Generation Kill - Evan Wright [127]
Colbert’s team is ordered to move to the front of the battalion and set up a roadblock at the north end of the town. We stop near a large industrial complex that looks like a cement factory or machine shop. There are some houses beyond that, then open fields.
Espera pulls his vehicle up beside Colbert’s on the road. The two of them orient their guns north. With the battalion and all of RCT-1 behind them, their two Humvees constitute the northernmost Marine unit in central Iraq. Their job is to turn away any cars that come down the road from the north. It’s a little before six in the evening. There are tall, leafy trees to our left casting blue shadows over us in the fading daylight.
In the past few hours Colbert and other team leaders in the battalion have developed what they hope will be less lethal means of stopping cars at roadblocks. Instead of firing warning shots from machine guns, they will launch colored smoke grenades. The hope is that drivers will be more likely to heed billowing clouds of colored smoke blocking the road than warning shots fired over their vehicles. Fick and other commanders had initially opposed this kinder, gentler method to halting traffic, with Fick arguing, “Marines are supposed to be an aggressive force. If our stance is less aggressive, we’re more likely to be challenged by bad guys.” But the enlisted Marines, tired of shooting unarmed civilians, fought to be allowed to use smoke grenades.
Now, when the first vehicle, a white pickup truck, approaches, Colbert strides into the road, ahead of the Humvees.
“Do not engage this truck!” he shouts to his men.
He fires a smoke grenade from his 203 launcher. It makes a plunking sound almost like a champagne cork popping, then bounces into the road, spewing green smoke. Three or four hundred meters down the road, the white pickup truck turns around and drives off.
A couple of cars arrive. The second is a taxi. It speeds up after the launching of the smoke grenade. The Marines by the Humvees hunch lower on their weapons, getting ready to fire.
“Do not engage!” Colbert shouts. He fires another smoke grenade.
The taxi drives through the smoke; then moments before the Marines are about to light it up, the driver cuts a tight, wheel-squealing U-turn. Even on good days, Arab motorists tend to drive like kamikaze pilots. It’s not easy for a Marine to differentiate between run-of-the-mill reckless Arab driving and erratic behavior that would indicate a suicide bomber.
The Marines discuss the taxi—debating whether the driver’s nearly fatal game of chicken with them was a result of his poor judgment, or the possibility that he’s a Fedayeen scouting Marine lines. Their conversation distracts them from the next car’s approach.
The blue sedan seems to appear out of nowhere. Perhaps it came from a side street behind the cement factory. In any case, Colbert doesn’t step into the road to launch his first smoke grenade until the car is less than 200 meters away.
“Do not engage!” Colbert repeats.
As soon as Colbert fires his smoke grenade, a Marine SAW roars to life, spitting out a short burst. The car, maybe a hundred meters away now, rolls to a stop, green smoke blowing past it. The windshield is frosted. Two men in white robes jump out. One, who looks to be a young man in his early twenties, has blood streaming from his shoulder. The men run hastily toward a mud-brick house by the road and disappear behind a wall.
Hasser stands to the left of Colbert, with the butt of his SAW pressed to his shoulder. It was his gun that fired.
“That was a wounding shot, motherfucker!” Colbert yells, uncharacteristically pissed. “What the fuck were you doing? I said, ‘Do not engage’!”
Hasser remains frozen on his SAW.
Colbert walks around to him. He lowers his voice. “Walt, you okay?”
Hasser lowers his SAW and stares at the car.
Colbert squeezes his arm. “Walt, talk to me.”
“The car kept coming,” Hasser says, mechanically.
The smoke disperses in the breeze, and Marines make out the outline of a man’s head behind the shattered windshield. He is sitting