Generation Kill - Evan Wright [82]
Sometime around six in the morning First Recon’s commander, Lt. Col. Ferrando, receives a phone call from Maj. Gen. Mattis asking him what’s on the airfield. The British are set to begin their air assault at seven-thirty. The latest reports from American observation planes say there are up to four T-72 tanks on the field and perhaps several batteries of AAA, enough to wreak havoc on the British. Ferrando is forced to tell Mattis he still doesn’t know what’s on the airfield. His Recon teams were unable to reach it within the allotted time.
Ferrando tells Mattis his battalion will seize the field. It’s a bold decision, since Ferrando believes that if reports of armor on the field are true, the mission will result in “tens or hundreds of casualties among my men.”
AT SIX-TWENTY in the morning, Colbert, who’d crawled into his Ranger grave ninety minutes earlier to catch some shut-eye, is awakened by Fick. “We are assaulting the airfield,” he tells him. “We have ten minutes to get on the field.”
The Marines race around the Humvee, pulling down the cammie nets, throwing gear inside. It’s a clear, cold morning. Frost comes out of everyone’s mouths as they jump in the vehicle, weapons clattering. Everyone’s fumbling around, still trying to wake up and shake off that ache that comes from sleeplessness. In my case, just seeing the morning light hurts. “Well,” Colbert tells his team. “We’re assaulting an airfield. I know as much about this as any of you do.” He laughs, shaking his head. “Person, do we have a map?”
By six twenty-eight the roughly forty vehicles from Alpha, Bravo and Charlie companies begin rolling out of the encampment to assault the airfield.
STILL EXTREMELY WORRIED about the prospect of his men encountering armor or AAA on the field, Ferrando changes the ROE. He radios his company commanders and tells them, “Everyone on the field is declared hostile.”
In Vietnam the U.S. military sometimes designated certain areas “free-fire zones.” Because of the large numbers of civilian casualties produced by these, the term fell out of vogue. Ferrando’s order amounts to the same thing. Declaring everyone hostile means the Marines may or should shoot any human they encounter. When Capt. Patterson is issued the order, he says, “There’s no fucking way I’m going to pass that to my men.” In his mind, he later explains, turning the airfield into a free-fire zone does not help his men. Their problem is physics. AAA guns and tanks outrange and overpower everything they have on the Humvees. If his Marines race onto the field cutting people down, regardless of whether or not they’re armed, it’s not going to help them battle heavy guns. Besides this, in Patterson’s opinion, Ferrando “doesn’t have the right to change the Rules of Engagement.” Patterson tells his top enlisted man, “Don’t pass the word of the changed ROE over the radio. Our guys are smart enough to evaluate the situation within the existing ROE.”
IN COLBERT’S VEHICLE we are getting up to about forty miles per hour when word comes over the radio of the change in the ROE. “Everyone is declared hostile on the field,” Colbert shouts. “You see anybody, shoot ’em!” he adds.
Colbert is multitasking like a madman. He’s got his weapon out the window, looking for targets. He’s on the radio, communicating with Fick and the other teams. They’re trying to figure out how to contact the A-10 attack jets overhead. The Marines don’t have the right comms to reach them. “I don’t want to get schwacked by the A-10s,” Colbert shouts. “They’re goddamn Army. They shoot Marines.” (As they did three days ago at Nasiriyah.) On top of this, Colbert has maps out, and is trying to figure out where the airfield actually is with respect to the road we are driving down. His maps indicate there are fences around the field. He and Person debate whether to smash through the fences or to stop and cut through them with bolt cutters.
“The bolt cutters are under the seat in the back,” Person says. “We can’t get at them.”
“Smash through the fence, then.”
Next to me in the rear seat, Trombley says,