Generation Kill - Evan Wright [17]
Gunny Wynn describes himself as a “staunch conservative” who’s never smoked marijuana. With his chiseled face and Texas accent, he fits the image, yet he likes to point out, “I’m not one of those guys driving around waving Texas flags. It’s just the place I’m from.” He almost never barks at the men the way platoon sergeants do in movies. His conservatism boils down to a rigid adherence to his own personal code. “The most important part of my job,” he tells me, “is to care about my men.” His leadership philosophy is based on “building confidence in my men by respecting them.” He and Fick function not so much like autocrats but like parents. At times, Gunny Wynn almost seems like a worried den mother, whose role is to soften the more aggressive messages Fick gives the men.
His guidance for handling the ROE is almost the polar opposite of Fick’s. “I spent five months in Somalia, and we got a lot of good kills out there,” he says. He gazes at the men, not blinking, letting his credibility as a sniper-killer sink in. “But we let a lot more bad guys get away than we killed, and that’s okay. Don’t fucking waste a mother or some kid. Don’t fire into a crowd. Those people north of here have been oppressed for years. They’re just like us. Don’t hurt them, even if you can justify it later under our ROE.”
Gunny Wynn’s gentle talk is interrupted by the sound of Marines screaming across the desert, “Gas! Gas! Gas!”
Everyone freezes for an instant. In the distance we see Marines in gas masks flagging us. They stand with their arms extended out, bending their elbows and tapping their shoulders—universal sign language for a gas attack. In their bug-eyed, black masks, they resemble insects.
FOUR
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WITH EXPLOSIONS BOOMING in the distance and now frenzied shouts of a gas attack, it’s the first time I feel like I’m in a war. While the nonexistence of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction has almost become a bad joke in the wake of the invasion, on the morning of March 20, just south of the Iraqi border, with the bombing having begun, threat of a chemical attack is foremost on everyone’s mind. It’s one of the biggest fears among Marines.
The chemical-protection suits everyone wears are called MOPPs (which stands for Mission Oriented Protective Posture, but in military parlance, MOPP has become the name of the suit itself). On the outside they look like ordinary fatigues, though extra-bulky ones. Due to a supply fuckup, Marines have been issued MOPPs in dark forest-green camouflage, which makes them extra-conspicuous targets in the desert. MOPPs come in two pieces: pants, held up by suspenders, and a hooded jacket. They are fabric on the outside. On the inside they are lined with a plastic mesh that feels like the surface of a scouring sponge and is embedded with carbon powder, a barrier to most chemical agents. They are hot, stiff and scratchy, and have the bulk of wearing a ski suit after you have fallen into a lake.
They are always soaking wet on the inside, from sweat. Not only is the suit itself hot, but on top of it everyone wears the added sixty pounds of flak vests, ceramic plates and utility harnesses. One of the dumbest features of the MOPPs issued to Marines is that they don’t have flies, so to go to the bathroom, a Marine has to remove his utility harness, his flak vest and his MOPP jacket in order to pull down his suspenders and lower his pants. Obviously, in a chemical environment they would have to poop or piss in their pants. Marines tried to get Depends diapers to wear underneath the MOPPs, but most were unable to.
To try to cool things down, a lot of Marines are “free-balling” in their MOPPs, going buck naked in them, but the scouring-pad liners make this an extremely uncomfortable option.
MOPP boots are the coup de grâce to making the whole ensemble a torturous experience. These are rubber galoshes worn on top of Marine combat boots. The rubber boots must be worn