in my care, the boy will stay with me at the headquarters. Colonel Ferrando might change his order if he has to watch him die.a Fick approves of the plan, even though it represents an affront to his commanders and a risk to his own career, already under threat from his confrontation with Encino Man at Ar Rifa. But he endorses this effort, he later says, abecause if we didnat do something, I was going to lose Colbert and Doc Bryan. The platoon would have fallen apart. I believed we had at least ninety days of combat ahead of us, and my best men had become ineffectivea"angry at the command and personally devastated. We had to get this blood off the platoonas hands. I didnat care if we threw those kids onto a helicopter and they died thirty seconds later. My men had to do something.a With Colbert and Doc Bryan at the front of the stretcher, the Marines carry the wounded boy nearly a kilometer to the battalion headquarters. The whole Bedouin family follows. They reach the antenna farm and the cammie nets covering a communications truck and the commanderas small, black command tent. They enter the inner sanctum beneath the nets. The Marines lower the stretcher. Several officers, sitting in their skivvies at laptop computers on MRE crates, look up, aghast. With Bedouin tribespeople now pouring in, it looks like the perimeter has been overrun.

The Coward of Khafji runs up, veins pulsing on his forehead. He comes head-to-head with the grandmother, who blows a cloud of cigarette smoke in his face.

aWhat the h.e.l.l is going on here?a he shouts, confronting this near-mutinous breakdown of military order inside the battalion headquarters.

aWe brought him here to die,a Doc Bryan says defiantly.

The Coward of Khafji looks down at the kid on the stretcher.

aGet him the f.u.c.k out of here,a he bellows.

The Marines carry the kid out in silence and place him under a nearby cammie net. Five minutes later, word is sent back that Ferrando has had a change of heart. He orders a platoon from Alpha to bring the Bedouins to RCT-1as shock-trauma unit, twenty kilometers south.

I catch up to Colbert walking alone through the center of the encampment. aIam going to have to bring this home with me and live with it,a he says. aA pilot doesnat go down and look at the civilians his bombs have hit. Artillerymen donat see the effects of what they do. But guys on the ground do. This is killing me inside.a He walks off, privately inconsolable.

LATER, Iam pa.s.sing by the battalion headquarters when Ferrando calls out to me from beneath the netting in his rasping voice. I veer under the nets and find him sitting up in his hole, wrapped in a poncho. He wants to talk about the incident with the Bedouins. Like his men, he hasnat slept mucha"aan hour in the past thirty-six hours,a he tells me. He looks haggard. His face is gaunt and filthy.

aIn my mind this situation is the result of the enemyas law of war violations,a he says. aWhen the enemy purposely position themselves within civilians, it makes the complexity of my decision-making or that of my Marines ten times more difficult. They hope to draw more casualties on our side because of the restraint that we show. Itas a deadly situation, and we have to make twenty to thirty life-or-death decisions every hour, and often we do this without sleep. Iam amazed itas going as well as it has.a He brings up the moral dilemma posed by the situation the battalion was in yesterday. aAt Ar Rifa,a he says, awe were lying out in front of G.o.d and everybody as an easy target. Hostile forces were on the rooftops. Based on intelligence gathered by the interpreter from townspeople, I believed wead located a military headquarters in that town. I ordered artillery rounds dropped on that building to prevent them from organizing an attack on us. Was I right?a he asks.

aI canat say I know for sure they were organizing for an attack, or even that the building we hit was a headquarters. What I do know is, we dropped artillery. Iam certain civilians did die as a result of my order to do so. I donat like making this kind of choice, but I will err to protect these Marines when I can.

aNow, this morning, they requested I send those wounded civilians to the RCT for aid. Problem: Our tactical situation is extremely precarious here. I could not send a platoon to accompany them until the situation had stabilized.a He concludes, aItas a s.h.i.tty situation for these Marines. But no one put a gun to their heads and forced them to come here.a THE TALK COLBERT DELIVERS to Trombley is considerably more concise. After returning from the battalion headquarters, he sits him down beside the Humvee and says, aTrombley, no matter what you might think, or what anybody else might say, you did your job. You were following my orders.a Colbert then strips down to his T-shirta"the first time heas removed his MOPP in more than a week. He crawls under the Humvee and spends several hours chipping away at the three-inch layer of tar and sand clinging to it from the sabka field.

Late in the afternoon, Fick comes by, gathers the team for a morale talk and tells them, aWe made a mistake today, collectively and individually. We must get past this. We canat sit around and call it quits now.a Gunny Wynn is harsher. aWeare Americans,a he lectures the men. aWe must be sure when we take a shot that we are threatened. You have got to see that these people are just like you. Youave got to see past the huts, the camels, the different clothes they wear. Theyare just people. This family here might lose a son. We shot their camels, too. If you kill one camel, that could be a yearas income. Weare not here to destroy their way of life.a But then Gunny Wynn seems to almost reverse himself. aIam not saying donat protect yourselves. If itas a case of losing one Marine versus one hundred civilians, I will save the Marine. Youave just got to be G.o.dd.a.m.n careful.a However admirable the militaryas attempts are to create ROE, they basically create an illusion of moral order where there is none. The Marines operate in chaos. It doesnat matter if a Marine is following orders and ROE, or disregarding them. The fact is, as soon as a Marine pulls the trigger on his rifle, heas on his own. Heas entered a game of moral chance. When itas over, heas as likely to go down as a hero or as a baby killer. The only difference between Trombley and any number of other Marines whoave shot or killed people they shouldnat have is that he got caught. And this only happened because the battalion stopped moving long enough for the innocent victims to catch up with it.

Before leaving, Fick and Gunny Wynn raise the possibility of there being a formal inquiry into the shooting. After they walk off, Trombley turns to Colbert and asks, aIs this going to be okay, I mean with the investigation?a aYouall be fine, Trombley.a aNo. I mean for you, Sergeant.a Trombley grins. aI donat care what happens, really. Iam out in a couple of years. I mean for you. This is your career.a aIall be fine.a Colbert stares at him. aNo worries.a Somethingas been bothering me about Trombley for a day or two, and I canat help thinking about it now. I was never quite sure if I should believe his claim that he cut up those Iraqis in Al Gharraf. But he hit those two shepherds, one of whom was extremely small, at more than 200 meters, from a Humvee bouncing down a rough road at forty miles per hour. However horrible the results, his work was textbook machine-gun shooting, and the fact is, from now on, every time I ride with Colbertas team, I feel a lot better when Trombley is by my side with the SAW.

SEVENTEEN.

SUNSET ON THE NIGHT of March 27 turns the surrounding fields red. First Reconas camp by the airfield is spread across three kilometers, with the Humvees on the outer perimeter s.p.a.ced about seventy-five meters apart, hidden under cammie nets. Looking out, all you see are dried mudflats, rippled with berms and sliced with dry ca.n.a.ls. It looks like a 1950s sci-fi fantasy Martian landscape.

They tell us to dig our holes extra deep tonight. The battalion remains cut off, deep in abad-guy country,a as Fick says. To prevent hordes of RPG teams or enemy tanks from overrunning the perimeter, the Marine Division, about twenty kilometers southwest of here, has pretargeted its artillery to land within adanger-closea range of the camp should it be requested. If the enemy appears in the nearby fields, a quick SOS to division headquarters will bring dozens or hundreds of artillery rounds splashing down near where we are sleeping.

For the first time in several days, the night sky is clear. I watch shooting stars from my hole. There are more stars than you would typically see in North America because there are no streetlights. Clear skies also mean U.S. military aircraft, hampered by dust storms the past several days, now have free rein. Itas a busy night in the sky. Past sunset we hear unmanned drones crisscrossing overhead, then the buzzing of propeller-driven P-3 observation planes. Antimissile flares, thrown out by unseen jets, make the whole sky blink. Bombs flash on the horizon. Iraqi AAA guns send up tracer rounds, which look like strings of pearls. I see the enemy AAA batteries firing north, east and west of us, a graphic reminder that there are hostile forces all around.

Near midnight, a team on Alpha Companyas sector of the perimeter observes lights that appear to be moving about six kilometers away. The Marines count somewhere between 120 and 140 different lights. Lights could be produced by all sorts of thingsa"a small town with electricity (south of here a few days ago we did see some towns that still had power), a bunch of civilian vehicles or an Iraqi military convoy. Since these lights seem to be moving, the Marines rule out the town option. The men on the team arenat sure whatas producing the lights, but their nervous platoon commander believes they represent a possible threat. He radios the battalion that a convoy of aone hundred forty vehiclesa is on the move about six kilometers from First Reconas position.

The battalion contacts First Marine Division and reports a possible enemy column moving nearby. One hundred forty Iraqi military vehiclesa"be they tanks or even trucks filled with mena"would be enough to hammer First Recon in its remote position. The division takes this threat extremely seriously. Earlier, the crew of a P-3 observation plane had spotted what they thought might be a column of twenty-five vehicles in the same area. With two independent reports, the division immediately sends all available aircraft toward the aconvoy.a When the alarm reaches Colbertas team, everyone not on watch is woken up and told to load the Humvee and get ready to move or to fight. I made the mistake tonight of stripping out of my MOPP suit and trying to sleep in my underpants. I hadnat removed the MOPP in ten days. Itas a near-freezing night, and sliding back into the cold, plastic-lined MOPP is a torture all its own. But just as continual hunger makes MRE food rations taste better, your own petty physical discomforts obliterate grander fears. Sitting in the darkened Humvee, shivering in my icy MOPP, Iam much more concerned about the cold than reports now popping over battalion radios of enemy tanks, or RPG teams moving in to attack. Adding to my misery is the prevailing mood of cheerfulness in the Humvee.

Colbert and his Marines are wide awake, eagerly pa.s.sing around optics, peering into them, debating about what they see. The prospect of an enemy column moving their way excites them. Besides, Recon Marines like Colbert are in their hearts almost like bird-watchers. They have a pa.s.sion for observing things that exists all by itself, separate from whatever thrills they get out of guns and blowing things up. They seem truly happy whenever a chance comes to puzzle out the nature of small (but potentially lethal) mysteries on the horizon. This time, in the case of these enigmatic lights, Colbert concludes, aThose are the lights of a village.a He sounds almost disappointed.

Waves of F-18s and A-10s fly over the location of the suspected enemy column. Initially thereas confusion. When Alphaas platoon commander called in the location of the aconvoy,a he used incorrect protocols in giving its location (making the same error Encino Man had committed when head tried to call in artillery on top of his company outside Ar Rifa). aThis mistake created an entire chain of error up to the division,a Capt. Patterson later says. After the aircraft finally figure out what their pilots think are the correct coordinates of the suspected convoy, they attack the area by dropping bombs and firing Maverick air-to-ground missiles.

U.S. military doctrine is pretty straightforward in situations like this: If there even appears to be an imminent threat, bomb the s.h.i.t out of it. One of First Reconas officers, Captain Stephen Kintzley, puts it this way: aWe get a few random shots, and we fire back with such overwhelming force that we stomp them. I call it disciplining the Hajjis.a During the next few hours, attack jets drop nearly 10,000 pounds of bombs on the suspected position of the alleged enemy convoy. Itas a spectacular show. From Colbertas vehicle we watch numerous smaller bombs flash and count two huge mushroom clouds roiling up in the night sky.

Planes flying over the target areas in daylight give conflicting reports of what they hit. Some report seeing wrecked armored vehicles; others see nothing. First Recon punches out foot patrols. They observe craters outside one village, but no sign of any bombed armor. Some villagers venture out and offer to roast the Marines a goat, apparently with the hope that an offering will propitiate them into calling off further bombing.

Maj. Shoup, who was in communication with some of the pilots during the bombing, later tells me, aI donat think there was any armor there in the first place. Maybe the first P-3 picked up an abandoned piece of armor or some poor farmeras tractor, and it spiraled from there.a As the bombing continued, some of the pilots reported that their optics were picking up heat signatures on the ground, indicating there was armor or vehicles of some sort down there. But Shoup believes their thermal optics were actually picking up hot shrapnel from previously dropped bombs. aAs soon as you drop a bomb it creates its own heat signature on the ground, which later pilots were reading as armor.a As for the lights that the Marines saw six kilometers away, Shoup believes they were actually seeing lights from a town seventeen kilometers distant. They had misread the lights of a distant city as headlamps from a much closer convoy. Shoup attributes the perception that these headlamps appeared to be moving to a phenomenon called aautokinesis.a He explains, aWhen you stare at lights long enough in the dark, it looks like they are moving. Thatas autokinesis.a What it boils down to is that under clear skies, in open terrain with almost no vegetation, the Marines donat have a clue whatas out there beyond the perimeter. Even with the best optics and surveillance a.s.sets in the world, no one knows what happened to nearly 10,000 pounds of bombs and missiles dropped a few kilometers outside the encampment. They may as well have been dropping them in the Bermuda Triangle. Itas not that the technology is bad or its operators incompetent, but the fog of war persists on even the clearest of nights.

EIGHTEEN.

MARCH 28, the day after the bombing, First Recon Battalion remains at its encampment outside the airfield, with no orders for its next mission. A little more than a week into the invasion, the U.S. military has called an aoperational pause.a The Army, moving up a western highway, met fierce resistance outside Al Najaf, where nearly twenty of its most technologically advanced Apache helicopters were shot down or severely damaged, with two American pilots captured by the Iraqis. According to Marine commanders, the unexpected stiffening of opposition caught the Army off guard, and it has now gone into resupply mode, steeling itself for tougher engagements ahead. For their part, the Marines are continuing to encounter guerrilla tacticsa"snipers and RPG ambushesa"along Route 7. According to Lt. Col. Ferrando, 90 percent of RCT-1as supply chain is being used to haul artillery rounds to feed the big guns as they pummel towns and suspected Fedayeen hideouts around the clock.

The Marines in First Recon, the northernmost unit in central Iraq, have had their rations reduced, a result of both supply problems across the First Marine Division and the fact that the battalion truck with MREs on it was destroyed outside of Ar Rifa. The Marinesa water, also in short supply, smells, in the opinion of Colbert, like adirty a.s.s.a The camp is infested with flies from all the camel dung.

Many Marines who have taken their boots off for the first time in a week discover the skin on their feet is rotting off in pale white strips like tapeworms, as a result of fungal infections. The green T-shirts theyave worn for eleven days straight underneath their MOPPs are so impregnated with salt from their sweat that theyave turned white. Some Marines attempt to wash their crusty T-shirts and socks, but thereas not enough water to adequately clean them.

Everyone is coughing and has runny noses and weeping, swollen eyes caused by the dust storms. About a quarter of the Marines in Colbertas platoon have come down with vomiting and diarrhea. Now, with the time to dig through packs and retrieve mirrors, many are amazed by the gaunt reflections staring back at them. In just a short time in the field, most have already shed five to ten pounds. Colbert finds what he thinks is an enormous blackhead on his ear. When he digs it out, he discovers itas a bullet fragment.

Itas not a good day for G.o.d in Iraq. The battalion chaplain, Navy Lieutenant Commander Bodley, takes advantage of the downtime by circulating among his flock. He finds ministering to Recon Marines a daunting task. aIave been around other Marines and sailors before,a he says. aBut Iad never heard such profanitya"the offensive put-downsa"so commonly used until I came to First Recon.a The chaplain was attached to the unit shortly before the invasion. He never swears, seldom drinks. He grew up on Chicagoas South Side, and from a young age he felt called to do the work of the Lord. He was ordained a Lutheran minister after attending Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and shortly after became a chaplain in the Navy Reserves. (The Navy provides the Marines with chaplains.) Married with three children, and a minister in a church in Orlando, Florida, his first immersion in Marine culture didnat occur until he was called up before the war and attached to First Recon at Camp Mathilda. He has labored to open his heart to the profane young men in First Recon. aIave come to understand that they use the language to harden themselves,a he says. aBut my question is, once theyave turned it on, can they turn it off?a Today, circulating among the Marines, he has only grown more disturbed. aMany of them have sought my counsel because they feel guilty,a he tells me. aBut when I ask them why, they say they feel bad because they havenat had a chance to fire their weapons. They worry that they havenat done their jobs as Marines. Iave had to counsel them that if you donat have to shoot somebody, thatas a good thing. The zeal these young men have for killing surprises me,a Bodley admits. aIt instills in me a sense of disbelief and rage. People here think Jesus is a doormat.a THE CHAPLAIN has no takers in Colbertas team when he approaches to offer his counselling. After being up all night dealing with the phantom enemy convoy, Colbertas Marines loll under the cammie nets, attempting to nap. Person lounges outside on a poncho, naked but for skivvies and a pair of golden Elvis-impersonator sungla.s.ses. Heas trying to roast the achacneaa"chest zitsa"off in the harsh Iraqi sun, while busting ba.s.s beats with his lips, chanting Ice Cubeas lyrics, aToday I didnat even have to use my AK/I gotta say it was a good day.a Gunny Wynn stops by to pa.s.s on the latest gossip. aWord is we might go to the Iranian border to interdict smugglers.a af.u.c.k, no!a Person shouts from beneath his Elvis gla.s.ses. aI want to go to Baghdad and kill people.a A couple of Marines nearby pa.s.s the time naming ill.u.s.trious former jarheadsa"Oliver North, Captain Kangaroo, Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wayne Bobbit. aAfter they sewed his d.i.c.k back on, didnat he make p.o.r.n movies where he f.u.c.ked a midget?a one of them asks.

Gunny Wynn chuckles, beaming with a sort of fatherly pride. aYeah, he probably did. A Marine will f.u.c.k anything.a Gunny Wynn, along with Fick, is still facing threat of disciplinary action for his role in trying to stop Encino Man from dropping danger-close artillery by the platoonas position the other day outside Ar Rifa. Casey Kasem has told me he is attempting to have Gunny Wynn removed from his job. aItas wrong to question the commander,a Casey Kasem says. aLieutenant Fick and Gunny Wynn donat understand that. Their job is to execute whatever the commander tells them to do. By questioning his orders or his actions, they risk their menas lives by slowing down the commander. Discipline is instinct, a willingness and obedience to orders. What Fick and Gunny Wynn have is the opposite of discipline.a When I ask Gunny Wynn if heas worried about the action brewing against hima"Casey Kasem and Encino Man are drafting a memo detailing his adisobedience to ordersaa"he laughs. aSome guys care about advancing in the Marine Corps. Me, I donat give a f.u.c.k. I care about my men being happy, shielding them from the bulls.h.i.t, and keeping them alive.a He adds, aGuys that believe no orders ever should be questioned are usually the same ones who are too dumb to explain them. They just donat want to look stupid in front of their men. I encourage my men to question orders.a This morning, looking out at the expanse beyond the perimeter, Gunny Wynn says he has only one fear in his mind. aMan, I hope this doesnat turn into another Somalia.a DESPITE THE CHAPLAINaS DESPAIR over the Marinesa seeming insensitivity to the suffering brought on by war, discussing it among themselves, Marines express deep misgivings. I join Esperaas team, dug in by his Humvee several meters down from Colbertas. Heas enjoying his first cup of hot coffee in more than a week, brewed on a fire made from dried camel dung mixed with C-4 plastic explosive (which, when ignited, blazes intensely).

aThis is all the tough-guy s.h.i.t I need,a he says. aI donat like nothing about combat. I donat like the shooting. I donat like the action.a Espera believes the whole war is being fought for the same reason all others have for the past several hundred years. aWhite manas gotta rule the world,a he says.

Though Espera is one quarter Caucasian, he grew up mistrusting athe white man.a A few years ago, he deliberately avoided earning his community-college degree, though he was just a couple of credits short of receiving it, because, he says, aI didnat want some piece of paper from the white master saying I was qualified to function in his world.a Before joining the Marines, Espera worked as a car repo man in South Central Los Angeles. While in a job he hated, he watched his friends and one close family member go to prison for violent crimes, which were fairly routine in his world. Then one day, after four years of repoing cars in L.A.as poorest neighborhoods, Espera had an epiphany: aI was getting shot at, making chump change, so I could protect the a.s.sets of a bunch of rich white bankers. The whole time Iam hating on these motherf.u.c.kers, and I realized Iam their slave, doing their bidding. I thought, if you canat beat aem, join aem.a So he enlisted in the Marines. Espera reasoned that as a Marine he might still be serving the white man, but head be doing so with apurity and honor.a As heas gotten older, Esperaas begun to accept that maybe the white manas system isnat all that bad. Travelling the world as a Marine has opened his eyes to stark differences between the way Americans and those in less fortunate parts of the planet live. aAll these countries around the world, n.o.bodyas fat,a he says. aBack home, fat motherf.u.c.kers are everywhere. Seventy-five percent of all Americans are fat. Do you know how hard it is to put on thirty pounds? A motherf.u.c.ker has to sit on the couch and do nothing but eat all day. In America, white trash and poor Mexicans are all fat as motherf.u.c.kers. The white man created a system with so much excess, even the poor motherf.u.c.kers are fat.a Those who know Espera understand heas not a racist. Heas a humorist whose vitriol is tongue-in-cheek. Even so, Espera questions the white manas wisdom in sending him tearing through a hostile country in an open Humvee. aEvery time we roll through one of these cities, I think weare going to die. Even now, dog, sitting here in the shade, my heartas beating one hundred forty times per minute. For what? So some colonel can make general by throwing us into another firefight?a In their most paranoid moments, some Marines believe Ferrando is trying to get them killed. Sergeant Christopher Wasik, a thirty-one-year-old Marine who sometimes serves as Ferrandoas driver, comes over this day to share some coffee and gripe with his friends in Second Platoon. Before the invasion, Wasik openly rebelled against Ferrandoas Grooming Standard after having been severely upbraided for allowing his mustache to grow too far beyond the corners of his mouth. He shaved it into a perfect Hitler mustache, which he wore for weeks at Camp Mathilda. Nevertheless, his rebellion was a failure. His superiors commended his. .h.i.tler mustache for complying with the Grooming Standard. Now, he and the other Marines speculate on Ferrandoas motives in Iraq. aIn some morbid realm,a Wasik says, ait may be a possibility that the commander wants some of us to die, so when he sits around with other high leaders, they donat snicker at him and ask what kind of s.h.i.t he got into.a WHATEVER FEELINGS Colbert has over his involvement in the shooting of the shepherds, he seems to have filed them away. His mood has been chipper since the all-night watch for the enemy column. Late in the morning, however, he receives another reminder of the incident. The tattooed grandmother and a man from the family who appears to be in his late forties walk through the perimeter toward his Humvee. Person, now on his stomach, tanning his bacne, is the first to notice their approach. aHey,a he says, lifting his head up. aWe got Hajjis. Anyone know how to say, aGet the f.u.c.k away from my Humveea in Habudabi?a he says, using Marine slanga"aHabudabiaa"for Arabic.

aIall take care of this,a Colbert says. He scrounges in the Humvee for an English-to-Arabic cheat sheet, then walks up to the man and the old lady.

aAl salam alaic.u.m,a he says haltingly, reading the customary Arabic salutation from his cheat sheet.

His greeting provokes a torrent of words and frantic gestures from the couple. Colbert queries them in Arabic, then repeats in English, aI have pain?a aI am hungry?a They shake their heads no. Then he asks, aBad people?a They nod, point across the field and speak more urgently. Colbert tries to radio for the translator, but he canat be found. The grandmother keeps repeating something. He canat figure out what it is. He shakes his head. aI donat understand. Iam sorry.a She shrugs. Colbert hands her several humrat packs. aIam sorry,a he says in Arabic and English. aYou have to go.a They walk off. He watches them, exasperated. aWe canat have civilians hanging out here. Thereas nothing I can do about this.a DOC BRYAN RETURNS from the RCT-1as medical unit with good news. aWe got the kid stabilized and medevaced out on a bird.a Even so, Doc Bryan takes little satisfaction from the effort. aThe whole drive down I was staring in the kidas eyes,a Doc Bryan says. aHe was staring at me like, aYou just shot me, motherf.u.c.ker, and now you think youare great because youare trying to save my life?a a Later that day, Encino Man walks the perimeter, talking informally with his men in an attempt to ease the tensions. Meeting with Doc Bryan and the other Marines in Team Three, he apologizes for the incident a few days earlier when he tried to fire a 203 grenade into a house where the men had observed civilians.

His candor earns high marks from the Marines. Then he asks them to speak up about anything thatas bothering them. The funny thing is, the Marines have been laughing off hardships caused by the lack of food, the filth, the flies, the dysentery, even the uncertainty of not knowing what their next mission is. The one thing that no one laughs about is the loss of First Reconas acolorsaa"a Marine Corps flag affixed with battle streamers. The colors are reputed to have been carried by Marines into combat since at least the Vietnam War. A few nights ago, they were lost on the supply truck blown up outside of Ar Rifa. One of the Marines tells Encino Man, aThe colors should never leave the commanderas side. Losing them is a reflection on his leadership and on all of us.a The only other serious complaints the Marines air are the usual ones about the battalion commanderas continued obsession with the Grooming Standard. Ferrando recently sent the Coward of Khafji around to lecture the men about committing petty violationsa"from allowing their hair to grow a quarter inch too long to lying in the sun by their vehicles with their helmets off.

One of the Marines complains to Encino Man, aTheyare treating men whoave shown discipline in combat like a bunch of six-year-olds.a Encino Man listens, staring cryptically from blue eyes beneath the shelf of his Cro-Magnon brow. Then he turns to Doc Bryan, whoas been lying quietly on the ground the whole time. aDoc, is there anything you want to talk about?a aIam fine, sir,a Doc Bryan answers.

aIf thereas anything on your mind, nowas the time to bring it up,a Encino Man says.

aIf you insist, sir,a Doc Bryan says.

aItas okay, whatever it is,a Encino Man encourages him.

aFrankly, sir, I think youare incompetent to lead this company.a aIam doing the best I can,a Encino Man says.

aSir, itas just not good enough.a CAPTAIN AMERICAaS PLATOON is also experiencing a deepening rift, exacerbated by the shepherd-shooting incident. Marines in his platoon speculate that Trombley might have been provoked into shooting the shepherds after hearing gunfire from Captain Americaas vehicle. The fact is, Trombley denies Captain Americaas AK fire had anything to do with his actions. Nevertheless, the morning after the incident, Marines in Third Platoon witnessed a remarkable confrontation between Kocher and Captain America. In the belief that his commanderas antics were beginning to jeopardize the safety of the men, Kocher took it upon himself to lay down the law. He backed Captain America against the side of his Humvee and told him: aIf you ever fire an AK from this truck again, I will f.u.c.k you up.a Captain America denied shooting his AK. He blamed the reckless gunfire on Crosby, riding in the back of his truck.

Now a day later at the encampment, Crosby accosts Captain America in front of several other Marines. Crosby, not the biggest Marine in the platoon, steps up to Captain America and tells him he is asking for a arequest mast.a Request mast is a formal process in which Marines, when accused of committing a serious infraction, may ask permission to appear before the commanding general and defend themselves.

Captain America shoots Crosby an amiable smile. aOn what grounds are you requesting mast?a he asks.

aSir, youare telling other people I was firing an AK out of the back of the truck,a Crosby says.

Captain America tries to calm him. aWeare under a lot of stress right now. No oneas getting any sleep.a aIam not getting sleep,a Crosby says. aYouare the one whoas sleeping. Youare going around saying Iam a s.h.i.tbag. Iave never fired an AK.a Captain America stares at him, apparently speechless.

aIam not the one shooting AKs out of the vehicle,a Crosby persists. aYou are.a Captain America walks off, having just, in his menas opinion, abowed downa to a lance corporal. In this moment he loses whatever remaining authority he had. As Crosby says later, aIam only a lance corporal. In the Marine Corps, the captain is G.o.d. But in this platoon, weave taken over. Now, when the captain tells me to do something, I ask Kocher if I should do it, and he says, af.u.c.k no.a Because out here, the captain hasnat given one order thatas made sense.a SENSING THE GROWING RANCOR within the battalion, Ferrando calls his officers in for a meeting early in the afternoon on their second day by the airfield. About thirty of them gather by a blown-up mud hut. aThe men are b.i.t.c.hing too much,a he tells his officers. In Ferrandoas opinion, his Marinesa b.i.t.c.hing about the Grooming Standard, the loss of the battalion colors and questionable decisions he and others have made is the fault of his officers, who, he says, have poor att.i.tudes. aIam starting to hear some of you questioning and b.i.t.c.hing just like the troops,a Ferrando lectures. That is a f.u.c.king no-go. Att.i.tude is contagious. It breeds like a f.u.c.king yeast infection.a Ferrandoas a.s.sessment of how the invasion is going is grim. aSaddam is winning the strategic battle,a he tells his men, citing negative publicity American forces have received for killing civilians. aMajor General Mattis has expressed a concern to me that division-wide, weare shooting more civilians than we should.a Later, when I talk to Mattis about the invasion, he insists that the resistance the Marines met in cities and villages in central Iraq awas not much of a surprise.a Ferrandoas comments to his men on this day are at variance with Mattisas a.s.sertions. He tells them, aThe resistance in the urban areas has been stiffer than we expected. Itas caught us by surprise. We expected the resistance to be regular military, but itas paramilitary. Weave got to make sure we donat let this get the best of us.a After dismissing his officers, Ferrando calls in Colbert and other senior enlisted men for a briefing intended to quell discontent. aThe civilian engagement,a he says, referring to the shooting of the two shepherds, awas largely reflective of the ROE guidance I gave as we pushed to the airstripa"the order that everyone is declared hostile.a He explains, aI pushed the ROE because we had reports of enemy tanks and armored personnel carriers on the airstrip. It was a military target. I had seen no civilians. It was five in the f.u.c.king morning. The general told me to get on the field. I knew that slapping everyone together and moving onto the airfield in twenty minutes was reckless, but that was my order. It was the most rash f.u.c.king thing Iave done. Borderline foolish. But I canat tell the general we donat do windows.a He then tries to dispel the resentment some men feel for his initial order to not medevac the wounded boy. aIf that casualty had been you, I would not have medevaced you because I still thought we had armor to the south.a He expounds his interpretation of the rules of war. aSome of you seem to think we have to give wounded civilians every consideration we give ourselves. That is not true. The ROE say we have to give them the same medical care they would get by themselves. That is zero.a Ferrando makes a play for his menas support. aWe are going to get tasked to do things that suck,a he says. aYou have to have faith in me. You may not like me. Thatas okay. But you have to understand that my number-one priority is protection of our forces.a He concedes, aWeave done a few things that could have been catastrophic, but we made it through. The bottom line is, we volunteered to fight.a As they walk back to their positions on the perimeter, one of the men says, aYeah, we volunteered to be here, but we didnat volunteer to be treated like idiots. His story always changes. aProtection of forcesa my f.u.c.king a.s.s. He sent us onto an airfield where he thought there were f.u.c.king tanks. Why did we make that pell-mell f.u.c.king rush? So a colonel could score a few extra brownie points with his general.a

NINETEEN.

ITaS ANOTHER BITTERLY COLD MORNING on March 30, and the men have again been up all night. The Marines in Bravo Company spent their final hours at the airfield camp in their Humvees, crashing around in the darkness, trying to execute orders that changed every forty-five minutes or so until dawn. At around midnight, they were told enemy forces had gotten a fix on their positions and they needed to move to new ones in order to avoid mortar or artillery strikes. They kept moving a few hundred meters this way and that until four in the morning, when Fick announced, aFor First Recon, the operational pause is over. We have warning orders for a new mission.a But even with Fickas promise that clarity of purpose was on its way, the company kept up its hectic maneuvers until dawn. Now everyone is sitting out by some berms, watching a beautiful rose-tinted sunrise. Lovell is freezing after having fallen into a ca.n.a.l while retrieving a claymore mine during the frantic night moves. Reyes, who has just spent half an hour cutting concertina wire out of his Humveeas undercarriagea"after having driven through it while circling the camp in the darknessa"says, aWeare Pavlovas dogs. They condition us through rules, through repeatedly doing things that have no purpose.a He laughs. aThey probably knew at midnight we would just spend the next five hours driving around aimlessly. They know it just makes us mad and gets us keyed up to do something.a He has a point. Despite another night of sleeplessness, spirits are soaring. Most men are elated at the prospect of another mission. Itas like theyave forgotten the horrors of Nasiriyah and Al Gharraf, twisted Amtracs with dead Marines in them, mangled civilians on the highway. Three days of stewing in the camp, being chewed out by the Coward of Khafji for not having proper haircuts, has made them eager to get back on the road. In their minds, at least when theyare in the field, getting shot at and bombed, they donat have to deal with r.e.t.a.r.ds in the rear.

Fick now adds to their lan with good news. He tells his team leaders, aIt looks like we are going to be doing interdiction and ambushes along Route 17, west of 7.a Instead of driving blind into enemy positions, the Recon Marines will be turning the tables. They will be setting up their own ambushes on enemy fighters. Even Pappy, among the most reserved of the men, is guardedly optimistic. aFinally, it looks like weare going to be doing to them as they do to us.a aI feel like itas Christmas morning and Iam about to open my presents,a Trombley says.