Generation Kill - Evan Wright [123]
Pappy is loaded onto a supply truck with the wounded Syrian and driven to RCT-1’s camp, where they are medevaced to a hospital in Kuwait.
The Marines in the wadi camp are in a near-hypnotic state. No one’s slept in two nights. Reyes sits by his Humvee beside the spot where Pappy’s blood has spilled over the edge of the passenger-seat compartment. “I should be thankful Pappy wasn’t hit worse,” he says. “Instead I’m feeling sorry for myself because I already miss him so badly. I don’t like being here without him at my side. It’s like I’m missing a piece of my body.”
Several Marines gather around Colbert’s vehicle, drinking water, tearing into food rations and cleaning and reloading the weapons they will likely be using again later in the day. They recount events of the previous night. Redman, who witnessed the sunrise in Al Muwaffaqiyah, walks over in a daze. “Dude, we destroyed that place,” he says, sounding morose about it. “We had one guy shot in the foot, and we blew up their whole town.”
They talk about different reactions they have to combat. Person says he felt no fear whatsoever last night at the bridge. “When I am in these situations,” he asserts confidently, “I don’t feel like I’m going to die.”
Trombley, who repeatedly fell asleep last night during breaks in the fire, seems interested in combat only during its intense moments—when the bullets are coming directly at us. This morning he says, “I had a funny combat-stress reaction. When we rolled back from the bridge the first time, I had a chubb. It wouldn’t go away. Maybe it was ’cause I didn’t get to shoot my SAW.”
Colbert is excessively cheerful this morning. It’s not like he’s maniacally energized from having escaped death. His satisfaction seems deeper and quieter, as if he’s elated to have been involved in something highly rewarding. It’s as though he’s just finished a difficult crossword puzzle or won at chess.
When Espera comes by to share one of his stinky cigars, he looks as he always does after combat, as though his eyes have sunk deeper into their sockets and the skin on his shaved skull has just tightened an extra notch. He jams the chewed, mashed tip of his cigar in my mouth without asking if I want it, and points to Colbert. “Look at that skinny-ass dude,” he says. “You’d never guess what a bad motherfucker he is.”
Espera felt sorry for Colbert when they met a few years ago. They were in different units but happened to find themselves on leave together in Australia. While other Marines were out drinking and chasing whores, Colbert went off alone to prowl electronics stores. “I thought he had no friends—he was such a loner,” Espera says. “But now that I know him better I figured out he just can’t stand people, even me. I’m only his friend to piss him off. I look up to him because the dude is a straight-up warrior. Getting bombed, shot at don’t phase him a bit. Shit, in the middle of all that madness by the bridge he observes those dudes in the trees waiting to kill us. That’s the Iceman.”
He kneels down and punches Colbert on the shoulder. “You’ve got superhuman powers, Iceman, but it comes with that freakish taint I wouldn’t want to have.”
Colbert ignores the backhanded praise. He’s just opened his one MRE of the day and discovered a horrible mistake. His burrito MRE meal contains a condiment packet of peanut butter instead of jalapeño cheese. “What kind of sadist would put peanut butter in my burrito MRE?” he fumes.
Doc Bryan walks over to make sure everyone’s doing all right. I ask him how he feels about having killed those two men in the ambush.
“It’s a funny paradox,” he says. “I would have done anything to save that shepherd kid. But I couldn’t give a fuck about those guys I just killed. It’s like