Generation Kill - Evan Wright [145]
Person responds by alternately pumping the gas and brakes. We slam into the berm. Cans of ammo and AT-4 rockets piled in the rear shoot forward through the compartment. “Sorry about that,” Person mumbles, not sounding very sorry.
A Hellfire missile blows up something 500 meters across the field. Mortars boom. Person begins belting out his latest song, one he and Hasser have been composing. It’s a country song, which he sings in flagrant violation of Colbert’s ban. Colbert doesn’t even try to shut him up anymore. It’s tough to reach Person these days. He’s had a severe allergic reaction to Iraq. His eyes have swollen to red slits. They ooze tears constantly, which mix with the snot pouring from his nose. Doc Bryan has put him on a regimen of antihistamines and other medications to combat the allergies. God only knows how these medications interact with the Ripped Fuel and other stimulants Person uses. The whole morning, Person has been babbling about his latest scheme. He and Hasser are going to change their last names to “Wheaten” and “Fields,” respectively, in order to put out a country music album, eponymously titled Wheaten Fields.
Now, as the explosions continue, he shares their first song, much of which they composed last night on watch. It’s called “Som’ Bitch,” and its aim, according to Person, is to hit every theme of the country-music lifestyle. Person sings:
Som’ bitch an’ goddamn and fuck
All I ever seem to do is cuss
About how life’s a’ fuckin’ treatin’ me
To save my one last shred of sanity.
Som’ bitch and goddamn an’ fuck
The price of Copenhagen just went up
My NASCAR won’t come in on rabbit ears
My broken fridge won’t even chill my beer.
When he finishes, he turns to Colbert. “You like that?”
“Why don’t you just quit while you’re ahead,” Colbert says.
MINUTES AFTER Person’s performance, we drive back onto the road. Colbert stays behind, leading Garza and other Marines in a foot patrol of fields edging the highway. Several minutes later, they come under fire from Marines in Alpha Company, who rake their position with .50-cal machine-gun rounds. The Marines in Alpha are specifically trying to hit Garza. With his brown Mexican skin, they’ve mistaken him for an Arab.
Person floors the Humvee toward Alpha’s truck while screaming out the window, “You’re shooting Marines!”
The men on the truck continue firing for another thirty seconds, until Capt. Patterson catches their error and orders them to stop. Colbert and Garza emerge from the field unscathed. Garza approaches the Humvee, shaking his head. “I figured it was those LAPD cops from Delta lighting us up. They love shooting Mexicans.”
“Mistakes happen,” Colbert says, climbing into the Humvee. Despite his attempt to slough it off, his face appears almost silver from the perspiration drenching it.
BY EARLY AFTERNOON the Marines have advanced more than twenty-five kilometers past the magic line and are fifteen kilometers south of their destination, Baqubah. In keeping with the poor judgment the Iraqis have shown in other situations, they only start to move their armor down to attack toward the middle of the day. But by now the clouds have burned off, and waves of British and American jets and Marine Cobras simultaneously bomb, rocket and strafe targets in all directions. Trucks, armor, homes and entire hamlets are being attacked from the air, blown up and set on fire. The Iraqis’ one chance to wipe out the Marines with a mass formation of armor evaporated with the vanishing cloud cover.
Right now, the world’s attention is focused on televised pictures of American Marines in the center of Baghdad, pulling down a statue of Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile, where we are, enemy mortars start exploding within fifty meters of Bravo Company’s position. From a raw-fear standpoint, this is among the worst moments for the platoon.
The Marines in Second Platoon have been