Generation Kill - Evan Wright [81]
Several Humvees up the line are hit, but no Marines are injured. Within minutes of the latest near-death episode, Trombley is snoring, sound asleep.
FIFTEEN
°
AFTER THE FRIENDLY-FIRE incident outside Ar Rifa on the evening of March 26, Fick pokes his head into Colbert’s vehicle to inform him that the Marines’ night is just getting started. During the next six hours the battalion is going to race across open roads and desert trails, advancing twenty-five to thirty kilometers behind enemy lines, in order to set up observation on an Iraqi military airfield near a town called Qalat Sukhar. All of this has to be done as quickly as possible. A British parachute brigade is planning to seize the airfield at dawn. But reports have come in from U.S. spy planes that the airfield may be defended with AAA batteries and T-72 tanks. First Recon will go there to make sure the way is clear for the British.
The mission is plagued with snafus from the start. A battalion supply truck becomes stuck in the mud outside Ar Rifa. First Recon halts for forty-five minutes, while higher-ups debate whether or not to extract the truck. They decide to leave it and come back for it later. Shortly after we pull out, the truck is looted, hit by at least one RPG and burned to the ground. It had been carrying the battalion’s main supply of food rations. As a result of this incident, everyone will be reduced to about one and a half meals per day until we reach Baghdad.
By midnight we have been driving for several hours. For the last forty-five minutes the Humvee has been rocking up and down like a boat. We are in the dark on a field covered in berms, each about a meter high, like waves. Despite Colbert’s efforts to track the battalion’s route using maps and frequent radio checks with Fick, he has no idea where we are.
“Dude, I am so lost right now,” Colbert says. It’s a rare admission of helplessness, a function of fatigue setting in after ninety-six hours of little or no sleep since the shooting started at Nasiriyah.
“I see where we’re going, don’t worry,” Person says. His speech is clipped and breathless. He’s tweaking on Ripped Fuel tablets, which he’s been gobbling for the past several days. “Do you remember the gay dog episode on South Park, when Sparky runs away cause he’s, like, humping other dogs and shit?”
“Fuck yeah,” Colbert says. He and Person repeat the tagline from the episode: “ ‘Hello there, little pup. I’m Big Gay Al!’ ”
“They opened a gay club in the town where I’m from in Michigan,” Trombley says. “People trashed it every night. They had to close it after a month.”
“Yeah,” Person says, a note of belligerence in his voice. “When I get back I’m gonna start a gay club. I’ll call it the Men’s Room. There will be, like, a big urinal with a two-way mirror everyone pisses against. It will be, like, facing the bar, so when everyone’s drinking there will be, like, these big cocks pissing at them.”
“Person,” Colbert says. “Give it a rest, please.”
AT THREE-THIRTY in the morning on March 27, the battalion reaches the edge of the enemy airfield, stopping about two kilometers from it. The Humvees set up a defensive perimeter. Colbert’s team pulls down the cammie nets and we dig Ranger graves in the darkness. It’s nearly freezing. Most of the Marines are kept up on watch. Two Recon teams are pushed out on foot to observe the airfield for what they have been told is the coming British paratrooper landing. But they are called back