Generation Kill - Evan Wright [139]
LATE IN THE DAY, Marines are told to expect warning orders for their mission in the assault on Baghdad. Ferrando has figured out a way to get into the game. But other news circulating among the Marines has taken priority.
Horsehead is dead. The beloved former first sergeant in First Recon, a powerfully built 230-pound African American named Edward Smith, was felled by an enemy mortar or artillery blast while riding atop an armored vehicle outside Baghdad on April 4. He died in a military hospital the next day. Horsehead, thirty-eight, had transferred out of First Recon to an infantry unit before the war started. News of his death hits the battalion hard.
Marines in Bravo Company gather under the cammie nets, trading Horsehead stories. Reyes repeats a phrase Horsehead always used back home at Camp Pendleton in San Diego. Before loaning anyone his truck, which had an extensive sound-equalizer system, Horsehead would always say, “You can drive my truck. But don’t fuck with my volumes.” For some reason, repeating the phrase makes Reyes laugh almost to the verge of tears.
Just before sundown, the Marines hold a memorial for Horsehead in their camp. About fifteen of them gather in the grass, next to an M-4 rifle planted upright in the dirt with a helmet on it. It’s drizzling in a gray, humid twilight. One of them reads a brief eulogy.
Then they put their hands together, and their voices scream in unison as they chant the First Recon cheer in Horsehead’s memory: “Kill!”
TWENTY-NINE
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BY EARLY MORNING on April 8, Army and Marine armored units have maneuvered into Baghdad’s suburbs to the west, south and east. Under a ceaseless American artillery and aerial bombardment, they are getting ready for the final assault into the city center, set to begin after dark. Maj. Gen. Mattis is deeply concerned about the lack of American forces to the north of Baghdad. With his Marines oriented toward the center of the city, their northern flanks are exposed. His fear is that Iraqi Republican Guard units may be massing for a counterattack in a town called Baqubah, fifty kilometers north of Baghdad, getting ready to roll down and hit the Marines’ northern flanks.
The problem is, Mattis doesn’t know what the Iraqis are doing north of Baghdad. For the past thirty-six hours, a low cover of dust and rain clouds has hampered American surveillance efforts. The farthest Marine checkpoint north of Baghdad sits about ten kilometers outside the city on the road to Baqubah. Marines have dubbed the checkpoint the “magic line.” Every time they’ve sent units to probe above the magic line in the past few days, the Marines have been hit by heavy fire. Recently, a platoon of about forty-five Iraqis attacked the Marine checkpoint and were repulsed after a short gun battle. After that, Iraqis tried to drive a car bomb into the checkpoint. It seems the Iraqis are up to something above the magic line, though it’s uncertain exactly what it might be.
The weakness in the Marines’ northern flanks gives Lt. Col. Ferrando his opening to get First Recon back into the game. After consulting with Mattis, Ferrando has volunteered to take First Recon north of the magic line, assault through the enemy ambushes and push on to Baqubah.
If the worst-case fears of Mattis are true, the Marines in First Recon will be confronting several thousand Iraqis in tanks. Baqubah is home to a Republican Division with a strength, on paper at least, of 20,000 soldiers equipped with 600 armored vehicles. Mattis knows that if the Iraqis come down in tanks, First Recon will be unable to stop them, but as he later tells me, “I knew that at least the Marines could slow them down for a few hours.”
Even in the best-case scenario—if the Iraqi tanks aren’t active—First Recon will be dashing