Generation Kill - Evan Wright [169]
THE SENIOR OFFICERS, set up in nicer quarters across the camp, are basking in the glow of victory. First Recon, one of the smallest, most lightly armed battalions in the Corps, led the way for much of the Marines’ blitzkrieg to Baghdad. “No other military in the world can do what we do,” Ferrando tells me. “We are America’s shock troops.”
I meet Lt. Col. Ferrando in a small office that formerly belonged to an Iraqi officer. The one-story building is shaded by sycamore trees and has thick adobe walls, keeping it relatively cool even on this hot afternoon. One of the issues still dogging the battalion is Captain America’s behavior. After a lengthy investigation into the incident in which he taunted an EPW with his bayonet, Ferrando returned him to command but hesitated to fully exonerate him. He finally does in late April, about the time I meet with him. He tells me he thinks Captain America walked a fine line but was still “within the box” of acceptable behavior. But he adds, “In my mind, when you allow that behavior to progress, you end up with a My Lai Massacre.” Then he leans across his desk and asks me if I think he should have taken harsher action toward Captain America.
I honestly can’t answer him. In the past six weeks, I have been on hand while this comparatively small unit of Marines has killed quite a few people. I personally saw three civilians shot, one of them fatally with a bullet in the eye. These were just the tip of the iceberg. The Marines killed dozens, if not hundreds, in combat through direct fire and through repeated, at times almost indiscriminate, artillery strikes. And no one will probably ever know how many died from the approximately 30,000 pounds of bombs First Recon ordered dropped from aircraft. I can’t imagine how the man ultimately responsible for all of these deaths—at least on the battalion level—sorts it all out and draws the line between what is wanton killing and what is civilized military conduct. I suppose if it were up to me, I might let Captain America keep his job, but I would take away his rifle and bayonet and give him a cap gun.
As I’m about to leave his office, Ferrando stops me. “Something I’m struggling with internally is it’s exciting to get shot at,” he says, sounding almost confessional. “It’s an excitement that I hadn’t thought about before.” He hastily adds, “But at the same time it’s a terrible feeling to be the man sending other people into combat.”
Earlier, in a talk to his men, Ferrando referred to his order to send them onto the airfield at Qalat Sukhar with no preparation as “reckless.” Many of his men feel the whole campaign of rushing into ambushes was characterized by recklessness. But in the end, he’s been vindicated. He became, in a sense, Maj. Gen. Mattis’s go-to guy in central Iraq. While Col. Dowdy, commander of the much larger regimental force in the region, sometimes appeared to hesitate, as he had in entering Nasiriyah, and was removed from command in early April, Ferrando seldom if ever turned down a chance to race his forces into another hairy situation. Much of the time during the dash to Al Kut, Ferrando’s battalion set the pace. He shrugged off the fact that his men weren’t adequately equipped or specifically trained for the kinds of assaults they were doing. (By contrast, after Dowdy was relieved of his command he was reportedly castigated in a subsequent fitness report for being “overly concerned about the welfare” of his men, with the idea being that this concern got in the way of mission accomplishment.) In the end, Ferrando’s battalion exemplified the virtues of maneuver