Generation Kill - Evan Wright [144]
THIRTY
°
THE BATTALION spends the night of April 8 in a bermed field by the road just two kilometers north of the magic line. Because of the low cloud cover, it’s an especially dark night. On the horizon, lightning competes with bomb bursts from mortars War Pig is dropping on suspected enemy positions. The rolling berms we occupy are rock-hard. Walking around in the darkness, unable to see my own feet, I feel like I’m in a curved, concrete skateboard park. The Marines were ordered out of their MOPP suits a couple of days ago—the military no longer believes there is any chance of WMDs being used. But I put mine on tonight. I’ve reached a point where I feel calm during shooting, but afterward I tend to get a little spun. I’m convinced there’s going to be a chemical attack tonight. Even though my MOPP suit has a hole in it and wouldn’t do me much good, I wear it along with my rubber boots—eliciting amused laughter from Fick. I find a ditch to lie in for the night and wrap myself up in a poncho.
F-18s make repeated low passes. It’s too cloudy for them to bomb anything, but according to Fick, it’s hoped they’ll scare off any tanks from approaching. Some of the passes the F-18s make are so low, the sonic forces they exert feel like a crushing weight on your skull.
Marines on the perimeter talk among themselves, as they observe for enemy movement. They pass around different optical devices, debating whether different shapes they see in the surrounding fields might be weapons or enemy positions. Their voices are quietly excited, cheerful. They like this part of war, being a small band out here alone in enemy territory, everyone focused on the common purpose of staying alive and killing, if necessary.
The high winds pick up. But instead of dust, they carry rain. It pours for about twenty minutes, and two hours later the sun comes up.
Standing in the early-morning mist, Fick gives his team leaders the order for the day. “We are clearing and killing enemy, moving north through hostile areas. We made two kilometers yesterday. We have thirty-eight to go.”
THE BATTALION devotes the morning of April 9 to creeping up the road to Baqubah at a walking pace. Marines on foot clear the surrounding fields, with War Pig’s LAVs sometimes joining them, sporadically firing into huts and ditches. The enemy drops mortars continuously, but with the Marine lines stretched across several kilometers, they present a diffuse target. In Colbert’s vehicle, we sometimes get a flurry of mortars falling within a few hundred meters, then nothing for twenty minutes.
The Iraqis’ tactics today seem clear: They let off some harassing fire with AKs and light machine guns, then retreat while dropping mortars. None of their fire is particularly accurate. While the Marine advance is dangerous, tedium sets in.
Colbert and Person are beginning to have personal problems. There’s no particular reason for the strain; it’s more like they’re two rock stars who have been touring a little bit too long together.
About noon, when a salvo of six to eight enemy mortars lands a few hundred meters from the Humvee, Colbert begins harping on Person’s driving. The platoon is ordered to scatter into a berm by the road and wait out further mortar strikes. The idea is for Person to pull between two high berms for cover, but Colbert is not satisfied. As the next salvo begins to blow up in the vicinity, Colbert starts giving Person a driving lesson, ordering him to back up and maneuver the Humvee repeatedly.
“You see that pile of dirt by the trail we’re on?” Colbert says, his voice cracking. “That is a berm, Person. Berms make me feel warm and fuzzy inside because they protect