Generation Kill - Evan Wright [170]
As much as some of the enlisted men despise Ferrando for what they saw as his dangerous haste (not to mention his obsession with the Grooming Standard), Fick praises him. “He got the job done for Major General Mattis, and in the Marine Corps that’s all that matters. It’s mission accomplishment first, troop welfare second. Ferrando has no problem with that.”
When I talk to Mattis the next day at Ad Diwaniyah, he heaps praise on the courage and initiative displayed by the men in First Recon, to whom he credits with a large measure of the invasion’s success. “They should be very proud,” he says.
After I return to Second Platoon’s squalid encampment and pass on the general’s praise, the men stand around in the dust, considering his glowing remarks. Finally, Garza says, “Yeah? Well, we still did a lot of stupid shit.”
“War doesn’t change anything,” Doc Bryan says. “This place was fucked up before we came, and it’s fucked up now. I personally don’t believe we ‘liberated’ the Iraqis. Time will tell.”
“The American people ought to know the price we pay to maintain their standard of living,” Espera says. Despite his avowals of being a complete cynic, he continually turns back to the incident at Al Hayy, where he shot and killed three unarmed men fleeing a truck at the Marines’ roadblock. “I wish I could go back in time and see if they were enemy, or just confused civilians,” he says.
“It could have been a truckful of babies, and with our Rules of Engagement you did the right thing,” Fick says.
“I’m not saying I care,” Espera says. “I don’t give a fuck. But I keep thinking about what the priest said. It’s not a sin to kill with a purpose, as long you don’t enjoy it. My question is, is indifference the same as enjoyment?”
“All religious stuff aside,” Colbert cuts in. “The fact is people who can’t kill will be subject to those who can.”
Despite their moral qualms—or lack thereof—about killing, most Marines unabashedly love the action. “You really can’t top it,” Redman says. “Combat is the supreme adrenaline rush. You take rounds. Shoot back, shit starts blowing up. It’s sensory overload. It’s the one thing that’s not overrated in the military.”
“The fucked thing,” Doc Bryan says, “is the men we’ve been fighting probably came here for the same reasons we did, to test themselves, to feel what war is like. In my view it doesn’t matter if you oppose or support war. The machine goes on.”
EPILOGUE
°
I LEAVE First Recon’s camp at Ad Diwaniyah in a Navy helicopter at dawn on May 4. We fly low and fast to avoid enemy ground fire. Our flight path takes us directly over the tank repair yard, where I see the men of Second Platoon stirring from their sleep on the concrete pad. They will remain here for more than a month, returning to Camp Pendleton on June 3, 2003.
Pappy, shot in the foot at Al Muwaffaqiyah, returned to duty at Camp Pendleton before his platoon’s homecoming. Despite having received a “lucky” wound in an extremity, Pappy had to undergo intensive physical therapy to overcome a limp. Still walking with a cane when he returned to duty, he was roused one evening in his barracks room by a surprise visit from the ladies of the Key Wives Club—a spouse support group headed by Encino Man’s wife. She and Lt. Col. Ferrando’s wife offered him a heartfelt Key Wives’ welcome home and gifts of fresh baked goods and a new toothbrush, then left a few minutes later. Pappy’s bloody boot, worn the night he was shot, had been out on his floor when the Key Wives dropped in, but they made no mention of it. Pappy thought nothing of the visit, until June 3, when he went to March Air Force base to greet First Recon on its return. The first man he encountered off the plane was Ferrando, who walked up to him on the tarmac and chewed Pappy out for having left his tattered boot on the floor of his room when the Key Wives visited. “I don’t like you showing your bloody boot to my wife,” Ferrando had rasped, then brushed past, without further ado. “At least he didn