Generation Kill - Evan Wright [141]
For the Marines in First Recon, this is the first time they’ve started a mission with an armored escort. “Damn! That’s fucking awesome,” Person says. “We’ve got the Great Destroyers with us.”
“No, the escort is not ‘awesome,’ ” Colbert says. “This just tells us how bad they’re expecting this to be.”
As we pull out, following War Pig toward the magic line, Colbert’s mood shifts from darkly brooding to grimly cheerful. “Once more into the great good night,” he says in a mock stage voice, then quotes a line from Julius Caesar. “Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war.”
Hunched over the wheel, his helmet weighted down with his NVGs, Person says, “Man, when I get home, I’m gonna eat the fuck out of my girlfriend’s pussy.”
“Enemy contact,” Colbert says, passing on word from radio. “LAVs report enemy contact ahead.”
JUST AFTER DARKNESS FALLS, War Pig’s lead LAV reaches the magic line and the Marine checkpoint, where coils of concertina wire block the narrow, asphalt highway. War Pig’s twenty-four LAVs are spaced about fifty meters apart in a single-file line stretching for more than a kilometer. Colbert’s Humvee is directly behind the rear LAV, with First Recon’s vehicles stretched behind his in a line that extends for another two kilometers.
Minutes after the guards at the checkpoint pull the concertina wire aside to let the convoy through, a white pickup truck speeds toward the lead LAV in War Pig. Its crew observes the truck through thermal nightscopes as it comes to within a couple hundred meters of them, executes a screeching 180-degree turn and hauls ass north. Iraqis in the back of the truck open up on the LAVs with AKs. It’s nothing but harassing fire. The Marines guess the truck is acting as a “rabbit vehicle,” trying to entice them into a chase and, they expect, an ambush.
The LAVs hesitate to cross the magic line. According to War Pig’s executive officer, twenty-seven-year-old First Lieutenant William Wennberg, thus far in the war when working with other units they’ve occasionally had to go through red tape in order to get cleared hot to engage enemy forces. They’ve never worked with First Recon’s Ferrando before, whom they refer to by his call sign, Godfather, and are uncertain how he will respond to the appearance of the rabbit vehicle shooting at them on the road.
When War Pig contacts Godfather and tells him about the harassing fire, he immediately clears them hot to pursue. “Godfather was awesome,” Wennberg later says. “Some commanders get so caught up worrying about the politics of being too aggressive—destroying too much property, hurting innocent civilians—that they put your own forces at risk. Godfather told us to do what we needed to do, and it was good to go.”
The LAVs lunge across the magic line in pursuit. Colbert’s vehicle follows directly behind the rear LAV, as reports flow over the radio of the initial enemy contact. Everyone is quiet, waiting for the ambush. It’s so dark inside Colbert’s Humvee I can barely see my hands. I can’t see the LAV through the front windshield ahead of us. I can’t see what’s out my window to the right, other than dim outlines of farm huts along the road in the flat landscape. A strong wind is starting to whip against the side of the vehicle. Above it, all I hear is the rumbling of the Humvee’s diesel.
Colbert calls out to Hasser, who stands in the turret wearing NVGs. “See anything, Walt?”
“Nope,” he shouts down.
“Look alert!” Colbert shouts, his voice cracking slightly.
Sitting to my left, Trombley says, his voice barely audible, “I hope I get to use her tonight.” He’s referring to his SAW machine gun. Though I can’t see him, I can picture him caressing the top of his SAW as he sometimes does during tender moments before a firefight.
We drive this way for about ten