Generation Kill - Evan Wright [90]
The chaplain was attached to the unit shortly before the invasion. He never swears, seldom drinks. He grew up on Chicago’s South Side, and from a young age he felt called to do the work of the Lord. He was ordained a Lutheran minister after attending Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and shortly after became a chaplain in the Navy Reserves. (The Navy provides the Marines with chaplains.) Married with three children, and a minister in a church in Orlando, Florida, his first immersion in Marine culture didn’t occur until he was called up before the war and attached to First Recon at Camp Mathilda. He has labored to open his heart to the profane young men in First Recon. “I’ve come to understand that they use the language to harden themselves,” he says. “But my question is, once they’ve turned it on, can they turn it off?”
Today, circulating among the Marines, he has only grown more disturbed. “Many of them have sought my counsel because they feel guilty,” he tells me. “But when I ask them why, they say they feel bad because they haven’t had a chance to fire their weapons. They worry that they haven’t done their jobs as Marines. I’ve had to counsel them that if you don’t have to shoot somebody, that’s a good thing. The zeal these young men have for killing surprises me,” Bodley admits. “It instills in me a sense of disbelief and rage. People here think Jesus is a doormat.”
THE CHAPLAIN has no takers in Colbert’s team when he approaches to offer his counselling. After being up all night dealing with the phantom enemy convoy, Colbert’s Marines loll under the cammie nets, attempting to nap. Person lounges outside on a poncho, naked but for skivvies and a pair of golden Elvis-impersonator sunglasses. He’s trying to roast the “chacne”—chest zits—off in the harsh Iraqi sun, while busting bass beats with his lips, chanting Ice Cube’s lyrics, “Today I didn’t even have to use my AK/I gotta say it was a good day.”
Gunny Wynn stops by to pass on the latest gossip. “Word is we might go to the Iranian border to interdict smugglers.”
“Fuck, no!” Person shouts from beneath his Elvis glasses. “I want to go to Baghdad and kill people.”
A couple of Marines nearby pass the time naming illustrious former jarheads—Oliver North, Captain Kangaroo, Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wayne Bobbit. “After they sewed his dick back on, didn’t he make porn movies where he fucked a midget?” one of them asks.
Gunny Wynn chuckles, beaming with a sort of fatherly pride. “Yeah, he probably did. A Marine will fuck anything.”
Gunny Wynn, along with Fick, is still facing threat of disciplinary action for his role in trying to stop Encino Man from dropping danger-close artillery by the platoon’s position the other day outside Ar Rifa. Casey Kasem has told me he is attempting to have Gunny Wynn removed from his job. “It’s wrong to question the commander,” Casey Kasem says. “Lieutenant Fick and Gunny Wynn don’t understand that. Their job is to execute whatever the commander tells them to do. By questioning his orders or his actions, they risk their men’s lives by slowing down the commander. Discipline is instinct, a willingness and obedience to orders. What Fick and Gunny Wynn have is the opposite of discipline.”
When I ask Gunny Wynn if he’s worried about the action brewing against him—Casey Kasem and Encino Man are drafting a memo detailing his “disobedience to orders”—he laughs. “Some guys care about advancing in the Marine Corps. Me, I don’t give a fuck. I care about my men being happy, shielding them from the bullshit, and keeping them alive.” He adds, “Guys that believe no orders ever should be questioned are usually the same ones who are too dumb to explain them. They just don’t want to look stupid in front of their men. I encourage my men to question orders.”
This morning, looking out at the expanse beyond the perimeter, Gunny Wynn says he has only one fear in his mind. “Man, I hope this doesn’t turn into another Somalia.”
DESPITE THE CHAPLAIN’S DESPAIR over the Marines’ seeming insensitivity to the