Generation Kill - Evan Wright [114]
BY NOON RCT-1 has completed its thrust through Al Hayy, and several thousand of its Marines now occupy positions north of the highway bridge seized by First Recon. RCT-1 met with only light resistance through the city, and its signal teams tasked with picking up enemy radio transmissions overhear Iraqi commanders telling their men, “Retreat north.”
First Recon is moving north as well. The plan is for the battalion to continue pushing ahead of RCT-1 and move into Al Muwaffaqiyah, a town of 5,000 people, about five kilometers north of the field where we spent the morning.
The battalion convoy pulls onto a dirt lane and enters a series of shaded agricultural hamlets. We stop, and the residents pour out from their homes, waving and smiling. To the Marines, the villagers’ warm welcome is confusing, given the fact that less than two kilometers down the road their neighbors were just wiped out by a 1,000-pound bomb dropped by an American F-18.
“They’re probably just glad we’re not blowing up their houses,” Person observes.
We see the tiny heads of children poking around the corner of a small adobe hut. Several girls, maybe eight or nine, run toward us.
Ever since the shepherd-shooting incident, Colbert’s demeanor has changed toward civilians, especially children. When he sees them now, he’s prone to uninhibited displays of sentimentality.
“How adorable,” Colbert gushes as the girls laugh playfully a few meters outside his window. “They’re so cute.”
He orders Trombley to dig out the last remaining humanitarian rations, hoarded by the Marines to supplement their one-MRE-a-day diet. Colbert steps out of the vehicle, holding the fluorescent-yellow humrat packs. Espera walks up, hunched over his weapon, scowling from his deep-set eyes, perspiring heavily. “Dog, I don’t like being stopped here.”
“Poke,” Colbert says, calling him by his nickname. “Give these to the kids. I’ve got your back.”
It’s not that Colbert is afraid to walk across the yard. For some reason, he wants Espera to participate in this act of generosity. “Go on. You’ll feel good,” Colbert urges him.
Espera stalks up to the girls and hands them the packs. They run, squealing, back to the hut to show off their prizes to a woman in black standing outside.
“See, Poke,” Colbert says. “They’re happy.”
In Iraq Espera spends his free moments reminiscing about his wife and eight-year-old daughter back home in Los Angeles. Outside of the Marine Corps, his family is the center of his life. He spent his final night before deploying to the Middle East camping with his daughter in a tree fort he’d built for her in his backyard. But out here, Espera doesn’t seem to want to connect with civilians in any way. Most of all, he doesn’t even want to look at the children. While Colbert continues to wave at the kids now opening the humrats by the hut, Espera breaks the Kodak moment. “Fuck it, dog. You think handing out some rice and candy bars is gonna change anything? It don’t change nothing.”
A FEW HUNDRED METERS up from Colbert’s team, Meesh meets with villagers, who warn the Marines against trying to enter Al Muwaffaqiyah. They give Meesh detailed information about paramilitary forces that are setting up an ambush on the main bridge leading into the town.
When this report is passed over the radio to Colbert’s team, Person speculates that the villagers might be helping because they are genuinely on our side.
“They’re not on anybody’s side,” Colbert says. “These are simple people. They don’t care about war. They’d probably tell the Iraqis where we were if they rolled through here. They just want to farm and raise sheep.”
Because of the villagers’ warnings, First Recon’s commander orders the battalion to leave the trail and set up in a wadi—a dry riverbed—four kilometers back from the bridge, where the ambush is supposedly being planned for them.
The Marines dig Ranger graves