Generation Kill - Evan Wright [2]
Now, as enemy gunfire tears into the Humvee, Person hunches purposefully over the wheel and drives. The lives of everyone depend on him. If he’s injured or killed and the Humvee stops, even for a moment in this hostile town, odds are good that everyone will be wiped out, not just the Marines in this vehicle, but the nineteen others in the rest of the platoon following behind in their Humvees. There’s no air support from attack jets or helicopters because of the raging sandstorm. The street is filled with rubble, much of it from buildings knocked down by the Marines’ heavy weapons. We nearly slam into a blown-up car partially blocking the street. Ambushers drop cables from rooftops, trying to decapitate or knock down the Humvee’s turret gunner. Person zigzags and brakes as the cables scrape across the Humvee, one of them striking the turret gunner who pounds on the roof, shouting, “I’m okay!”
At least one Marine in Colbert’s Humvee seems ecstatic about being in a life-or-death gunfight. Nineteen-year-old Corporal Harold James Trombley, who sits next to me in the left rear passenger seat, has been waiting all day for permission to fire his machine gun. But no chance. The villagers Colbert’s team had encountered had all been friendly until we hit this town. Now Trombley is curled over his weapon, firing away. Every time he gets a possible kill, he yells, “I got one, Sergeant!” Sometimes he adds details: “Hajji in the alley. Zipped him low. I seen his knee explode!”
Midway through the town, there’s a lull in enemy gunfire. For an instant, the only sound is wind whistling through the Humvee. Colbert shouts to everyone in the vehicle: “You good? You good?” Everyone’s all right. He bursts into laughter. “Holy shit!” he says, shaking his head. “We were fucking lit up!”
Forty-five minutes later the Marines swing pickaxes into the hard desert pan outside of the town, setting up defensive positions. Several gather around their bullet-riddled Humvees, laughing about the day’s exploits. Their faces are covered with dust, sand, tar, gun lubricant, tobacco spittle and sewer water from the town. No one’s showered or changed out of the bulky chemical-protection suits they’ve been wearing for ten days. Since all mirrors and reflective surfaces have been stripped from their Humvees to make the vehicles harder to detect, most of the men haven’t seen themselves since crossing the border. Their filthy faces seem to make their teeth shine even whiter as they laugh and hug one another.
The platoon’s eldest member, thirty-five-year-old Gunnery Sergeant Mike “Gunny” Wynn, walks among the Marines, grabbing their heads and shaking them like you would when playing with a puppy. “All right!” he repeats in his mild Texas accent. “You made it, man!”
“Who’s the fucking retard who sent us into that town?” Person asks, spitting a thick stream of tobacco juice, which catches in the wind and mists across the faces of several of his buddies standing nearby. “That sure tops my list of stupid shit we’ve done.”
Trombley is beside himself. “I was just thinking one thing when we drove into that ambush,” he enthuses. “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. I felt like I was living it when I seen the flames coming out of windows, the blown-up car in the street, guys crawling around shooting at us. It was fucking cool.”
CULTURALLY, these Marines would be virtually unrecognizable to their forebears in the “Greatest Generation.” They are kids raised on hip-hop, Marilyn Manson and Jerry Springer. For them, “motherfucker” is a term of endearment. For some, slain rapper Tupac is an American patriot whose writings are better known than the speeches of Abraham Lincoln. There are tough guys among them who pray to Buddha and quote Eastern philosophies and New Age precepts gleaned from watching Oprah and old kung