Generation Kill - Evan Wright [50]
The heavy gunfire tapers off. Mortars still explode every couple of minutes, but everyone rises from the ground. Lying in the dirt becomes tedious. In a way it also becomes more terrifying because you can’t see what’s going on around you.
Now when there’s a boom, most people just drop to one knee. One Marine in another platoon has developed a fierce stutter. “P-p-p-pass m-my b-b-binoculars,” he spits out. His buddies exchange looks but say nothing to him. Not far away, an officer who took cover beneath a Humvee won’t come out. Marines don’t laugh at this, either. (Some are disturbed by this act of perceived cowardice in one of their leaders and later seek counselling.)
Colbert seems to blossom under extreme duress. He goes into full Iceman mode, becoming extra calm, alert and focused even when everyone’s just standing around waiting for another blast.
Marines tear into their MREs. They eat a lot during lulls in firefights. Most just squeeze main meals—like the pressed, crumbly steaks and chicken patties—directly from the foil pouches into their mouths.
Then a new sound erupts nearby—a rapid-fire thunking. Everyone drops to the ground except Colbert. He remains upright, eating. “Those are ours, gents,” he says between bites. Colbert informs the Marines flattened in the dirt that the “thunking” was unmistakably the sound of Marine Bushmaster weapons. No need to worry.
F-18 fighter-attack jets rip through the sky and drop low just 200 meters or so over our heads. Marines call these “moto passes.” The jets fly too high and too fast to be much help hunting down small human targets on the ground, but their dramatic appearances are intended to boost morale.
While we sit around eating, there’s a massive explosion overhead just on the other side of the causeway. Cables from high-tension electric towers snap and bounce above us, struck by a friendly artillery round, intended for Nasiriyah. It happens too quickly for anyone to duck. Shrapnel bangs into Pappy’s Humvee, but no one is hit.
Marines thirty meters across the road from us are not so lucky. We hear screams of “Corpsman!” I stand up and see one injured Marine staggering in circles. The errant round sprayed six Marines from another unit with shrapnel. Two are later reported to have been killed from wounds sustained in this incident.
CLOSER TO THE RIVER, Patterson’s men are also experiencing the chaos of fire from all directions. Patterson pushes some of his men farther west and south into surrounding fields. He’s concerned that outlying farm structures might conceal enemy gunmen.
Corporal Cody Scott, a twenty-year-old from Midland, Texas, leads a team out from Alpha’s Second Platoon to clear a building. Scott joined the Marines over his mother’s objections on his eighteenth birthday, and is a big guy with the slow-moving gravity of someone much older. The night before, while paused on the highway south of Nasiriyah, Scott took the time to record his thoughts in his diary: “I feel that the military—leading men into battle—is my calling. Some people are artists, some musicians; I was born a warrior. Since I was young I’ve felt drawn to the warrior society. This war, as of yet, is not a bloody one. The opposition is slim. Our minions are rolling in with such force that the enemy is laying down without a fight. The people of this country live like rats. Hopefully, these people will lead a better life because of what we’re doing.”
Now leading his team—“a ragtag mishmash of men,” as he calls them in his diary—on their first combat mission is a chance to fulfill all his dreams. They follow the berm of a small canal, running north-south. Their objective is a hut about 150 meters away. As they bound toward it, an Iraqi man pops out of the field in front of them. Scott