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exacerbated by the shepherd-shooting incident. Marines in his platoon speculate that Trombley might have been provoked into shooting the shepherds after hearing gunfire from Captain America’s vehicle. The fact is, Trombley denies Captain America’s AK fire had anything to do with his actions. Nevertheless, the morning after the incident, Marines in Third Platoon witnessed a remarkable confrontation between Kocher and Captain America. In the belief that his commander’s antics were beginning to jeopardize the safety of the men, Kocher took it upon himself to lay down the law. He backed Captain America against the side of his Humvee and told him: “If you ever fire an AK from this truck again, I will fuck you up.” Captain America denied shooting his AK. He blamed the reckless gunfire on Crosby, riding in the back of his truck.

Now a day later at the encampment, Crosby accosts Captain America in front of several other Marines. Crosby, not the biggest Marine in the platoon, steps up to Captain America and tells him he is asking for a “request mast.” Request mast is a formal process in which Marines, when accused of committing a serious infraction, may ask permission to appear before the commanding general and defend themselves.

Captain America shoots Crosby an amiable smile. “On what grounds are you requesting mast?” he asks.

“Sir, you’re telling other people I was firing an AK out of the back of the truck,” Crosby says.

Captain America tries to calm him. “We’re under a lot of stress right now. No one’s getting any sleep.”

“I’m not getting sleep,” Crosby says. “You’re the one who’s sleeping. You’re going around saying I’m a shitbag. I’ve never fired an AK.”

Captain America stares at him, apparently speechless.

“I’m not the one shooting AKs out of the vehicle,” Crosby persists. “You are.”

Captain America walks off, having just, in his men’s opinion, “bowed down” to a lance corporal. In this moment he loses whatever remaining authority he had. As Crosby says later, “I’m only a lance corporal. In the Marine Corps, the captain is God. But in this platoon, we’ve taken over. Now, when the captain tells me to do something, I ask Kocher if I should do it, and he says, ‘Fuck no.’ Because out here, the captain hasn’t given one order that’s made sense.”

SENSING THE GROWING RANCOR within the battalion, Ferrando calls his officers in for a meeting early in the afternoon on their second day by the airfield. About thirty of them gather by a blown-up mud hut. “The men are bitching too much,” he tells his officers. In Ferrando’s opinion, his Marines’ bitching about the Grooming Standard, the loss of the battalion colors and questionable decisions he and others have made is the fault of his officers, who, he says, have poor attitudes. “I’m starting to hear some of you questioning and bitching just like the troops,” Ferrando lectures. That is a fucking no-go. Attitude is contagious. It breeds like a fucking yeast infection.”

Ferrando’s assessment of how the invasion is going is grim. “Saddam is winning the strategic battle,” he tells his men, citing negative publicity American forces have received for killing civilians. “Major General Mattis has expressed a concern to me that division-wide, we’re shooting more civilians than we should.”

Later, when I talk to Mattis about the invasion, he insists that the resistance the Marines met in cities and villages in central Iraq “was not much of a surprise.” Ferrando’s comments to his men on this day are at variance with Mattis’s assertions. He tells them, “The resistance in the urban areas has been stiffer than we expected. It’s caught us by surprise. We expected the resistance to be regular military, but it’s paramilitary. We’ve got to make sure we don’t let this get the best of us.”

After dismissing his officers, Ferrando calls in Colbert and other senior enlisted men for a briefing intended to quell discontent. “The civilian engagement,” he says, referring to the shooting of the two shepherds, “was largely reflective of the ROE guidance I gave as we pushed to the airstrip—the order that everyone